Cooperative Magic

By your powers combined...

from Elemental Forums

So an off-the-cuff comment of mine in another thread inspired Swicord with an awesome idea! Full-blown cooperative magic between channelers and/or heroes.

 

GW Swicord:

The brilliant idea of channelers cooperating for a teleport spell opens up a slew of possibilites for long-term efforts like a Bifrost Bridge between capitals and even short-term alliances to do something like raise a volcano under a common enemy's capital or take down an offending overland enchantment. The teleport question itself also brings us back to just how much spellcasting, if any, champion units will be able to manage. At least some mage champions should be able to do something to help their channeler send reinforcements, no?

This initial brain-storming already suggests that there could be various types of cooperative magic. Raising something like a Bifrost Bridge would require direct and intimate cooperation and coordination between two channelers, while removing an offending overland enchantment could be accomplished by several channelers working towards the same goal, but not necessarily as one (though this could also be accomplished in direct cooperation). In the latter case, it could be something that happens naturally behind the scenes (although it could also potentially be arranged diplomatically). For the former, there could be a 'cooperative magic' tab in the diplomacy screen where everything could be arranged (this could be made more or less involved, based on popularity, difficulty of implementation, and depth of the magic system as a whole). For example, it needn't be an even divide - one channeler could invest more than the other; cooperative spells could be broken down into components, and different channelers might be better at some components than others (a fire-oriented channeler might be able to complete a largely fire-school component of a spell faster and cheaper than a life-oriented channeler).

Another type of cooperative magic could be channeler-hero and hero-hero magic. This could encompass a huge range of possibilities. It could be used to cheapen teleportation (the downside of cooperative teleportation is you'd need a decent magic-user at both ends of the spell), strengthen one party or the other, or boost the spells of one with the help of another. Costs would usually have to scale with distance, so a Channeler boosting a distant hero's spell might not be as efficient as a hero boosting an adjacent hero's spell.

 

14,602 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

HELL YEAH!!!   This is a great idea.

some spells, like magic roads, portals, global boosts (like wind mastery) and such could be benifitial to several channelers, so it makes sense that two or more channelers would want to share in spell casting and upkeep.   Things like a "spell of mastery" spell that would cause an alliance to win would also be a good spell to share.  So I suggest also possible channeler-channeler shared spells as such.

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Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I've always been a fan of combination attacks ever since I played Chronotrigger as a kid. Although hasn't this been discussed somewhere before? Well that really doesn't matter I would still love to see some type of magic interaction and combination mechanic for Elemental. 

It would be awesome to be an Air mage and summon a tornado and have your buddy a fire mage cast inferno resulting in a blazing tornado. 

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I like this idea better than my own. :|

Anyways, they'd have to be a bit careful in some ares like dispelling spells, or any persistent powrful spells would be next to useless as everyone would simply band together and dispel them immediately. Other than that, looks great.

 

:fox:

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Kitkun, reply 3
...Anyways, they'd have to be a bit careful in some ares like dispelling spells, or any persistent powrful spells would be next to useless as everyone would simply band together and dispel them immediately. Other than that, looks great.

What you mention here sounds like just another good reason to have a Cooperative mode for magic in the game. All the spells will cost mana, and presumably some form of 'attention credits/moves.' MoM let you work on only a single non-combat spell at a time, and that seems reasonable for Elemental also. At least by mid-game, I'd expect any given channeler to have at least a few overland/ritual spells to consider working on. Yes, that Pall of Doom is slowing population growth for everyone but Big Scary Skullface, but am I better off putting up my own Blessing or cooperating with my annoying neighbors to take down the Pall?

I guess what I'm saying is that worrying about co-op magic dispelling other overland spells "immediately" assumes too many things about how easy it is to dispel in the first place, how easy it is to get another channeler's cooperation, and how cross-pressured you might be when it comes to your limited ability to work the Big Stuff.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I guess what I'm saying is that worrying about co-op magic dispelling other overland spells "immediately" assumes too many things about how easy it is to dispel in the first place, how easy it is to get another channeler's cooperation, and how cross-pressured you might be when it comes to your limited ability to work the Big Stuff.
Point taken. Heh, this is why I like to have my paws on something solid before I discuss things.

