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| Thread: Regarding the Magic System |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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foxxxer
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted September 11, 2014 03:56 PM |
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Storm-Giant said:
If you only have 2 level 4 spells, with just 2 towns you could easily have both spells, whereas with 3 it's more probable to repeat the same spell in future towns, and having a complete spell book a harder task
That's why yesterday I proposed faction element + Prime for the main MG. On one side the faction is affiliated to elemental dragon, on the other affiliated to Asha (Prime). Maybe only the orcs will go with Air and Earth (Father Sky and Mother Earth) for main MG. Then chance to get the L5 spell you want is 25%. The chance for the annexes is the same because it will be only one L5 spell between the two annexes (random). This approach is not perfect and should be tweaked but I'm more concerned how the spells will be graded if we have 4-level-MG and some other issues about the skills.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 11, 2014 04:21 PM |
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Storm-Giant said:
JollyJoker said:
Well, no, actually you just need to revise your strategy. Naturally, a Magic hero should be interested in developing Magic - after all, they are forgoing a lot of passive creature power to boost their magic stats.
Which also means, as a magic hero you have an interest in building your mage guild up, because, well, knowledge is power, and if you know the spells of your guild you can pick your way to skills and abilities you need to become a formidable caster.
True, you need the guild to give more spells, but I already said that: with four tiers of spells and 3-3-2-2 spells per school, I would start trying things with a guild giving 6-6-4-4 spells. First of all it looks good , but it also offers decent material to work with.
You obviously have an interest now as a Magic hero to build the guild. You may pick your first school based on the spells of the first two Tiers, and while your chances to get a fitting T4 are at 86%, when you pick a second school, you don't have to take the risk, if you build fast: you may see what the guild offers, and THEN pick school 2 and 3.
I guess you'd work with a healthy number of secondary skill slots for each hero, right? Something like 7-9. Oherwise investing into a secondary and maybe third MS would be suicidal
I don't think it makes sense to allow the spells of 6 different schools in a magically maybe average town like Haven, when a Hero was restricted to 6 skills. That wouldn't make a lot of sense. I mean, if we take HoMM 5, simply change the schools so that we now have 7, give everyone two favored ones - what good were the additional spell slots? In that case, since with 7 Schools you had 21 different combinations possible, you could simply give each town a guild of 1 spell of your 2 favored schools each - but then it was back to, the Bless or the Haste, yet again, so you could allow picking spells right away, and then we are not that far away from HoMM 6.
I think, the charme of the Mage Guild is - the unexpected. You are surprised, actually. This is what a mage guild is all about. In HoMM 2 it's simple and innocent, one skill to learn spells, and wait whether you get Blind, Paralyze, a Mass spell and so on.
In HoMM 3 you had one skill to learn them all - like in the game before that, and other skills that would do something with the spells you got. On one hand it was great, for the low-levelspells got a lot of love, but on the other it was also awful, because some got too much, so much so, that they were decisive.
HoMM 4 changed this to an insane amount of spells per school and level and gave every town their own combo of 3 out of 5 schools, one primary and 2 secondaries with less spells, a very nice system as such, that also had its drawbacks (SoP, Waspswarm, Confusion, anyone? To have or not to have ...).
HoMM 5 would have been awful, if not for the skill system with the perks. Basically HoMM 3, but more controlled - streamlined, however, for only 1 hero class per faction.
HoMM 6, yeah - fun, where are you? Spells, abilities all the same, who cares?
Imo, NOT to know what you will get, has a lot going for it, because it makes for a nice division between Might and Magic. As I said already, Magic has no option but to concentrate on what is supposed to give it dominance: the guild must be built, the sooner the better, so you can't just bang out creature dwellings, pick a skill when it comes along, and wait for a lull to acquire a couple of spells. Whereas Might had no reason to go for it other or earlier than as a prerequisite for some important dwelling - not much mana anyway and certainly better stuff to pick; and also no reason to grab a Magic skill in preparation of the spells that are to be expected.
The only problem is getting it done in a satisfactory way.
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Fofa
Famous Hero
Famous? Me?!
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posted September 13, 2014 10:55 PM |
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Edited by Fofa at 23:04, 13 Sep 2014.
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Elvin said:
As for me, I would normally prefer to have magic school skills with a diverse skill tree but.. 7 is too many. I most enjoyed the H3 way where you could go for more than one schools and there were plenty of spells that even with random guilds you were fine. H5 did not support going for two schools unless you were a wizard and that simply sucked. Far less combinations. But with 7 magic skills and random guilds you will NEED some kind of failsafe if you want to invest in more than one magic skill. It is too risky to hope for the right spells when there are so many magic schools. And I feel that the best way would be a skill that allows you to learn from every element(naturally your faction would have affinity with certain magic or be unable to learn others) so that you do not have to concern yourself with what to pick early and pray that it was not a wrong choice.
So, 1-2 universal magic skills for me.
As much as I loved H3's idea of having the spells tied with the elements, Earth Magic was the go-to school simply because of Town Portal, while having options like Mass Slow or Implosion at Expert pretty much made Earth more preferable than the other schools.
