Great Balls of Fire!!

[Mithrus]

Ok, cheesy title at best, but I figure its time to start another thread on fireball/meteor swarm and how they are currently WAY imbalanced/inappropriate.

The grossest offender is meteor swarm. Currently, this one spell is by far better overall than the other T3 spells. The only one that comes close is Air 3, and that cant be used to bust city defenses, and can't really kill people. Changing the number from 3 to 1 would still make it a very potent spell, as the collateral damage has a huge impact. Changing the effect to summoning 3 fireballs instead of 3 meteors would also be an improvement.

IMO, change meteor swarm to use a similar effect as Air 3 (except no bonus for metals of course, just a slightly higher base %), and have it also do a random amount of damage to any cities in range. Probably make it into a larger radius ring of flames, but include some miss chance since its not covering all those tiles thoroughly.

Also, Have the tower of elements also add say 5% bonus damage for sorcery spells instead of only benefiting summons. It's a pet peeve I suppose, but I feel it's wrong to have summoned units created from a sorcery spell.

As for fireball, its not as bad as meteor swarm, but it still shouldn't summon a unit as a sorcery spell. It's especially broken when given to Firebows...why should the Amurites build mages when its far easier to race for Firebows and use them for offense as well as defense. I think they should probably be given some other ability, such as the flaming arrows promo like they used to have. I forget if they cost more than standard longbowman, but if so, I would reduce the cost accordingly. But alas, I am tired, and digress.

 

[miracle]

You can even made Firebows the same as simple longbows, but lose Amurite-specific in such a way.
The more unique and diffrent units - more interest. And different strategies.

As for fireballs - they are pretty weak in the late game.

 

[rusty217]

Why don't you like fireballs and meteors?

I don't think they are any more overpowered than any other spell...

But even if they do need some balancing don't change them into a different spell, fireballs and meteors aren't really summoned units, it's realistic to have them as they are now becuase with the targeted spells it would probably make all 3 hit the same place but a mage could of course throw them different directions.

And your suggestion for making fire 3 sorcery have a larger radius ring of flames would be bad, it would mean a unit with channeling 2 and divine can do better than an archmage?

Simply becuase the archmage would have a chance to miss and becuase magics greatest asset is in offense, what are the chances of two cities being in the radius of a ring of fire, even with increased radius? And the increased radius would also make it more likely to trigger war with a civ you hit by accident.

And then theres the Ljosalfar, they have no seige equipment so they need some way to cuase collateral damage, if it were tied to religion it would force them to take the same religion every game or fail at offense, so it has to be sorcery or summon based. Fireballs/Meteors can be used to bombard defenses and cuase collatera damage so the Ljosalfar need them to be as good at offense as other civs, the Ljosalfar using fireballs/meteors if even thematically correct if you read their leaders pedia entrys.

 

[Arqane]

Once the bugs are worked out of the system, fireballs/meteors are very easy to defend against, especially if you know they're coming. The L2 fire summon should render a stack immune to fireballs/meteors direct damage, though it's not working right now. The collateral will still go through, but it makes 18 meteors in a turn alot less deadly (as we mentioned in another thread).

I do like the idea of one obviously powerful spell if it has an obvious defense that works .

 

[Calavente]

well
current tactic is 4 meteor toward the city defense and 2 rounds of meteors : 8 + 8 + 4 (hemah + 1 archmage) then all units are with 0 defense, and reduced to 1-3 str, no unit has more strenght... in late game.. then launch the macemens or the mages can attack to gain easy xp;

for me it is a bit overpowered

as a single minded tactic

 

[Arqane]

True, even with the good defense I mentioned, it's probably still a bit much. Numbers are more of a problem than the power. If you summoned one Meteor, even if it was strength 15, it would generally be weaker than 3 Meteors.

As was pointed out in the other post, there really is no chance for even a super-powered group to defend against the numbers of meteor swarms you can send, if they don't have a heavy defense planned.

I would certainly like to see other spheres used some. Right now Air and Water are almost completely pointless. No general bonus for the mana, and most of the spells just aren't that impressive, especially compared to the Fire line.

 

[Grey Fox]

One of the problems is that the fireballs and meteors got collateral damage, and that damage isn't elemental, so you can only protect yourself from it with Drill III and IV.

But even if they made the collateral a fire type damage it would still be quite strong. But then again, Crush is pretty strong too, but meteors got longer range, can kill and can bombard.

I would certainly like to see other spheres used some. Right now Air and Water are almost completely pointless. No general bonus for the mana, and most of the spells just aren't that impressive, especially compared to the Fire line.

Air is definitely not pointless. The Air II sorcery spell is awesome for crowd control. If you got a couple of mages with Air II the enemy can't get near your cities. It got 100% success rate, and can push several stacks of units away.
And the Air III sorcery spell can do a lot of damage, and it targets several plots over a large area.
I haven't used water much, but Tsunami can sink cities I believe.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Currently, this one spell is by far better overall than the other T3 spells.

It's not better, it's different. Fire is for offense only, but there are other VERY good spells in T3.
Having a pop 40 city with no drones IS powerful, what about 4 of them.
Air will deal less damage, but to potentially more units than meteors. 3 archmages casting air3 spell can really be devastating.
Resurecting your dead hero can be priceless if you can afford to loose a node, but this spell is far more specific and won't be used often.
Nature 3 (vitalize) is one of the most useful spell (at least to a human player), allowing you to settle in any area of the map and have a very nice terrain.

I don't pretend meteors are not VERY powerful, but less aggressive spells can't be overlooked. There are very strong builder spells too. Now, if you like to be aggressive you will find fire and air suit your play style better than any other spell. It does not mean they ARE actually far more powerful.

