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| Thread: Regarding the Magic System |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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RMZ1989
Supreme Hero
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posted September 09, 2014 11:35 PM |
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Uh, I am not sure how you got to that conclusion. Magic Immunity was amazing, especially against heavy spellcasting factions, you can argue that it was situational because enemy didn't have to go for magic way, but even might was casting some spells(and some of them were quite important) to support him, so it was never really useless.
Teleportation, the only reason why I think this might be situational is because you almost always have something else to cast that will have greater effect, but every faction has 1-2 very slow units that could really use teleport if they aren't protecting your archers.
On the other hand, WoL was just useless against 6 out of 8 factions... absolutely useless.
But in the end it doesn't really matter which was more useful in given situation, I agree that it shouldn't have been Tier 5 spell and even Tier 4 sounds a bit too high to me.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted September 10, 2014 09:03 AM |
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RMZ1989 said:
Uh, I am not sure how you got to that conclusion. Magic Immunity was amazing, especially against heavy spellcasting factions
Magic Immunity was great only if you had reason to believe that enemy was going to use dangerous single-target spells like Puppet Master, Frenzy or Blind. In most other situations, if you wanted to counter enemy spells, you'd be more likely to do it with spells of your own - Mass Haste, Mass Cleansing, etc.
RMZ1989 said:
Teleportation, the only reason why I think this might be situational is because you almost always have something else to cast that will have greater effect...
Exactly. Apart from the odd siege situation or if you have Teleport Assault (which, btw., would tech you the Teleport spell, meaning you'd still prefer something else in mage guild), Teleport was not your go-to spell.
RMZ1989 said:
On the other hand, WoL was just useless against 6 out of 8 factions... absolutely useless.
True, but what are the odds that you will not run into neutrals from those two factions at some point during the map? Very low. Yes, it was still situational, but no less so than the others if you ask me.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 10, 2014 09:53 AM |
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The spell is a leftover of another time - Holy Word/Shout - when Necro was more of a singular threat, and the spells were of lower tier. Same with CotN, which was Death Ripple/Wave, a spell usable only for Necro against living. If you got Death Ripple as non-Necro, well, it was one of 5 spells on that level, so no problem, and you might even use it with Golems.
The thing is simply, that I think these spells are fine abilities: no one is forcing you to pick them, but if you play against a Necro and an Inferno, then it suggests itself. I mean, picking Snatch suggests itself also more or less, the sooner the better and the richer the map the better, that's what the game is all about, deciding whether something is worth it situational, and the game should not give you something randomly that you worked hard to get and EITHER useless OR very useful. That's like, you go into a Dragon Utopia, you will always fight 10 Dragons, but the reward will either be Nothing or 30.000 Gold plus 3 Artefacts:
It makes no sense and it's bad game design.
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted September 10, 2014 11:18 AM |
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alcibiades said:
RMZ1989 said:
Uh, I am not sure how you got to that conclusion. Magic Immunity was amazing, especially against heavy spellcasting factions
Magic Immunity was great only if you had reason to believe that enemy was going to use dangerous single-target spells like Puppet Master, Frenzy or Blind. In most other situations, if you wanted to counter enemy spells, you'd be more likely to do it with spells of your own - Mass Haste, Mass Cleansing, etc.
Magic Inmmunity not only prevented that stack from being frenzied/puppeted, but also removed those effects when casted...so basically the enemy hero wasted one turn while you protected your strong stack from future attacks 
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted September 10, 2014 11:36 AM |
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JollyJoker said:
The thing is simply, that I think these spells are fine abilities: no one is forcing you to pick them, but if you play against a Necro and an Inferno, then it suggests itself.
I agree that having it as an ability might work, I just wanted to point out that when WoL didn't work in H5 it was not only because having situational spells pop up can be bothersome, but also because it was an overall week spell for its level, which will make it bothersome when it comes up, no matter if its situational or general.
Storm-Giant said:
Magic Inmmunity not only prevented that stack from being frenzied/puppeted, but also removed those effects when casted...so basically the enemy hero wasted one turn while you protected your strong stack from future attacks
Yes, I'm aware of that, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still something that will only be relevant once you face a high-level caster, which is rare and only happens a limited times in a game (= situational). Plus the fact that Magic Immunity also made the target immune to further beneficial spells (including Resurrection) made it a decidedly two-edged sword that I would generally shy away from if possible in any way.
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JollyJoker
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Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 10, 2014 12:17 PM |
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Let me add something here, because it's not obvious: situational stuff is great, because it makes for diversity in hero builds. If skills and spells are not situational, they will generally be picked or not picked, which isn't good.
