Merge Sorcery and Summoning?

[bc1]

Wow ! That's quite an overhaul !

Removing or nerfing the most powerful archmage spells (meteors & maelstrom IMHO) will definetely require player strategy adjustments.

Will archmages still require the same nurturing investment ? Will they remain as vulnerable to marskmen (assuming the worker defense exploit is fixed) ?

 

[orgonebox]

Here's an idea that might save some trouble ->

Instead of combining the spell spheres, make the second-tier adept upgrade to a spell caster that may choose to take on a mage promotion or a summoner promotion, or both, but with the idea that a single unit may have both promotions at the cost of experience. Make the national unit limit on arch-spellcasters six per civ, not counting liches. If it weren't for the NU factor, I would even suggest making the sorcery/summoning III upgrade become a level 6 promotion - the mere factor of experience points alone would limit the number of units, except for the Amurites.

The main argument I have for keeping the two spheres is that oftentimes the number of mana nodes is limited, meaning the player is already nerfed in magic strategy (unless you have amathon bless you). Half the fun of playing the game comes from the spells, and more to figure out/play with makes the replay value of the game that much more fun. FFH keeps my interest due to a larger number of strategic options available based upon map circumstances and civ choice. Eliminating so many spells hampers the elven civs unnecessarily, and would make them nigh-unplayable except as defenders or a suicide-crazy army of throw-away units.

However, in the interest of pruning the spell tree, I have a few suggestions that aren't too different from previous, but to list:

Pare down some of the weaker summons. I will almost exclusively use the elemental summons, but mistforms are fun. I never see AI fireballs, so the Azer is probably nothing more than a good idea. Djinns are great for killing/wounding enemy ships, kikijubs have dwarf synergy, and I can see lightning elementals being useful if I don't have fire mana. Keep fireball/meteor swarm, but eliminate the Fire II/III summons. Also keep death, shadow, nature, and sun summons, but eliminate the rest. I love the law bringers and Host of the Einherjar, but eliminating them as well as the other summons would put a strategy cap on summon/mage spheres as well as confine the genuine battle-useful spells to mana nodes players are likely to have access to from the beginning. Keep all the level 1 spells as they are, excepting the introduction of great ideas.

In any case, since the fan base has access to the excellent developers, I expect good things will come out in the end.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I loved to double wack a city with contagion and
Tythoid mary ( have yet to see her new version yet)

Hmm.. why not let Typhoid mary cast contagion? Only it gives plague instead of disease.

 

[Jenaelha]

I would like to admit that I have never NEVER really understood this magic system, though I've played for many months. Yet, in one reading of the first post... I see it clearly. I think it is a big improvement and I didn't realize how much I was missing until you laid out all of the spells that are being eleminated and realized that I never even use them. I agree then that this will help the New players and pray that it will eventually help development of the AI, but I also regret that so many creative spells will be lost. I don't think they're number is the reason I didn't use them, instead it was the truly arcane magic system that doomed them.
I too like the idea that the discarded spells may make it back into the game through the Hero's.
Thanks again for your continued development of the best game out there.

 

[TBox]

Merging the split classes... ugh... I like having two seperate paths, the awesome supporting firepower and diverse capabilities of the arcane path, or the more physical, extremely powerful, but single in purpose summoning path. Mixing them into the same thing just means you don't have to choose whether to have more variable effects that can help in war and peace and compliment your permanent units, or more powerful, but self contained weapons that don't directly aide anything else. To give both at the same time means you have singular power and complimentary power on the same units. They'd need to take twice as long to get or be half as good. Neither option is good for flavor from my perspective.

If you introduced promotions that helped the sorcery spells in some way, you create virtual summoners and sorcerers by forcing them to choose between Combat/Spell extension promotions (and the consequently stronger summons) and whatever new Sorcery promotions we can think up.

Random idea to get the ball rolling: Create a promotion that makes Buff spells last longer like so: Each level of the promotion decreases the % chance per turn of the spell wearing off. So Haste starts with +100% chance of wearing off each turn. One level of the promotion makes this +90% per turn. Two levels makes it +80%, and so on down as far as we care to go. For non-buff spells, a variant of the Has Cast promotion could be created that has a % chance to wear off, say +50%, and each level of the sorcery promotion adds to that percent, making for less wait time to recast the spell. I have no idea how this would balance, if at all.

