Magic System suggestions

Yes, please.

I drafted a post on ideas for a series of 'packs' of user-created spells organized thematically.  Then binned it because it's folly.

I need to know the scope and granularity of spell effects. Do spells impact individual units, groups of units within or spread across multiple map grids, or even across the entire map?

Need to know if spells can have negative impacts on the caster (Say I want to make a Fireball spell a la D&D.  But I want it more potent.  Except that for balance considerations I want the caster to suffer a resistance penalty to cold damage for X amount of turns.)

Can spell have effects across multiple turns? (simplest example is if you can make DoT spells.  But creativity rules here, and I'd want to look into creating spells that have different types of effects on each successive turn.

Can AoE spells affect friendly units?

There are tons of questions and the answers to those questions may shape ideas on what we can or cannot do with whatever toolset we're provided with for custom content.  The Holy Grail would be to get a list of stat names or characteristics associated with a spell.  By definition, that would provide answers about what we can or cannot modify (without separate coding).

One thing that crossed my mind, is if they allow for custom spells then how will game progression work?  The same problem will happen for units.

In Elemental: War of Magic, the first direct damage spell you have should not be your best direct damage spell.  You should have to upgrade it or something so that you have a goal of having good magic down the road.   Players will just be able to create spells that are powerful, to the most of whatever system allows.  The problem I see is if players create their own spells, either of 2 things will happen.  A. spells will fall into 2 catigories; custom spells, and not custom spells (people only using one or the other) or B.  all spells will have a system that keeps them balanced  (forced mana to damage out-put ratio that makes all the spells on the same level) but then you won't have any spell tiers and early game spells will be just as good as late game spells.

I fear the same might happen with custom units as well (since there is only sword... no super or hyper sword upgrade, though it sounds like SD has a solution to this).   Any thoughts of how you could keep some sort of spell progression through research but keep customization?

I guess you could make it so a custom spell had to mimic the effects of an existing balanced spell, but that kinda defeats the purpose.

Can't speak to the question or concern about spell or unit progression (yet), but I will say that I'm really not worried about concerns about 'balance' stemming from player created content.  In other games (and there are many that are modded heavily) these things (balance, playability) tends to sort it outself out, a bit like a self-cleaning oven.

Taking 3 fictitious scenarios (just from my own experience watching how modding communities develop content over time for games like Oblivion, Total Annihilation, Civ IV, Fallout 2, Neverwinter Nights to name a few):

1) Ultra-powerful, seemingly unbalanced mods.  sum 1 set up us teh bomb. "We Are Gods Amongst Men!"

Predicted result: folks that like to play either single or multiplayer games where everything is the relative equivalent of the A-Bomb will find one another.  And live happily ever after.

2) Mid-line tweaking, some things a bit more potent, some a bit less.  The Middle-American Mod of Mediocrity (tm) - "It plays well in Peoria".

Predicted result: Of the total pop of players that actually do mod their game (probably not the majority!) this is probably where most folks end up.  they're looking to tweak the game a bit in a direction more suited to their playstyle, and maybe fix a few irritating things.  These folks - probably a majority of players that use mods, will find one another.  And live happily ever after.

3) Hard-Core, Realistic Sadists.  No pain no gain, and it's not fun unless you're bleeding.  "You are not hard-core!"

Predicted result: These folks think that metagaming mechanics (like Save Game features) are for wimps.  Battles should be like 'the real thing'.  You should feel pain before you progress. And the favoured mods will remove some ease-of-use convenience features from the UI, and perhaps make fireballs drop your mage's HP by 50% with each use to avoid spamming the same attacks. (replace 'fireball' with your favored spell of choice).  These folks probably about the same number of people that fall into the 1st category above (if we put faith in a variation of the Pareto Principle) will find one another.  And live happily ever after.

I end up in the 2nd category, and most players I think do as well.  But I *will* definitely futz around with stuff that falls into the other categories to satisfy 1) a curiosity about someone else's mod, and 2) it helps to learn the limits of what can or cannot be done according to game mechanics and rules.

Interesting and detailed ideas! 

Personally I'd like to see different types of magic rather than the classic 5 elements (Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Life/Death)
Or at the very least more original creatures/races and spells than the ones we've seen in every magical game so far (you know, elves, trolls, dwarves, fireballs, etc.)

Custom spells remind me a bit of Master of Magic's mechanics where you could forge your own super weapons. Through a simple cost system they managed to balance cost versus performance quite well, even with such a vast array of spells you could imbue into a weapon.

