Having played the game for some time now, I must say that I´m very confident that FE will be all that WoM was not.
Everything seems to be going the right way. With time the bugs will be solved and the game will gain even more content but my real concern is with a two key aspect of the game: MAGIC and CHAMPIONS
Champions are far too overpowered, I can win a game on maximum difficulty without ever building a single army. The sov and the champs can do all the work alone.
On the other hand, magic, especially direct damage magic is far underpowered when compared to melee damage, except when it comes to fireballing standard troops.
In my gameplay experience I have only used magic for the occasional buff, or for strategic map effects. I have completely abandoned magic as means to deal damage or negative status. The action that would cost me cast a spell is far better used making a melee attack, not to mention that building a spellcaster champ/sov is far less cost effective than making a melee on (be assassin, defender or warrior).
So I would just level up a spell caster until I got the spell ranks I wished and let all the tactical combat be done by melee combatants.
I gave a quick scan trough the forums and my concerns seem to be shared by other people. So I decided to take the time and put my suggestions in here.
It is a relatively long post, but I guess it´s worth reading, there was a lot of consideration on how to make FE a better game and the success that both stardock and the players deserve.
*Experience should be shared between the sov, champs and troops involved in the battle.
On of the reasons I can create uber champions is because they don’t share XP. They all get the same xp, be it with one or with nine.
I usually got one doing all the work, and others remain safely behind, just enjoying the XP.
I don´t think the is need to increase the xp cap for lvl up, but instead think on a better way to distribute it.
* Rebalance combat. One hit one kill. The flanked condition. The overpower trait. The rock paper scissor approach.
Based on the suggestions and feedback on the topic, I´m editing the original post to reflect the more polished idea that everybody contributed for.
I´ve suggest somewhere else already a one hit one kill rule. Many seens to have liked the idea, while others worried that it would change too much of how combat works or nerf too much the champs. I´ve given a little bit more of thought on the idea and considered all the comments. See what you guys think:
First and foremost: eliminate or mitigate those +1 per level bonus (could be +1 per 2, 3, 4 ou five level), that’s all balance.
Second: every attack, be it magical or physical will not be able to kill more than one figure per attacking figure in the army, unless some special trait or property says otherwise.
That would be valid for the sovereign, the champions, ordinary troops and monsters.
This would automatically nerf the melee sov/champs (specially the high crits assassins) who can no longer take down 9 figure unit in a single hit. Since the damage it deals was not diminished it will still be a powerful unit when it comes down to deal with powerful single figure units. Of course, traits could allow the champ to take down one or two extra figures…
That obviously doesn´t solve the super melee champs/sovs problem. It would only drag combats longer, instead of finishing it in 9 turns, it would take 81 turns to finish, but the invulnerable champions problem persists. If no unit can hit it or pierce it´s defenses, them he is invincible, just taking it´s time to finish of the poor troopers.
So the solution is adding a new trait. This trait could be called “flanking” for melee troops and “arrow swarm” for the archers. Essentially, multi figure units would reduce the dodge/defense of single figure units that suffers their attack. If every multi figure unit would have it, or it would have to be bought, or how much the reduction would be is a balance question. I personally think it should be a nice % reduction, so the benefits would scale. Better yet, having 2 or more units with flanking adjacent, would further reduce the def/doge. Even a lvl 30 verga would think twice before going in the middle of 3 city militia.
That logic would be valid for troops vs powerful monsters too. So you could send an entire army to deal with a dragon, if a powerful hero is unavailable.
That pretty much nerf the champions, without truly nerfing them. That’s the beauty. They remain almost as powerful as they are today, buy they will no longer single handily win games, take towns, etc..
Troops are suddenly important again, they can deal with champs and powerful monsters. But there still the matter of how they fare against magic.
As I have proposed, the one hit one kill would be valid for spells too, unless they have the overpower trait. The difference of the current overpower is that it would not cause damage multiplication, but instead allows damage to carry on to as many figures in the unit as it can. Needless to say, most attack spells would have this trait, including the fireball and similar. Without the damage multiplier, mages are dangerous to “hordes” of enemies, without turning them to dust in one turn.
But still, a very high init mage could cast two or three fireballs while the opposing army still close together. The solution is also simple: just increase the cast time. Spells so powerfull should take more time to cast, even giving opposing mages time to counter, creating cool and memorable spell duels. Other suggestion is allowing the troops to position themselves before combat begins (maybe a future trait for a general like hero), giving them the opportunity to split.
