Making a new Magic System Part I: Summons

[tesb]

steal whatever you like

the skins go rather fast since it is mostly recoloring and copying from other textures, for example the texture of torso armor from the holy avenger is stolen from the torso armor of the mercurian chariot riders:

ophanium texture:

Spoiler :

dragon slayer texture:

Spoiler :

(i just choose the the parts i wanted and copy pasted parts of the one texture over the other and then had to make them fit, this needs the most time, since you have to change size, tweak some pixels, rotate a bit etc.)


final texture:

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also the alpha texture needed some tweaking but this is really easy

 

[esvath]

@tesb : that's what I did too in making my fantasy units. But it took me one to several hours to complete reskinning a unit. That's why I bow down to you

Thanks! I'll see what kind of reskins I can produce from these reskins

 

[esvath]

Ok, here is a reskin from tesb's Holy Avenger. I reskinned him into...Mardero

Download here

Sphener vs Mardero

Spoiler :

Ah, a little problem here. I essentially use tesb's flaming sword effect. I changed the texture into a blue one, and changed the color in nifscope into blue. In the nifscope's preview, the flame already look bluish. But why it is still red in-game? Any advice? Thanks.

 

[tesb]

@esvath
i can't help you at the moment, since i am not at home, but you might look out for a ninode in nifskope that controlls the colorvalues

 

[tesb]

@sephi

Combataura for Vyrkul

i would either give him a combat aura that increases the damage done by spells for allies, or a combat aura that places a debuffs on enemies making them more vulnerable to spells (i.e. they do more damage). (since a vyrkul is a former mage)

 

[tesb]

make Spellpower I-III Promotions for Spellcasters. Each should increase Spellpower by 20 and they should have levelprereqs of 2,4,6 and only available to adept unitcombat.

done


@sephi
here are the spellpower I to III promotions buttons to keep them up with the aura promotions i choose the same style:

aura promotions:

Spoiler :

spellpower promotions:

 

[Sephi]

looks great

 

[Sephi]

@sephi

i would either give him a combat aura that increases the damage done by spells for allies, or a combat aura that places a debuffs on enemies making them more vulnerable to spells (i.e. they do more damage). (since a vyrkul is a former mage)

done. He increases Spellpower and Magic Resistance of allies.

 

[bobrossw]

Hi, didn't read every post so sorry if this is redundant.

One potential consequence of making summons permanent is that it nerfs assassins. In the existing system, you need a stack of mages to be able to summon a stack of units to then go into battle. Assassins can take out the mages which makes them really useful, because you take out two units with the one.

What's cool about the ritual idea is that you don't need a stack of mages anymore, just the mana to cast the summons you want and time (I really like this option). However, if you do this, there should be an opportunity for assassins to really screw you over...for this I'm thinking making mages be required to maintain summons. Maybe having a mage within a certain area will prevent summons from becoming enraged / exploding / becoming barbarians / getting unsommoned depending on flavor and school of magic. This would force players that rely on summons to either field a lot of mages or take extra steps to make sure that their one or two mages were well protected. It would also ensure that mages still have a place on the battlefield and not just hiding in well defended towns (though some mages may be better off that way).

It would also add some interesting strategic depth. The lone assassin can stop the advancing undead / orc horde by taking out the mage at the center of it, doing so causes the undead to become barbarians and take out the orcs. The downside is now you've got a bunch of barbarian undead roaming inside your own borders, and they'll probably set up camp somewhere and make a haunted town. Or you take out a mage and thus destroy all the fire elementals, causing them to explode and take out the enemy army, unfortunately all your own towns and nearby armies are destroyed too.

 

[tesb]

there are problems with your proposed mechanic mainly that the ai might not know how to properly use the mages and assassins then.


assassins are still strong since mages are also very strong, keep in mind that sephi wanted to increase the unit upkeep costs for higher tier and level units so you don't see the ridiculous stack spam in the late game. since mages are now quite a lot more dangerous, assassins still have a role to play (i think they are even more important, since mages have a bigger impact as long as the enemy has enough mana and the spells researched).

Summons too will be quite rare since they too cost quite a bit on mana (and mana upkeep) and you might want to use your mana for your mages, terraforming or global enchantments instead.
Summons are also more of a support character to your army since every summons has a unique combat aura either weakening your enemies or strengthening you troops. i would not neccerarily count on legions of summoned units as a good strategy.

Many of those things will be subject to balance changes once feedback from the public beta or 9.0 will come