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| Thread: H7 Metamagic - Wouldn't this be better? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 06, 2015 01:42 AM |
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Edited by Stevie at 13:40, 07 Sep 2015.
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H7 Metamagic - Wouldn't this be better?
Context
Yesterday I decided to take Academy for a spin and test the reworked Metamagic skill, which reads like this:
Subsequently, Expert grants Expert at 5 points and Master grants Master at 10 points. So I went ahead and enlisted Yasir, and I see that his Paragon GM is this:
Having two skills that both do the same thing in the end is indeed lulzworthy, but anyway. I realized that having all spells via AK and all at Master level would be a thing for Academy magic heroes. So between the two options, I decided that going for the Paragon GM path was more efficient, mainly because of this little ability here,
Which essentially gives you enough AK to get T3 spells, so you'd actually get some use from your build as you progress. Of course, I was counting on the default Novice Metamagic to provide the prerequisites for achieving Novice in all spell schools, which would then clear the requirements for the Paragon GM. That would've been an absolutely epic example of skill synergy. And then rushing a T3 Magic Guild in the first week would also become a viable strategy!
It didn't work.
Instead of giving me Novice rank for spells after accumulating 3 points, bugged Metamagic gave me Novice at 1 point, Expert at 2, and Master at 3.
And then it hit me
While the story so far might be interesting in its own right, it's not all there is. Playing Academy I realized that the AK feature was a perfect fit. Well, that's just natural. After all, Academy used to have Arcane Omniscience as an ultimate back in Heroes 5...
.....
Wait a second, isn't that it? Wouldn't it be rather preferable to have the ability to learn all spells as the Academy racial? Instead of a general underlying mechanic like the AK? And instead of having two skills essentially doing the same thing? Of course!
So here's what I came up with:
• Remove Arcane Knowledge entirely - revert learning spells to the way it was before;
• Redesign (again) Academy's Metamagic to make T2 spells learnable with Novice, T3 with Expert and T4 with Master;
• Replace Arcane Intuition with Magic Insight - the hero can now learn T2 spells;
• Keep the Paragon GM the way it is and make sure its synergistic potential is not lost (especially for Academy);
This way you hit multiple birds at once:
- You fix spell acquisition once and for all.
- Academy's racial, backed up by H5 Arcane Omniscience philosophy, does something useful and different from Paragon GM.
- Other factions can get access to T2 spells tops, a level higher, as per H5's Magic Insight design.
- More balanced and rewarding magic system.
On a side note,
I would really like to know the equation between mastery, spellpower and the resulting effect and duration of a spell. What little research I've done seems to provide some rather disturbing results, such as spellpower having little to no influence at all while mastery runs the show. We need spellpower to have a more decisive role, because, as it is, this only works in the detriment of magic heroes.
And since we're at it, heroes whose specializations provide a bonus level to the current mastery of a spell, such as Orna for Heal, don't get any extra mastery or whatnot if they achieve Master in that respective school. I don't believe that should work that way, because we already have a myriad of useless specializations.
Also, if there was still any doubt about it, within the current framework spells are learned only through the AK. For example, Novice mastery in a magic school won't allow you to learn T2 spells anymore.
I do realize that what I'm saying here cannot even be taken into consideration for the upcoming vanilla release, but maybe later down the road? Some things are in a dire need for better approach, and I definitely believe that the magic system and some skills are high up there on the list. So who's to say that a patch or maybe an expansion won't bring that change about?
Anyway, I'd really like to hear some other thoughts on this.
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Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler
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TD
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted September 06, 2015 05:10 AM |
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Maybe I missed something, but what exactly does your suggestion fix essentially? You will still lack wisdom/spell-power + ability boost for spells(which is in general only thing that makes a lot of spells any different between similar ones between schools) + mana-reduction ability. Which returns us to the core of the problem which is that you need schools. Since you got schools you will use them rather the spells counter-parts that will be cast with less efficiency. To get basically any use of racial You will need at the very least one school which will leave your spells very weak. Meaning you will need more schools. This essentially creates loop that makes you get certain abilities and makes you avoid other. Which will each diminish the racial + paragon for most part.
As for how spell-mastery works, I think each level gives you small spell-power buff for your school + modifier/multiplier to spells cast from said school. Maybe Marzhin or somebody from Limbic could answer this in the next twitch...?