My only wish for a cost-benefit system is smooth curves.  I hate breakpoints from a design perspective, because it encourages min-maxing, giving distinct advantages to micromanagers.  If benefits and penalties scale on a smooth curve (preferably not linear), then it comes down to tactics and strategy.  The best "breakpoint" dependso on the situation: either the situation presented by the player, or--for good players--the situation created by the player.

I agree, except sort of about 'advantages to micromanagers.' I'm a fan of micro stuff, but I pretty much detest min-max stuff. I think of it more as giving an advantage to min-maxers, and the micro side is just a detail of how they get to their boring super-strategy.

@Noctilucus: we still have almost no info on how Stardock will be rendering "the classic 5 elements." The element theme is not necessarily a limit on complexity and variety, especially if mixing elements is common. The 'magic' system in the Wheel of Time is based on five elements and is apparently limited only by the strength and ingenuity of an individual channeler.

Re the playable species, we have just two: humans and Fallen (a magically-made variation on humans). I'll be a bit surprised if we see anything like elves, hobbits, or dwarves in the base game, but I'm sure they'll be a big presence in the user-made content when it starts rolling in.

I estimate a good mix from the way Age_of_Wonders:SM and Dominions_3 did their magic systems would provide a satisfying result.  In Age_of_Wonders:SM you had six spheres to chose for magic at the start of a game and could specialize in one type or mix them as desired... it was possible to collect the other types of spells but only from quests or special structures called magic vaults.  In Dominions_3 every spell could be eventually researched, but only mages with matching magic paths could cast the spell type researched... sometimes magic gems were also needed.

I believe it's important to make it possible to obtain a few spells outside of your researching by completing quests or from a special NPC or structure.  At the very least the map editor should allow the adjusting and placement of spells.

Also by default Elemental: War of Magic might have 5 levels of spells for each category, but I hope it will be possible to add new spells and/or adjust existing spells beyond the 5 levels.   Thus allowing us to move an existing powerful spell to level_8 and thus create new level_6 and level_7 spells since this will be very important for those creating very large maps.

I can see elves and dwarves and such being a neutral faction in the base game.   That being said, if this is Gal Civ based, maybe it will be lost aliens or something.

I agree with GW that we will certainly have all our standard 'fantasy' races once fan-content becomes solid.  I expect all the original Master of Magic races will be available as (I will ensure it is so)

I never saw elements or classes aside the classic ones but a few. I played a game that had classes like Balance, Storm, Ice aside those scheduled to Elemental. That was actually a fun online game and the producers said to have been making it's turn based magic system for 6 months, I've found it very fun and it is all oriented to PvP as to PvE (up to 6 in the same battle) and it is called Wizard 101. Never experienced any other magic system that was as deep and fun yet.

I understand if Stardock doesn't want Elves and Dwarves because they don't want to go down the classic high-fantasy route.  However, it'd be nice if the world building tools allowed the creation of new races.  I assume that would require adding artwork and 3-d models, but it'd still be cool.

From here:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/338042

So there will be the ability to create new races. Hopefully Stardock can develop a way to create diverse and visually pleasing races without having to be a professional 3D artist/animator. Thinking about the GalCiv2 ship editor I'm pretty sure they can. I'm sure most people here would like to play with staple fantasy races such as Elves and Dwarves, so I'm sure they'll be available almost as soon as the tools are released.

I hope you are right, but believe you are incorrect. It says you will be able to create new factions. I would take that to mean that you can go in and fiddle with the racial statisitics like you can in GalCiv2. I am betting that you are stuck with the racial graphics of Men or the Fallen - again I hope I am wrong on this and you can add completely new races and have the tools to create new graphics and add orcs, dwarves, whatever. If you can truly assemble beings like in the ship editor, that would be very cool, I just haven't seen anything yet to indicate that's going to be the case.

BTW, WAY OT to this thread!

From Brad in another forum:

The game is only going to include two races for story purposes. But players will not only be able to create their own races in-game but actually mod full-blown races, submit them, and share them with other players. So if you want the Klackons in there, you could do that.

Unfortunately I can't find an exaxct source for that quote (but only found it previously quoted on here) but I can assure you that I did read said post previously and independently of it also being posted on here

Edit: it's ok I found the source here yay! Verified!

I appear to have just found another forum I must troll.  I didn't know official info was posted on quarter to three

On the other hand I would think a lot of development time (and hence cost) would go to creating these tools that allow players to create their custom graphics for additional races - I'd rather see that time being spent on game mechanics

I would already be happy with something like the custom race creation in GalCiv II: a wide variety of parameters to fiddle around with, without any need for custom graphics (I'm obviously talking about the race setup, not the ship designer aspect).