It's also true, however, that those are better that range from situationally very good to situationally not so good, than those that are either great or crap.
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RMZ1989
Supreme Hero
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posted September 10, 2014 12:37 PM |
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Edited by RMZ1989 at 12:42, 10 Sep 2014.
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alcibiades said:
Storm-Giant said:
Magic Inmmunity not only prevented that stack from being frenzied/puppeted, but also removed those effects when casted...so basically the enemy hero wasted one turn while you protected your strong stack from future attacks
Yes, I'm aware of that, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still something that will only be relevant once you face a high-level caster, which is rare and only happens a limited times in a game (= situational). Plus the fact that Magic Immunity also made the target immune to further beneficial spells (including Resurrection) made it a decidedly two-edged sword that I would generally shy away from if possible in any way.
I am not sure how much you have played multiplayer in H5, but going up against high level caster certainly wasn't rare, on the contrary there are some factions that have played spell heavy most of the time(Necro, Dungeon, Academy) and then there are some "might" factions that were supported by high level spells(Inferno, Sylvan, listing just the ones that use debuffs and damaging spells).
I am mostly Necro/Inferno player, so obviously I would hate Word of Light, but trust me I find Magic Immunity to be a lot more game-breaking for me than any other spell in the light school, it is really pain in the ass when you are fighting some really strong might hero, and you know you can't do anything because you are weak without spell support and his units are feeling immortal with Magic Immunity.
On the other hand I am not caring much about Word of Light if he doesn't have huge spell power, and even if he has that is ok because I can fight back with my spells.
And this is all if I am Necro/Infero, if I am playing Dungeon/Destruction Sylvan/Academy, Word of Light would be a dead spell in his spellbook while Anti Magic would still be a pain in the ass.
All this talk about which spell is better/less situational is quite irrelevant in the end, we can pretty much agree that some spells weren't designed so well in H5 and hope they can do better in H7. So there would be two options:
1) Making those situational spells less situational/buffing them.
2) JJ's way of making those highly situational spells a perks like they did in H5 with AoE spells like Endurance/Haste/Suffering/Weakness etc.
Both ways work for me, but I feel that first way will be harder to balance.
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Give a man a mask, and he'll
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 10, 2014 02:12 PM |
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Edited by Stevie at 14:12, 10 Sep 2014.
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RMZ1989 said:
2) JJ's way of making those highly situational spells a perks like they did in H5 with AoE spells like Endurance/Haste/Suffering/Weakness etc.
Offering credit for something he didn't even say. He wants spells as perks, like in Heroes 6. Not all spells, but those that he doesn't particularly like.
What you said there is entirely MY idea, not his: Get spells with Magic Guild and externals, use perks to improve them.
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Storm-Giant
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posted September 10, 2014 02:15 PM |
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Stevie said:
What you said there is entirely MY idea, not his: Get spells with Magic Guild and externals, use perks to improve them.
That's Nival idea to begin with.
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 10, 2014 02:23 PM |
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Edited by Stevie at 14:25, 10 Sep 2014.
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So? Did I say anything else?
Stevie said:
So the other option is to have more general perks that apply to several spells, like Heroes 5 did things.
That was the best idea. I just advocated it here. So I said it, not JJ.
Guild  gives Spells
Perks improve Spells
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Storm-Giant
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posted September 10, 2014 02:29 PM |
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You said "is entirely MY idea", but perks improving spells:
1) were first introduced by Nival in H5
2) They are mentioned by several users on this very thread, including JJ
PS: And I think JJ meant both ways: a few, very situational spells as perks, and also perks improving spells like in HV. That's what I gather from his posts.
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RMZ1989
Supreme Hero
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posted September 10, 2014 02:44 PM |
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Edited by RMZ1989 at 14:46, 10 Sep 2014.
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Stevie said:
RMZ1989 said:
2) JJ's way of making those highly situational spells a perks like they did in H5 with AoE spells like Endurance/Haste/Suffering/Weakness etc.
Offering credit for something he didn't even say. He wants spells as perks, like in Heroes 6. Not all spells, but those that he doesn't particularly like.
What you said there is entirely MY idea, not his: Get spells with Magic Guild and externals, use perks to improve them.
Stevie, you are contradicting yourself here...
"Offering credit for something he didn't even say. He wants spells as perks,"
AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I'VE SAID. He wants to make those situational spells a perks, do you read only parts that you want to read?
Endurance didn't get improved so it became mass Endurance, mass Endurance is completely new spell with different spell cost... Endurance is just a requirement for having mass Endurance. And there is a perk in Defense that gives you mass Endurance on advanced level, you don't even have to have Light School or Endurance whatsoever...
