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Locksley
Promising
Famous Hero
Wielding a six-string
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posted January 31, 2014 12:29 PM |
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Edited by Locksley at 12:42, 31 Jan 2014.
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Magic System - Light & Dark - Regeneration & Heal
Stevie said:
Thanks for appreciating!
/.../
Also I think that, overall, the idea of assigning so many magic schools is stretchy to say the least. Like, 4 to me seems way too much, and why a fixed number for everyone? There are certain races that don't fit this number, like orcs, wizards and fortress. You should have one or two set in stone for each race, because of lore and stuff, and the rest of them be random.
/.../
Or do you want a system like H5, where each race has access to certain schools and that's it? Why can't a Haven Cleric cast prime or dark spells? Or why can't Sylvan cast fire or air? I don't get it... if they have the skills and mastery, why not?
Certain skills should definitely be found in the Magic Guild when you play a race, but let's not make that to the exclusion of everything else. Like, when I build Magic Guild lvl 1 in a Haven town from the 5 spells that I get, the first one should be light and the second one air, but the rest should be random.
My magic is a mix between Heroes 5 & 6 and I tried to keep the best parts from each game.
- Mage guilds, not getting spells when leveling up.
- Elemental magic instead of the sometimes weird ways spells were mixed in the H5 schools.
- Reputation!
(A complete presentation is posted at p. 38)
Restricting the number of schools per faction is most of all a protest against how it worked in H6 where you pick what you like, and there is not always any logic in how the magic is mixed. As my system is partially based on H6 adding more restrictions is reasonable, and it can give every faction a specific identity, make it easier to plan for your heroes and can give better balance as a hero can’t have all the best spells at the same time.
But I’m not sure that adding more restrictions is the best way to go. You have a point saying it’s not necessary to restrict the non-guaranteed schools, it could work well anyway. The randomness in what the mage guild offers is also a restriction, and allowing unexpected combinations can make a game very interesting.
DARK & LIGHT
Fallen Knight was an interesting concept in H5 Haven, and I think a cleric should be able to cast dark magic, shades of darkness everywhere.
When I handed out light & dark to "stereotypically good and bad factions” I followed how Ubisoft works a lot with stereotypes. Maurice’s "religious magic" is also a variation of that, and I think his system is possible to have in the game.
The stereotypes were very obvious in H5 where each factions was either good or bad, and Haven was the only dark+light faction which was a nod to stereotypical ideas about Christianity vs. witchcraft in the “Dark Middle Ages”. That’s how it is in any fantasy or historical adventure book/game, we like it.
In H6 Ubisoft polished their Ashan lore and increased the conflict, explaining how Light is Order & 1 Truth, which is why some factions are hurt by light. Demons are chaos, undeath corrupts natural order, and the dark has many truths.
But there’s still stereotypically Good and Evil factions in Heroes 6. Why should Necromancy be a branch of Dark magic when bodies don’t consists of darkness????
- Ok, maybe if we see dark magic as creating connections between minds (we are the faceless, we are many) and taking control over minds (with puppet master), then it may fit, if the average skeleton has a mind.
Here’s a more likely chain of events:
- Necromancers use dark magic because they are evil in any story and game (not only Heroes), and even if Heroes 6 presents them as having Good Goals they must use dark magic because they were popular in Heroes 5 where they as stereotypically Evil had dark magic in their mage guild, and where the control giving Puppet Master spell was a dark spell.
Dark elves and Faceless are more interesting. The many truths made it difficult for them to take others’ perspectives or to follow laws and customs, which together with some wars for survival made them cruel and threatened to turn the many truths into chaos.
Healing & Regeneration
I'd like to add to this heated debate that the interesting part of creeping is to know that there's a risk that I will have losses. In a good game some losses should be expected and acceptable, but avoidable. The problem in H6 is that there is too much healing, and the mana restriction is only relevant early on.
Using regeneration and heal occasionally is perfectly fine, and how the vestals can heal twice and the first aid tent can heal thrice is actually nice even if it's annoying. You must prioritate.