PS I do like your idea better than current meta-magic though and it would sort of make academy feel more magic oriented. I mean currently you learn to master spells only to forget them after battle..? And then repeat this over and over, these guys must be really demented!
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 06, 2015 01:01 PM |
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I think you underestimate just how powerful mastery levels are. It's true that abilities enhance spells to have more interesting effects, like AOE and whatnot, but that doesn't give them the power that mastery gives. Not even close. A spell's mastery is nothing to scoff at.
In fact, let me give you a quick example.
Yasir with starting 3 Magic, can cast a Fortune spell at Unskilled for 13 Destiny;
I get level 6, and now with 6 Magic he can cast a Fortune spell at:
- Unskilled for 16 Destiny;
- Novice for 22 Destiny;
- Expert for 35 Destiny; -> gets Arcane Exaltation (+2 Magic + 2 Spirit), gives 38 Destiny;
- Master for 55 Destiny; -> gets Arcane Exaltation (+2 Magic + 2 Spirit), gives 60 Destiny;
That seems to me to be quite a lot. Of course, it's a bit presumptuous to jump at conclusions for one example, but trust me, this is status quo for all spells. I can go on and on giving you examples which would only further prove it.
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Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler
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cleglaw
Famous Hero
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posted September 06, 2015 02:43 PM |
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Edited by cleglaw at 14:44, 06 Sep 2015.
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Stevie said:
remove arcane knowladge
no. just no. im really exhausted to see rejection towards anything new presented. its fun, its good. it can be improved but not removed. stop asking for nostalgia. seriously. d'oh!
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted September 06, 2015 02:55 PM |
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It's not a matter of nostalgia. The team screwed up on their magic system and this is a convenient fix.
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted September 06, 2015 03:01 PM |
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cleglaw said:
Stevie said:
remove arcane knowladge
no. just no. im really exhausted to see rejection towards anything new presented. its fun, its good. it can be improved but not removed. stop asking for nostalgia. seriously. d'oh!
I thought the nostalgia was about having the system in the first place, for people stated this was like Wisdom skill in H2 and H3.
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 06, 2015 06:54 PM |
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Elvin said:
It's not a matter of nostalgia. The team screwed up on their magic system and this is a convenient fix.
Let's just hope that this convenient fix is also a temporary fix. Because outdated H3 Wisdom mechanics lead to a dead end for spell acquisition.
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Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted September 07, 2015 07:58 AM |
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Stevie said:
So here's what I came up with:
• Remove Arcane Knowledge entirely - revert learning spells to the way it was before;
• Redesign (again) Academy's Metamagic to make T2 spells learnable with Novice, T3 with Expert and T4 with Master;
• Replace Arcane Intuition with Magic Insight - the hero can now learn T2 spells;
• Keep the Paragon GM the way it is and make sure its synergistic potential is not lost (especially for Academy);
This way you hit multiple birds at once:
- You fix spell acquisition once and for all.
- Academy's racial, backed up by H5 Arcane Omniscience philosophy, does something useful and different from Paragon GM.
- Other factions can get access to T2 spells tops, a level higher, as per H5's Magic Insight design.
- More balanced and rewarding magic system.
I think this would come a very long way in solving the issues of the current magic system. My only objection here will be the Paragon GM skill (cast all spells at Master level if you know the skill on at least novice level). I dismissed Elvin's concern about this the other day, but since then remembered yet another contraint from the current skillsystem which I had blissfully forgotten, namely the fact that you can only learn 5 skills, which obviously seriously limits the idea and potential for spreading out wide in magic schools (not mentioning the fact that the skill pizza limits the number of schools you can even learn on novice rank in the first place).
My suggestion would therefore be to change the Paragon GM skill in the following way:
• Master (or perhaps rather Grandmaster) of Magic: Spells are casted on mastery level that is two levels higher than your actual mastery level in that skill (e.g. if unschooled, you cast the spell on expert level; if you have the skill on novice, you cast the skill on master level).
This is a slight loosening of the conditions in the current skill, in the sense that it reduces to the current skill in the case where the hero does have the skill on novice rank, but it also gives you a bonus in the schools that you don't/can't learn - just not the full bonus, because you "only" get to expert rank in those schools.