I don't see anywhere mentioned in my post that I want Word of Light to be in the Magic Guild and perks just to improve it, I simply stated that there are two ways of them doing this right.
Idea can be your, or JJ's or mine, or Storm's or Ubi's and if it works it really doesn't matter to who it belongs to.
Sometimes from your posts I get a feeling that you are arguing over really unnecessary things.
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Give a man a mask, and he'll
become his true self.
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 10, 2014 02:51 PM |
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Edited by Stevie at 14:58, 10 Sep 2014.
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I said it's "entirely my idea, not his." There's a difference, the contrast should've made it obvious.
1. I know that, and I said that, see my quote above?
2. There's a difference between "mentioning" something and "advocating" something.
P.S: ALL spells are situational, that's not an argument. The fact that WoL is literally useless in maybe even over 80% of situations does not excuse the fact that he wants a similar system like Heroes 6 back, even if for just a limited number of spells. That's not a REAL solution, it just makes the problem even worse! You won't have an useless spell in 80% situations, you'll have an useless perk! And when you will actually need it 20% of the times, you'll have to use a PERK to get it, which is a higher cost that getting it from the guild!. So, a REAL solution is to either make WoL effective for more than 80% of situations, or to get it improved with perks! THOSE are solutions. Moving it from the guild to the perks for even a higher cost is not!
RMZ1989 said:
"Offering credit for something he didn't even say. He wants spells as perks,"
AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I'VE SAID. He wants to make those situational spells a perks, do you read only parts that you want to read?
"He wants to make spells a perks." - this is confusing. He wants to make spells AS perks like in Heroes 6, or He wants to make perks FOR spells like in Heroes 5, which you said. And what he said is the he wants situational spells to be perks, that you have to skill not to get with the magic guild - and that's Heroes 6.
Do I need to repeat this? I had enough deciphering his post.
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RMZ1989
Supreme Hero
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posted September 10, 2014 03:05 PM |
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Edited by RMZ1989 at 15:07, 10 Sep 2014.
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There are dozens of useless perks, the difference is YOU HAVE A CHOICE IN PICKING PERKS. You don't have a choice when you get completely useless spell in your Magic Guild.
So when playing against anything else than Necro/Inferno, I am hoping that I will finally get a spell that has been useless and then I am hoping that I will get a perk that will buff a useless spell to something useful.
So instead of wasting one spot for highly situational spell(Magic Guild OR Perk) your idea is to waste two spots(both Magic Guild AND Perk)? You realize how stupid that sounds, right?
So, what if I get Word of Light in Magic Guild and not as Perk or Vica Versa? Then we are at the worse spot than we have been in H5. How can't you realize that you are talking about Word of Light being useless perk while you are advocating yourself a useless perk if you don't get spell in a spell school.
Well, at least we agree that buffing a spell is one of the options.
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Give a man a mask, and he'll
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted September 10, 2014 03:12 PM |
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Stevie, on his posts JJ is comfortable speaking about perks improving spells - it's obvious he is in favour of them.
Stevie said:
"He wants to make spells a perks." - this is confusing.
Maybe you should read more carefully his posts:
JollyJoker said:
The spell is a leftover of another time - Holy Word/Shout - when Necro was more of a singular threat, and the spells were of lower tier. Same with CotN, which was Death Ripple/Wave, a spell usable only for Necro against living. If you got Death Ripple as non-Necro, well, it was one of 5 spells on that level, so no problem, and you might even use it with Golems.
The thing is simply, that I think these spells are fine abilities: no one is forcing you to pick them, but if you play against a Necro and an Inferno, then it suggests itself. I mean, picking Snatch suggests itself also more or less, the sooner the better and the richer the map the better, that's what the game is all about, deciding whether something is worth it situational, and the game should not give you something randomly that you worked hard to get and EITHER useless OR very useful. That's like, you go into a Dragon Utopia, you will always fight 10 Dragons, but the reward will either be Nothing or 30.000 Gold plus 3 Artefacts:
It makes no sense and it's bad game design.
The bolded line is all you need to know. The rest is just explaining which spells could fit as abilities, and why.
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 10, 2014 03:29 PM |
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RMZ1989 said:
So instead of wasting one spot for highly situational spell(Magic Guild OR Perk) your idea is to waste two spots(both Magic Guild AND Perk)? You realize how stupid that sounds, right?
It does sound stupid. In the same way it does sound stupid to get Mass Haste in the same way. You don't see what I'm trying to say.
Your idea rests totally on the premise that WoL is an useless spell, which is not. I just wanted to cope with that to make the best out of your scenario, so I said that if it's useless per se, why would paying even a heftier price make it better?