 

:fox:

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting GW, reply 4

Quoting Kitkun, reply 3...Anyways, they'd have to be a bit careful in some ares like dispelling spells, or any persistent powrful spells would be next to useless as everyone would simply band together and dispel them immediately. Other than that, looks great.

What you mention here sounds like just another good reason to have a Cooperative mode for magic in the game. All the spells will cost mana, and presumably some form of 'attention credits/moves.' MoM let you work on only a single non-combat spell at a time, and that seems reasonable for Elemental also. At least by mid-game, I'd expect any given channeler to have at least a few overland/ritual spells to consider working on. Yes, that Pall of Doom is slowing population growth for everyone but Big Scary Skullface, but am I better off putting up my own Blessing or cooperating with my annoying neighbors to take down the Pall?

I guess what I'm saying is that worrying about co-op magic dispelling other overland spells "immediately" assumes too many things about how easy it is to dispel in the first place, how easy it is to get another channeler's cooperation, and how cross-pressured you might be when it comes to your limited ability to work the Big Stuff.

Also, in the case of 3 channelers all trying to dispel Big Scary Skullface's Pall of Doom, it needn't necessarily be X + X + X = 3X. Another thing is, there would normally be a lot of incentive not to dispel something like Pall of Doom - doing so would require a large investment of time and magic of you for the benefit of nearly everyone else, including (most likely) some of your enemies. Whoever does the dispelling of a global enchantment would essentially be taking a hit for the 'team', where the team includes the people trying to kill you. Cooperative magic could alleviate this issue - but you're right, if not done carefully it could also trivialize some of the big, large-scale stuff.

On a side note, I really hope there'll be a lot of ritual-style spells that require spending several (in extreme cases even very many) turns investing in a spell before it will take effect. And I also hope we'll be able to multitask our channelers' magic use each turn, even when in the midst of a 'ritual'.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

So, if co-op magic gets in the game, should there be a single, generic ritual to enable cooperation on any spell that's on the co-op list, or would it be better to have to research co-op versions of any particular spell like Call the Void? Also, should there be just a few spells that channelers can work together or should the list include any and all Big Magic?

I suspect that for spell book simplicity, most folks (devs?) would prefer a generic Channelers' Circle ritual that established a team to work a pre-selected major spell. The enabling ritual could also act as a basic check by essentially 'taxing' the co-op with a mana cost that's pegged to the power of the spell they are working together.

But maybe the idea of co-op versions of standard spells could help with any 'balance' problems like Kitkun's concern about overland spells getting taken down too easily/often. The co-op version of Countermagic spells could be very, very hard to research and very costly to use, while co-op versions of things like Nature's Blessings could be far easier.

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Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

I don't even think it would need to be that complicated. Since magic in the game I believe is going to be the equivalent to a rare type of energy you should just be able to cast the same or a complementing spell to achieve the desired results. I like ritual type spells but having to perform a generic one just to combine / strengthen a spell seems kind of lame.

 I think it should largely be situational or based on the physics engine in the game. That way players could end up with all kinds of cool combination spells and effects. Then the only concern would be a bunch of Channelers casting dispel to nullify an extremely powerful spell but that wouldn’t be a problem if you introduced a diminishing return factor in certain situations. For example to nullify the zombie apocalypse spell each Channeler in the group attempting to dispel it would need perform a proportionally more complex spell that would cost a larger amount of mana / essence than normal. 

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

I approve heartily of the idea.

Problems to consider: the user interface for suggesting such cooporations would be very complicated. This can't be avoided. Therefore, I suggest making two different kinds of cooporative magic:

  1. Simple: In the diplomacy screen, you can ask another channeler to team up for a specific ritual. Cost would be 50%/50%, without any complications.
  2. Complicated: a special screen made only for cooporative magic. It would be big, complicated and full of different options. It would be used only by experienced players.