 

[xienwolf]

One additional comment I would like to make: As long as the overall number of Summons is being reduced, can we eliminate the "Double Duty" units? Balor is the Infernal Berserker, it shouldn't also be a summon. Chaos Marauders are the Sheaim Planar Gate version of a Champion, they shouldn't also be a summon....

Anything that is in the spell-tree as a summon should ONLY come from there. Otherwise those Civs which get them by alternative means value that sphere less, when generally the reason they have a creature from that sphere is because they BELONG to that sphere, so should value it the MOST.

 

[stp]

Just a simple question: With Whitefire gone, will the Empyrean still have some anti-vampire advantage?

I'm currently not sure what to think about these changes but I will just wait until .31 comes out and see how it works.

 

[thewyrm]

I just want to second Xienwolf's last suggestion. Simplicity + Diversity = Awesome

 

[Algeroth]

At first, i was outraged by this proposal, but when i finished the reading of this list, I'm moslty fine with that. But:

I hope that you will make all of 21 spheres.
I'm sad that so many flavorous spells'll go out. Hideous thoughts, for example. They weren't powerfull, they were just...fun.
Earth
Wall of Stone (kinda boring, maybe add an effect when it is cast outside of cities?)
Rust (kinda boring, anything more interesting we can do?)
Conjure Earth Elemental (replaces crush)

I've used Earth sphere so far only if I had tablets of bambur. Earth I could set-up a temporary citadel outside cities.
And I've allway considered Rust as an etropy spell. If you make it 3-range, with adding "weak" promotion to all enemy units, it could replace Defile.

Dance of Blades (kinda boring, anythign more interesting we can do here?)-Boring maybe, but definetly nice to have. maybe kake it 0-2 first strikes and 20% withdrawl chances.

Floating eye-nice spell, but IMHO it doesn't get along with the sphere...maybe change the name and graphic to "Third Eye" or something in these lines.

And you could make the transmutate the RoK pirests spell, while divine shield could go to all of good (Order, Empyrean, RoK) religions, while the evil would get spiritual hammer.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I still say that you should add cross sphere spells, and that some spheres should primarily boost the spells of other spheres. Don't feel bound to the "One spell per sphere per category" rule at all.

I don't think you should remove Dimensional, but I'm not sure it needs any spells of its own under this system. It would be mostly about boosting summons (strength, movement, duration, etc). I'm not sure Meta Magic needs any of its own spells either, as it could do well to just provide boosts to spell strength, spell damage dealt, spell resistance, spell range, chance of miscasting, free caster xp, etc.

 

[w. irving]

First off, I'll just say that I am a big fan of these changes.

I am quite familiar with the magic system and it's one of my favorite parts of the mod, but it needed some cleaning up.

Now, I'm not sure if I'm understanding this correctly, but I get the impression that the Sorcery, Summoning, and Divine promotions are all being removed, and instead we have;

Arcane Line
Adepts (Channeling I): can take Sphere I promotions
Mages (Channeling I and II): can take Sphere I and II promotions
Archmages (Channeling I, II, and III): can take Sphere I, II and III promotions

Divine Line
Priests (No Channeling/Sphere promotions): can innately cast 'Cure Disease' and a religion appropriate spell
High Priests (No Channeling/Sphere promotions): can innately cast 'Cure Disease', 'Heal' and two religion appropriate spells
Druids (No Channeling/Sphere promotions): can innately cast appropriate spells

If so...

 

[Kael]

Yeap, thats it except druids will also have the ability to learn nature sphere as archmages, and dwarven druids will be able to learn earth sphere spells as archmages.

 

[Avahz Darkwood]

Ice Mana: (if I understand that Ice from Mulcarn's history means Stasis and unchanging)

1. Hold spell can stop unit from attacking for one turn
2. Freeze spell can hold unit unit untill healed and can be resisted
3. Time stop spell random number of units and spell caster get all their movement points again.

 

[Avahz Darkwood]

Keep dance of blades I use it very often you gotta love and understand the uses of haveing the first attacks.