On a sidenote, I'd also consider adding a skill, probably at level 2 or maybe even level 3 Paragon:
• Expert (or Master) of Magic: Spells are casted on mastery level that is one level higher than your actual mastery level in that skill (e.g. if unschooled, you cast the spell on novice level; if you have the skill on novice, you cast the spell on expert level; if you have the skill on expert, you cast spell on master level).
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What will happen now?
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ChrisD1
Supreme Hero
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posted September 07, 2015 09:11 AM |
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Edited by ChrisD1 at 09:13, 07 Sep 2015.
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yasir and minasli are the only academy heroes with access to grand master paragon. a quicker way to tackle this inconsistency between meta magic and master of magic is to actually make them grandmaster in smth else instead  it would be way way way way more efficient and would solve that problem. or just don't spend that one skill point on paragon grandmaster and learn smth else
and arcane intuition now gives 2 arcane knowledge i think.
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TD
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted September 07, 2015 09:51 AM |
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@Alci Actually you can learn any number of skills(though 30 is the level limit) if you play with free-pick as the system was intended. If you were forced to pick only 5 you might have to evaluate which are needed more and thinking is a big "no, no" in this game . Only random skills is limited to 5 skills so it's unlikely you will run into this limitation.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted September 07, 2015 09:55 AM |
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TD said:
@Alci Actually you can learn any number of skills(though 30 is the level limit) if you play with free-pick as the system was intended. If you were forced to pick only 5 you might have to evaluate which are needed more and thinking is a big "no, no" in this game. Only random skills is limited to 5 skills so it's unlikely you will run into this limitation.
What the **** ... are you actually telling me they put a 5-skill limit only on the random skills and not on the manual picked skills?
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What will happen now?
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 07, 2015 10:04 AM |
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Edited by Stevie at 10:06, 07 Sep 2015.
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alcibiades said:
My suggestion would therefore be to change the Paragon GM skill in the following way:
• Master (or perhaps rather Grandmaster) of Magic: Spells are casted on mastery level that is two levels higher than your actual mastery level in that skill (e.g. if unschooled, you cast the spell on expert level; if you have the skill on novice, you cast the skill on master level).
This is a slight loosening of the conditions in the current skill, in the sense that it reduces to the current skill in the case where the hero does have the skill on novice rank, but it also gives you a bonus in the schools that you don't/can't learn - just not the full bonus, because you "only" get to expert rank in those schools.
On a sidenote, I'd also consider adding a skill, probably at level 2 or maybe even level 3 Paragon:
• Expert (or Master) of Magic: Spells are casted on mastery level that is one level higher than your actual mastery level in that skill (e.g. if unschooled, you cast the spell on novice level; if you have the skill on novice, you cast the spell on expert level; if you have the skill on expert, you cast spell on master level).
I think you're right in altering the conditions of Master of Magic that way. You would really rather not have a GM that could do nothing if you don't also meet some other conditions like having at least Novice in a magic school. So changing it to give +2 mastery levels is a sensible idea that I could get behind.
However, I don't really agree with Expert of Magic. I think your reasoning was to make a bonus mastery level available to other heroes that don't have the GM skill, but I find it unnecessary with an eye on those who do. If you really want to have it, then I think it would be better for it to be an Expert ability, and then have the GM give a bonus mastery also instead of two. They'd end up doing the same thing, but I don't think that's all too bad given how powerful mastery is.
Also, it would be good if the devs could fix the problem of overlaping masteries. So for example, if you have Master of Light, you'd still get some extra punch for Orna's Heal or some usefulness out of these Paragon skills if anyone decides to do things that way.
ChrisD1 said:
yasir and minasli are the only academy heroes with access to grand master paragon. a quicker way to tackle this inconsistency between meta magic and master of magic is to actually make them grandmaster in smth else instead it would be way way way way more efficient and would solve that problem. or just don't spend that one skill point on paragon grandmaster and learn smth else
and arcane intuition now gives 2 arcane knowledge i think.
You forgot Aali and Masfar, so 4 heroes. And changing the Paragon GM could be an idea, but I quite like being able to get more mastery levels.
alcibiades said:
What the **** ... are you actually telling me they put a 5-skill limit only on the random skills and not on the manual picked skills?
Yes. I take it you didn't knew that?