I must disagree. A lot of people -me included- would be very disappointed if there were only two races available with no possibilities to add other races in. I am looking forward a lot to user created content, hope it will be possible to mod  complete races with unique buildings, spells and so on. I want to have elves, dwarves, klackons, whatever at least for the sandbox game. I will definetly try to add my own stuff in.

I'm torn (as usual). I can see the addition of some great, really well-made races. This again brings me back to Dominions 3, where someone made two excellent mods - one adding pirate-like dwarves and the other adding an elven nation. But on the other hand, for every well-made, well-thought-out, fits-into-the-setting-like-a-glove, there's a goddamn hundred worthless, run-of-the-mill, let's-force-this-shit-in-there-like-a-monkey-through-a-keyhole "yay I want elfeses!"-mods.

I can see the addition of an entire elven subrace. High Elves (WoWesque), Wood Elves (LotResque), Dark Elves (Forgotten Realms Drowesque), Dark Elves (Eberron Drowesque), Fel Elves/Blood Elves/Fey'ri (A mix of all at once). Add some nice interaction between all of them, and we have an entire new race. Of course, right now I'm just dreaming, but I can dream dammit!

And yes, I only now realized how incredibly off-topic this was!

I'm amused how you choose WoW as your model High elves, especially since Warcraft elves are kinda insane (at least since the sunwell was lost.   That is also according to the lore of the game, I'm not sure if its actually played up at all after frozen throne in the not-books).   When I think "High elves" I first think of warhammer (the people warcraft directly immitates, warcraft 2 tried to make sure they were different, but warcraft 3 turned right back around and headed straight back to direct-copy).  

I always felt that the line between high elves and wood elves were made vague in LoTR.   Like, I imagine wood elves having tree-based villages and such.  The woodelves in LoTR had a castle, and for the most part (to me anyway) didn't seem much more 'in-tune with the wood' than the high elves were.

Tolkien elves pretty much started the trope. The distinction between types was very vague thought. The high elves were immortal and if any were killed thier soul would return to the land over the sea. The wood elves were "here in middle earth already" and are distinct from them.

It was all very confusing.

That's not quite right. Let's see if I can explain it with tying myself up in knots. One thing we can agree on, at least - it is all very confusing.

But basically, there were 4 major subgroups of elves: the Avari, Noldor, Teleri and Vanyar. When the Valar realized that the elves were in Middle Earth, suffering at the hands of Morgoth, they imprisoned Morgoth and called the elves to join them in Valinor. The Avari refused, and stayed in Middle Earth. The rest of the elves went (and then became known by the names above). The Noldor and Vanyar all made it to Valinor, but some of the Teleri never finished the journey, and became known as Sindarin elves. Eventually many of the elves returned to Middle Earth, and what became known as Wood Elves (or Silvan) were largely composed of Noldor, Sindar and Avari.

Tolkien never called any elves High Elves as far as I know, but all the elves who took up the Valar's offer became known as Eldar. But all of the Avari became associated with the Silvan elves, but not all Silvan elves were Avari. And all elves were immortal, and if any were killed their souls would return to Valinor and after an indefinite period of time most were re-embodied. Including the Avari - they were still elves after all, created by Illuvitar; the Avari and Eldar started out more or less the same, the major differences (which were pretty much just levels of sophistication) came about long after their arrival in Middle Earth.

The lines are vague because the differences are subtle and slim, really. The biggest difference is in interests and where they choose to live. Wood elves for example weren't nearly as capable metal-workers as other elves such as those in Rivendell, but were fonder of singing and other arts. Also, RE the wood elves having a castle (it was in the Hobbit, not LoTR) - I think the portrayal of the elves in the Hobbit was written before Tolkien had really fleshed out the elves as a whole. Originally they were more fairy/gnome-like, more mischievious, less graceful and sophisticated. That said, the elves of Mirkwood didn't live in treehouses or tree-villages - the Mirkwood didn't have huge trees like Lothlorien, so they actually built buildings.

Wow.... This must be the longest off-topic post ever. Sorry

Screw this, I'm making a dedicated thread. I originally had a semi-long post here, and I didn't really care that we were getting a bit off-topic (since we're getting off-topic together, aren't we in fact on-topic?) but I realized I wanted to get creative and began to dig a deeper and deeper hole of off-topicness, where I went from general ideas to very specific models.

So damn, this new thread is up here.

Edit: Added link.