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| Thread: Magic System Balancing |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 · «PREV |
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted June 09, 2015 07:37 PM |
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And speaking of spells, why did they go by level four system? One would expect of H7 to have five, or even six level spells.
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kiryu133
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Highly illogical
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posted June 09, 2015 07:42 PM |
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EnergyZ said:
And speaking of spells, why did they go by level four system? One would expect of H7 to have five, or even six level spells.
they couldn't even come up with enough spells to fill 4 levels of spells let alone 7 of them.
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It is with a heavy heart that I must announce that the cis are at it again.
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TDL
Honorable
Supreme Hero
The weak suffer. I endure.
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posted June 09, 2015 08:04 PM |
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Wouldn't put it past Ubi to come up with more spells as a buyable DLC 
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted June 09, 2015 08:17 PM |
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EnergyZ said:
And speaking of spells, why did they go by level four system? One would expect of H7 to have five, or even six level spells.
Compressing the spells into 4 levels (instead of 5) could be used to increase the spell variety in each level. But alas, that doesn't seem to be the case in H7...
It also makes specializing into Magic more important.
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Steyn
Supreme Hero
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posted June 10, 2015 12:49 PM |
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I just realised by playing the beta that fog shroud only works on allied creatures. I think this spell should also be usable as a debuff, because it can make a target lose its ranged ability or the possibility to use activated abilities.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted June 10, 2015 07:18 PM |
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Storm-Giant said:
EnergyZ said:
And speaking of spells, why did they go by level four system? One would expect of H7 to have five, or even six level spells.
Compressing the spells into 4 levels (instead of 5) could be used to increase the spell variety in each level. But alas, that doesn't seem to be the case in H7...
It also makes specializing into Magic more important.
Yes, obviously fewer spell levels was needed to accommodate the increased number of spell schools (from 4 to 7).
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What will happen now?
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted June 12, 2015 10:33 AM |
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Edited by Elvin at 10:33, 12 Jun 2015.
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icefield said:
The spells can be tweaked, but there is the problem of the new system - there are so few spells that they can't simultaneously make all magic schools balanced, interesting, and give them a specific flavor. There is a 2-2-2-1 system now if adventure spells are taken out. If all schools and tiers should be useful and balanced, spells are repetitive, and if they are interesting, they are situational, so one needs more. With one additional spell per tier, balancing and flavor would come much more naturally.
Agreed. Building a mage guild should feel like opening a booster pack, not flipping heads or tails. That's what makes mage guilds exciting, not knowing what you will get. The more spells, the more forgiving the system is towards situational spells. I was against situational spells exactly because of the 50-50 chance.
Malax83 said:
I would like as you, ressources been used to upgrade catapult, first aid power, destroy and rebuilt structure on map.
Yeah, we need more of that. Disagree that there is a focus on more abilities though, quite the opposite.
dredknight said:
I think the major problem in this (and previous) magic systems is that the cool benefits from magic schools does not stack with spell power.
Might hero attack and def have good synergy with their perks. So the stronger their attack/def the stronger the perk power.
On the other hand mages get all spell benefits from Mastery levels (and perks sometimes).Most non damage spells do not benefit from spell power at all (except duration which is relevant only at the very begining).
So basically might hero can get most of the magic hero goodies just by picking those masteries.
Until the game mechanic provides spellpower based path to unlock the goodies there will be no sleep for Ubi till the end of support phase.
A major oversight and something that has long been brought up. A might hero can stack up on passive bonuses while magic masteries do not stack with each other. There have been a few steps in helping the magic heroes with the cheaper and less numerous mage guild tiers and by adding passive magic effects but spells should be more spellpower-based too. Otherwise might heroes benefit more from spells. Take dispel, with minimal investment you can strip down high level spells. Or cyclone, there is no benefit in having higher spellpower. Only if you pick the mastery for the added air damage. A spell should ALWAYS be better for a magic hero regardless of specialty. Then there are offenders like lightning reflexes that can make a might hero's champion unit hit twice before enemy retaliation. This is just wrong.