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Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler
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TD
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted September 07, 2015 10:10 AM |
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alcibiades said:
What the **** ... are you actually telling me they put a 5-skill limit only on the random skills and not on the manual picked skills?
Yes, now you're catching on. They had to do something to handicap the already handicapped random system in order to encourage people NOT to play with random. Just imagine if people demanded random for MMH 8... This way they won't have to worry about it as everybody will hate random after MMH 7
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ChrisD1
Supreme Hero
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posted September 07, 2015 10:18 AM |
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Stevie said:
You forgot Aali and Masfar, so 4 heroes. And changing the Paragon GM could be an idea, but I quite like being able to get more mastery levels.
oh yes i was looking only at magic classes! hahaha! still instead of changing again EVERYTHING, they could just change those four heroes' grandmasters. it's the simplest and more effective idea for metamagic and grandmaster paragon being the same. we need to address this for the vanilla, it's the simplest solution.
academy heroes will always be better at casting spells this way since metamagic increases magic too, right?
i mean if anyone else with the master of magic, will surely cast spells on master but his/her magic attribute when casting them will always be lower than an academy hero with the same abilities etc.
and indeed the arcane intuition does give 5 arcane knowledge but the site says "+2". I think this value should be lower.
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Pawek_13
Supreme Hero
Maths, maths everywhere!
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posted September 07, 2015 10:41 AM |
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Edited by Pawek_13 at 10:43, 07 Sep 2015.
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TD said:
alcibiades said:
What the **** ... are you actually telling me they put a 5-skill limit only on the random skills and not on the manual picked skills?
Yes, now you're catching on. They had to do something to handicap the already handicapped random system in order to encourage people NOT to play with random.
This is not a problem at all if you remember that there is no limit in terms of available abilities. You want to get some ability in random skill system? Good luck with that, especially when you have all 5 skills unlocked and there is virtually no chance to get your desired ability. This is the reason why I couldn't get Expert Paragon in my game (no Novice Paragon ability showed up.) Add to that skills that are available only for Expert level at most (what makes them even less desirable.) I can handle 5-skill limit (you still can obtain some of planned skills) but these two limitations (especially the first one) make random skill system not as entertaining as it could be.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted September 07, 2015 12:13 PM |
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TD said:
alcibiades said:
What the **** ... are you actually telling me they put a 5-skill limit only on the random skills and not on the manual picked skills?
Yes, now you're catching on. They had to do something to handicap the already handicapped random system in order to encourage people NOT to play with random. Just imagine if people demanded random for MMH 8... This way they won't have to worry about it as everybody will hate random after MMH 7
... 
Stevie said:
However, I don't really agree with Expert of Magic. I think your reasoning was to make a bonus mastery level available to other heroes that don't have the GM skill, but I find it unnecessary with an eye on those who do. If you really want to have it, then I think it would be better for it to be an Expert ability, and then have the GM give a bonus mastery also instead of two. They'd end up doing the same thing, but I don't think that's all too bad given how powerful mastery is.
Well maybe I was unclear, but I think what you say was also what I meant: To have it be gradual, i.e. first (expert?) ability gives you one level increased, the other (grandmaster) ability gives you another level, for a total of two levels if you have both skills. Grandmaster skill could do something else also if one think that ability along is too weak.
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted September 07, 2015 12:18 PM |
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... just five? Sad indeed.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted September 07, 2015 01:19 PM |
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Edited by Elvin at 13:21, 07 Sep 2015.
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I finally read the masterpost.
You make a fine suggestion for academy but at the same time you condemn everybody else to 1/7 schools, maybe 2/7 if their class can afford a second school. Ak was introduced because original system sucked so this is two steps back.
I have a question for everyone. How many of you hated H2 magic system where spell skills were not part of the system? Did you mind learning skills from all schools then?
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 07, 2015 02:35 PM |
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Edited by Stevie at 14:36, 07 Sep 2015.
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I'm not familiar with how things worked in H2.
A separation of elemental schools from the skill system is something more or less called for. If elemental masteries had their own system with their own acquisition methods and their own learning curve, different from how skills work, then things would stop being so cluttered and arbitrarily restricted. But that calls for a major redesign, and I don't think that's probable at all, if even possible.
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Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted September 07, 2015 02:37 PM |
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In H2 you had no Magic Schools, only Wisdom skill.
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