Heroes 5 was a game where losses were expected and acceptable, and usually possible to avoid if you played carefully. I think it was a mistake to add regeneration as it makes losses unexpected and unacceptable. In a competitive map regeneration must be removed from light magic faction guilds, or added as scrolls to factions without light magic. I prefer removing the spell because I think that's more exciting, but both solutions mean that the game is changed from its normal mode.
Necromancers with raise dead didn't expect losses but they could still be defeated by another army who had had some expected and acceptable losses.
But the biggest problem with too much healing is this:
Was it really necessary to have a funeral for Duke Slava with all those Vestals and Angels as guests?
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Avirosb
Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
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posted January 31, 2014 12:50 PM |
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Dragons work in mysterious ways 
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DoubleDeck
Promising
Legendary Hero
Look into my eyes...
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posted February 03, 2014 06:56 AM |
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For future heroes games: no healing please.
If you lose some troops, you lose troops. That's it. Like chess.
That's why troop conservation was one of the most important fundamentals in earlier heroes games...
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted February 03, 2014 07:17 AM |
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There's a difference between healing and resurrection, and even resurrection's okay in moderation, but it has to be in moderation.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 03, 2014 08:36 AM |
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Locksley's point about the lore is one I had made - in vain, of course - consistently for Life Drain. I mean, with a spell like that - who would want to turn to Necromancy OR Urgash (for respawn) if Malassa had to offer such an easy remedy against death? Who'd pass Dark Magic?
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 03, 2014 09:25 AM |
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You guys should get that a magic type hero doesn't have that much creature firepower and resilience, so naturally they balance that with magic. Removing spells should be considered after everything else has been tried to balance them, and I doubt that there is no way to balance a spell. If Vampirism was that OP, then reduce the healing %, or add a negative effect. From what, 50 spells, you guys wanna get rid of some so that we'll end up with even less? Ya gotta be kiddin' me.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 03, 2014 09:44 AM |
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Did you even play the games, Stevie? I seriously doubt that.
You ARE aware, aren't you, that in HoMM 6 Life Drain can be picked by ANY hero at ANY level, and you ARE aware, that magic damage creatures are supported by MAGIC stats, right?
You are also aware, I hope, that just because HoMM 6 transferred a ton of spells into creature and reputation abilities doesn't mean they couldn't be transferred back to spells.
Lastly you are aware, I hope, that there are those little wishes called "Adventure Map spells" and "More combat spells", right? Or are you going to claim that if Resurrection of unit is made something special again and not something the greenest Barbarian can do, there are no spells left to cast for a real Mage?
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 03, 2014 11:16 AM |
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JollyJoker said:
Did you even play the games, Stevie? I seriously doubt that.
Wha-Why would you doubt that? I'm really hurt right now.
JollyJoker said:
You ARE aware, aren't you, that in HoMM 6 Life Drain can be picked by ANY hero at ANY level, and you ARE aware, that magic damage creatures are supported by MAGIC stats, right?
No way! Really?!
JollyJoker said:
You are also aware, I hope, that just because HoMM 6 transferred a ton of spells into creature and reputation abilities doesn't mean they couldn't be transferred back to spells.
I don't see the relevance in our conversation about HERO spells but now that you mention it... why didn't it happen then? They should have fixed that with the SoD expansion, or there wasn't too much fan rage for that to happen? Oh right... I guess there was a lot more fan rage because of only 5 factions so they rushed a 6th, instead of fixing game issues like the one you mentioned.
JollyJoker said:
Lastly you are aware, I hope, that there are those little wishes called "Adventure Map spells" and "More combat spells", right? Or are you going to claim that if Resurrection of unit is made something special again and not something the greenest Barbarian can do, there are no spells left to cast for a real Mage?
I read this phrase 5 times and I still can't fully make sense of it, that's probably my fault. But about the greenest barbarian resurrecting troops: barbarians shouldn't be able to cast light spell in the first place for 2 obvious reasons - 1) they don't believe in dragon gods and only worship Mother Earth and Father Sky (whatever that means, but probably not Ylath or Sylanna), so how can they cast a spell from those schools? "Oooh Mother Earth and Father Sky, give me strenght! *casts light spell: Resurrection*... brilliant; 2) the emphasis of this race is on sacrifice. What are they sacrificing if they can just heal them back? That's counter-intuitive.
