I think it would be kinda cool if a hero dies with an artifact, the opposing side should be able to loot the corpse! Artifacts shouldnt have to die with it's original master. It would be fun trying to reclaim an artifact that I made/found. What do you guys think?
That's how it currently works within Dominions_3(Fantasy_TBS)... the more rare and powerful the item then it's more likely to be found at the end of battle. I would recommend playing its free demo for anyone waiting for the arrival of Elemental:War of Magic.
In regards to items... I think a similar system should be introduced as what was provided by Age_of_Wonders:SM. Here the game editor allowed you to create any type of item which could be placed on a map. Also in the game itself it was possible to eventually build a magical forge where you could create your own unique items which depended on the type of magic spells you knew. The cost of each magical item should have included some type of cumulative cost because in AoW:SM it was too easy for a human player to eventually spam many items for all his heroes(champions).
I remember fighting about lost artifacts in another game. I think HoMM. It made me sad when I lost an artifact. Usually it was a whole bunch, so I'd label the hero that I knew had them and I would try my hardest to fight him again.
No, artifacts should most definately not be destroyed. I'm a bit torn, however, between having the original hero keep the artifacts in "limbo" (having them returned when he is resurrected, if at all possible) and having the artifacts fall to the one that killed you.
Exactly. It gives you extra inccentive to kick the crap out of the player that did you wrong.
One thing that will suck though is if the world is littered with artifacts. One of my favorite things in MOM is creating artifacts. However, I started becoming a little dissappointed how easy and disposable the artifacts really were. My "Sword of Pimps" wasnt as unique and special as I wanted it to be. The AI is not gonna bend over backwards trying to take that sword from me. (not that they could anyways cause of the programming)
It would be cool in E:WOM if player-created artifacts were semi powerful but would die with the player. And world created artifacts (generated at the beginning of the game) were really powerful and always remained in the game. I think it would give the game more tension/conflict among players which is always a good thing for immersion
However, I started becoming a little dissappointed how easy and disposable the artifacts really were.
Yes that's why for Elemental the more artifacts a player creates the cost should cumulatively increase otherwise the larger the map the easier it will be to mass produce items.
I'm down with any of the approaches mentioned here.
However, if Player Created artifacts are going to play a big enough role, I agree that perhaps those should die with the player, while World Created artifacts transfer to the winner.
Really though, the only reason I'm siding with that is because the playing field would become plastered with artifats - possibly entirely one-sided as well as the game progresses.
In the end though, I just like the concept of the winning player being able to "loot" and acquire gear from the loser. The incentive to hunt down the winner and reclaim gear is strong, and the feeling of winning is increased.
So, thoughts: Percentage chance to retreive artifacts from defeated player? Automatic aquisition of all artifacts from defeated player? A choice from the lot of them?
I agree with Capn, if there are player created artifacts they should die with the hero, but world artifacts should remain in play.
I've picked on D&D here and there, but I think that the old AD&D item 'classes' could be a good way to group magical devices and handle each group differently.
Ordinary magic items should be easy to destroy, and I'd like to see them as some sort of salvage after battles--the right smithy should be able to reclaim a fair amount of metal and mana from magic weapons and armor. Not sure how or if using captured war gear would work for regular units.
Lesser artifacts should be retrievable after battle, hard to destroy, and also hard to salvage destructively. But perhaps some aspects of faction or elemental alignment could sometimes make lesser artifacts useless when captured, other than the value of diminishing your enemy's strength by X.
Greater artifacts should be nearly impossible to destroy, perhaps requiring a quest to get rid of the bad ones, or at the very least a mana-intensive ritual that lasts many, many turns.
I definitely don't like the idea of gear going 'into limbo' when a unit is killed in battle. The stuff should cease to exist or have the possibility of being collected by victorious units (or even other units that wander by much later).
A good method of preventing a massive amount of items would be if the less powerful items have a small percentage chance of being destroyed during a battle. A low level paladin champion who is killed from a dragon should have one or more items which don't survive such as a holy wooden shield.
Another idea would be if there was an easy trading system between players regarding items... say the items can be teleported for a small mana fee.
this is especially true if the game works like MoM, where you could always spend mana to move to and from different locations. When a hero found an item, it showed (at location) heroes, and then had a price to teleport to anywhere else.
I'm mostly with Swicord here, he kinda beat me to the punch. I'm gonna use "should" here, could have used "could" or "maybe" instead.
regular magic items should be easy to medium hard to produce but would have obvious level/power caps. Fighting would destroy an X% of them so as not to have everyone have several of them. Part of the remaining percentage could be captured intact and used or "deconstructed" for a percentage (not too high) of the original construction cost. Part should be damaged - giving even less in deconstruction or have a %age of the original cost for repairing them. Part of them shoud be "lost" (see bottom)
minor artifacts should be far more resistent to destruction, but might have a still significant chance of being damaged. Or maybe minor artifact should be "attuned" to the new channeler before they allow themselves to be used. Attuning would ofcourse require mana/time. This prevents them from being instantly turned on their creators and excessive "artifact hunting". Level caps are off. can be very powerfull. Are also quite expensive to construct (you might even have them cost a certain amount of upkeep - the channeler has to keep feeding them -> prevents overproduction). Occasionally one should be "lost". (see bottom)
Major Artifacts - not player manufacturable - serious quests to even get them - remnants from before the last great war - destroying them is not viable (otherwise they would hev been destroyed in the cataclysm) - at least untill very late game or with at least as serious a quest as for getting them. Extreme powerfull. Upon finding or capture needs to be attuned - very willfull things, so heaps of mana and/or time required. For a cost these items could be "hardened" - with that increasing the cost/time for others to attune them (giving you time to win them back or prepare for them to be used against you). WILL cost channeler from his pool to have around, perhaps even more when used. Only very rarely or not at all one should be lost, people tend to keep track of things like these.
