[limit the player] Magic

Great ideas here!

There should also be an injury that doubles the enchantment cost on that unit. 

There already is a building that makes all enchantments on the city free, but for some reason this bonus is hidden from the player. Probably needs to be added to the tooltip.

I don't see the point of giving out 5 free mana upkeep. That is the same as 5 mana per turn, but needlessly complicates things. Better to just give mana. 

I also would be wary of a mana cap. There is plenty of incentive to use mana. I never have more than 500 mana in my current games and even then, only to cast Bless on my cities. Not using mana is a bad choice. If you can beat the AI with no mana needed, that is a temporary issue of the beta. Mana should be used almost all the time in battles. If it is not necessary, the battles are not well balanced. 

Some very good ideas though I don't like the mana per turn limit

Or even such items could powerup some spells. Like a potion you can make from crystal and spiderwebs and consume for 20% dmg boost or incresed spell resistance/mastery for a turn.

Also Evoker needs removed or nerfed to like 20% and Spell Mastery needs to add dmg to spells.

I like the idea of a "mana casting skill", MoM had something like this.

If I have a high level magic using champion he should be able to channel more mana per tactical combat than any champion who is going the warrior route. Yet another way to differentiate champions using different strategies. 

The sovereign being the source of all magic, would have no limits, which is good for answering the question "What is so special about the soverign?" - besides some technobabble based on lore but has no game effects.

 - Agreed, besides it should  be a tactic to save up mana if you want to cast alot of spells in succession, and In general its like limiting the amount of gold you can have in the bank, seems silly . I cannot understand why you would limit the maximum mana besides the spell "Mana Blast", and I feel the issue is with the spell, not the limit of the mana.

Some nice ideas, but seemingly crippling especially to alot of tactics, If I am to use midnight stones or spider webs for spells they should at least be for sale in the cities.

I would like to see alot more spells, and hoping for proper summons soon too. I liked the Idea in MoM that I could play empires that mostly just were sending out summoned units everywhere.

I do agree by mana upkeep, that right now its totally out of sync, a spell affecting a whole city is the same upkeep as one giving my hero some flames around his favoured weapon.

Well we will probably (or hopefully) see alot more interesting spells soon, though I remain a critic of what I see in the dev journals

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

I would limit the amoutn of mana that could be used by champions depending on their skill.... in tactical combat.

But for overall pool, I disagree also. 

Thx for all the reply's!

I like that but also did not notice. All kinds of "all free" are difficult to balance, what about first two or worth of 4 mana.

It is not the same becourse it is bound to a hero and purpose. This could be good for warrior chars, or mages which need spell resistance.. Opposing to free mana for the pool this mana is less flexible, therefor you could give more of it for each perk. To remove complication there should be a net sum of what all enchantments on a hero cost.

I agree a soverign should have a significant higher cap, so he will bring all the big pain. But again no limit here is a problem.

My whole point is that having a mana bank and no limit to mana spending I could cast 100 fire elementals in one turn. I do not think this is a good mechanic, spamming again. Also it requires more planing which is a lot of fun.

Agreed. And i want to punish it even more

About the global mana cap. I feel mana should be more like a stream than a pile. I do not want to remove all tactics using a lot of mana or spending a lot of it fast. But this should be something i have to plan, pay and work for. I require buildings for a big mana bank and also a "ritual pit" (or some thing like that) to cast it fast (or a global enchantment, or item...). In this way it could be easy to summon a lot of elementals near my home town but not at the front.

For gold it is partially the same. I can not buy 1 Mio. tons of grain or 5000 swords right now, even if i had all the money. It is simply not available. There are not enough smiths to create it instantly. For buildings and units it is this way, ok you can rush them but this is realy expensive.

May be limiting the spendable mana per combat/strategic turn is enough to disable misuse.

This would in fact only add a cost in gold to spells, but more planing i guess. I feel such consumables should only be used for very mighty spells, or even spells you only cast one to two times a game. Or one could have a soul catcher sword which provides souls of the dead to cast ....*getting lost again*

Greets!

Ah now i got the right words for my mana bank problem:

You will get an advantage for doing less or nothing. Just sitting, waiting piling. Then you go out and fry em all. It should not be rewarding to do nothing. Ok you can play more efficient than another players and therefor have more mana, but still...

You don't get rewarded for doing nothing, you just get your reward for mana later on, except still ofcourse mana blast, which is a terrible idea IMO ...

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Soulstealing sword is waay better

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Mana Blast would be fine if it costed alot of Mana, but at 30 Mana per shot it is balls out insane to have in the game. I am pretty sure it was meant as a cheat to help poorly skilled beta testers.

I agree with everything you've said here. I think that mana either needs a burn off percentage (a soft cap, in other words) and/or per turn casting limits like AoW. Your other ideas are very good, too.

On a related note it may be possible to mod in casting points. I haven't messed around that much with the XML, but if you can attach different durations to different spell effects, there's no reason that it couldn't be modded up. You'd have to ask someone who is more familiar with the current system though.

I WANT CASTING POINTS!!!!

I still don't agree
Only spells similar to this that I like is the ones you can scale with use more mana = do more damage. (Had this in MoM, on almost every spell actually).

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Want to add that you need to remember, that limits for the sake of limiting the player is bad, limits needs to be well thought through and well implemented in a game, While I can see a lot of games with the mechanics you have mentioned, and see the games work, At the current moment it does not suit the essence that I see when playing Elemental: Fallen Enchantress.