articun said:
To me, and call me traditional of you want, or more influenced by Magic the Gathering, the core of each magic school should be somewhat like this:
Light: Defensive Buffs (Initiative, Health), Mild offensive damage, Healing with empowering buffs
Earth: Terrain Manipulation (Create, destroy obstacle etc), Defense/power Boost, Slowing enemies while poisoning them, cleansing spells
Dark: Causing curses/debuffs, Damage over time spells that trigger extra debuffs, stealing health and manipulating enemy units
Prime: Time/Space controlling spells (haste, slow, time statis etc), Summoning Magic, Linking Magic (transferring buffs/debuffs from one unit to another), mana manipulation
Air: Hindering flyers and shooters, causing mass damage (chain lightning, Cyclone etc), random effects on the battle map
Water: Over time buffs or building effects, slow growth but powerful in the end, slowing enemies down
Fire: Offensive spells, Great boost to creature attributes with some drawback
More or less. Obviously there will be overlapping effects but the spells should be designed with that in mind. I'm fine with schools having similar spells with their own spin like dispel, cleansing and purge or icebolt and lightning bolt. But why make poison spray the same as decay? Effects should be more diverse than that.
An apology to galaad, next time
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jhb
Famous Hero
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posted June 21, 2015 02:33 AM |
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Edited by jhb at 03:38, 21 Jun 2015.
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good thread! 
I'm ok with 7 schools (although I would probably go the safest way, 4-5 schools). The problem is 7 demands more work.
Agree that poison cloud feels very underwhelming in its description, I was expecting some big buff like TDL said - dragon strength.
When you have things like armageddon, tsunami, chain lightning and then... poison cloud ¬¬, really...
we could explain that when sylanna farts it's like a giant anthrax bomb or something, but still... earthquake, meteor shower, cataclysm would fit better, imo.
was also expecting a bit more of spells, conjure/summon phoenix could be a good top tier for prime, if that school is going to take a focus on summoning.
Adding cool situational spells is a good thing, imo. I remember using arcane crystal for a while in h5.
As for the heal/regeneration debate, i think it's ok if it resurrect units, IF we balance the numbers right. In the case of h6, the loss management was a big part of the gameplay: easy access to heal, regeneration, vampirism and even reinforcements to some extent, factions with baseline a healer unit, even necromancy was basically more healing.. when we sum all this up it's quite a lot. From what I saw, I guess they'll to tone down loss management in H7, a good alternative for heal/regen could be making it a relative heal spell like 'regeneration' from h5, Elvin's idea of bless and %hp seems interesting, but I would prefer to see bless and dragon strength as spells. We still need to see how war machines will work in that role.
I also agree 100% that spells like 'dispel' could use some sort of scaling with mastery and/or SP, or at least an threshold.
Spell combos and synergy is a really cool feature, I'm curious to see how metamagic will play out. I would suggest to the devs to take a look in the 'Divinity: Original Sin', that game made a nice work with spell combos, use of ground effects (surfaces, clouds, weather), a ton of status effects, etc. Maybe this could inspire some future spell mechanics for expansions.
In the end, I think a big part of the problem can be 'fixable' with some fine tuning and the swaps people already suggested, and maybe giving more love to earth. The other part, sadly, only with expansions I guess. 7 schools is more work for the base game. I hope 3-3-2 comes with an exp, or maybe if they delay the release... 
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ChrisD1
Supreme Hero
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posted June 23, 2015 05:38 PM |
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Btw isnt't a cooldown time needed here? I m actually asking,dunno if it will do good or not.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted June 23, 2015 05:58 PM |
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Nooooooo ... not the dreaded cooldown time!
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What will happen now?
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ChrisD1
Supreme Hero
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posted June 23, 2015 06:53 PM |
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alcibiades said:
Nooooooo ... not the dreaded cooldown time!
I wondered why there were no complaints about that but why dreaded? Isnt it a little op spamming implosions or resurections?
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ChrisD1
Supreme Hero
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posted June 23, 2015 06:53 PM |
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alcibiades said:
Nooooooo ... not the dreaded cooldown time!
I wondered why there were no complaints about that but why dreaded? Isnt it a little op spamming implosions or resurections?