Also, grant that they can actually cast spells from other magic schools, a barbarian being on par with Haven on light spells is simply... why the hell are they "barbarians" if they are so versed in high level magic?
And I know that there's demand for more combat spells as well as a return of adventure spells. what's that gotta do with anything.....
You should keep in mind that I tend to think in terms of H3/H5 most of the time. Look back at my previous post and see that I mentioned "Vampirism", not "Life Drain". That should have made things a bit clearer, if not, my apologies.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 03, 2014 12:28 PM |
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Seriously, I DON'T UNDERSTAND YOU!
If you are talking about HoMM 3/5 mostly - is HoMM 3/5 a resurrection fest? Or are they tightly controlled? Are there MASS resurrection spells in those games?
And the answer is simply "no".
So when people talk about the resurrection fest that HoMM SIX is, and basically want to turn the screw back to how things were in those games where troops could actually die and not hand a hundred ways to find their way back to the living or undead - why are you making a fuzz and write a post like you did and that I answered to?
Beats me.
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 03, 2014 01:51 PM |
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Oh ok, sorry. Let's just drop it. I guess it's a big misunderstanding. Some of us think of H5 and expand their ideas on that, some of H6. It's only natural that we'll loose track of things eventually (plus I haven't had too much sleep last night, went to bed at 3 AM).
Then, about the healing fest in H6. That's because the entire system is bullsnow, not just some individual healing spells. Well, that too to a certain extent, which only makes things even worse. So, they should indeed loosen the screws a bit, and get back to a system with guilds, magic schools and work from there. Is that ok with you?
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 03, 2014 02:16 PM |
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Yes, of course.
Although we have a lot more stuff to think about that just spells.
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted February 03, 2014 02:47 PM |
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Locksley said:
Was it really necessary to have a funeral for Duke Slava with all those Vestals and Angels as guests?
They were just watching
____________
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 03, 2014 03:34 PM |
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JollyJoker said:
Yes, of course.
Although we have a lot more stuff to think about that just spells.
I'd really like to know your priority list, if you ever thought of one.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 03, 2014 03:59 PM |
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You don't want to know.  Would take a couple of pages to write that down.
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Locksley
Promising
Famous Hero
Wielding a six-string
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posted February 03, 2014 09:50 PM |
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Edited by Locksley at 21:56, 03 Feb 2014.
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Random thoughts. Heroes edition
What my mind has been thinking these days:
1. Raise dead was in the summoning school, not dark magic, so why is necromancy a branch of dark magic?
2. The undead have immunity to mind effects, so why is necromancy a branch of dark magic?
3. A good point:JollyJoker said:
Locksley's point about the lore is one I had made - in vain, of course - consistently for Life Drain. I mean, with a spell like that - who would want to turn to Necromancy OR Urgash (for respawn) if Malassa had to offer such an easy remedy against death? Who'd pass Dark Magic?
4. Clarity may be a fitting single word meaning that Light = Order and 1 Truth.
5.  
I've changed my mind about this:Locksley said:
Dark elves and Faceless are more interesting. The many truths made it difficult for them to take others’ perspectives or to follow laws and customs, which together with some wars for survival made them cruel and threatened to turn the many truths into chaos.
Why should having "many truths" make it difficult to take others' perspectives? Isn’t that an effect of following the Light's 1 Truth?
Well, the difference between darkness and chaos is that the darkness has a relation with the light. Without some light to give stability, the darkness’ many truths risk to turn into chaos, and in chaos there’s total subjectivity which means that each individual is incapable to take others’ perspectives. In a sound society there is a balance between dark and light, and I suddenly realized that this balance is the message of the whole campaign, i.e. why it was so important to save the library and stop the angels’ plot.
6. Losses do not always mean deaths, it may also mean incapacity to fight due to wounds, broken equipment/fangs, fatigue, hunger etc. From that perspective it’s actually very fitting that the Heal and Regeneration spells bring back lost creatures to the battle!
7. Storm-Giant said:
Locksley said:
Was it really necessary to have a funeral for Duke Slava with all those Vestals and Angels as guests?
They were just watching
Maybe it was just bad luck, getting stabbed in the turn when everybody was in a cooldown phase? 