Not saying its a bad idea, but trying to say I would hate to see any of these ideas implemented alone, or as the list goes ATM, since to me it would not feel like it would be fitting into the current setting, that is besides alternate costs to spells, they fit in depending on the spell ofcourse .

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

I'm a liberal pearson too

I thought I had a lot of good reasons for my suggestions:

• balance (and therefor more BIG spells without game breakers), troops for example cost production, upkeep material, resources, buildings and research. Magic, which is the core of the game, it is too simple: mana, hero skill/some research, some times upkeep.
• more story and things to do and work towards
• guidance and differentiation in the game it selve, so every game will be more different
• a more deep game play (wait for x mana, walk to town cast 100 elementals, kill em is no fun at all

maybe I'm more in favour of unique Spells which realy matter. I realy want to be shocked if i see a bone dragon ("how the hell did he get 10 dragon bones") rather than, "oh so he is level <Y> death mage". Most of the limits should make the game more difficult not less fun.

Besides better scaleing of mana upkeep, casting points are very important to me, the rest is just more ideas..

Casting points is not the same as having a  global mana cap.

You can have unlimited mana stored, but you can only use a limited amount per turn.

Better yet if you don't have enough skill, it would take over 1 turn to do it. Eg You have casting skill of 50, and you try to cast a spell with 400 man, it takes 8 strategic turns. Reminds me of this game.... hmm whats the name?

I don't like a cap of mana stored, cos there is nothing you can do about it. At least with casting skill with effort you could increase it. So that creates choices....

If having a global cap it needs to be done: invent new buildings, spells and items...

And hopefully difficult ones. That's the best case!

I am not saying your ideas are stupid, far from, I am just trying to say some of the limits you want to include on a player would get very annoying to me, and stuff like "you have to be lucky to find enough spiders before casting this spell", or "You cannot store more mana, because the dev's didn't like your plan to hide your power in the mana bar, instead of just summoning and razing (hiding my real strength), your issue with max mana sounds like you just have an issue with the computer being "inactive" and not doing anything to stop you storing tons of mana, not the fact that you CAN store tons of mana.

Another one that would be weird is location based spells, while meaby done right with proper spells this is not everyspell's fetish, problem again is some games I do not see some specific type of shard (like trying to be an epic fire mage and getting 7 water shards, 5 earth, 2 life, and 3 water shards, but NO fire shards). Meaby its just me having a general "hatred" towards "How lucky was you" games? As to try and limit the luck as much as possible.

Then again, having to go to war because I NEED the other Fire Shard to cast my "Spell of Fireworks" might be intriguing, depends on how it is implemented .

My estimate on capping mana is it is going to just be a major pain to some games, and other games I wont notice it, cant say I would be happy with that.

Not sure how "free mana upkeep" thingie would work tho would prolly be easy to use with an interface update, but not sure how usefull or game changing it would become.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

We should have more magic/spell system discussions. 

No offense taken

Maybe part of the problem but it is also colliding with my imagination of magic.

I agree that looking for those consumable may get into the way of some tactics, and even be annoying ("ähh what spell can i cast now..", "ohh not again oger grinding.." ).

But one aspect which is very appealing to me is to adapt to my current game/map/situation. I do not want to start with my mega uber build which is  the best. For me its all about making the most out of everything i got/find and exploid all i can get and have. So maybe going fire mage with only water shards was not the best idear

Speaking in civ terms: once upon a time i had a lot of fun on a map till very late game, but in the end did not have aluminum and realy could not crack my opponent. For me this is another aspect of "grown up" games. Some times it was not possible from the beginning but i mad a damn good stand I In fact i miss the difficulty from earlier games. Today it is all about players easy fun and making sure the quest is doable for all classes at level 22+, and  making maps in shooter so easy to navigate you can not miss the map objective. I wanna loose games because i was stupid/wrong, i wanna break my head over what to cast next because i want all three spells but can only do one thing at a time. 

But well i can live with the mana bank. But being able to spend 5000 mana in one turn... not good.

You implied something about summoning 1000 elementals. Currently each summoner can only summon one on the strategic level and one in tactical. Strategic spells can only be cast once per turn by each hero that has that spell. Which spells do you find OP with too much mana available?

Currently it is not a single spell but the way it is limited.

To be true I did not notice Oo, shame on me, got lost in the discussion. In this case i do not like the limit in place ^^. A limit "per spell" is also bad. Why not summon 2 elementals. in one turn if i have the mana and casting points. I would have to cast different creatures for no reason but the 1 per tun limit. I do not like this too.

It is more about creating decisions, ways to adapt, and there for also fail to do so (->loose).

Conjuration requires an extreme amount of willpower by all accounts. Your ability to hold just one being under your control is significant. I would guess that as the trait system develops, Summoner I-III will unlock the ability to summon more than one monster at a time. That is how Goetia is planning on functioning at the very least. 

To be clear, spells like Pillar of Fire can only be cast one per turn by each unit with the ability. Spells that are enchantments can be used until mana is depleted. Spells that summon something can be cast many times in one turn assuming the summoned unit died in a battle. I think each summoner only gets to have one summons at any given time, not one of each. I could be wrong about that last part though. It will probably end up that way when they fix the strategic/tactical summoning issue. 

It may be more useful to play the new beta on Thursday before we discuss this much further. For all we know the whole system is different.

Need... To... Discuss!...

Sincerely
~ Kongdej