Magic System Writeup Discussion

#21 I disagree on that matter, because when you do what you have said then it becomes a blodbath 1st person gore games, by eliminating team strategy. And maps will be made well i think

#22 What do you disagree with?

#23 If we go with a time-based system, then I would have to recommend that the spells are cast as soon as they are done charging. I think it is important to keep most mages in the combat as much as possible given the action oriented nature of this game. Keeping them close to the action in a time-based system would make them especially vulnerable to HTH damage which seems like a good balancing factor given the ranged nature of magic. Allow slow movement so that they are not completely at the mercy of the fighters but make it so that a fighter can close on them rapidly and strike with a sword. The wizard will still have the option of casting the spell at it's current level and running or fighting back.

Yet again I will have to say that, while I am a big fan of elemental spell systems, I think that it is simply overcomplicated for an action game.

Personally, I'd rather not see a spell timer or progress bar on the screen. I think that learning the different spell timings would be a skill that would differentiate experienced players from non-experienced (a partial answer to the question Jeff was asking about mage skills).

The idea of having to use the gui to control any of the spell just makes me shudder. It would really slow the mages down in combat and encourage them to try to stand away from the fights.

I think that one thing we are forgetting about a mana system is that it the mana doesn't necessarily have to regenerate on it's own. It would serve quite well to have mana pickups (respawning or dropped from killed mages) as well as mana wells/rune stones/recharge posts. This would help to alleviate a lot of the concern over what you do when you are out of mana as well as giving the mage incentive to get into the fight. The mana system may still be too simplistic but I think that pickups would help to counter the other disadvantages. Perhaps a combination of mana pickups with spells that take time to cast might work. Having to pick up mana from slain mages would force the amges into hot areas as would having to go to a mana fountain (I'd imagine teams would work hard to control a mana fountain). The mana could also regenerate on its own so that you are never totally stuck but it would do so slow enough that it is to your advantage to seek out another mana source. Adding timed spells to this would add that extra level of learned skills to keep it from being too simple.

#24 I disagree that it would be difficult to make maps based on elemental magic system. Its like shooting down the whole thing on something no one has tried.

I ahve one big question on this whole matter that people seem to beat around the bush on . . .

What role do we want the mages to play?!

I mean if their support then that effects what many popel say. If we want frontline fighters then again thats different. So what role do we want the mages to be playing? Support, frontline, godlike characters that can smoke any unit . . . ?

#25 I'm currently playing with the particle system and can do quite a few neat things with it, my intention was to see what creating a swirling particle storm that rises up the player as a sort of timer to show how much energy he has accumulated, it also shows enemy players that he is casting and approximately how powerful the spell is.

#26 What role do we want mages to play: Not frontline fighters, that role is covered. Not gods, that would be stupid. (Why play another class?) Our goal in terms of game balance is that variety is better than no variety. Mages are good in ways that differ and complement other classes. The mage is powerful but requires protection from other non-Mage team members to be effective.

Using the GUI: Having the Gui display things is fine, we don't want people clicking around though! The mouse is used for looking/aiming, making it also used to click on icons is problematic. If spells require time or mana to activate I do think that should appear on-screen, otherwise it would be too difficult for beginners who would have no idea why their spell was not casting. At least if the meter was not shown filling their should be some indication of when it is finished. (Like your character is momentarily surrounded in flames when the fireball spell is ready) Everything needs to be done via hotkeys, mousewheels, etc.

Mana: Controlling mana pools is nice, but I am afraid there are too many ideas centered around "control x to get y." Already we have control respawn points, perhaps control areas to gain money or spend it, now control areas to collect mana. If we have too many points of contention they become less meaningful. Mana could be gotten by picking up spawning items, but that encourages camping I think. If you need mana for a large spell just keep running back and forth between mana respawn points. It does give them something to do, so it is better than nothing.

I would think we will include at least one class that uses a magic-point based system, because it is familiar to most people. There is no reason why every class should have to use the exact same spell-casting mechanisms. There may also be classes that have special abilities that work similarly to spells in some fashion but don't work exactly the same. (For example,say a troll can use special regeneration ability or a speed-up ability, limited by the number of kills - more kills = more "mana" for ability)

Many of these ideas will have to be playtested to figure out if there are really going to work or not. We will try to refine a mana-based system (that is what we will have in MS2 anyway), I think the timing idea(s) have some promise - the elemental idea is interesting but I still have balance concerns.

To really buy into the elemental idea I have to hear:

1: How is air not redundant? You will basically always have air if I understand correctly. What is the point, why even include it when it won't be a limiting factor?

2: How do you correct for the fact that levels without certain elements (or those elements being less accessible) will be worse for mages? Include more of the other elements? (There is a limit to what including more will get you) For example, say we have a level where all 4 elements are fairly accessible. Isn't that going to be better than a level where 1 or 2 elements are basically lacking? The only way I can think of to correct this is make those levels somehow better for mages in terms of layout, but that once again puts a burden on the designers and it isn't clear to me exactly how to do that.