Stuff going into limbo is weird. If one gets killed he drops his stuff. In order to prevent getting killed he's gonna go all out with those items, not spend energy in removing the items that he needs to fight from his posession. Besides...one of the "good" feelings in games like this is when you get to loot something good of the body of a vanguished foe.
As to the "lost" ones: They can be a continuing source of "minor" quests - just find the bloody thing. Should take some turns for the "legend" to occur. Might allso be a continiung source of "medium" quests....something found it after its been lost...and is not gonna give it up without a fight.
just my 2 cnt
That's the same as AgeofWonders:SM... if you haven't played the game I recommend buying the game. Lots of features seem inspired from MoM.
It might be interesting to allow artifacts to be damaged rather than destroyed in some cases. For example, a magical sword is shattered in combat. In order to reforge it, it has to be taken to a particular person or place. So, the breaking of an artifact would spawn an optional quest to restore it.
Excellent idea... I completely agree
I'd want artifacts to be rare. Really, really rare - as in a couple per game per side. I have no problem with them being player created, but doing so must take a not insignificant amount of your essence such that making one is a significant choice.
To me, a potentially cool idea that could be used to make powerful, player-created artifacts (that aren't destructible) a double-edged sword is that they could have a chance of converting whoever is using the artifact to the original creator's side (sort of like the Rings of Power). And it isn't a one-shot chance, but rather having it in your possession, using it, etc. keeps triggering the chance to convert (and the longer you have it, the higher the chance).
Then again, I'm crazy like that - I generally slow the tech progression in games where I can so each "age" lasts longer and it's not just a footnote on the way to the "real" techs.
I smell an important slider for game setup, perhaps as important as the Stars, Planets, and Habitables trio in GalCiv2. Back when I spent most of my weekends around tables playing RPGs, something that distinguished one of my favorite refs was his tightfistedness with magic items. Most of the games in that circle ended up so buried in magic items that I ended up with things like a character with a 'golf bag' of enchanted bastard swords. That was sort of fun, but I got *lots* more satisfaction out of a character from that 'conservative' ref's game because I started with a single enchangted sword that was a family heirloom and only slowly revealed its powers as our adventures progressed. We found a few other items, but they were very uncommon and very important to the story.
So, I might end up with a taste very like DrGuppie's, but I've known enough gamers to know that plenty of folks will want what amounts to commodity magic items. If the game can work well at both extremes, I believe that will be good for broadening and retaining the audience.
I think you're probably right about that. A rarity slider and "player createable/destructible" checkboxes. Possibly even some sort of "power" slider, that either limits which artifacts will show up (based on some calculation of the artifact's power) or scales the power of all the artifacts one way or the other. After all, if you have rare artifacts but they aren't powerful enough to matter, then rare artifacts wouldn't be very fun.
This exact idea was brought up in another thread some time ago... I just tried to find it but, as usual, I couldn't. Maybe Luckmann can swoop in and save the day like he's wont to do?
Are you sure it wasn't actually in this thread?
Quests to unlock artifacts' powers sounds like it could be an interesting idea. And the idea about having to 'reforge' an item could be interesting as well. And yes, I smell a slider or two as well.
I guess I should've been a bit clearer... This thread has gone farther into creation/destruction of items than I think any other, but the ideas of rarity and power sliders were discussed in another thread for sure.
If the item can be taken by the victor in battle maybe they could add a spell on the item that would curse the new user. I would enjoy that...
Thou art CURSE! mouahahahahahaha
note to self: remember to take your pills...
Curse you Solam, but I'm damned if I don't really want to see some curse-work of one sort or another in this game.
Wrecking the world with overwhelming magical might is just one kind of fun, not at all the same satisfaction as breaking an enemy's pride and power with a slow, inexeorable corrosion of all that they hold dear. Especially if said Enemy has ripped off the Most Important Portable Thing in our realm...
(this should probably be a cross-post in CapnWinky's spell wish survey thread)
Personally I think that making items customizable (like everything else) but requiring a certain amount of essence that scales based on the items power is the way to go. If you want to put a large quantity of essence into producing a very powerful artifact or two then that should be one course of action, or a small amount of essence into each of many minor artifacts that should be another course of action.
However that being said, powerful artifacts should be difficult to destroy (much like the one Ring in LOTR), but they should be lost if the character who possesses them dies. Then you could fulfill a quest to get the item back, or if someone else managed to end up with the powerful item through capture (or simply stumbling upon it) they could fulfill a quest to destroy it (or risk losing it or having it corrupt whichever hero possesses it). Minor magical items on the other hand should be treated as relatively disposable and easily damaged or destroyed.
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