 

[Breunor]

I do think if these kinds of changes are made to the game, it is important to consider how some of the specifics work:

Do Arcane and Summoner work as they do now?
Will it change how we make our MU's? People looking to use summoned creatures will still want to get promotions favoring empowerment, while those avoiding summoning will take a multitude of spells.
Right now, we can have 6 national units, 3 of each line. do we then have only 3 national unit magic users? If so, it does reduce the ability of the Civ's to deliver powerful magic.
Do we double the research cost of the magic lines to incorporate that what are now two lines are being consolidated?

I'm starting to come around to the idea, as long as the strategic choices, of using magic users as a 'summoner' or as a 'direct damage' guy or a 'support' user are present. That is, with the changes, we can still have Summoner as a trait, still build magic users with empowering promotions, etc. However, it may make the Summoner trait weaker.

I would also want to maintain the strategic choices in mana -some mana should be good for summoning, some for the other uses. For example, enchantment now has a good passive benefit and nice spells but no summons. I think for the idea to work, we should maintain these kinds of mana types and not make it so that choosing between them is easier.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Blackmantle]

Hello Kael and FFH Team.
Long Time FFH-Forum lurker and player of your Mod.
At first: Thank for creating the (imo) single best Fantasy-Strategy Game in existence (favorite Genre never cared much for RTS).
And still Improving / in Beta. At long last MoM has been unseated (Fond memories R.I.P.). Hats off to you, quite an achievement and still more to come. Cant wait.


This toppic / prospected change whould have such a big in impact that it has brought me to ditch beeing a Lurker and toss a few ideas into the mix as well.


First to the System in General:

While i think that the idea to unify the Summoner / Mage line is a very good one for making it easier for the AI as well as new Players and to keep the Tech tree simpler / easier to grasp, i do think that an oversimplification whould take out a lot of the fantsy feel and diversity / fun / strength the magic system offered until now.
And such a big part of the Mod as a whole.
I do think that both could be achieved at once in the following way:

While still unifying Summoning / Sorcery and the respective Techs into spellcasting as proposed:

(Tier 1 kept simple and easy / high Quality as known)

at Tier 2 Mages: each Civ (exept Dwarves / perhaps Divine for them / overlap surely possible if fitting) could have one (or more for Magic Heavy Civs) extra Spell (you allready said that this will likely happen on Civ-Level).
Since that level is quite early and easily achieved and so will be used far more frequently than Tier 3 by new Players. (Preferably in Spheres the Palace provides so they can be used right out of the box / are a natural Choice for inexperienced / new Players) so starters will find a nice, simple and fun selection of Spells at their disposal that are fitting for the civ and not an owerwhelming Array of mediocre seemingly indiferent Options as of now.

At Tier 3 all Spheres (Including Level 3 Divine) to offer 2! spells each at once instead of only one.
(to offer all the fun and diversity of the old System / freedom for your Ideas as Designers at a Level where flashy Effects with big impact are allright and Balance doesnt needs to be such a big restraint.
Also newer Players are not that likely to go that far down the tree before exploring the System at Level 2 first.)
Pleas leave us our Playthings.


In addition to give the Spellcasting Nations (any Nation with an Arcane, Summoning or Adaptive Leader since they can get arcane as well and it fits well with Kuoritates, Grigori and perhaps a bit less Malakim Style) a real edge in Magics,

instead of giving each civ the Option to build 6 (9 with 3 Liches) Archmage-Units you could make the UU Mages / Summoners of these Nations special Archmage Unique-Units
(so if i havent forgot any:
Sheim (Eater of Dreams, allredy exist),
Amurites (Wizards, allready exist),
Balspheraph (Puppeteer, allredy exist),
Ljosalfar (?),
Svartalfar (Illusionist, allready exist),
Luchirp (? You will come up with something good for sure )
Grigori (? But they need em for sure without any Divines save Druids ),
Kuoritates (? Lamia...),
Malakim (?Perhaps a Divine Tier 3 whould be more fitting for them?))

Edit changed place: (special abilities for those could be implemented without risk for Balance at Tier 3)

(sorry for any misspellings of the civs / forgotten civs perhaps cant get them all from the top of my head)

and leave any other Civs with the normal national Unit Restriction for Archmages at 3 (6 with 3 Liches).
That Change would perhaps reduce the Codework as well since most of these allredy exist and the Limit of 3 needs not to be Changed then.