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TDL
Honorable
Supreme Hero
The weak suffer. I endure.
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posted June 23, 2015 06:55 PM |
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Cooldown time for spells is a big no. For activated abilities IMHO it is a must, lest the system will be abused.
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ChrisD1
Supreme Hero
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posted June 23, 2015 07:01 PM |
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Edited by ChrisD1 at 19:03, 23 Jun 2015.
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I really don't mind about cooldown but I can't understand why it's a bad thing. Anyone care to explain if it hasn't already been mentioned here? Cooldown forced me to be creative and careful with my spells and I kinda enjoyed that.
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Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
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posted June 23, 2015 09:19 PM |
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ChrisD1 said:
I really don't mind about cooldown but I can't understand why it's a bad thing. Anyone care to explain if it hasn't already been mentioned here? Cooldown forced me to be creative and careful with my spells and I kinda enjoyed that.
Actually, it tends to lock you into a certain pattern. Once you've cast the first few spells, the rest is set in stone because they come off cooldown in pretty much the same order.
Implosion and Resurrection spam should have been prevented by mana balancing - and I mean mana balancing both on the total pool size as well as its regeneration rate.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted June 23, 2015 09:20 PM |
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ChrisD1 said:
alcibiades said:
Nooooooo ... not the dreaded cooldown time!
I wondered why there were no complaints about that but why dreaded? Isnt it a little op spamming implosions or resurections?
Not if those spells are balanced. Cooldown is not the solution, because generally they can - and will - be worked around by prolonging the battles, which means endless and tedious rounds of just clicking "defend" until you can use the ability or spell again. Adding cooldown is generally just symptom treatment instead of addressing the actual underlying problem.
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What will happen now?
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ChrisD1
Supreme Hero
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posted June 23, 2015 11:37 PM |
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Thanks guys you covered me
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Malax83
Famous Hero
Game ranger, HotA Player
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posted June 25, 2015 12:40 AM |
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Edited by Malax83 at 01:21, 25 Jun 2015.
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Even my ratings are kind bad, my overall feeling is a overpowered Prime magic and a bad distribution of the damage spells. In terms of dealing damage, the scale of damage isn t enought interessant to balance the minority of spells (for two schools : Fire and Air)
My ratings :
Fire : 1/5
Only damage spells, not enought diversity. In my opinion, this school is annoying. A serious caution should be use on Frenzy (broken in Heroes 3)
I would replace a damage spell with something more usefull.
Prime : 5/5
Overpowered, Buff, Tricky spells, Adventure spells and one damage spell. (+ dispell)
Summon creature spell looks a bit wired, maybe a good idea.
I would remove the damage spell to decrease his swiss-knife effect.
Earth : 3/5
Some buff spells, dealing damage every turns, enougth various spells.
Dark : 4/5
As earth magic school, an interessant school, 2 spells are tricky, one damage spell and negative spells, (+purge)
the negociation spell is kinda imbalanced (as diplomacy skill is also).
I would remove the negociation spell.
Air : 2/5
same problem as Fire magic school. lack of diversity, but a little bit interessant.
Replace a damage spell with something usefull.
Water : 3/5
Balance school.
Light : 3/5
little better than Air school (+cleanse !)
Fire < Air < Light < Water < Earth < Dark < Prime
@ TDL, i agree with some points :
Quote:
Ligth : Swap celestial armor and retribution look ok.
Water : Ok.
Fire : Swap Prime reinforcement to Fire school (add diversity)
Remove Frenzy
Burning determination : Expert Rank
Prime : Instant recall is now a part of the mind game (since H6)
Remove Implosion (this school is too much swiss-knife)
Summon elemental : Master rank
Time Stasis : Expert rank
Teleport : Expert rank
Time control : Novice
Dark : Not agree with Swap Agony and Face of fear, i like the fact agony is coming after due to the kind of magic.
Air : The school is all about damage, i don t see cyclone doing damage. Wait and see for this school.
Earth : Swap Entangle and stone skin. Then it s ok in my opinion
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted July 09, 2015 12:42 AM |
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A minor update since playing the beta. Never did get summon elementals so more information on it would be welcome.
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Map also hosted on Moddb
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