That takes us to the rock paper scissor approach that some suggested.
I must say that I really dislike it when it is inflexible (like the europa universalis games). I like more the “right tool for the job” approach of the civilization games. A spearman/pikeman is the right/best tool for fighting mounted units, but not the only one, and not a guarantee of success.
The above proposition tales us close to the civ style:
Multi figure troops (especially in numbers) are the best way to deal with single powerful non magical units.
Magical units are the best way to deal with multi figure troops.
Powerful single melee units are the best way to deal with mages.
But nothing is written in stone. Knowing that my opponent has 5 fire shards, I could equip my troops with fire protection equips and buffs. That would force the opponent to change strategies.
Knowing that the other army has a magekiller champion, my sov could cast several debuffs, summons or terrain control spells instead of trying to cast direct damage spells at him.
My almighty dragonslaying knight in shining armor, when faced with an army of peasants would remember that discretion is the better part of valor and run, maybe drawing away that army from a city or a vulnerable resource.
Of course, lots of balance needs to be done for it all to work, maybe even bringing back the dual build queue or radically reducing regular troops costs and training time, but I belive the solution for worst balance problem is there.
*New traits and rebalancing of the path of the mage tree
First, I guess that instead of increasing the spells damage, it would be nice to increase the evoker bonuses (like doubling them). On the other hand, strategic damage dealing spells should severely nerfed or eliminated.
A new set of traits dealing with summoned creatures would be nice, especially with the summoning spells I’m also suggesting. Those would be (of course opened to balancing)
Summoner I – caster summoned creatures are 25% stronger
Summoner II - caster summoned creatures are 50% stronger
Summoner III - caster summoned creatures are 100% stronger
Unshakable bounds - caster summoned creatures have double resistance (helps prevent banishing, should be rare)
*Make spell rank more important and balanced
As things are now, spell ranks add little to the game. They open up few spells, the different “schools” of magic are unbalanced and many of the coolest spells in the game are gained randomly through quests.
The suggestion here is that all spells should be accessible by unlocking spell ranks or by researching spellbooks. Some of the cooler/more powerful ones could require ranks in two or more “schools” (like sunder currently does).
The spell research that existed in WoM would be essentially replaced by choosing spell ranks when leveling up.
Every school should have combat and support spells. In fact, I would say at least one high damage one hit one kill, one mid damage single target overpower (carry on damage, not multiplier), one lower damage overpower (carry on damage, not multiplier) area damage, one very low damage strategic map damage spell and several buffs/debuffs as appropriate.
The school/shard would determine the damage type and other peculiarities to make each spell unique.
So spell research on the tech tree would be restricted to those that are too important to be restricted by school, or that does not fall well in one school (like the spells involving mobility, summonin or mind control). Also, to prevent abuses, some of those researched spells should require a minimum rank in any spell to be castable.
Here goes a few examples of the new balanced spells ranks and spellbooks:
Metamagic knowledge
In this book, chanelers learn that the ancient archmages of elemental treated magic as science, and learns to do likewise
Conterspell (rebalanced) (requires apprentice level in any school of magic): same as it is
Dispel (new) (requires disciple level in any school of magic): removes all good enchantments from the unit, unless it resists
Spell Purge (new) (requires disciple level in any school of magic): removes all bad enchantments from the unit, unless the original caster resists
Spell lock (new) (requires mage level in any school of magic) tactical (one battle only) or strategic (with maintenance): spell that must be dispelled or purge before dispel or spell purge can affect other enchantments. Its resist value is doubled. Can be cast on summoned creatures to prevent banishment
Disjunction (new) (requires mage level in any school of magic), strategic only: try to dipell on enchantment affecting a city or square. The original caster get a resist check.
Mana shield (rebalanced) (requires master level in any school of magic) tactical only: same as it is, but can only be casted on the caster
Mana blast (rebalanced) (requires archmage level in any school of magic), tactical only, does damage equal to 1/10 of the victims mana pool and costs double that amount to the caster. Affects every sovereign or imbued champion on the battlefield and takes as many turns to cast as there are targets. Can be resisted for half damage
Great unsummoning (new) (requires archmage level in any school of magic), tactical only, every summoned unit in the battlefield must resist or be banished. 3 turns to cast. Should be very mana expensive and the units should get a resist bonus.
