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danieljones080208
danieljones080208
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[Thoughts and Impressions] Disappointment

Reasons why I wouldn't buy this game, with suggestions that might change my mind.

February 12, 2012 10:08:14 PM from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

I used to play Master of Magic for months at a time, game after game after game.

I've played the Fallen Enchantress Beta for about a week and am bored.  So I'm going to try to identify things about the game that make it less than entertaining.  Here are two.

1) No variety.  The races are about 97% percent identical.  The units only vary by what weapon they use and how many of them there are, and this is in spite of being able to design custom units.  Spells are acquired without effort in a predictable order, and are either useless, too expensive, or essentially identical (more on this later).  Heroes do nothing special, and fall into one of three underwhelming categories.  Aside from the differing maps, every game is the same.

   Possible Solutions:

a) Make the races more diverse, and meaningfully diverse.  If they all look the same, play the same, and have the same units...  They're not interesting.

Make it possible to design units with special abilities, and with differences that are more than just adjusted stats.

c) Research spells independently.

d) Rebalance magic  (see below)

e) Give heroes special abilities.

f) Different technology trees for each race.

 

2) Magic is broken.  Spells are expensive and don't do enough, plus the paucity of mana is debilitating, even when it's set to be plentiful at the game's start.  Let us say that I want my sovereign to be a mage.  One of my basic combat spells costs 10 mana and does about 6 damage.  Since I make about 2 mana per turn, that means every five turns I can fight a single low level wolf.  In my last game I controlled about a quarter of the map and was making 15 mana per turn.  My fire spells were more powerful too, doing an average of 14 damage.  But by that point of the game, being able to do 14 damage was even less useful that being able to do 6 damage at the beginning.  And of course by the point I also had a few heroes.  As I've mentioned in previous posts, melee/archer heroes just can't compete.  Caster heroes fair no better, because using them to cast spells creates an unsustainable mana drain.  Again, this is with mana set to be plentiful.

     Possible Solutions:

a) Make spells cheaper and more effective, while mana is also more available.

Make spell power less dependent upon the number of associated shards

c) Give each hero his/her own mana pool.

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danieljones080208
Stupidity10
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Reply #1 February 12, 2012 11:04:05 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

c) Research spells independently.

No, WOM had this and it was terrible. That said, it is way too easy to become an Arch Mage or whatever lv 5 magic is called. Personally I would fix this by making a mid-late tech requirement in the magic tree for  lv 5 magic and an early game one for multi elemental magic. Also for spell differentation you just need more quest reward spells, ex Alchemy and Shadow World (Unlock mini schools maybe or a common quest to unlock a random unique spell of a school you can cast).

1) No variety. The races are about 97% percent identical. The units only vary by what weapon they use and how many of them there are, and this is in spite of being able to design custom units. Spells are acquired without effort in a predictable order, and are either useless, too expensive, or essentially identical (more on this later). Heroes do nothing special, and fall into one of three underwhelming categories. Aside from the differing maps, every game is the same.

Agree, only mage champions have any flavour and even that is shallow. It's still beta though so we will no doubt see more content released. Im hoping for weapon specialization at the least.

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danieljones080208
seanw3
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Reply #2 February 12, 2012 11:10:56 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Lack of variety is a good point. Giving every faction some unique techs, spells, more unique traits, more unique stat differences, hero classes, abilities, buildings, and mounts would be an appropriate way to fix this. I only comment because this is the one area that may not be on the devs' radar yet. But, the core game needs polish before this sort of thing can be accomplished. 

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danieljones080208
ManiiNames
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Reply #3 February 13, 2012 12:03:51 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Right now the only race with unique elements are the Wraiths, who have some unique spells and the ability to transform any shard into a death one.  I wish more of the races had things like this.  Well the Mancers do a little, with invulnerable Caravans and +1 Caravan per city, but all of the Caravan mechanics are changing so ...

I find mana to be tight early on, but manageable.  In general I don't have big mana problems - unless I am running heavy fire magic.  If I am fighting constantly and casting big fire nukes in every fight I run out of mana extremely rapidly.  The easy solution is troops.  Buy some.  Another thing which can help a ton are Mana Temples (?) or something in the magic tree down about 1/3 of the way in, they give an extra +3 mana per shard for all shards attached to the city you build the temple in.  This is a huge increase in your per-turn mana income.

