Hi
Responding to another thread got me thinking about variety of spelsl in Elemental. In most fantasy games, there's not that much variety in spells because a lot of them simply boil down to dealing X damage. Elemental is going to be a traditional 4X game so I have no reason it will handle things differently. I'm trying to get a response from developers.
In Heroes of Might and Magic 3, Water has Cold Ray and Cold Ring, air Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning, earth Meteor Swarm, fire Fireball and Firestorm (ironically, these 2 are among least efficient direct damage spells). Basically every single school has direct damage spells.
In Master of Magic, there's Life Drain for Death, Psionic Blast for Sorcery, Fire Bolt, Doom Bolt, Flamestrike, fireball for Chaos, Lightning Call for Nature. Even Life has Star Fires. All direct damage spells.
My point: having omnipresent direct damage spells simplifies the game and tactics used. In many games, direct damage spells are favoured to more manipulative spells, because, after all, direct damage always works and solves all troubles. Schools being just different names for direct damage is not very cool. If you're going to mostly favour direct damage, school choice is not really that important... All too often games just fall into 'direct damage, buff, curse, summoning' schema. People who read books know more inspiring examples. Shapeshifting (that's not just for increase of combat stats !), divination, illusion and deception, mind affecting spells...
We really need more info on the magic system, but this is a very common concern and one that I share. I don't mind a lot of DD spells, but there has to be some trade off so that you don't always jsut go to "old reliable". And each school needs some real variety on what is available, so that you don't just have ice bolt/fire bolt/earth bolt blah blah.
One thing, different units need to have meaningful resistances so that even if there are all those bolts available, it will matter which one you cast.
Also maybe one school focuses on AE damage, another direct damage, another with buffs, etc. They should all have some of the other stuff but it should be at higher mana cost/ lower efficiency but they each need an area that they really stand out.
Also, the terrain that you are fighting on could have an effect - Casting water spells should be easier or receive a bonus if you are in a swamp as opposed to a desert.
I really hope we get some magic system infos leaked soon!
The problem with all those types of spells (divination, illusion,...), is that when they are used on normal pen-and-paper RPGs they requiere a lot of "DM Fiat" which is pretty hard to translate into game AI or game mechanics.
You could make a variation in the spells and their effects depending on the element
Healing spell for fire- burning metabolism. Heals the unit completely in 1 turn, but makes unable to heal naturally for 5 turns
Parch- makes unit thristy , slowing it down, lowering its morale, and raising it's maintenance cost.
Stuff like that.
True, but that's no reason not to expect far to much of the Stardock devs when we're still weeks from seeing Beta 0.
Somewhat more seriously, I suspect that part of Brad's ambitions for this game are to lay groundwork for a primitive DM-in-a-box. And I'm hoping that one of the major reasons we've heard very close to nothing about magic in Elemental: War of Magic is that their ambitions are indeed very high and they don't want to let out too many doomed-to-fail notions too early. That, or b0rsuk is painfully on to something and the couple-hundred spells we've heard mentioned will boil down to just a few core effects with lots of minor variation in cost, intensity, and graphics.
There's always going to be many "direct" spells and fewer "manipulation" spells for all the reasons stated (easier, effective, etc), but there's definitely room for variety and differentiation based on their side-effects/consequences as well as providing direct spells that effect the environment.
So, if we have "Earth" spells, deform terrain to give your army an advantage by raising the ground under your troops (putting them on a hill). But then the fire mage on the other side lights the grass on fire, which burns up the hill towards your troops (which fires do) and it's helped by their air mage who fans the flames.
Fortunately you have a water mage, but unfortunately there isn't a lot of water around. Fortunately he's able to quench a lot of the flames by bringing up underground water and turning some of the ground to mud. The downside? Now your troops are going to have to march through the mud and muck to get to the enemy, making them easy targets while they navigate it.
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So, do I think SD could pull something like that off? Maybe not so elaborately (and who knows how the AI would handle it), but it's lots of direct spells that you can use creatively beyond hurling stone chunks and balls of fire.
Another worthy trick would be to introduce "new" or different than stock elements (How about some Sound, Magnetic, Gravitational, Life, etc whathaveyou) and have it allow for DEEP combinations and such to beget and even greater variety of effects...even just basic stuff like an Earth Mage creating a giant Boulder, another type willing a plague horde to come into being within it, then a Gravity Mage to fling the lot of it over an enemy's defensive wall and into the interior where it will damage what it hits on impact and then the plague goes to work...
I'm not sure adding more combinations of damage types add depth to the game. Complexity, yes, but depth? I think depth comes more from assymetrical effects countering each other. At the risk of lauding it too highly, Dom3 has one of the best assymetrically balanced systems out there. The game is horrendously unbalanced, in that there are any number of cheesy ways to gain an advantage. But because there are so many ways to gain advantage, they end up balancing out. The trick is not which trick to use, but when and where to use it.
Interestingly, it's simliar to what I found to be good tactics. At least in the U.S. Army, the application of ground forces haven't changed substantively since the 30's, and is the same from fire team through corps (fix with fires, flank). While the tactic/operational method is the same, the timing of it, and where to apply it, is the real art. Which enemy do you fix with direct and indirect fires? Which friendly element is best positioned to flank?
Sorry for the ramble: I guess I hope that the tactical and operational systems in Elemental allow for timing and location to drive success more than mere damage or damage over time.
Ynglaur:
You shouldn't praise Dominions3 in spell variety department, because it all boils down to who can throw biggest mass damage spell ! In multiplayer, it's not uncommon for some nation to not recruit any single mundane unit. They just use pretender, mages and summons. Dominions is what I had in mind when I said there are games where direct damage dominates and makes other types of magic obsolete. Why enchant your units if a mass damage spell will wipe everything out anyway ?
Variety of viable spells is much more important.
I haven't played Dom3 (yet?), but I very much agree with this hope for Elemental. Complexity is definitely not equal to depth, it's just often a factor in depth. You are on the money about making the when and the where of a spell the real trick in finding its full power.
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