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| Thread: New kind of Area/Mass spells | |
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Asheera
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Elite Assassin
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posted December 02, 2008 12:33 AM |
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New kind of Area/Mass spells
Hi everyone.
I just thought of another crazy modification of mine. I'm not sure if it will appeal to the public, since it will drastically change the area-of-effect spells mechanics (in such a way that we've never seen before, or at least, *I* didn't see before - I have no clue if something similar is present in some other (TBS) game)
But we'll see if you like it or not 
So, here it goes:
There are no more single-target spells anymore in my system, or you could consider that there are no more classical area-of-effect spells either. There are only two types: mass spells, which affect the entire battlefield, and non-mass spells, which affect multiple (or not, but most probably yes, the spells would be pretty weak affecting only one creature - and I mean one creature here, not one stack) creatures. Every spell, beside the mass ones, has a radius or something similar.
Now here's the deal: we'll no longer consider a stack something 'special', we'll only take into consideration the number of troops overall, much like how area-of-effect spells work in some other strategy games where you see many troops instead of one stack with a high number (to understand my system better, think like that - there are no more 'stacks', only troops). Much like in strategy games without stacks, an area-of-effect spell will have the damage multiplied by the number of creatures it hits. This applies to mass spells as well. Basically, the mass spells will deal a specific damage to ALL creature stacks, and each stack receives the damage from the spell multiplied by the number of creatures in the stack. Think like a normal strategy game without stacks, how each creature gets damage from a mass spell, and you'll understand the concept. Of course, because of the above and how this system works, the spells (especially mass ones) will have to deliver a lot less damage than what we've been used to, and the creatures will probably have to have more hit points (so as to prevent number roundings having too high an impact on the gameplay when dealing low damage). Moreover, the growth rate should be pretty close with one another and not like it is now (Peasants have too high growth compared to Angels, which makes them a lot more vulnerable to mass spells if we follow my system - to prevent this, the Peasants should have less growth, something like 10 - of course, one might argue that a Peasant would be too strong in this case, but we can always replace Peasants with something else - personally I never liked the peasants as army units, they should not fight in a real battle IMO)
If you're still reading and I didn't bore you to death then it's good, for the more tricky and probably more interesting part follows. Let's take the non-mass spells now.
Basically, these spells will act as a single-target stack spell OR as an area-of-effect spell (and I mean in the classical way here). This is because in my system we should no longer think of stacks, but of real creatures. Based on the radius of the spell, we find out how many creatures we hit. Then, the spell's damage (which should be a lot lower than our standard we have in H5), will be multiplied by the result (how many creatures we hit), and then inflicted upon the target. As for how the radius stuff works, I'll explain now:
The radius is a number specified in each spell. I'm not sure yet if it should improve with Spellpower or something, but I think it would be better if it would be very dynamic, and each spell could increase it with Spellpower or not - depending on the spell, obviously.
The number of creatures you hit with the spell is radius divided by the number of tiles the creature occupies (1 for a small creature, 4 for a large creature), rounded up. Obviously, the radius would have to be a pretty big number.
Now, if you hit more creatures than the total number of them in the stack, the spell's area extends to all adjacent tiles as well, but the spell's effect on these other targets will be lesser, pretty much like the spell's effective radius was lowered by the amount of creatures you hit already in the main stack. The spell will extend again if it will have 'excess' radius (meaning that it can hit more creatures than the target stack has AND the adjacent stacks' creatures added together)
I know it may be confusing so I'll try to give an example for the non-mass spells.
Let's suppose you're casting a spell named Ice Bolt, which currently (based on SP or mastery probably) has a radius of 30. The target of this spell is a stack of 3 Angels. Right adjacent to the Angel stack are 10 Peasants. And there are also some 30 Archers some three tiles to the right of the Angels.