Another solution is Mantle of the Oceans.  50% discount, on everything.  In fact if you stack Path of the Mage (25%) with Mantle (50%) and Affinity (25%) spells are now FREE yes FREE.  Your only limit is actions at that point.  I've made some posts about Mantle in the past and how OP it is, I believe it has been changed some in the next release but exactly how I am unsure.

- Manii Names

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danieljones080208
seanw3
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Reply #4 February 13, 2012 12:13:54 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

I would hope there will be some sort of 10% minimum on spell cost. Really they should be balancing the bonuses to total 90% reduction when you have every possible bonus. I seem to remember Morrowind having the same problem with Chameleon being at 100%. 

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danieljones080208
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Reply #5 February 13, 2012 12:18:31 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

If they changed Mantle to be 25% and have an upkeep cost I think it would work.  You could still put on a spellcaster robe and ratchet the number down again, but I agree that FREE should not be achievable.

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danieljones080208
nkraptor
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Reply #6 February 13, 2012 4:29:12 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Since its about spells I'm going to just go ahead and throw my thoughts in this thread and hope they get read.

Right now my biggest problem with spell mechanics is that is entirely based on the size of your empire/kingdom.

What makes a spellcaster better?

1. Shard control

2. Total mana regen

3. Leveling up? Sort of?

The first two are obvious, almost every spell has a (+# per shard!) on it. As well as you can have TOO many spellcasters, leading to not enough mana to actually do anything with them. You can't have too many physical based heroes. Now spell casters do in a way get more powerful by leveling up, access to more spells, and if you're lucky, the big ones which are actually tactical mana reduction. However, how boring is it that intelligence is just a very meh spell resist reduction. Sure it works, it's also VERY BORING game play in my opinion.

This leads me to wonder, is the best stat a spell caster can get initiative? Do you get extra turns? More turns is more spells casted? Kind of lackluster if a spellcaster is an initiative character. On setting normal magic I believe my biggest spell was about 55ish damage. Not bad, however, every spell I cast I weigh against that I could be using Crusade(+1 unit level to all of your units). It's pretty obvious that fully decked out level 12+ units have a ton more than 60 hp. Add to that you put your units on horses and your caster isn't some back line safe character once enemy has any smarts.

Currently I feel the biggest use of my mana pool is to have my spell casters just sit at home in my cities and be buffers. Even combat buffs, such as Enveloping fog i believe it is? +dodge to your army, I instead now just bring a physical hero that has the level up skill +dodge to army instead.

I'm not saying it's not possible to beat the current computer using spellcasters, it's very possible, I just think a spellcaster is much less viable vs a thinking opponent.

 

Editing this in-

I thought I was in business once I found titan's breath, the ability to knock units prone, basically taking away turns.  Then i realized all you have to do is put units on a horse and they are immune.

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danieljones080208
Barrynor
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Reply #7 February 13, 2012 4:47:09 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Quoting nkraptor,
reply 6
This leads me to wonder, is the best stat a spell caster can get initiative? Do you get extra turns? More turns is more spells casted? Kind of lackluster if a spellcaster is an initiative character. On setting normal magic I believe my biggest spell was about 55ish damage. Not bad, however, every spell I cast I weigh against that I could be using Crusade(+1 unit level to all of your units). It's pretty obvious that fully decked out level 12+ units have a ton more than 60 hp. Add to that you put your units on horses and your caster isn't some back line safe character once enemy has any smarts.

Currently I feel the biggest use of my mana pool is to have my spell casters just sit at home in my cities and be buffers. Even combat buffs, such as Enveloping fog i believe it is? +dodge to your army, I instead now just bring a physical hero that has the level up skill +dodge to army instead.

I'm not saying it's not possible to beat the current computer using spellcasters, it's very possible, I just think a spellcaster is much less viable vs a thinking opponent.

Well, I can assure you, firsthand, that level 13+ units decked out with a few nice traits and in plate armor are of the 550+ HP variant, and they are immensly strong. Coupled with Battlecry, +Dodge as a trait and stacked with +dodge from Obscuring Fog you suddenly get a very fast, very painfull army. I'm sure as more buffs are unveiled their damage will skyrocket.

 

Edit: Well, now that I look at some of my units, I think some of em are already in orbit.


These are level 16 archers decked out in Champions armor. Notice the ridiculous amount of hitpoints, the 66% pierce and the 117 attack by range.



Level 16 cavalry with Boreal Blades. Fast, freezing, deadly.


And these actually take the top. Level 16 infantry with Lightning Pikes. That's 500 damage per hit. That ignores 66% of your armor.