Book of mobility
This volume deals with the secrets of space and time, allowing the caster a greater, but still limited, control of his movements and the movements of others.
Escape (tactical) (requires apprentice level in any school of magic): The caster alone can escape combat
Greater Escape (tactical) (requires disciple level in any school of magic): The caster and his army can escape combat.
Retreat (strategic) (requires disciple level in any school of magic): The caster alone retreats to the nearest friendly city.
Greater retreat (strategic) (requires mage level in any school of magic): The caster and his army retreats to the nearest friendly city.
Blink (tactical) (requires master level in any school of magic): The caster can teleport to any square in the battlefield
Teleport (strategic) (requires archmage level in any school of magic): The caster alone can teleport to any friendly square.
Book of summoning and calling
This volume enables the caster to summon creatures, for this world or elsewhere, to fight for the caster. The higher the caster lvl, the higher the lvl of the summoned creature.
Summoner´s boon (removed) – should become a path of the mage trait
Natures call (rebalanced) – (requires apprentice level in any school of magic), tactical (one battle only) or strategic (with maintenance), summon a random beast to fight for the caster
Elemental summoning (new) - (requires disciple level in any school of magic), tactical (one battle only) or strategic (with maintenance), summon a random elemental to fight for the caster
Banish (new) (requires disciple level in any school of magic), tactical only: summoned unit must resist or be banished
Demon bounding (new) - (requires mage level in any school of magic), tactical (one battle only) or strategic (with maintenance), summon a random demon to fight for the caster
Dragon command (new) - (requires master level in any school of magic), tactical (one battle only) or strategic (with maintenance), summon a random dragon to fight for the caster
Steal bond (new) - (requires master level in any school of magic), tactical only, takes control of enemy summoned unit if it fails to resist.
Call Titan (rebalanced/new) - (requires archmage level in any school of magic), strategic only, summon a titan to serve the caster. Consumes a life or a death shard. Only one titan per faction. If titan is killed, casting this spell again brings back the same titan (with levels eventually gained)
Dragon mount (new) - (requires archmage level in any school of magic), strategic only, summon a dragon to serve as mount to the caster.
Book of the mind
This old tome goes deep into the secrets of the mind, both good ou for evil. Spells of this book doesn´t work on elementals or constructs.
Touch of darkness (rebalanced) – (requires apprentice level in any school of magic), strategic only, same effect
Confusion (rebalanced) -(requires disciple level in any school of magic), tactical only, same effect
Mind blast (new) - (requires mage level in any school of magic), tactical only, untyped mid damage, single target, unlimited range
Cloak of fear(rebalanced) -(requires master level in any school of magic) tactical (one battle only) or strategic (with maintenance), same effect, but the caster can only cast on himself
Domination (rebalanced) - (requires archmage level in any school of magic), tactical only, takes control of unit that fails to resist. At the end of every one of its turns, the unit is allowed a new resist check to break free.
Air school
Shocking touch (new) – apprentice, tactical, high lightning damage, one hit one kill, single target, range one
Summon air shrill (new) – apprentice, tactical (one battle only) or strategic (with maintenance), summon an air shrill.
Storm (rebalance) – disciple, tactical, mid lightning damage, overpower, single target, unlimited range
Lightning weapon (new) – disciple, tactical (one battle only) or strategic (with maintenance), add low Lightning damage to unit´s attack.
Summon air elemental (new) – mage, tactical (one battle only) or strategic (with maintenance), summon a weaker air elemental (without titan´s breath)
Lightning shield (new) – mage, tactical (one battle only) or strategic (with maintenance), add mid resistance (%) to Lightning damage.
Thunderstorm (new) – master, tactical, low lightning damage, overpower, area one, unlimited range, chance to paralyze for one turn if target does not resist
Cloud walk (rebalanced)- master, strategic, moves (teleport) the caster army 2 squares in any direction (including enemy territory and over obstacles), plus one square per air shard, can be cast only once per turn.
Flight (new) – archmage, tactical (one battle only) or strategic (with maintenance), gives the unit the ability to flight at his speed.
Tornado (rebalanced)– archmage, strategic, very low blunt damage, affects all units, overpower, randomly scatters one unit per air shard that does not resist, can be cast only on the casters territory, can be cast only once per turn.
