Meaningful Variety in Abilities and Spells

from Elemental Forums

After finally finding time to check out 1.3 more, I hope to ask two simple questions that might be of use for 1.4 and for FE.

While I really like where things appear to be going in FE, what still makes me apprehensive is what appears to be a lack of meaningful variety. By that I mean that there *appears* to be a great deal of variety, because the underlying game structure does not allow for pre-designed unit classes and hence every unit and event is formally unique -- but the actual differences appear (to me) cosmetic or superficial or strategically unimportant. (By the latter I mean that most of the more apparent forms of variance appear in the way a unit or event deals damage over time.) The more apparent signs of meaningful variance I found in the spells (since these are "pre-designed" and are not created or customized by the user in-game as units are).

So the first question is this:

1. There were hundreds of suggestions for spells in the Spell Contest some months ago, and about 30% of them appeared to be quite decent and about a quarter of those excellent. If only a quarter of *those* and others suggested on the forums in the last year or so were doable, that would still leave us with about 10-20 really great spells that wouldn't (it would appear) cost so much to implement, and about 50 or so fairly decent ones. Is there a reason the spellbook is still so slim? I would have imagined that this is your bread-and-butter -- the only place in the game where pre-made elements must be relied upon. What constraints are keeping you from greatly increasing the quantity of decentness?

2. As at least some people have been writing for more than a year now (e.g. mine from 2009, https://forums.elementalgame.com/369399 , https://forums.elementalgame.com/374597 here in 2010 https://forums.elementalgame.com/400669) you'll want more "flavor" in the way that units differ from each other in meaningful ways. You seem to be taking this to heart in FE. Is there a way you could incorporate the idea of abilities I linked to here in WOM and have us be able to test it out and give, say, a fairly decent palette of, say, 100-200 abilities that could be implemented (for FE but also for WOM)?

Thank you for your time.

5,059 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

This is exactly why the FE beta is so important. All the features we have been hoping for for a year now are either hidden behind the curtain, or just not going to ever be there. 

 

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Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

To be honest, just looking through the magic .pdf which Brad recently made public, I'm a bit surprised not only at the paucity of spells, but of their lack of creativity. Remember when the "morale" mechanic was removed and Brad said that it was unnecessary because spells such as "fear" would be able to affect a unit's statistics nevertheless? It's surprising that there are no spells even remotely like it; these are all bland or lacking in subtelty. I was not expecting a magic grimoire quite as impressive as Dominions, but I was expecting something a quarter of the size and with half its creativity.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Two issues I have with spells in WOM and FE are;

1. An AI that does not use spells during tactical battles (FrogBoy is addressing this issue in a forthcoming update)

2. The lack of spells. When I play the game I can research and cast every tactical spell for the spell books that I have. There should be more spells so that I have to make choices and the AI should present you with a greater varierty of battle tactics so that you have a reason to vary your spell research strategy to try different spells & spell combos.

  1. Example: Since the AI never fields archer units I never need to research the wind shield spell to protect my units from arrows.
  2. Example: Since the AI never casts magic I never need to research the spell that protects a unit from magic.