I had 2.5K crystals, and after four turns of casting and rushing I had no more crystals left. And one stack of Unit-doom... four archers, two pikemen and two cavalry backed up by a caster who is just there to enable to army (and occasionally nuke something for the fun of it).

 

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danieljones080208
nkraptor
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Reply #8 February 13, 2012 7:37:31 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

You bring a caster just for the heck of it.  Question is, you have a stack of doom right, imagine 2 stacks of doom fighting each other.

 

Normally I use a physical hero, the traits I go for are obvious ones, but then specifically things like move, initiative, impatient is a biggy +10 first turn.  Reason for this is because of the move sweep, the one that lets you do damage around you.  I also use a pike on my main hero for the defense reduction.  With so much move and all that, I always get TWO moves before any army can do anything.  Stacking all that move means first move I get directly in their stack, guaranteed to sweep 3 of their targets.  Then you get a second move to either run away, or attack again.

 -Editing this part in-

Generally yes the champion stands a good chance of dieing, however if its your sovereign it's fine.  You need only to win the battle, and the reason this works so well is if you can sweep 3 of their big units, you can do serious damage killing off their members.  Killing part of the squad lowers their overall damage and puts you in a BIG advantage for a stack of doom fight when they are at 5/9 and your units are still 9/9.

-end edit-

Second option is to use a berserker weapon.  I normally pick up a lot of accuracy, berserker weapons give you maul, letting you attack until you miss.  Completely killing a 500 hp unit in 1 turn happens a fair amount with a high accuracy champion.

 

You only have to win a single stack of doom fight, there is almost no possible way a person could rebuild it in any decent time frame with how much crystal and other such required materials.

 

Another goodie is the life spell that resurrects you on death, again, just a buff spell, I don't need the caster with me at all, he can be back in town after he has learned the spell.

 

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danieljones080208
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Reply #9 February 13, 2012 8:33:57 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Quoting ,
quoting post
1) No variety.  The races are about 97% percent identical. 

For me the main thing with races is that I don't know them and hence have no "feeling" about them. I understand that Stardock wanted to create their own world but had they instead used some of the classic fanatsy races I'd like it a lot better. Look at the other TBS games:

Warlords (1-2): Elves, Dwarves, Knights, Orcs, Undead, Giants, Horse Lords...

MOM: Elves, Dark Elves, Dwarves, Knights, Orcs, Trolls, Draconians...

HOMM: Elves, Dwarves, Knights, Orcs, Undead, Demons...

AoW: the same...

That's the thing I can identify with.

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danieljones080208
Barrynor
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Reply #10 February 13, 2012 8:43:01 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Quoting seanw3,
reply 2
Lack of variety is a good point. Giving every faction some unique techs, spells, more unique traits, more unique stat differences, hero classes, abilities, buildings, and mounts would be an appropriate way to fix this. I only comment because this is the one area that may not be on the devs' radar yet. But, the core game needs polish before this sort of thing can be accomplished. 

 

Oh they will have it on the radar alright. You can't make Galciv 2, diversify over patches and then do a fantasy game without race variety because its not "on the radar". But first, I would say, the game must achieve some semblence of balance with a single type of variety. Once you have that balance, you can counterbalance and diversify.

 

@nkraptor Yeah, I learned the hard way that crystal costs are frightinly high. In hindsight, my archers needed only the accuracy bonus item and the non-crystal fire and lighting rings. My Pikemen needed the Strength bonus per level, their pikes and normal plate everywhere else. Tanky units would need dodge/constitution. That way, I could make not one but ten of those stacks, with units specialized in their own area. Just imagine a stack with archers/pikes backed up by a buffing caster. As for a sweeping hero with 200 hp and 40 defense doing 200 damage per hit... he'd kill off 1 to 1.5 of the level 16 ubar troopers from hell... and that would be the end of his Heroship. In one hit. And then you'd stab him again in the same spot, with only half his health. After that he'd be out of rezzing spells

Crystal isn't as overwhelmingly present as metal or horses, and there arent any buildings currently in the game that reduce the cost of crystal for training. But those super-duper units were only stacked together because of pretty looks... one of those things at the head of an army is just as good as a hero in some respects. Less utility, but most certainly the staying power and the punch.