#27 I've never been fond of picking up items to enhance health or mana, simply because it's unrealistic. (I pick up a medical pack and wrap a bandage around my gaping wound, restoring me to full health in a matter of less than a second.) Rather, I've always wanted to see a system based entirely on personal merit, rather than camping out near a health pack and picking off weakened enemies wanting to get to it.

I'd rather see health regenerate slowly on its own, with its rate increasing from kills (absorbing life force) or such. Really, I just don't like item hoarding at all. I liked Starsiege because there aren't any glowing weapons or health packs lying around: just you, the battlefield, and one area for healing and one for reloading.

Elemental system... First off, the elemental system doesn't have to be based on surroundings at all. I feel that basing it on things you find in the game just generates a lot of complications. When you base it on statistics from how you play, there's no interference with how the level is laid out, and it will always be changing.

1. You could either make the element something different (not air, fire, water, earth but holy, dark, chaos, archaic for example), or you could simply base air off of a different concept entirely, like wind. You could also have air as a base for the other elements, or you could have normal air be too small of a substance to gather, so wind tunnels have to be found. (Once more, I don't like having to look for map items to do this.)

2. Don't use the map system at all. Nobody said the elements have to come from locations. Doing that causes a lot of camping. I'd rather see it based on what actions a person takes in-game.

You could make it so that spells that are cast regenerate themselves or the others at a faster or slower rate. (Either "learning" or "draining" a type of spell.) It would be temporary either way.

You could also have the mana source come from a single means, like kills from melee combat. It could be either manual or based on the race your using. For instance, if you're using a Human, you make a kill, and the power you receive from that kill goes to all your spells, but the fire spell (humans are centralized aorund fire if I recall) increases moreso. You could also have 1, 2, 3, and 4 as selections, and select 1 for fire. Make a kill, you get fire mana. Select 2 for water mana, etc. In both cases, Mages like Demons would get a lot of mana from melee kills, while lesser magic-using beings like Orcs would need more kills.

Of course, that's too hard for some reason, as I take it...

Also, I still don't see how having four elements would clutter the screen. They don't have to be bars. Like I said earlier, put them at the top or bottom as icons or buttons. One red or shaped like fire, one blue or shaped like a water symbol, etc. Then just put a percent by it, and you've got yourself an easy-to-see, noncluttering system. It would take up about just as much room as the width of the box I'm typing in right now... much less in fact, about half.

#28

Quote:
To really buy into the elemental idea I have to hear:

1: How is air not redundant? You will basically always have air if I understand correctly. What is the point, why even include it when it won't be a limiting factor?

Air is almost redundant. You don't get any when you are submerged. The purpose of air is to give you a limited, low-powered mana type pretty much always.

Quote:
2: How do you correct for the fact that levels without certain elements (or those elements being less accessible) will be worse for mages? Include more of the other elements? (There is a limit to what including more will get you) For example, say we have a level where all 4 elements are fairly accessible. Isn't that going to be better than a level where 1 or 2 elements are basically lacking? The only way I can think of to correct this is make those levels somehow better for mages in terms of layout, but that once again puts a burden on the designers and it isn't clear to me exactly how to do that.

You don't correct. There are levels that are good or bad for archers, too. There are levels that are bad for close combat people (e.g. levels with lots of rivers to cross, chokepoints to pass, or enemy fortifications to scale). So what if there are levels that are good or bad for mages?

#29 Mage mana: Still belive a combo of strong regen in elemental areas, and slow time based regen outside your favoured elemental area. Another is to make the regen different for every race maybe. Fo Example:

demons = faster regen
elves forested and wildlife areas = faster regen
humans = faster normal regen drawing upon actually air about them but limited powerful spells, more like heal, farsee stuff like that.
orcs killing = faster regen.
Dwarves have to concentrate
(so small may go hide in certain places) = faster regen

What we do is if we find that certain races are more powerful we limit/altar the power of their spells which is rather easy to do I think, no tchange spells altogethr just the amount of damgae or healing a spell does.

Spell idea-
Farsee = Eliminates fog of war for like 10 seconds (to create this temporarily just increase LOS of that unit)



As Falcon said, every map is limiting to certain classes, if you think about it, thats what creates strategy.

#30 I dislike any mana system, and especially this elemental system as it over complicates the wizard class without adding any real subtly or play style to it. All we will see is a load of mages too frightened to leave the areas that regenerate the mana for their favourite spell(s).

#31 It seems to me that a hybrid system would work best, taking the better aspects of all three systems and combining them together.

My suggestion:
Mana based on a smaller number of elements, two or three to make it less complex.
Continuous fixed mana regen, plus items or sites that increase regen of one type of mana.
The ability to charge up your spells, taking longer to cast, using more mana, and increasing effectiveness.

