A note: please don't start a new debate over whether X idea is good or bad! Each of these have their own threads already and there's no point in rehashing the pages of arguments over them. Instead this thread should be about refining ideas or coming up with new ones. You will almost certainly dislike some or perhaps even all ideas presented on the thread, but let's refrain from bashing them no matter how much they deserve it.

It's okay if you want to say that you like an idea, but let's leave it at that. Hopefully, if stardock is still deciding how to handle essence, this thread is useful to them.

I intend to make use of many of these excellent ideas in my mods, so let's try and keep it as a reference thread and a source of good (and some bad) ideas.

Lastly: I'm aware some of the ideas here are already in the game. : )

Shortly before we had our hands on beta builds, I wrote a chunk on my hopes for essence and the thread was pretty lively for a few days. Some of the things in my OP & the replies are clearly moot at this point, but newer folks interested in the subject might enjoy the 'historical' perspective.

My new biggest hope for essence is that it NOT be a factor for some sort of mana pool cap. Details of spells & other 'investments' aside, I believe that the derived stat for essence should be casting time, not a cap on mana accumulation. Nothing would distinguish mana and essence more clearly than having one of them effectively unlimited while the other one remains difficult to obtain throughout the game. If anything, the raw essence number should feed a formula for a penalty on the next essence increase--i.e. the more essence you have, the harder it should be to gain essence.

I really like the idea of being able to use Essence points to improve the stats and abilities of your Sovereign and Heroes. But how would you separate the 'normal' leveling up and the corresponding improvement in stats and abilities from the improvement caused by spending Essence points (I'm assuming that most heroes won't have Essence points to start with, and will only be able to get them after the Sovereign invests some of his own into them)? I propose that the improvement in stats through normal leveling will be moderate (but noticeable), while the gain by using an Essence point should be huge. And the difference between normally gained abilities and those gained by spending Essence should be that the first are natural, and the later supernatural, for instance the ability to dodge the blows of the average human vs. the ability to dodge bullets.

I have an idea a bit along the lines of what GW Swicord said above; how about making Essence determine how much mana you can spend in one turn?  Then it would function a bit like the 'casting points' from the AoW games. And, as in AoW, if you want to cast a spell that costs more mana than you have essence points, it will take several turns to cast that spell, until you have used the amount of mana necessary. So for instance a sovereign with 3 essence points could (providing he has enough mana) each turn cast 3 Magic Missiles or 1 Fireball, take two turns to cast Rain of Fire, or three turns to summon an lesser Fire Elemental. This way the Sovereign that hoards his Essence mightbe able to cast multiple powerfull spells each turn, and the Sovereign that used his Essence in other ways is still able to cast the same spells, but it takes more time for him. It also makes you think more about spending Essence, because it will hurt your spell casting abilities, at least in the short term. 

If you combine the two ideas above, I think you have a neat system for using Essence on your Sovereign and Heroes. If you invest an Essence point into a Hero, that Hero could then use it to improve his abilities, or keep it to become a spell caster himself. At first he would only be able to cast cheap spells, but as he gains more Essence (Frogboy said somewhere that heroes with Essence would be able to gain more like the Sovereign does) he becomes more powerful.

Your thoughts?

BTW, I think you should add Stmorpheus's idea from yourother thread of 'mana boost' (although I'd call it 'Essence Burn') to your list of 'What players want to do with essence'. I thinks it's a great idea. When you are all out of mana and you really need to cast a spell, you can tap into your inner reserves, but it comes at the cost of your spell casting abilities.

Added, if I got the idea right.

Satharn: it could be an idea to outright replace the sovereign levelling system with an essence one, "the essence is the points," and just give him the normal "hero" levelling system the other units in the game get in regards to combat. Not saying it has to be that, just that's also an idea as well. : )

We've got three different schools of thought on how to make essence related to spellcasting.

The "attribute" way:

• Spell power directly increased by total essence (damage * ( 1 + essence/20) for + 25% damage for every 5 points etc
• Spell casting time directly affected by essence: more essence, shorter casting time
• Total mana = essence * 10 I don't think anyone actually likes this
• Total essence determines number of spells you can cast (regardless of mana) in a turn

The "strategic" way:

• Essence is required to access mana nodes, essence opens them up and allows the mana to flow to you
• Essence determines the number of active mana nodes you can have at a given time

The "levelling" way:

• Essence is the points. You can buy strength or increased spellcasting ability through essence points. Unspent points are raw essence
• Essence can be used to create/purchase spells for your use, taking them from the books into something you can cast for a set cost

Each way of dealing with it obviously can work with different ways together, the goal being to stick to the lore but still make it playable. I also feel it's important to distinguish Mana from Essence, so that's one of my goals in the ideas I suggest.