Otherwise, I'd be fine with some kind of combination of the two: be able to pick the elements you want, but also some way to sift out the spells you want.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted September 14, 2014 01:05 AM |
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Elvin said:
As for me, I would normally prefer to have magic school skills with a diverse skill tree but.. 7 is too many. I most enjoyed the H3 way where you could go for more than one schools and there were plenty of spells that even with random guilds you were fine. H5 did not support going for two schools unless you were a wizard and that simply sucked. Far less combinations.
I don't understand this argument AT ALL. H5 was the game which EXACTLY supported going for more than one school because each school did something radically different than the others. You pick Light Magic? Cool, you get a lot of buffs and blessings, but if you want to do direct damage, you need to pick Destructive also.
H3 was the exact opposite: Each school had a little of everything. Every school had some damaging spells. Every school had some buffs, and every school had some debuffs. Which means that, if we ignore the adventure spells for a moment, technically every school was equally good in H3. Now at first glance this might seem alluring and like good balance, but there were several pitfalls of epic dimensions. First of all, when all schools are equally good, you end up in the bizarre situation that it doesn't really matter which school you take, because each school does the same, and furthermore you don't really need more than one school, because your first school allowed you to do everything already. Only limitation was availability of spells.
Secondly, and this was were things went really wrong, there were the adventure spells. Earth had Town Portal, Air had Fly AND Dimension Door(!?), Water had Waterwalk, Fire had ... nothing? We all know how much of a game-changer Town Portal was, so that made Earth a default pick, even if spells like Resurrection and Slow had not been in this school already. Dimension Door and Fly were sweet enough that you might go for Air also, particularly with Mass Haste also being here. Thirdly we had Water which in itself was not a terrible school, stuff like Mass Cure, Mass Dispell, Mass Forgetfulness and Mass Prayer were all nice and would definitely help you, even if you could often survive without. And then Fire Magic, which was just a plain disaster. Not only did it not have any adventure spell, it also in a bizarre twist of faith had spells like Blind and Bezerk which worked just fine without mastery, which further suported the fact that taking Fire Magic was just plain waste of a skill.
So frankly, I find it very hard to find anything positive to say about the H3 division of spells.
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What will happen now?
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted September 14, 2014 03:24 PM |
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alcibiades said:
Elvin said:
As for me, I would normally prefer to have magic school skills with a diverse skill tree but.. 7 is too many. I most enjoyed the H3 way where you could go for more than one schools and there were plenty of spells that even with random guilds you were fine. H5 did not support going for two schools unless you were a wizard and that simply sucked. Far less combinations.
I don't understand this argument AT ALL. H5 was the game which EXACTLY supported going for more than one school because each school did something radically different than the others. You pick Light Magic? Cool, you get a lot of buffs and blessings, but if you want to do direct damage, you need to pick Destructive also.
H3 was the exact opposite: Each school had a little of everything. Every school had some damaging spells. Every school had some buffs, and every school had some debuffs. Which means that, if we ignore the adventure spells for a moment, technically every school was equally good in H3. Now at first glance this might seem alluring and like good balance, but there were several pitfalls of epic dimensions. First of all, when all schools are equally good, you end up in the bizarre situation that it doesn't really matter which school you take, because each school does the same, and furthermore you don't really need more than one school, because your first school allowed you to do everything already. Only limitation was availability of spells.
Experience says that it was a mistake to take more than one schools in H5, unless you were playing a wizard or a necromancer. Potential exception, a dark/summoning sylvan vs orcs but that was a rather.. exotic choice  And the high druids supported the strategy. Playing around with multiple magic schools was guaranteed to lose you games in multiplayer.
H3 on the other hand could pull it off. If for no other reason that you would pick magic for specific spells. Resurrection, town portal, implosion, dimension door, mass haste etc.. Suppose you got fire magic because you had frenzy in your guild and faced stronghold. (Yes, it was totally worth it mass frenzying behemoths, thunderbirds and what else in one go ) But if you were later offered air or earth you'd pick it instantly, no questions asked. It WOULD pay off.
Of course another difference between the games was that passive skills really stacked in H5. When you could stack so many passive bonuses, it felt(and actually was) a waste to spend more skills than you absolutely necessary in magic skills. Unless you were heavily specializing on spellcasting, with a magic-heavy class.
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted September 14, 2014 03:43 PM |
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Elvin said:
Of course another difference between the games was that passive skills really stacked in H5. When you could stack so many passive bonuses, it felt(and actually was) a waste to spend more skills than you absolutely necessary in magic skills. Unless you were heavily specializing on spellcasting, with a magic-heavy class.
Something that JJ has been advocating for a long time. Picking too many active abilities (ie, SPELLS) means you lose too much ground on the passive front, and therefore you have a weaker hero.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted September 15, 2014 12:29 PM |
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Edited by MattII at 10:11, 23 Nov 2014.
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Had a go at it myself and came up with another system slightly similar to H5, but not too close. There are 6 schools, which are as follows:
* Elemental (almost all damage spells, plus warding, plus elementals)
* Assistive (most buffs)
* Resistive (most debuffs)
* Creational (summoning mostly)
* Arcane (all remaining combat spells)
* Adventure (all adventure spells)
The first 5 schools are used in battle, with the last, of course, being left solely for use on the adventure map. Of the battle schools, the first 4 are much more common than the fifth, which requires either 2 schools, or 1 school and Sourcery before it can be learned. I also has no level 1 and 2 spells.