You want a real solution? Make the spell better. In my book WoL is not Tier 5. Even if it were tier 3 I wouldn't use it, simply because it's snow. If you were to give WoL a decent damage output and maybe even a good perk to make it my Top 3 spell of choice vs demons and undead, then yes Tier 5. But right now I wouldn't cast it above bless or weakness.
I'm tired of this.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted September 10, 2014 10:32 PM |
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RMZ1989 said:
I am not sure how much you have played multiplayer in H5
I never played H5 multiplayer, so yeah, different games, different strategy. Obviously if you play a duel type game where the hero on hero encounter is the main / only thing in the game, things looks completely different than if you play an adventure map, where the hero on hero encounter plays a much smaller role.
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What will happen now?
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RMZ1989
Supreme Hero
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posted September 10, 2014 10:57 PM |
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Stevie said:
RMZ1989 said:
So instead of wasting one spot for highly situational spell(Magic Guild OR Perk) your idea is to waste two spots(both Magic Guild AND Perk)? You realize how stupid that sounds, right?
It does sound stupid. In the same way it does sound stupid to get Mass Haste in the same way. You don't see what I'm trying to say.
Your idea rests totally on the premise that WoL is an useless spell, which is not. I just wanted to cope with that to make the best out of your scenario, so I said that if it's useless per se, why would paying even a heftier price make it better?
You want a real solution? Make the spell better. In my book WoL is not Tier 5. Even if it were tier 3 I wouldn't use it, simply because it's snow. If you were to give WoL a decent damage output and maybe even a good perk to make it my Top 3 spell of choice vs demons and undead, then yes Tier 5. But right now I wouldn't cast it above bless or weakness.
I'm tired of this.
I didn't mean that WoL is useless, it is just useless when you aren't playing against Inferno/Necro.
Couldn't reply to you earlier today because of this stupid 20 posts per day "rule".
alcibiades said:
RMZ1989 said:
I am not sure how much you have played multiplayer in H5
I never played H5 multiplayer, so yeah, different games, different strategy. Obviously if you play a duel type game where the hero on hero encounter is the main / only thing in the game, things looks completely different than if you play an adventure map, where the hero on hero encounter plays a much smaller role.
I play both of these things, when I say multiplayer, I've meant multiplayer in general, not just duels.
But I understand why would you think that Anti-Magic is more situational than Word of Light if you haven't played the game against people and certain strategies.
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Give a man a mask, and he'll
become his true self.
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted September 10, 2014 11:14 PM |
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RMZ1989 said:
Couldn't reply to you earlier today because of this stupid 20 posts per day "rule".
It's not stupid, think on the spam some trolls could make without it...instead of whining, make something useful in HC
RMZ1989 said:
But I understand why would you think that Anti-Magic is more situational than Word of Light if you haven't played the game against people and certain strategies.
While single player is important, I think multiplayer is significantly more important when talking about balance and spell system. Alci must be really old 
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted September 10, 2014 11:51 PM |
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Edited by Elvin at 23:52, 10 Sep 2014.
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Why a wisdom skill/ability is important:
Simple, spell variety versus spell specialization. Secondly, balance. It is a good way to ensure that you won't get end up with poor or situational spells. With a random mage guild, 7 different elements and without knowing what your high level spells will be, investing in a specific magic school is a risk. A risk that a might hero will never have to face. Naturally there are ways around this, this is just one of the safe approaches.
Why some spells are better off being unlocked as abilities:
First off, they clutter the mage guild. If you have played H5 competitively, then you know what I am talking about. There is no middle ground with situational spells and they will screw you up more often than not. It's not even a matter of adaptability, it is a matter of the opponent getting a useful spell and you not getting one. Especially painful and unbalanced at higher levels. It does not matter if you play against the AI but it matters against a human opponent. With 7 magic schools, H7 cannot afford as many spells as H3 and there will undoubtedly be cases where it's either spell A or spell B in the same tier. One universally good, the other screws you over 60-80% of the time. Things might have been different with a higher number of spells but as it is.. no. That is, assuming H7 will opt for situational spells.
Why having at least one favoured school in a faction's guild is good:
There should always be something to fall back on even if everything else fails. You might argue that this is not good for replayability but H5 suffered no such issues. Well, except dungeon where you had little reason to go for summoning but then it was clear that it was meant to have dark in its place. Remember academy? Every single game was different but you had the tools to create something good out of the randomness no matter what happened. Now picture H5 academy with a fully random guild. I'd pick controlled randomness any day of the week, thank you very much.
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