This makes the system both strategic and versatile, without becoming too cumbersome or slow-paced.

#32 Owen, You must be considering like regen where it takes like 5 sec to go up one point. lol

I see it like this . . .

You go into battle and arbe able to caste say like 5-7 spells, or a reasonable ampount. YUOu should have a regen system where the mana regens enough to where you can fight in a battle for about 15 minutes the you just hit rock bottom. at that point you can either wait and catse every 30 sec or use your races special boost regen area to get it back very quickly. Nothing to hinder the mage just add more gameplay variety. Something to attract interest and strategy but not cripple the mage and not make it too powerful.

I know so far the mage is going to be too powerful because all you have to do the way it is time based is cats, run cast run until either he stoips chasing OR you kill hium off.

With my idea he can only go so far before the mage either runs too low to fight OR has to run off to a regen spot which players will know about and try killing him off.

#33 It would have to be shorter than that, since people die so quickly in games like this. Say, 5 minutes of casting...

In any case, this is just the first idea that was offered up in the original release, which wasn't looked on too kindly, since it's very typical of the standard MP system.

#34 What about a completely economic model for the magic and the weapons? At the end of every round, a magic-using player could elect to buy a new spell, or spell components. Other players could elect to buy weapons of their choice. It just seems that this would solve a lot of the problems with weapon scarcity (being unable to find your specialist weapon/spell on the level), and balance (powerful weapons/spells would cost more to buy).

I know this is exactly like counter-strike, but it does seem to be a good system.

PS - altering magical effects based on location sounds like an awesome idea; how about allowing spells to effect other spells? So a player could cast a spell to summon a storm (effecting the entire level) and make your lightning magic more powerful.

#35 Only problem with a round-based buying system is that there won't be any rounds =)

#36 For the buygin system we could always implement a buygion place and make it a different loking place for every scenario. LIke for a battleield it couild be a tent or a wepons cart, for city it could be a balcksmith or shop etc etc. . .

#37 How about we just link together the two main ideas?

It will be a time-based system in which it takes a specific amount of time for each spell to individually regenerate. The spells will be divided up into the four elements. The regeneration time for each element, as well as the spells within the elements, will depend on the race and class of the fighter.

It will take a set amount of time to charge each spell. Every spell has about 5 levels of power. The longer you charge, the higher the level will become, although you may stop charging at any point and cast the spell at the level it has already obtained. The higher the level at which you cast, the longer it will take to fully regenerate the spell to the point at which it may be cast again. The stronger the level, the more powerful the effect. It will take approximately 3 to 5 seconds for the spell to actually be cast, charging aside.

Standing near elements will cause the regeneration rate of the element and all spells within said element to increase, albeit slightly. However, it will not affect charge times, as to discourage camping near elements, as well as sniping near element souces.

Elemental sources will be as following:

Earth = trees, rocks, other natural landscapes aside from the ground the player walks on

Air = wind tunnels, caves, extreme heights (triggers at these locations may be identified in scripts)

Water = lakes, rivers, oceans

Fire = hearths, camp fires, bonfires

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Hopefully, that's a simple enough system without it becoming monotonous. New items like caves, wind tunnels, and bonfires would have to be created though. Caves can simply be objects placed on level terrain next to a hill, so as to not mess with the terrain files themselves, although I would leave the possibility of linking caves together open. Wind tunnels will essentially be the same thing, except with the appearance of geyser: a large, sloping hill with an opening at the top.

Sounds good to me, but to everyone else... that's another story.

#38 If you read up a little youd see I have been pushing for a combined system of both elemental and time based regen. :)

#39 I didn't see any specifics though. :)

#40 What Eli mentioned seems to be that part of what someone mentioned as being over-complicated but not really. I'm going to go back to some of the ideas in the first few posts.

Let's look at the idea of team controlled areas and how they can affect mana. Instead of being a team-based pool of mana that 'bone-heads' could drain, the controlled areas could be more of a modifier for the individual mana pool of the individual's on that team. This could decrease the time needed to fully charge a spell and/or increase the effectiveness of the spell.

Now let's go back to Eli's last idea on the elements. Instead of having individual mana pools for each element, the controlled areas or semi-controlled areas can be represented by the elements and then be used as modifier again for the element related spells but not the mana. Thus the element related control or semi-control area would decrease the time needed to fully charge the element related spell and/or increase the effectiveness of the element related spell. The semi-controlled area could be nothing more than what the area is surrounded by, kind of like what Eli mentioned and not be a main objective as the controlled areas (etg., bases).

On the part of the players, would be best and simpler if they just had one indicator on their HUD for their mana. Spell selection should be very similair to weapon selection. You want a newbie to be able to go right on in and be able to use the system and have experienced people be able to learn the nuances that certain control points will make certain spells more effective. The teamplay comes in when people other than the mages realize that holding control areas can help provide extra resources to their team mates who are mages.