Mana Shards And You

I've been keeping up with the Elemental Beta to a small extent and mostly vicariously through a friend of mine since it came out. I haven't played it yet, but to my understanding, when you start the game, you pick 'X' amount of spells and basically hope you get the shard(s) relevant to the spells you picked in the nearby landscape. (Barring the Alignment based magics of course.) I've no clue if someone else may have proposed this idea or not... I ran a search and surfed through all 14 pages of this section of the forums, and found no such thing, at least not obviously labeled.

My qualm is this: If you don't get your shards, you're at a big disadvantage. Not just minor, major. Sure, you could instead spend your time focusing on mundane means to conquer the land, or go for a Diplomatic Victory, etc etc. But without magic, how are you going to protect against magic, or combat other forms of magical defense or attack? The answer is, given these circumstances, you don't.

I understand that each shard you control puts its corresponding mana type into your 'Bank' each turn, and that you could always research more spells, but it seems like any smart player would be gathering intel on their opponents, especially in the early game. Given this, any player that realizes their opponent doesn't have access to their magic would, everything else being equal, make a push and go for the kill. Again, everything else being equal, the person with access to their magic is going to win that fight.

My idea is this: Rather than have Mana be exclusive, make it inclusive, but with a penalty for off-type use. This could also be done to only a certain extent, for example, allowing Fire Mana to be used for Fire, Earth, and Air spells, but not Water, it's diametric opposite. Going more in-depth, my idea would be to basically double the spell-cost for using the incorrect type. I.E., let's say you have a Fire spell of some kind that takes 2 Fire Mana. You need to cast this spell RIGHT NOW, but you only have a single Fire Mana banked, and two Earth Mana. Allow the spell to be cast, at the cost of all three mana points.

Another example, you need to cast your Fire-based spell right now, again, but you only have 4 Air Mana banked, and no Fire. Allow the spell to be cast at the expense of all four points of Air Mana.

Obviously, it could be done in many different ways besides, making the penalty a percentile or have it be bigger, etc etc... I just tend to think it's a bad idea, especially in the early game, for the player to potentially be locked out of their spell-casting. This is especially true in the event that any player has equipment/units/etc, that have some kind of mundane damage resistance, making magic the best, or in some cases, the only option to efficiently defeat an opponent, or defeat them at all.

Fall From Heaven gave you the ability to transform the 'Mana Nodes' to the type of mana you wanted, but I think this is a poorly thought out idea for Elemental, for Lore reasons. In my mind, it would be easier to take a small amount of mana and bend it to a purpose it's not originally intended for, rather than transforming an entire Shard, which would theoretically take a massive amount of power. With the Shards themselves being the source of that power, the idea that you could ever have enough power to quell and change the power of a Shard seems impossible, at least to me, but having that as a late-game option could still work and work well.

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I think this is an elegant solution to this problem, which I've also noticed. The "grid" of having being able to use off-type mana at twice cost and not use opposite mana at all allows for both luck and strategy to play a role, especially if somehow a sovereign ruled a minor empire with limited shard access (AI or human!). Without it, I think my instant strategy in most games would be to simply blitzkrieg the enemy to deny them their mana access- which is smart game-wise, but not nearly as fun as watching an AI be able to challenge my invading war-bear army.

I think this also raises the question of spell exclusivity, that is to say whether it would be interesting/worth it in gameplay terms to force a player to choose between fire/water, air/earth. After all, we're doing it for life/death...

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I'm not sure about making the entirety of spells exclusive based on choice. While it could add a deeper of element of strategy to the game, I.E., maximizing your effectiveness and efficiency given only two or three types of mana, it could also take away one of those elements. For instance, in the 'Choose Your Element' type of play, all you really do is climb up your specific tree. Time isn't a factor, since it's basically just going from A to B to C, etc etc. While you might do this anyway in a 'Generalized' system, let us say in the event you only have one Shard or one type of Shard, then at this point, it's a strategic decision, not a rail-roaded game element.

But let's look at the event where you have multiple shard types. For arguments sake, we'll say my idea of Double-Cost for Off-Type, and no use of Diametrically opposite mana types, is being used.