Summon elemental prince of air (new) - archmage, strategic, consumes an air shard. Only one prince of air per faction. If the prince is killed, casting this spell again brings back the same prince (with levels eventually gained).
Other spells seem OK, maybe needing some rebalancing in terms of costs and magnitude.
Few multi school suggestions:
Summon shrill lord (master in fire, earth, air and water), plus X levels per fire, earth, air or water shard.
Antipode (mage in fire and water), very high fire and cold damage, single target, unlimited range.
Dust Storm (disciple air and earth), every unit in the field (friend or foe, except the caster) must resist or get an accuracy penalty.
Storm call (master air and water): every unit (except the caster), every turn must resist or be hit by a lightning bolt. Consumes mana every turn.
Eruptions (disciple earth and fire): every turn a random square on the battle might erupt (the more shards, the more squares). A unit standing or entering a erupted square takes damage.
Several create golems options. Golems would not be considered summoned creatures, and could only be created outside combat (strategic spells) they should cost mana and gold to create and have a relatively high gold maintence (but not mana). Maybe “golemcraft” could be a researchable spellbook
Create sand golem (apprentice earth, air, life or death)
Create scrap golem (disciple water, earth, life or death)
Create stone golem (mage earth, life or death)
Create magma golem (master earth, fire, life or death)
Create obsidian golem (archmage earth, air, fire, water, life or death)
Sorry for the bad English, but its not my native language.
Interesting.
Some pretty cool ideas here, also, i would have never guessed that English isn't your first language, you were fine.
Good suggestions, they speak directly to one of my biggest fears about this game. Specifically that it will fall into the Heroes of Might and Magic IV (HoMM4) trap.
The HoMM series always had heroes that were powerful, but never interacted directly with combat. As such, troops were extremely important and necessary.
But HoMM4 changed this so that heroes could directly participate in combat and they were MAD powerful. They could decimate just about anything. The power scale between the heroes and the troops was way off. Basically in mid to late game, you didn't even need troops, just one or two heroes could do everything.
I thought this was terrible because it trivialized troops, which were a MAJOR draw of previous games. In fact, they actually went back to the "old" hero model of heroes not participating directly in combat in HoMM5 and 6.
I don't think Elemental needs to do this, but I would definitely like to see champions get toned down a bit. Going for "troops" should be a viable strategy.
I agree with the OPs criticisms but not his plan of improvement. (except the 1 hit 1 kill plan, that is good idea)
I think the first step is to take the sovereign off the battlefield. Age of wonders had the right idea about how to do that.. the sovereign should not gain XP from combat, the sovereign should be relatively weak in melee, and the sovereign should be able to cast into combats within their domain (which extends away from cities / structures, etc)
This works out to combat being:
1. Sovereign casts a spell
2. Units fight. (with the occasional champion cast spell).
Having the champion/sovereign cast the spells in person as an ALTERNATIVE to attacking with a weapon is just a bad idea. Having the sovereign personally kill enemies in combat to gain XP to gain new spells is a bad idea.
Sovereign should be developed, but not by something as simplistic as XP and levels. From lords of magic to age of wonders the formula was always the same, the sovereign researches spells which they cast from the safety of their stronghold into battles that rage in the distance.
Also champions should be providing bonuses to troops and be a lot weaker rather then all powerful combat monsters. Meaning they should stay back and support/lead the troops rather then charging in alone.
Quote : *One hit one kill The main reason I abandoned spellcasting (and trained armies) in favor of melee (and the occasional bow) champs/sovs is that a champ/sov can deal hundreds of damage, killing of dragons, 9 man units sovs and champs in one hit. I suggest that regardless of the damage dealt, one hit (be it magical, ranged or melee) should be able to kill only one figure in an army. Trained units would count as many hits as figures currently alive in it. This way, a melee champ/sov would still be the best option in the dragon slaying department, but it would be a terrible idea to send your lvl 20 melee champ against 9 nine man units. The champ would probably get slaughtered, regardless of the incredible amount of damage per hit, as it would be expected when sending one man against 81.
Quote :
*One hit one kill
The main reason I abandoned spellcasting (and trained armies) in favor of melee (and the occasional bow) champs/sovs is that a champ/sov can deal hundreds of damage, killing of dragons, 9 man units sovs and champs in one hit.