Anyway, i must agree that a group of archmages with fire3 can wipe our ANY city defense the CPU (or even a player) can build. Maybe reducing the collateral damage (it was done already) and/or give some better magic (or fire resistance if you don't want to hinder other offensive spells) resistance to defenders (circle of warding is a good candidate for this) could help.

 

[Thennorin]

Collateral damage is the issue. It'll chew through stacks like there's no tomorrow. I like fireballs. They're nasty but they're not so strong that there won't be time to counter-attack, even once they're hitting your cities. It takes a while for them to bombard and start attacking, a bit like catapults.

I like meteors, too, but I think the spell should summon 2 meteors instead of 3. It would remain one of the best spells for targeted attacks and I bet people would still enjoy meteor swarm as much as they always have.

 

[xienwolf]

I'd think some decent propositions would be to cut the strength on the meteor itself down to 4, and make it a maximum of 2 units worth of collateral damage each. Ideally, this should still let you do some decent work on their defenses (can remove city defense and then be about 1/2-1/3 of the defender strength).

Or, give some detrimental effect to Fire nodes. Like if they cause desert terrain to form from the node outward.

 

[3141592]

Why not just give fireballs a max collateral damage of whatever the max damage for pillar of flames is?

 

[it-ogo]

Problem with destructive magic is not that it is too strong in one usge but that it works each turn. Now magic mechanics assumes that all personal mana is fully regained each turn. Let us assume that it is not. Let us assume that caster's XP is an equivalent of mana and each time spell is casted the caster loose some XP. XP can be used up to 0 (previous promos and levels are not lost) and then spells become unavailable. Adjustable parameter is a "price" of spell in XP. With this heroes-casters are becoming much stronger then usual mages but there are some ways to regulate.

Result will be that you should plan strategically not only the promo path of your casters but even each use of spell.

With this we will have a standard RPG mage-fighter balance design: mage is very powerful but once mana is used up, he must run away and have a rest or die. And magic will not be an absolute weapon any more.

 

[xienwolf]

Could work, but would lead to people not wanting to cast anything until they get their levels/promotions capped. Unless the units were all made to gain exp faster, but then hero casters lose their edge.

But I do agree, the main balance factor of magic is unlimited use at no cost. Maybe it could be driven off of Hitpoints? Level 3 spells requiring 50 or more, making them at best an every 2 turns spell, unless you bring lots of medics? It could become a caster effect of the Drill Line to reduce the Hp used per spell, thus making almost all promotions needed by magic users to become perfect.

 

[Grey Fox]

One thing I've always thought spells should do, is require a movement point when cast. So you can't cast if you can't move and if you cast you can't move away (unless you got more moves).

 

[xienwolf]

Used to work that way, they changed it because the AI would never cast, it always prefered to move.

 

[sylvain5477]

The idea about fire nodes having some effect on landscape seems good and unsymetrical (as seemingly prefered by the team).
Some other nodes could also have impacts
death ==> slow decay of units in range
life ==> slow heal of unit in range
nature ==> slow grow of forest/ancient in range
sun ==> reveal hidden/HN in range
chaos ==> chance of mutate in range
...

 

[3141592]

A lot of nodes already have impacts, life nodes heal and chaos nodes mutate, for example.

 

[Ecofarm]

Or, give some detrimental effect to Fire nodes. Like if they cause desert terrain to form from the node outward.

The idea about fire nodes having some effect on landscape seems good and unsymetrical (as seemingly prefered by the team).
Some other nodes could also have impacts
death ==> slow decay of units in range
life ==> slow heal of unit in range
nature ==> slow grow of forest/ancient in range
sun ==> reveal hidden/HN in range
chaos ==> chance of mutate in range
...

Does anyone else think this is a GREAT idea? I'm quite sure the team will run with this, and I cannot wait until they do.

A lot of nodes already have impacts, life nodes heal and chaos nodes mutate, for example.

It would be nice if these were more noticeable. I had no idea.

 

[Grey Fox]

I'm not sure if Life nodes heal, but they do give +1 Health.

Entropy mana already slow healing of enemies in your territory, while Body mana increase your healing. Chaos mana already got a chance to mutate every produced unit.

But I don't think the nodes have any effect at their location. If they do thats new to me.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Life nodes increase your units heal rate in your terrotory. Entropy decreases enemy units heal rate in your territory (but can't cause negitive healing, unfourtunately), etc. I'd say about half the mana types already have pretty good passive effects.

Some more ideas:
I think that fire mana should have a small chance to start fires in your territory (especialy I forests/jungles).

I would like it is sun mana could reveal hidden/invisible/HN units and randomly make ice/tundra turn to good lands like plains, but turn plains and grasslands into deserts. I would also like it to have some importance to (passive/counter)espionage effects, if a more complete espionage system were implemented. ( which it should be)

I'd like it if choas mana also made random events (both good and bad) more likely.

I'd like spirit mana to also boost a units morale (assuming the mechanicn is implemented, which it should be)

Death Mana should sometimes cause disease.

Ice mana (when implemented) should make lands become ice/tundra

Nature should increase the spread rate of both forests, ancient forests, and jungles, plus possibly increase the disover rate of new food resources.

Air and water mana could increase the boni of wind and water mills (respectively, possibly through events rather than a flat bonus, whcih could become too powerful), but also trigger destructive storm random events

Shadow should cause some map/line of sight decay, and have some espionage effects if added.

Entropy could also encourage the spread of hell terrain.

Body could occasionally give a unit the enraged promotion (which really should have a chance to wear off), in addition to the healing rate boost it already has.