Now, let's also say you have both a Fire and a Water Shard. In a 'Choose Your Element' situation, one of those two shards will be totally worthless. However, using a 'Generalized' casting system, you have the option to use both of those shards to their full potential, turning both into extremely valuable resources, and adding to the strategic and tactical elements of the game. In the first example, it doesn't matter if you let the 'Off' Shard get taken, since it's doing you no good, but in the second example, it's still a valuable and important resource, even if you can't use it right at that particular moment.

To add even more complexity to this, let's add a third example with the following parameters:

You've started the game specializing in Fire Spells. You have one Shard of each, Fire, Water, and a third element, take your pick.

Now, in a 'Choose Your Element' style, at most, only 2 of those 3 Shards would do you any good. Again, it makes a shard worthless to you on both strategic and tactical levels. There's also the potential that the third Shard may still end up being worthless, still leaving you with just one Shard.

Using a 'Generalized' system however, even if you can't use the Water Shard right away, it may come in handy later, say, if you need to counter an army of summoned monsters that were brought into being via Fire Magic. I.E., Ifrits, Fire Imps, what-have-you. Even though you may need to research a spell or three first, it's still being useful to you, just by being there and accumulating mana. This doesn't hold true in a 'Choose Your Element' style of play. The third Shard is immediately useful, operating as an off-type Mana source, allowing you to cast the spells you already have access to, and that aren't Diametrically opposed, with more ease.

Now, personally, I think the exclusivity behind Life and Death, in just about any game, is silly. Life and Death are intertwined, more so than Fire and Water, Air and Earth, or any other Element/Opposite Element combo that can be thought of. The only reason I tolerate it is because it's not simply about Living and Dying, it's about either everything living, or everything dying. It's about the battle between the Living and the Dead, or those that want to bring Death to everything, as opposed to both just being another part of the same cycle. This is a common theme in many games, and while I feel it is over-done and absolutely cliche, the fact is, given the ability to choose between either Life or Death adds a certain flavor to the game, and, in most cases, clearly defines the Protagonists and Antagonists, at least as far as any single player content goes. At the same time, it also helps to define play-styles. While neither Life nor Death is inherently Passive or Aggressive, each type offers a myriad of different ways to reach the same goal.

I.E., Life Magic Man needs more army, so he uses his "Inspiring Rally" spell, immediately recruiting more low-level soldiers to his cause.

The flip-side: Death Magic Man needs more army, so he uses his "Raise Dead' spell, immediately summoning some low-level Skeletons to fight for him.

Same out-come, different means. See what I mean about flavor and definition?

Let's complicate things further with a more in-depth example.

Life Magic Man is underpowered going into a battle. Not by much, but enough. So, he uses "Bless" to give his troops an edge, helping him to the obvious goal of winning the battle. It's still not quite enough though, so he uses "Angel's Presence" to give his Blessed troops a portion of the Angels power, and goes on to win the battle.

Death Magic Man is underpowered going into a battle. Not by much, but enough. So, he uses "Fear" to demoralize the enemy ranks, helping him to the obvious goal of winning the battle. It's still not quite enough though, so he uses "Smell Fear" to bolster the zeal of his troops against the frightened opponents, and goes on to win the battle.

Again, same out-come, different means.

And as an end note... I gotta stop using walls of text when I write... >.>

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I understand and agree that having that third shard is better in terms of efficiency - and about the life/death silliness. I'm not wedded to the Choose Your Element model, I just prefer gameplay models that force players to strategize and focus rather than engage in a general land-grab for everything in sight. I think whichever model one uses, the game needs to really use the magic/mana/shard system as one of its tools for focusing the player and encouraging strategic thinking.

But you're right, it would be silly to have a totally useless lump o' shard hanging around the map- I mean, these are supposed to be raw elemental essences coming up outta the ground! Who wouldn't want to use that? Maybe a better system would be to fuse the two, allow for a Focus-on-Element model and increase the cost for the opposing element. That way you could still summon your water nymphs to take down those ifrits, but it would only be after some planning.

All-in-all, I don't love the opposites/dichotomous system, because I think trying to balance two forces/types together doesn't make for much fun, I'd much rather see a way to get a more asymmetric balance system in here (thinking rock-paper-scissors at a basic level).

Okay it is late and I am rambling, hopefully that made sense. <.<

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