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted February 03, 2014 11:18 PM |
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Locksley said:
7. Storm-Giant said:
Locksley said:
Was it really necessary to have a funeral for Duke Slava with all those Vestals and Angels as guests?
They were just watching
Maybe it was just bad luck, getting stabbed in the turn when everybody was in a cooldown phase?
Nono, what sense does heal/ressurection has if noone sees what dying means? Better leave a good example in the memories of those peasants 
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 04, 2014 09:57 AM |
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@ Locksley
Which game are you talking about?
Maybe Raise Dead should be part of Prime magic? Or better kept as a Necro only spell/ability like in H6. Because I don't see that spell belonging to either dark or summoning schools myself.
At point 5 you contradict yourself a lot. You said earlier "that Light = Order and 1 Truth.", and if that's so, then Light also has a relationship with Chaos, because light = Order;
Also things in real life don't work like that, there are many opinions but there's always one truth. The "many truths" phrase is just an euphemism for "many lies". But let's not debate on this. Ashan is not real life
I disagree with you on point 6. Losses actually should always mean deaths. BUT, your idea that followed could be constructed into a new mechanic named Fatigue. You could have a bar in which you can see your creature's energy, and that naturally goes down as a battle is progressing. Now think about it, you could make this mechanic affect a lot of things: primary stats, speed, initiative, damage, defense, health, resistances to magic, etc etc. AND you could work some spells arround it, like give/take energy to your creatures or from the enemy's creatures, AND some creature passives like rupture, break armor, invigoration... you can even set the battlefield's weather (if there's gonna be one) to affect this mechanic, like when it's raining you'll find it harder to advance, costing you more energy and increasing Fatigue.
I think this is a good idea, and brings a new mechanic to the game which can be worked with. It also resembles how things in real life work, you get tired in a battle! What do you guys say?
At 7. Creature's can't resurrect heroes They're non-combat units
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 04, 2014 10:23 AM |
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Raise Dead should be a Necromancy perk (active ability; costs Mana). It makes no sense to have this as a general spell - Raising the Dead is what Necromancy is all about.
Energy - stamina - is something the game definitely doesn't need - in the end it would work like an automatic mass spell, reducing the performance of creatures, probably after a certain number of turns, but that's just making things complex without any need.
In fact, the whole "wounding" thing is rather simple. In a regular game with separate units keeping track of "wounds" is possible. In this kind of stack-based game it makes things more complex without actually gaining something. If you imagine the stack as a collection of units, if they suffer a hit, SOME will die, SOME will take heavy/incapacitating (but not killing) damage, SOME will take serious damage, reducing their performance, some will tale light Damage, not reducing performance (but may lead to faster exhaustion, which would mean Stevie's concept), and some will not suffer damage at all.
However, since on the BF a stack always acts as a STACK, this distinction is completely irrelevant, since what counts is the NET result for the stack.
That said, there are obviously THREE WAYS to apply damage; the first one is the regular one we all know: damage is applied fully to the top creature(s).
The second way would be to spread the damage over the stack - instead killing half the stack, the hit reduces the unit Hps by half. This completely keeps the attack power of a stack, treating it as ONE LARGE MONSTER (which would make a big stack of low level creatures actually rather powerful (and not recommended).
The third way is some kind of combination of both - this is something I have been suggesting for damage spells for a long time: to give them a HP reducing component, making them more buff-like. So a spell might easily do X damage plus Y + Z% HP reduction for all creatures in the stack (Y + Z% beging something like 1 + 7% of the total HP).
So, if you had a stack of 1000 Maniacs or something, with 20 HPs each, a spell might do 500 damage, killing 25, but also reducing HPs by 2 to 18).
This is nothing new either: think of HoMM 3 Wyvern Monarchs.
Regular damage should be regular damage though.
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 04, 2014 11:27 AM |
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Edited by Stevie at 11:32, 04 Feb 2014.
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JollyJoker said:
In this kind of stack-based game it makes things more complex without actually gaining something. If you imagine the stack as a collection of units, if they suffer a hit, SOME will die, SOME will take heavy/incapacitating (but not killing) damage, SOME will take serious damage, reducing their performance, some will tale light Damage, not reducing performance (but may lead to faster exhaustion, which would mean Stevie's concept), and some will not suffer damage at all.