I suggest that regardless of the damage dealt, one hit (be it magical, ranged or melee) should be able to kill only one figure in an army. Trained units would count as many hits as figures currently alive in it.
This way, a melee champ/sov would still be the best option in the dragon slaying department, but it would be a terrible idea to send your lvl 20 melee champ against 9 nine man units. The champ would probably get slaughtered, regardless of the incredible amount of damage per hit, as it would be expected when sending one man against 81.
I like this ! It would make sense. And we could add a trait that let you hit 2 figures or 3 figures (something like the "cleave" feat in D&D)
I agree with the OP on the need to balance champions, units, melee, and spells. I think that this can be improved without too much difficulty, it is mostly a balance issue.
I cannot disagree more. You are trying to force a particular playstyle here, which may have worked fine in other games, but isn't necessary here. Why force players to use a weak, detached sovereign? What if they want to play a tough, melee focused character like Verga or a character of their own creation? There is no reason to force players into that mold. I personally prefer playing a sovereign that is more of the general / warrior style than the distant guy in a tower mold. Both styles are fun, and there should be room for both.
I would like to see Champions influence troops more. More traits that benefit the army and also more traits the benefit nearby units incombat, would be really cool.
On the other hand, it might be cool to have a sovereign who doesn't leave his study, and casts spells through a crystal sphere, for instance.
This is not because of what you think it is. It's not champion strength, it's AI weakness. You can also win on maximum difficulty without using any champions at all, and it will actually be much easier, you just haven't tried. Normal units gain multiplicative benefits from most of the same things champions do, leveling, better gear, traits, it's all multiplied by the number of units which makes them incredibly powerful. The problem is you are fighting the AI who is throwing mostly level 1s at you, and you are crushing them without effort with high level champions. High level normal units though are extremely deadly and resilient and can make melee champions and sovs look pathetic.
As for magic, you are simply not using the right spells or traits. When you have +300% spell damage and a few shards, some magic is extremely powerful. It's not an issue of melee vs magic, it's an issue of some spells being useless. Though even the useless spells have some potency if you are playing on a large map with dense magic and can get a dozen+ of the same type of shard.
Even if the sovereign didn´t leave his stronghold (like MoM) we would still have the problem of the uber champions.
Since we mentioned MoM, there was this same problem, of your champions reached a certain levels and with the right buff and equips, regular (or even fantastic) troops became obsolete. I remember kicking the ass of half a dozen ski dragons on a sorcery nod with my “Torin the Chosen” (who remembers that guy? ) without losing a single hit point.
I share Creslin321 disappointment with HoMM 4 and their active heroes mechanics, but I guess that nobody wants’ the champions gone from elemental, they are part of the core concept of the game (unlike HoMM), so the solution is balance.
My suggestions come from the line of thought that champions shouldn’t be able to single handily eliminate any treat in the game, especially entire armies. But that doesn´t mean that champions sound not be among the most powerful units, with right traits/equips/spells.
I have nothing against an epic champ/sov taking on one dragon or a couple of trolls or ogres alone, what bothers me is a single champ vanquishing a top tier army alone, making magical or regular troops support unnecessary.
That the basis of my one hit one kill suggestion. A melee champs could be a the perfect tool against single powerful units (dragons, ogres, trolls, elementals, whatever…) but would have to watch his back when facing a full army. As vieuxchat noted, it totally fits the D&D (or any other medieval fantasy you like) feel. The uber melee champ would be the traditional knight in shining armor, the monster slayer, the single epic combat guy, but not a weapon of mass destruction.
What taltamir is proposing is essentially a return to the original MoM magic system. I guess that ship has sailed… The sovereign being able to participate in person is part of the core concept of elemental from the beginning, I doubt it would be changed at this point, so again the solution is seeking balance.
On the other hand, I´ve read several people missing the original MoM concept of the reclusive wizard, disliking the adventuring wizard that´s featured in elemental.
I guess that a solution that would please everyone, without imposing a particular playstyle (with is never good, as Goontrooper pointed) is opening a whole new magic path tree.
Currently we have 3 “might” paths (assassin, warrior and defender), 1 “administrative” path (governor) and 1 "magic" path (mage). One magic path is too little for a magic based game.
What would you guys think of a “path of the wizard”. The path of the wizard could allow the sovering to cast spells in battles anywhere in the world (like MoM) but with restrictions, like increased mana cost, or even a limitation on how much mana could be spent per battle.