Calabim still whould have their fleshed out Melee-Caster UUs and i think don't need a re-work. (In addition to not being Arcane / Summoning / Adaptive) (on a side note: Haven't played those so dont know for sure if they will do fine without.)

That would prevent the not so magically inclined civs to go all out Magic nearly as well as the magic-heavy ones without a real advantage for them.

Comments to the spheres / cut spells in a separate Post later

 

[Jarlaxle135]

I admit, I was hesitant at first, but I have come around to like these changes. I do have a couple reservations though. I agree with some of the earlier posts stating that archmages are losing a lot of power. I wonder if the investment will be worth it. Also, I think a few more direct damage spells could be added. A few old favorites from D&D could work:
1)magic missle: a simple, effective spell which could gain strength with caster level (or every 2-3 levels).
2)melf's acid arrow: another simple spell which could utilize a special damage type.
3)ice bolt: this could already be on tap.
Another idea may be to have the Towers add a free spell or two to your spellcasters, which would only be available through the towers. This would make them a little more valuable.

 

[Shadius]

I honestly don't see a problem with the magic system as it is. Some spells could go with a few revisions, sure, but the idea that it's somehow too complicated or not streamlined enough is baffling to me.

But then again, I am fond of Paradox games, so you should probably take my opinion on this matter with a bucket of salt.

*Continues daydreaming about a Fall From Heaven with an extensive character system and a Victoria-like POP mechanic*

 

[xienwolf]

Two big questions for the new system:

1. Do we need Channeling 1 anymore?

Since in the old system this kept Priests from casting the level 1 spells (inexplicably), and now they can only cast those spells which are hard-coded into them... is there a purpose?

The only remaining unit I can think of off the top of my head for whom Channeling 1 is lacking in the presence of some Rank 1 spellsphere is the Firebow, I don't see why to keep it.

Honestly, I wish I could think of a way to drop Channeling 2 & 3 as well, but there needs to be some method of keeping an adept from learning rank 3 spheres I suppose.


2. Do we need the Sphere Promotions still?

Right now each spell level has 1 spell. So why a promotion with only the effect of enabling that spell which goes by some other name? Why not just have the promotions bear the name of the spells from now on, then you know right away what you are getting. You can keep the pictures for the promotions as they are now so that there is a link between those of the same sphere which is readily apparent.... but otherwise there really isn't much need for FIRE 3, when you can just say CONJURE FIRE ELEMENTAL. Because anyone with Fire 3 does that, and only that.

 

[xienwolf]

Ya know, I thought about it some more... and Water Elemental probably ought to be the STRONGEST of the elemental summons, instead of the weakest/blandest as it is now.

Air: Fairs Winds as is is pretty nifty for people who like Ocean battles. But it even has the promise of you wanting to make it better. Maelstrom is nice damage to a large number of units, even if toned down. Besides that, Air Elemental has nifty tricks up his sleeve, REALLY nifty ones.

Earth: BEST PASSIVE EFFECT EVER. Stone wall is kinda boring, but with the new, lower defenses for cities, much more important. Rust may not be amazing, but being able to reduce the strength of an enemy by 1 or 2 (rarely 4) points without any personal risk is HUGE. Plus Earth Elementals are BEEFY strong.

Fire: Start fires to clear jungles early. Not bad. Summon Fireballs to do almost everything, awesome. Fire Elemental isn't amazing... but doesn't really need to be since you have the Fireball to weaken the city before you bring this guy out.

Water: Spring. A godsend, truly. Water Walking... umm... somewhat, occasionally useful. At least it can make your mage able to avoid attacks from most units, IF there is water nearby; and IF the enemy doesn't have Naval forces... Then Water Elementals... Kinda weak, REALLY weak against fire. Nothing else to em.


So... why would I ever bother with anything past Water 1 for Spring, which I cannot live without? And heck, if I am patient I can just get that on a single Adept, so I could just trade for it, upgrade one dude, and never bother again.

Air has the best of the third rank summons for flavor/functionality. Earth has the best of the passive effects, AND an amazing summon at rank 3. Fire's rank 3 kinda blows, but its rank 2 is quite possibly the best of all the rank 2 spells. Then you got water.... required for everyone to get rank 1 if the AC is turned on, but otherwise quite useless.