Now, using that formula, the spell is supposed to hit 30 (radius) / 4 (since Angels are big creatures) = 8 (rounded up from 7.5)
However, there are only 3 Angels in the stack, so it will hit only 3. The spell will extend to target the adjacent stacks as well, with an effective radius of 30 - 3*4 = 18
Therefore, the spell will also hit 18 Peasants from the peasant stack. However, there are only 10 peasants, so it will hit only 10. The spell will extend again with an effective radius of 18 - 10 = 8. Since nothing is found immediately, it will extend again, and so on until it reaches the Archer stack some three tiles to the right.
The spell will hit 8 archers from that stack. Since there are 30 archers, the spell hits only 8 and doesn't extend anymore, since all its power has been drained at this point.
Now, if you forgot (I did say this before), hitting X creatures from a stack with a spell simply means that it will deal X*DAMAGE_OF_SPELL damage. So the damage of all spells should be a lot lower than what we have now - or the hit points of all creatures increased - or both.
Sorry if the idea is silly, it's just from my chaotic mind, and I'm not even sure myself that it will fit nicely in the game... I didn't think deeply about it and maybe it has some serious flaws or abuses.
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Maken
Known Hero
Hail Hydra!
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posted December 02, 2008 01:14 AM |
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I must say I haven't got it all yet, so sorry if I say tons of c**p about your system.
I guess this don't work well with some spells, like the Ice Bolt as you used. It seems like extending single target spells to some sort of "chain" rule and making Ice Bolt "jump" from angels to peasants and then to archers looks... not weird, but I don't know the word. Unless the secondary targets are "calculated" as you put the mouse over the primary one, but now I see problems (that may actually be simple to solve) with the secondary target chooser. Well, it would be cool to see this in one game and then give an opinion, but I think that your system might be good to some specific spells and not to all, as I said lines ago.
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rubycus
Known Hero
-student of the mind-
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posted December 02, 2008 11:20 AM |
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Edited by rubycus at 11:28, 02 Dec 2008.
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Hey, I see you have a mind full of fantasy Good! But to be honest it sounds a bit weird, actually.
When you talk about your mass spells do you consider the fact that there are only three mass spells in H5 (armageddon, curse of the netherworld and word of light)? Since there are only mass- and non-mass spells in your idea, do you mean to make a lot of new "affect-whole-battlefield-spells"? Personally I don't like having too many of those.
Quote:
Basically, the mass spells will deal a specific damage to ALL creature stacks, and each stack receives the damage from the spell multiplied by the number of creatures in the stack
This means if you have a stack of 50 peasants and an armageddon which deals 5 damage( ), the stack of peasants will recieve 5*50=250dmg, or am I right? And then if the peasants have 10 hp, the armageddon would kill half of them... It sounds a bit odd, because then the spells will have to do minimal damage, and the low level creatures will have to have much higher hp. Also, if you have a stack of 4 angels the armageddon would only deal 4*5=20dmg! 4 angels is a good stack, much better that 50 peasants, but spells cannot deliver only 20 damage to 4 angels... I'm sorry, but spells that deal damage multiplied by the number of creatures in the stack cannot work IMO. At least you'd have to change it...
Now, your non-mass spells:
Quote:
Basically, these spells will act as a single-target stack spell OR as an area-of-effect spell (and I mean in the classical way here). This is because in my system we should no longer think of stacks, but of real creatures. Based on the radius of the spell, we find out how many creatures we hit. Then, the spell's damage (which should be a lot lower than our standard we have in H5), will be multiplied by the result (how many creatures we hit), and then inflicted upon the target. As for how the radius stuff works, I'll explain now:
The radius is a number specified in each spell. I'm not sure yet if it should improve with Spellpower or something, but I think it would be better if it would be very dynamic, and each spell could increase it with Spellpower or not - depending on the spell, obviously.
The number of creatures you hit with the spell is radius divided by the number of tiles the creature occupies (1 for a small creature, 4 for a large creature), rounded up. Obviously, the radius would have to be a pretty big number.
