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| Thread: Expanded spells and skills system | |
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WilX
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 04, 2006 12:02 AM |
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Edited by WilX at 00:03, 04 Oct 2006.
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Expanded spells and skills system
Below are couple ideas I have strung together for improvement on the already superb playing system. These are just basic ideas and theories, so feedback/help is appreciated and welcome. Basically I want to get them to a point where I can either start fleshing out specific details or scrap the whole thing if need be. Thanks in advance.
~WilX~
• New Spell System: my new system requires breaking the each class into sub-schools which is easy since they are already practically made for us. Then the sub-schools should be paired off, most easily by either orderly or chaotic although I use those terms loosely. It’s more of just an excuse to break them up. Once the schools are properly organized, I assigned each faction three magic sub-schools as opposed to the two school system we have now. The sub-school are further broken down into Major and minor schools. A faction that Majors in one school will not only learn spells of that school but also minor in it’s paired school. A school that is minored in only allows you to learn spells of that school. As the level of your mage guild gets higher you will be more likely earn spells that your faction majors in as opposed to minoring in. However, you can still possibly get a high level minor school spell, especially if your faction has few Major schools. I think this system offers more versatility in magic schools as well as being a more logical spell system, because this way more magic based factions will actually have the spells they should and factions focused mostly on might will have more minor schools of magic.
Orderly (first 2)/Chaotic (Second 2)
Light> Abjuration Blessing Wrath Blessing
Summoning> Conjuration Life Calling Life
Dark> Mind Curses Pain Curses
Destruction> Earth Water Fire Air
I think with this new system more magic should be added. I feel this is the general opinion of hero’s players that magic is not up to where it should and potentially could be. It’s important to note that I removed earthblood from summoning because I feel those spells can be distributed elsewhere. Also, for summoning I should out this is how I envision the spells categorized.
Conjuration: Contains Arcane armor, also other forging type spells, kind of like blessing only more on the grounds of granting special abilities like “No Retaliation� “First Strike� and so on. Some of these could be very powerful! Conjuration will have one spell that summons a creature to the field called “Arcane Guardian� it will appear like animated armor and will be strong but mostly special oriented (based on spell power and chance choosing)
Calling: contains the majority of the traditional summoning spells such as “Conjure Phoenix� simply call it summon phoenix, and “Summon Elemental�
One idea I had was a spell called “Call Allie� and could be used on the adventure map once a week to call a population of an alternate unit from your faction and cost movement points. It could also be used in battle, but the units would not be permanent then. Also calling would contain some weather effects like call fog and quicksand, which I liked from another thread.
Haven Abjuration (M) Wrath (M) Curses (m)
Sylvan Calling (M) Earth (M) Blessing (m)
Academy Conjuration (M) Fire (M) Abjuration (M)
Inferno Fire (m) Mind (m) Pain (M)
Dungeon Earth (M) Pain (M) Conjuration (m)
Necropolis Water (m) Curses (M) Conjuration (M)
This is just a theory on how the spell schools would be distributed. Later on if they added factions that are anti magic like Orcs I’d expect them to have 2 or maybe all 3 spell schools are miner.
• New Skill System: I very much like the current skill system, but I think there are a few things that would make it even better. For starters I know some factions are more geared toward magic and others might, but the game is called Heroes of Might AND Magic, not OR Magic. I think to better convey this idea factions should have 2 ultimate abilities. One ultimate representing might and one ultimate representing magic. Primary skills can easily be divided up into either might or magic alignment. The race skill could either go neutral for balance, or be might or magic in order to represent preferences of the faction. The ultimate should become an automatic 5th option at level 25 or even 20 to make it actually useful, and if not chosen the alternate ultimate is an option 5 levels later. Which ultimate offered is determined by which type of primary skill you have more of (might or magic) at the current level until both are offered randomly.
• I also feel that the requirements for secondary skills should become more lenient in a sense. I think it only hinders hero leveling tactics and creativity by requiring “2 or 3 secondary skills� in order to access “a specific secondary skill.� However I also understand the importance of preventing a level 2 “refined mana� or “aura of swiftness.� I think the best way to solve this problem is to switch requirements to more vague terms. Instead of requiring the specific “Attack-Tactics� secondary skill, a secondary skill might require “1 Attack-Common Secondary Skill� Here are some term ideas:
“Common Secondary Skill� – Secondary skill accessible by all factions
“Special Secondary Skill�- Secondary skill accessible by some factions
“Secondary Skill�- Either common or special secondary skills
“Race Secondary Skill�- A secondary skill accessible by 1 faction
“Skill�-Common branch of secondary skills i.e. Attack
• My final idea for the Skill System Expansion ties both of the previous ideas together. I propose that each skill remains having three common secondary skills but in addition to the two special secondary skills we add two more. This way their could be two option for either the might and magic pathways. This way a might based hero can study a magic school like “Dark Magic� from a more tactical point of view gaining secondary skills that are more based on combat instead of magic. In order keep things more balanced when leveling up, a player would be given the choice of four (2 skills, and 2 secondary skills) only now when selecting a secondary skill a new window appears with 4 options of secondary skills, this way it is more likely you will be able to make the choices you want.
• Three Dimensional Spells: This idea I have is a more advanced type of spell system that I think will be more effective once we get a new series of spells. So far there are two factors that define a spell. They are the mage guild level of the spell, and the hero’s spell school mastery. (Spell power also plays a factor but not in the same context, that is more in calculations) So when you are casting a spell it’s power and effectiveness is greatly effected by whether it is a basic, advanced, or expert version of the spell (SP is then used accordingly)
However, if you gain a secondary mastery skill you also gain bonus effects such as the spell is able to be cast as a “Mass Spell� or gains a “Stun� effect. What I’m thinking is a third factor in defining a spell a “Mastery Level� I think this will be an important factor in the future for larger spell schools, that way when a hero gains “Master of Wrath� he doesn’t simply get a bunch of mass effect spells. I think that each spell has 3 mastery levels. There should be many ways to boost the ML of your spells (examples: “mastery� secondary skill, gaining expert in a “magic� skill, artifacts) Vice Versa there are many ways to protect your army from enemy spells (Such as studying the spell by learning basic skill of that magic will give your opponent a -1 to their ML of those spells) Each mastery level of each spell will gain various effects. Such as, the first mastery level of haste is the ability to cast it in mass. Further more you do not have to cast a spell at its greatest potential it is strictly an option.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted October 04, 2006 04:14 PM |
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I have a bit of trouble with reading this because of the strange systems.
And by the way, you got a few facts wrong from my thread - Quicksand was not Called, quicksand was conjured. But never mind that. (You correctly say, that Calling deals with Weather and other natural phenomena, Conjuration deals with Inanemate Matter, and Summoning deals with Animate Matter and living creatures. Thus, you conjure quicksand, you call a thunderstorm, or you summon a wasp swarm. )
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