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danieljones080208
seanw3
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Reply #11 February 13, 2012 12:04:15 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

One thing you guys seem to miss is that casters are the most powerful unit in the endgame. We never get there in .77 because the game is over as soon as a melee hero gets +1 strength per level or Maul. But casters can cast tactical spells for little to no mana, cast Fireball with Evoker III and one Fireshard and pretty much any battle is over. And while I am here:

Intelligence Function: 

Bonus to Spell Resistance - You will be able to resist spells. This seems to be common knowledge on the forums.

Bonus to Spell Mastery - You will be able to penetrate magical resistances. This seems to be unknown by most people. 

Bonus to Experience - You get a percent bonus to any experience gained. No one seems to recognize how important this will be once we start splitting XP.

 

When Mages start battling each other, Intelligence will decide the winner. We are yet to have good Mages to fight against, but the day will come when Intelligence is considered overpowered. 

A couple of spell combos no one seems to know.

Stinking Mud + Archers. A cheap way to start the game on the right foot is to choose Lord Markinn and train some basic archers. Maybe one unit of spearmen.

Haste + Slow. Cast haste on a battlemage, you will get a free turn where you can cast slow on the most powerful enemy.

Mantle of Fire + Spearmen. Some basic leather clad spearmen with this spell are nigh unstoppable. 

Procipinee + Every Enchantment. A solid magical start with Procipinee's Crown is pretty devastating. You can really abuse enchantments. 

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danieljones080208
nkraptor
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Reply #12 February 13, 2012 10:13:04 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Fire is probably the easiest class of spells to become immune to, so I don't throw much weight on the power of fire.  I've gotten to the point the only good spells in my opinion are buffs and debuffs.

 

Physical "spells", such as sweep, maul, double strike, etc., always seem to out perform their real spell counterpart.

 

Another thing with fireball, I believe it has a channel time correct?  They also felt it wise to give every champion and their mom the counterspell ability.  I've never had the computer channel anything so I have never casted it, but offhand I'm not sure if the tooltip said if counterspell can be resisted.

 

I really feel spells are powerful when they control, not do damage.   Titan's breath is absolutely outstanding. you basically make their entire army lose a turn, but you can just counter it by putting your guys on a horse.

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danieljones080208
ManiiNames
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Reply #13 February 14, 2012 12:07:25 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Quoting Barrynor,
reply 10
Stinking Mud + Archers. A cheap way to start the game on the right foot is to choose Lord Markinn and train some basic archers. Maybe one unit of spearmen.

I've been talking about this one for a while, it's strong as hell.  Works great with Kul-Al-Kulan because he also casts Mass Curse on everything so the archers can hurt them easier.

Quoting seanw3,
reply 11
Haste + Slow. Cast haste on a battlemage, you will get a free turn where you can cast slow on the most powerful enemy.

Horrifying Wail FTW.  

Quoting seanw3,
reply 11
Mantle of Fire + Spearmen. Some basic leather clad spearmen with this spell are nigh unstoppable. 

I'll admit I have hardly done anything with Mantle of Fire, I always thought the thing was too wimpy to be useful after a few tests.  Will experiment some more.

One thing I have really come to like is Pandemonium.  It is guaranteed to work, it's not resistable so it lands even on magic-immune monsters.  If you cast it right away in the fight then there are three bad things that can happen to the targets (Daze, Weaken, and direct dmg) and only one beneficial thing (Strengthen, since healing a fresh target has no effect).

- Manii Names

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danieljones080208
seanw3
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Reply #14 February 14, 2012 1:14:26 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

I'll have to try out Pandemonium.

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danieljones080208
DGB246
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Reply #15 February 14, 2012 7:47:13 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

I have just completed a game with Ceresa and the Wraiths and spellcasters can become extremely powerful once they have have a few levels and supporting equipment. As someone mentioned above, once you have path of the mage, affinity and mantle of the oceans then all tactical spells become free. The evoke paths and multiple shards multiply the damage so that it becomes huge and magic bypasses armour and dodge too - checks are made against spell resistance (does this mitigate spell damage? I'm not sure) and if you're leveling your mage right then spell mastery will be high enough to beat pretty much any resistance check.

Dirge of Ceresa becomes insanely powerful once you have multiple death shards and will wipe out an entire army - if you have discounted casting plus her starting staff then you will gain tonnes of mana from this too. Against individual powerful units then spells like graveseal and soulburn will kill em off in no time, even the giant boss monsters. A properly levelled caster channeller seems much more high powered than a warrior channeller IMO.

The trick is getting the spellcasters levelled up to crazy powered status and that is going to involve giving them an escort of other units in the early game.

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