I really like the ideas that you have been refining here. It seems to me that essence should be the stuff that makes a channeler so powerful--whether wizard or warrior. It should be the potential for power in undefined form, and when used for certain things, it is temporarily diverted to whatever that is (ie: stat boosting, item enchantment, retainer imbuing).

Please consider these points in light of what we have been talking about here:

• First: What is a sovereign--leader of the realm and only with the ability to "channel"--doing running about in a dangerous land where they could get themselves killed? While there are times for it to be called for (game start, key battles, etc.) There should be far more reasons for them to hang back at the city and imbue a couple of heroes to cast spells.
• Second: They are super unique, of a very rare few who can channel, right? But what exactly are they channeling? If they are channelers, then:
  • They simply invest a point of essence in order to make a particular hero a conduit of their own magic. This lets them sit back in safety and cast spells through that retainer.
  • They channel the energy all around them to gain their mana and augment their essence (mana=gasoline; essence=engine size).
    • The Light channels the power of life. This will slowly and steadily increase in bits as they revive the land.
    • The Dark channels the power of death and destruction. They will quickly gain a surge of power when they destroy life (kill citizens; corrupt the earth).
    • Both sides channel the power of the crystals. All types of crystals provide both mana and augment essence.
  • They can channel better at home, but can also cast better at certain places of power throughout the world (such as crystals).
  • They channel that essence into order to augment themselves and others, imbue items, the land, etc.
  • What else do they channel, guys and gals?
• Therefore: Sovereigns should have a starting "base" essence (casting potential) and mana pool (the fuel inside themselves) based on their starting stats, but all sovereigns should have the potential to increase these based on shaping the world in their own predilection.
• How will we have an Elemental War of Magic if the sovereigns do not focus on using magic?
• Finally, essence, as a raw undefined potential for power, should work as a temporary investment of your magical tasking ability.
  
  • If you imbue your retainer with your essence so that (s)he is a conduit of your power, you must continue to maintain that spell.
  • Therefore, it is only logical that your overall potential would be reduced--how can you cast a really complex spell when you're also busy maintaining five minor spells at the same time? Either get a bigger essence or cancel some of those spells that are eating up your essence.
  • That means there would need to be a screen in the magic menu where you could see what is eating up your essence and have the open to cancel.

I thought of another way to gain essence.

Lets say you give one of your essence to your champion, bob.  He gains a few levels.  You raise his essence up.  He has maybe 5 now.  If you are able to channel it into another unit, you should be able to absorb whatever they have.  If this was thought to be too strong, it could be made to where you take it all, and they die in the process.  Losing a champion after spending the time and energy to level him is a big trade off.

It would keep your Sov safe and still allow you to gain some essence.

It would would giving up some essence shortterm for some longerm.

Its not the safest, if they die, you would lose your initial essence.

If you acquired a champion who already had essence, you could absorb his as well.

Just something i thought of a couple days ago.

More exceptional ideas in this thread.  Want to throw out a concept that hatched based on all the threads I've read, linking Essence and Crystal Shards to bring about that Epic feel for Elemental: War of Magic.  First, a few points that have to be bought in to for this to fly. 

ESSENCE

• Essence is a UNIQUE and DISTINGUISHING Resource where only a few world characters possess this chacteristic.  It provides EPIC abilities (that can only be used sparingly due to its rarity) and whose use results in obvious tactical/strategic outcomes.
• Essence would likely be DE-LINKED from all other character attributes (e.g. Wisdom, INT, etc.). It could initially be a small fixed amount based upon... (?- see shards below).

SHARDS

• Elemental Shards (Fire, Ice, etc.) are unique STRATEGIC locales, potential resources of the utmost importance, that are the ONLY locations that generate Essence; they also generate the Shard's unique potential (e.g. "fire.").
• Possession of a shard provides that shard's Essence source and that shard's unique potential.
• Just as Essence has rare abilities linked to its use, so too is the acquisition of Essence from other than shards a rare event (e.g. major quest, small % upon level up, etc.)