However, since on the BF a stack always acts as a STACK, this distinction is completely irrelevant, since what counts is the NET result for the stack.
You're the only one making the distinction JJ. When a stack moves, all creatures move, that means they all tire. When a stack hits, they all hit, that means they tire. I don't know about defend/wait, but those are actions too, made by all creatures in a stack, so that should tire as well but not as much. AND when they get hit, some die and that's it. Only a part of the stack gets hit if we're thinking in terms of separate units, and those units die. There is one unit that doesn't, that's the one with a percentage of it's health being affected (a maniac with 13/20 health), but why should this count for the overall stack? It'll be just a minor exception - if you're considering things this far.
Complexity gives depth, makes you wary of more things than just your creature's numbers. The game doesn't gain anything from Stamina (I like that word)? Oh I think it does, another mechanic that affects your troop's stats and efficiency. Yea, that's the word, efficiency. On a bar, Red area (to the left) is low efficiency, Grey area (middle) is normal/average efficiency and Green area (right) is high efficiency. Might classes could benefit a lot from this. Stamina could work differently on Orcs, because they get pumped up when fighting rather than tire. Fortress could also start battles with more stamina that normal (they could start on green area, rather than on gray), because they have though bodies and are used to harsh conditions. Necro can't tire cuz they're a swarming unstoppable pest, but they can't benefit from a surplus either. Inferno starts with a bit more stamina, but they tire faster cuz of they're ultra aggressive attacks. Sylvan could use their symbiosis with nature to rejuvenate themselves quicker. Etc Etc...
Still don't like it?
JollyJoker said:
this is something I have been suggesting for damage spells for a long time: to give them a HP reducing component, making them more buff-like. So a spell might easily do X damage plus Y + Z% HP reduction for all creatures in the stack (Y + Z% beging something like 1 + 7% of the total HP).
Why do we have dark magic then? That's the debuff school. Destructives should do destructive damage. Or we stop thinking in terms of light, dark, destructive, summoning and go back to the fire, water, air, earth, dark, light, prime, in which case the destructive spells in those schools COULD actually have secondary effects. That might actually work.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 04, 2014 12:00 PM |
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Stevie said:
Still don't like it?
No.
This is already part of the game in the guise of buffs and debuffs. Stamina would introduce an automatic debuff, that would obviously favor buff magic (a difference between buff magic and exhaustion would make no sense and make things just complex) and also waiting/defending tactics (anything that would save stamina) which would simply bog down the game needlessly.
Quote:
JollyJoker said:
this is something I have been suggesting for damage spells for a long time: to give them a HP reducing component, making them more buff-like. So a spell might easily do X damage plus Y + Z% HP reduction for all creatures in the stack (Y + Z% beging something like 1 + 7% of the total HP).
Why do we have dark magic then? That's the debuff school. Destructives should do destructive damage. Or we stop thinking in terms of light, dark, destructive, summoning and go back to the fire, water, air, earth, dark, light, prime, in which case the destructive spells in those schools COULD actually have secondary effects. That might actually work.
Because a buff/debuff's strength is always the same in terms of percentage effect, independent from the size of an army: if you cast Mass Righteous Might with Expert Light you gain basically +60% damage, no matter how big your army is.
A destructive spell, no matter of which school does a certain number of damage, and the longer a game lasts, the less effective this kind of magic is.
Adding a HP-debuff - something which buff/debuff magic generally isn't doing, would leave something like a more lasting effect and adjust damage spells for troop quantity. It's actually based on the following idea for stack-based fighting:
If two stacks hit each other, what actually is happening is that one attacker comes forward and delivers their damage doing damage to the first (and maybe the one behind that and the one behind THAT ...); after he swung, the next attacker comes and so on.
However, especially MAGIC (and also RANGED and FLYING) attacks may be envisioned as working with a certain dispersion effect that - in effect - has a killing factor and a wounding factor (reducing HPs).
This would allow interesting variations between units; also, for ranged troops, things wouldn't be so devastating on ATTACK power (more units would survive - although more vulnerable against melee attacks).
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This thread is pages long: 