Well, the bolded text explains your idea of non-mass spells in a good way, I think, but I do have a few comments.
- The number of creatures you hit with a non-mass spell should not be "radius divided by number of tiles the creature occupies", but "the total area of a circle with radius X divided by number of tiles the creature occupies". I have no idea if that was what you were ment to write, but it makes much more sense. Then the radius would not have to be a very big number. The formula of a circle is "radius*radius*3,14" so with a radius of 30 (as in your example) you will actually hit 30*30*3,14=2826 creatures! If you choose a lower number (say 5) the result will be 79.
And btw, how would that work for spells like haste, slow and bless?
I think this new idea of spells affected by a certain radius could work. In fact I really like it Ecpecially for spells like meteor shower and fireball.
And as Maken said, the "chain" thing with Ice bolt seems a bit abnormal. I don't think spells should "jump" to a next target if some of its damage, or "powers" are left over. That sound silly.. I think it should either be a classic area spell, or a single target spell.
However, you have a lot of fantasy Some of these ideas are really nice
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A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.
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Asheera
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Elite Assassin
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posted December 02, 2008 01:53 PM |
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@Maken: Yes, I agree it would look silly. But in my system there should be no more spells like Ice Bolt which look as if they should target only one creature. I mean, if you had multiple peasant models instead of one in a stack, the Ice Bolt would look silly as well. That's why, in my system, I was thinking of making all spells to look like they are area-of-effect spells. And they are, since they hit multiple creatures (creatures =/= stacks; creatures are multiple in one stack as well)
I was also thinking of limiting the 'extend' area based on the radius as well, but I couldn't come up with a specific formula.
@Rubycus: Yes, you have a good point, and I agree: for my system to work, there should be a lot lower gap between the hit points of high tier creatures and low tier creatures. Just imagine a strategy game (real-time, without stacks), and imagine a mass spell cast. If you'd have 200+ 'mini' creatures, you would hit all of them with the spell, and they will all take damage (it's like dealing a damage of 200 x spell damage). However, if you attack only 3 'super-powerful' units, the spell will have A LOT less powerful effect. That's why most games without stacks have the most powerful unit not that much higher in power than the least powerful creatures, and that's how it should be in Heroes as well for my system to work (personally, I have never seen such a huge gap in creature powers as in Heroes  )
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted December 02, 2008 04:50 PM |
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I must admit, I'm not convinced. Eradicating the gap between low and high level creatures, as would be necessary, will have huge influence on the game, and I simply don't see any gain of this version compared to the classical one.
Ok, there could be a gain, if you actually extended all stacks to cover an area, but again, this will completely turn the combat mechanics upside down. If 250 peasants take up 250 times as much space as 1 peasant, then we need biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig battlefields.  This might make the game more realistic, but it would also make it an entirely new game.
The one advantage would probably be that you could scale size with Knowledge, so that Power determines, well, the power of the spell, while knowledge would determine size.
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What will happen now?
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rubycus
Known Hero
-student of the mind-
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posted December 02, 2008 05:16 PM |
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Quote:
Ok, there could be a gain, if you actually extended all stacks to cover an area, but again, this will completely turn the combat mechanics upside down. If 250 peasants take up 250 times as much space as 1 peasant, then we need biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig battlefields. This might make the game more realistic, but it would also make it an entirely new game.
I don't think that's what Asheera meant. I think she meant that in spell damage calculation we count the number of creatures in THE one stack, not many spread over the entire battle field...
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A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.
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Asheera
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Elite Assassin
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posted December 02, 2008 08:47 PM |
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@Alc: I know, the gap changing and such will probably change the entire 'feeling', and also the fact that there should no longer be units in such high numbers (as you can see in other strategy games without stacks)
I think it's a pretty radical idea that will change the classical feeling, and I know that most wouldn't like to see it implemented in the game. I'm not even sure myself if it would benefit the game much, but I wanted to post it and share it here nevertheless. Just my thoughts I had in the last days
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