It is my thought by LINKING Essence and Elemental shards you provide a unique game mechanic whereby there is a reason to have an ELEMENTAL WAR of MAGIC.  In fact, I would submit another game victory condition could be control of all world shards by one Sovereign ends the game.  Further, many interesting game mechanics (without new "features") such as controlling shards reduces the Essence of other Sovereigns, Shards become a strategic strongpoint worth fighting for, etc. could be implemented.

I could elaborate on this basic concept but won't unless asked

I have updated this thread with suggestions from everyone and changed the format a little. As you guys know I add the suggestions whether or not I agree with them: so long as they have some merit I think they belong up there.

I still do not feel satisfied with Essence as it currently works, but (understandably) Stardock may not be willing to change the mechanics at this point. However, there are a ton of "little" suggestions that I think make worthwhile additions.

Also hopefully this thread will be useful to modders in the future, because honestly there are *many* good ideas here, even ones that are completely opposite of each other.

Very nice idea on the capping of shards, leonach2, LeBlaque. I agree completely on making them more important/strategic to winning. The augmenting of essence is right in line with what I wrote above. I like your idea about an essence cap, however I think only wisdom would be too low; perhaps a combination of two stats such as (wisdom + constitution) or something. This slow generation of essence combined with what I suggested about ways for light and dark sides to gain essence above would add the element ( ) missing to this game.

i dont agree even on the first part

frogboy want sauron like and casters do cast 23124124 times in a single turn

and then you put a bit of grass on the ground and lose essence forever?

doesnt make sense

also there is the problem of other champions, how to make them cast?

The point of this idea is to avoid losing mana forever in most cases. I say "some spells" should permanently lower max essence because thats the vision the developers started with. How much spells should lower essence forever? 1 per faction? That I don't know but I believe that (going in line with this idea) they should be really really good and worth the loss. Which spell should weaken the caster is also something that would have to be taken care of during balancing.

As for imbuing heroes I don't think you should lose essence permanently, and that weakening the sovereign (temporarly lowering max essence) would work just fine and "make sense" since you just gave some of your life force to someone else and that sounds tiring. And if you decided to imbue several heroes in one turn it would certainly weaken you but you would have 2 casters and a longer time to recover from imbue'ing (spelling) them.

Of course everyone has their own ideas and point of views and I just thought this had its own merits, there are lots of great ideas in this thread and on the forums and I'm just trying to add to them. Worse case scenario is someone might get an idea from this

Now that would be interesting - not a permanent stat gain, but instead a very temporary yet insanely powerful buff at the cost of essence, able to put your sovereign on the same level as a dragon (or balrog or whatever) for just a few turns within a battle, just long enough to slay a single uber foe for example.

May seem like a poor use of essence when most of the other uses give permanent benefits, but then again if it allows you to slay a dragon, that's a permanent irreplaceable loss for your enemy and well worth spending essence on - it could also save your sovereign from death, which would cost essence anyway. Also creates a great "oh crap" moment, allowing a smart human opponent to completely turn a battle around unexpectedly. It'd give melees more of a reason to save up their essence for sure.

Edit: I've been thinking about it more, and the gandalf-beats-the-balrog essence expending buff would also be a great way to create Sauron-like moments, where a sovereign can slaughter dozens of regular units as if they were nothing. Imagine, your dragon and supporting death knights are moving in for the kill against an enemy sovereign and his pitiful bodyguard, his defeat is certain. At a critical moment he expends 5 essence on the "Avatar of Death" spell, becoming near impossible to kill with a massive strength boost and sweeping through several enemies with every stroke - for 3 combat turns. By the time the spell wears off, the dragon is ripped to shreds along with half your death knights, but the enemy is again vulnerable and now critically low on essence, and the battle continues as they desperately attempt to fight off the remnants of your forces - a sure thing gets turned into a close fight in an instant. If some kind of ridiculous essence buff can create such a moment one game in a hundred, it's worth adding I think.

It even explains how Sauron could scatter a dozen men with a single swing one moment, and then get defeated by a guy with a broken sword the next, obviously his buffs wore out!

imo it would lead to neverending cheating

in agame there are a lot of dead times

if the loss is temporarty it would end with some time of the game where you charge champions and some cool down where your sov returns strong

i cant really think asolution without flaws nearly the actual imbue system