I can imagine the following path tree:
Path of the wizard: (accessible only to the sovereign) allows to cast spells in battles taking place in any of your cities. Would require the sov to be stationed in the capital (the city with the tower of dominion). He would get a small part of the xp, maybe proportional to how much mana he spent on the battle. The mana costs would increase with the distance. And the distant sov would be the last on init order.
Channeling I: reduces the mana cost by distance. common
Channeling II: reduces the mana cost by distance even more. uncommon
Channeling III: normal mana cost regardless of distance. rare
Champion bond: allow the sov to cast spells when a imbued champ is present (I guess common is OK here)
Bond troop: has champion bond as prerequisite. Allow the sov to cast the “Bond troop” spell. Should have a maintenance. The sov can cast spell when such troop is present. (uncommon)
Onipresence: has bond troop as prerequisite. Allow the sov to cas spells whenever his side gets in battle (rare).
City channeler: the sov can distant cast when he is stationed in any of his cities. Uncommon
Mobile channeler: the sov can distant cast anywhere in the world. Rare
That´s just an example. I guess it doesn´t break the game, if rightly balanced, and will please the MoM crowd.
It could be combined with path of the mage for increased damages and decreased mana costs, creating a uber wizard, quite like combining path of assassin/warrior/defender can create a uber fighter. Or a restriction of one path per character (like some people on the forums are already suggesting) could be created if balancing everything is proved impossible.
When I say “win the game” I´m not referring to just beating the AI. That’s currently easy enough, regardless of difficulty level or strategy chosen (magic or might sov/champs or regular troops).
Since we are in beta and the AI is almost nonexistent, every time I play I disable victory conditions and try to beat every AI player, quest, wildland and wandering monsters, with varied strategies.
This way I can experience the game as whole and try to help make it better.
Indeed, if the intention is just steamroll the AI, as fast as possible, a fireball caster with the cheapest highest damage troops you can build is the way to go.
The AI currently doesn´t know to effectively defend itself or to mount an offensive, not to mention the total incompetence on tactical combat.
But I´m confident that with Brad AI programming skills, eventually it will pose a challenge, but balance issues must be solved before the AI can be properly taught. I remember a weapon rebalance on WoM, when the devs forgot to adjust AI accordingly. It would never build top tier troops because it didn´t kwon how.
Worse, the more the development advances and we get closer to the gold version, the harder will be to put our suggestions.
So if we fell that a certain aspect of the game is over or under powered we should say it now. If we exploit an imbalance, Brad will eventually teach the AI to exploit it too.
My fear is that if we don´t seriously rebalance the might vs magic and champs vc troops question the game will end up evolving to a champion skirmish game, instead of the grand fantasy strategy game we all hope for.
Some of those are a little too much. I can already smack people for 40 - 60 damage from anywhere on the tactical battle map with a level 5 fire disciple. ~7 - 10 mana per hit. That's not too bad. A fire archmage with focus should kill some champs outright. Apart from balance the problem with adding a bunch of spells is that afaik you can't choose what spells to display and which spells to hide, so you'll have a huge bar with icons scattered around that you may or may not recognize.
Magic is most useful in strategic imo, you can freeze armies, damage them, weaken them, give every trained unit a level, auto-res, etc. That's not to say magic is perfect but that it can be very effective with shards. It's a shame that it's not as viable without shards, cause you can't really control what spawns near you.. but I don't see that changing.
By the way, the only reason we can have dozens of shards is the weak AI (and the low level of monster aggression, which allows you to have undefended outposts on the other side of the world). When the AI improves it won´t be so easy hoarding shards, or so I expect….
On a large map, with all the players, I usually have 3 to 5 shards before the map is full, the AI players are in a similar or worse situation (I like to let the AI build up before start attacking it, in some games I don´t attack at all, just to see how it fares).
On a large map, that’s the scenario we can expect when the game goes gold: 3 to 5 shards, without any control of the kind, before the wars of expansion starts.
Given the randomness that now involves magic, the “might” side of the game is favored. If you build a spellcaster sov you are risked with uselessness for lack of appropriate shards.