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Stormcaller
Famous Hero
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posted September 15, 2014 12:35 PM |
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Academy doesn't give a snow, they wield all magic, lol.
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What makes a King? Some say it is a birthright, while others call it a destiny.
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 20, 2014 08:22 PM |
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I support bringing back the H5 system, that's the best way it's been done so far. Having separate skills for 7 magic schools is too fragmented, but only having 2 magic skills is boring. Why do we need 7 magic schools, anyway?
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Eccentric Opinion
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 20, 2014 08:29 PM |
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Because we have 7 elements: Air, Earth, Water, Fire, Light, Dark and Prime. And I very much agree with elemental schools like in Heroes 3.
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 20, 2014 08:37 PM |
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We could have those in lore while having gameplay represent it differently, with Destructive, Light, Dark, and Summoning.
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Eccentric Opinion
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 20, 2014 08:50 PM |
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Or we could follow the lore and have 7 elemental schools comprised of destructive/summon/buff/etc. spells. To differentiate magic schools into Light and Destructive is like differentiating between humans and babies. What is Word of Light if not destructive light?
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 20, 2014 09:47 PM |
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There is a good case for making gameplay match the lore, but when it conflicts with a good gameplay experience, there's a problem. Having 7 schools of specialization is just too many, and we risk ending up with a boring magic system like in HoMM IV. But having just two skills isn't enough, so that's not a good solution either.
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Eccentric Opinion
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 20, 2014 10:08 PM |
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7 Schools is a decent pool to choose from. I don't think it's too many, for variety's sake there's never too many. It's sufficient enough to ensure that there are many ways to create specialized heroes. I think it worked fine in MMX and I don't see any reason not to work in Heroes, but on the contrary. There are much more mechanics to affect so I expect more relevant spells.
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 20, 2014 10:33 PM |
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There are three problems with having 7 schools. First, if you capture a town belonging to a different faction, you're less likely to be able to make good use of their mage guild. If you specialize in Dark and Prime and the other town specializes in Light and Earth, it'd give you a few low-level spells at best. If there are only a few magic schools, that's less of a problem. Second, there's a high degree of fragmentation which makes it more difficult to be a magic hero in general. In some HoMM games, you could pick up a few magic skills and be a decent magic hero, but with 7 schools of magic, specializing like that would be almost impossible. Third, it places a burden on developers to make 7 schools unique (which is more difficult than with 4), and we run the risk of them making the schools identical as they were in HoMM IV, which is the worst of the possible outcomes.
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Eccentric Opinion
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TDL
Honorable
Supreme Hero
The weak suffer. I endure.
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posted November 20, 2014 10:54 PM |
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Apart from duplicate spells, H4 had pretty unique spell schools, mind you.
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 20, 2014 10:59 PM |
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Your first and second points are no problems at all, they're balancing factors. Who says you have to get everything handed to you on a silver platter? A good player with some game knowledge would know what magic schools to expect when conquering a town. Specializing in your faction's primary and two secondary schools (iirc) is entirely possible, so you have a decent base start to at least 3 magic schools. The third problem is indeed a problem, but not something you can't overcome. Good game designers should not have any issues in that regards.
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kiryu133
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Highly illogical
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posted November 20, 2014 11:06 PM |
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i don't know about you, but i feel h3 perfected schools in that all schools had all types of spells (buffs, debuffs, dmg) but they all made thematic sense. earth slowed enemies and increased allies survivability with air increasing allies speed and attacks and disorienting enemies. it might not have been completely balanced, but it made thematic sense and you had access to all types of spells. I don't care what the schools are as long as they don't go the path of h5 with all schools only having one type of spell. that was boring.
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted November 20, 2014 11:10 PM |
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TDL said:
Apart from duplicate spells, H4 had pretty unique spell schools, mind you.
Hear, hear!
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 21, 2014 06:47 AM |
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TDL said:
Apart from duplicate spells, H4 had pretty unique spell schools, mind you.
The spells in the schools were unique enough, but the skills for specializing in the school were repetitive. You had a skill to learn spells, a skill to cast them better, a skill to get mana, and something unique (and not always entirely unique, as Charm was very similar to Diplomacy).Stevie said:
Your first and second points are no problems at all, they're balancing factors. Who says you have to get everything handed to you on a silver platter? A good player with some game knowledge would know what magic schools to expect when conquering a town. Specializing in your faction's primary and two secondary schools (iirc) is entirely possible, so you have a decent base start to at least 3 magic schools. The third problem is indeed a problem, but not something you can't overcome. Good game designers should not have any issues in that regards.
No one says you have to have everything handed to you on a silver platter, but if you have 3 or more different factions in a game, specializing in magic is going to be difficult. As for the other problem, I don't trust Ubi to be able to handle development well. If we want a good game, we should advocate for decent features that aren't too difficult for them to implement.
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Eccentric Opinion
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