[GAMEPLAY] Suggestions to balance magic now that it works.

from Elemental Forums

I think most agree aside from those having the bug where it misses, that magic is too powerful now.  Personally I think aside from a few tweaks the magic itself is working great.  I think the big problem is the fact that particularly with shards your magic is too powerful for the amount of magic it costs.  I've destroyed armies by spamming attack spells that only cost 2-3 mana.  I think it might work better if they upped the amount of mana regen by say relating it to intelligence, so you can regen more per turn, but upping the mana cost of spells, to make them powerful but more tactical.  So that way instead of nuking the entire army, I have to prioritize targets, and try to use my magic to take out/weaken the strongest unit and hope it will be enough for my army to finish.  Maybe increasing spell cost by a similar 10% percentage to the damage increase.  I look forward to other suggestions and feedback.

elemental
4,520 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Just look to MoM in my opinion, a global mana pool and a tactical battle mana pool that drew from that, the further you are away from your capital, the more expensive spells are. This kept everything in line so that you couldn't become fully dependent on magic to deal with all battles (particularly those without wizards, which WoM has correct right now), magic was more of a support thing to allow you to turn the tides of battle a little. In tactical battle you only had a much smaller subset of magic you could use before you were depleted. Also casting spells wasn't always instantaneous in MoM, so summoning occurred over turns, and it again was based on a value of how much mana you could use per turn.

Honestly, while MoM wasn't perfect it was damn close, just look to it for guidance.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Customization.  I could make a character in MoM where magic was primary.  The first couple of nodes were tough, but summons/heroes could be a core army...or at least a highly buffed melee+first strike+flying+bless+etc,etc :).  Alternatively, I could go low books/high "buffs", i.e. warlord/myrran and go doom drake for flying.  Could also go really heavy into one type to get the bonuses...took me revisiting the game 10 yrs later to know that you got pretty solid bonuses for 8+ books  or could spread it around a lot.  

 

Anyway, spells that cost 2 mana but can do int or 1/2 int damage are too powerful.   I now create a "caster" sov with 5's in dex/str, 7's in cha/con and 15 each int/wis.  No worries.   Haven't got up to the really big mobs yet...just started spawning trolls and such, so don't know if it scales well.  With that said, I made a squad of bowmen that are now dong 44 damage a shot....not much that I've seen can handle a couple of those.

Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I think the magic system as it is now more accurately reflects magic itself. First of all, we're still using the old mana system (as opposed to the new one set to be implemented) and mana takes forever to regenerate, so each spell counts. Second of all, the dmaage output is now lsightly realistic! Since when did leather armor prevent a wearer from getting fried by a lightning bolt? Never. I like the magic system a lot now. Sucks for those people who have the glitch where magic misses all the time.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Just because magic takes forever to regenerate, doesn't mean every spell counts, when you have 25 mana and you can wipeout an entire army with spells that cost 2 mana each.