While I appreciate that kind of randomness as a challenge, it end up making magic weaker, given reliability of building verga-like champs and sovs. Not to mention that is relatively easy to get elemental damage resistance or even immunity (thought I guess it will be half solved soon with accessories limitation)
So I guess that increasing the magic damage by trait (and removing the overpower multiplication), and instituting the one hit one kill will make magic more valuable when compared to physical damage and will make troops useful when compared to champs.
As for the buffs/debuffs I agree that many are uninspired or unbalanced, but those will be improved as development goes, what seems more urgent is establishing a balance between might, magic and troops, as that is the foundation of the game, at least combat wise.
I just played a game with Umber. Took a lair and could recruit some snake thingies. Turns out that each cost 2 diplomatic capital. When I finally get that, the snakes were so weak that it was a joke. They could not be grouped, and were no stronger than my first militia. Except from that it was a great game.
Umber pay double price for Champs I believe. Makes it harder to cham spam.
While I disagree that magic isn't powerful, I agree that the randomness of shards is a big problem. Spellcasters should have the option to choose new spell schools on level up (even if rare) and the sovereign should come with a spell to change nodes into different types based on the magic schools(s) he/she started with.
Doing so however creates a potential secondary problem: Does having 5-10+ of all the same node ramp spell damage into the rediculous? A rough calculation of firebolt (8+4 per shard) would place it's damage potential between 84-144 (28-48 x (1+200%) from talents). Granted the damage on this still requires a 'roll' and will not likely hit for max, but it seems too high.
A few things that might help make magic more useful:
Bonus from spell shards should be lower and the base damage of spells should be higher or modified by intelligence
Shards determine the maximum level of spell you can cast, or the maximum mana/turn/combat for that school
Research in the magic tree should be required to unlock the use of more powerful spells and talents
Soveriegns (and only sovereigns) can cast a spell that changes the shard to a different type based on their magic schools
Higher level spellschools should have level requirements or be more 'rare'
Champions can gain new spell schools on level up
None of these are exclusive, or requirements of each other, just a random set of ideas that would help make a caster strategy less random, and more in line with one of 'might'
I can't express how strongly I oppose taking Sovs off the battlefield! So many people are hating on Sovs and Champs, while they are one of the main reasons I play the original and now the expansion/sequel!
I don't think they should be taken off the battle field. I just think they just be toned down a little so that you can't win with ONLY your sov and champs.
Granted, this may have already happened in .76...haven't got a chance to play it yet.
I like the OPTION of having a reclusive SOV, thats kinda the entire point of Imbune Champion, perhaps making a trade off for a weaker Sovriegn, but buffing the abilites of those who have been Imbuned. I've been trying out numerous starts, and I like playing Mages, but the early game is incredibly hard if you don't get a good Melee Champion at the begining as unless you go Fire, your not going to see many damage spells early on in the game.
Just figured out that trained units only gain 50% of their allotted xp from a vicotrious battle, so there's another mark against them. The system is completely out of whack right now.
That is a planned feature mqpiffle. Regulars are set to get .5 times the XP. I want more balance to the game before I decide whether I like this or not.
Fireballing standard troops. = Win. Fastest way to demolish city defenders is take your sov and go path of the mage, take all lvl ups in + damage and less cast cost. Cast Fireball, enjoy surround sound of dieing troops.
It should be nerfed and take 2 turns to cast. I have to stop myself from using it so i can test the tactical AI.
This is trying to force a playstyle. What if people want to play Lord of the Rings Style where heroes are actually hereos and your fellowship can cleave through enemies without additional forces?
They should just introduce a XP Modifier slider , when set to superhero mode, heroes level fast and can become real heroes, and when its set to General mode heroes level slowly and need armies to survive. everyone is happy.
They could, but people seem to want a slider for everything. Why not just take a few mints to learn how to mod the XML? You can change it as much as you like, but it will throw the balance of the rest of the game off as everything is being balanced with regular troops not being able to level as fast. I like the current leveling pace. Leaders get more XP and troops get more Con but have to be upgraded with gold to improve. Otherwise we would have to call them heroes too.
This seems to be one of the big things that would benefit from a slider. I mean heroes are a big part of the game, I think if FE is to be a success it should support different playstyles, part of Civilizations success is with all its sliders you can play the game how you like.
Great OP and feedback, guys. Magic can make a big difference, but not enough long-term and even at the beginning of the game I'm hesitant to want to use it since it costs so much and could be used in other ways.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
