OutlawDR

Join Date 02/2010

Shards and Land Restoration: EDIT - Now with extra glourious picture for freshness

I was originally going to post this in the Essence is Broken: How we might fix it thread, but it was too off topic and risking thread high jacking.

I really liked that OP's ideas, and I suggest you read it.

However, there are two tangents to that idea I wanted to discuss about. Restoration of land itself, and shards. Two things that are a bit bland atm. But I think we can fix it

RESTORING LAND

Restoring land seems so dry right now. I know they originally intended to make restoring land something very personal to players...so that the players can feel connected to the game's atmosphere as they are bring it back to life (or death). Right now its nowhere near that unfortunately. Increasing your essence total as you restore land seems like a perfect way to incentivise it (this was talked in the above thread I linked).

Instead of costing essence to restore land, make it cost mana and other non-essence methods (this was also talked about). But please, don't continue the automatic land restoration once you get it started...This completely depersonalizes it for me, and makes the whole process bland. I'd like to personally restore the land inch by inch, tile(s) by tile(s) and feel satisfied knowing it was all because of me. Stroke my narcissism. Make it almost like advancing the trenches.

Go back to only being able to build on restored land. So no more magical land restoring pioneers (but they are still needed for founding additional cities, but they must do it on restored land... or big penalties for building outside of restored land). If you want the city to grow, a player must restore the land around it. Then, only allow players to restore land connected to other restored land, OR (...wait for it...) land connected to a shard. Which brings me to another point...

SHARDS

...shards seem to be very disconnected with the rest of the game. Sure they are needed for larger spells and now they are used to calculate essence, but they don't feel like a central feature that they should be. It almost feels like they are in the game right now only because the game was originally named after them. I'd like to see them being integral to the game. Heres how I think it could work...

Shards would not only grant you the ability to cast powerful spells and such, but act as the starting "seed" for land restoration. This would go back to the original idea of the entire game....the world is barren because the 'life essence/magic/force' is trapped in the shards, and only you, the mighty channeler, can unlock it and restore the land. This would mean that players MUST start with a shard near them (maybe at sovereign creation, make it mandatory to choose a type of shard to start off with).

In order to spread out and colonize, a player must locate additional shards (or piggy back off someone else's restoration somewhere else). This further adds to the importance of shards. Since shards would be much more important now, a random map with very few shards would be a bummer. So give all channelers an other basic starter spell that allows them to "find" a hidden shard. In game terms, it technically creates the shard, but with a drawback that there must be no other shards close to where you cast the spell (say radius of 30 tiles..or something). The lore reasons being that the land is barren because the "magic/force/essence" is trapped in a shard. So if there is barren land and no shard around, it must mean the shard is simply hidden somewhere. We all straight on that part? great.

So its time to finish the thread, and I really have nothing snappy to end it with ...so /end

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Autarkhos

StevenAus22

Join Date 06/2010

+110

I think this is a great idea.

Best regards,
Steven.

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Also shards should be able to slowly regenerate land just by itself due to the incredible magical power, making it easier to transform that land.

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LAND RESTORING / DESTRUCTION

I think restoring land should require essence, or it will become even less meaningful, more like an automated task.

My suggestion is that spending your Essence on the land should be an investment with unpredictable but guaranteed rewards.

1) Plant a Seed of Life or Seed of Death in the land. Cost = 1 pt. of Essence.

2) The Seed starts slowly reviving or utterly destroying the land around it, spreading from the center.

3) Once life/death spreads far enough, a node is created by the land. A lush Tree of Life or a bottomless Pit of Death. These nodes will act as Shards for Life and Death magic.

SHARDS

Perhaps it would be cool to spread them across the map geographically to give them more character. Ice/water on tundra/ocean, Fire on hot wastelands, Earth on mountains and Air on highest places / mountain peaks.

Spellcasters with a certain focus would know where to look instead of everything being completely random. You could give them appropriate starting locations as well.

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Let me further elaborate on the idea about the Shards:

Earth Shards: located underground in the deep places of the earth, intense gravity repels weak units, only big strong units can approach

Air Shards: located in the highest mountaintops, protected by strong winds, only flying units may approach

Fire Shards: located in hot wastelands, protected by eternal flames, only fire resistant creatures may pass unharmed

Ice Shards: located in the frozen north, protected by eternal cold, only cold resistant creatures may approach unharmed

+ The shards could be guarded by Elementals.

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Quoting funkmanrules,

reply 2

Sounds cool, but I think that for the essence part you should slowly gain essence (not just an immediate gain like now when you level up) when you are on personally transformed territory and got a combat bonus, because you have a magical connection.

Also shards should be able to slowly regenerate land just by itself due to the incredible magical power, making it easier to transform that land.

I guess we need to ask ' do we want automated or manual land restoration?' I argue that the current automated approach completely disconnects the player from the process. Manual restoration, if done right, could be very engaging and rewarding.

Quoting Hound,

reply 3

LAND RESTORING / DESTRUCTION

I think restoring land should require essence, or it will become even less meaningful, more like an automated task.

My suggestion is that spending your Essence on the land should be an investment with unpredictable but guaranteed rewards.

1) Plant a Seed of Life or Seed of Death in the land. Cost = 1 pt. of Essence.

2) The Seed starts slowly reviving or utterly destroying the land around it, spreading from the center.

3) Once life/death spreads far enough, a node is created by the land. A lush Tree of Life or a bottomless Pit of Death. These nodes will act as Shards for Life and Death magic.

SHARDS

Perhaps it would be cool to spread them across the map geographically to give them more character. Ice/water on tundra/ocean, Fire on hot wastelands, Earth on mountains and Air on highest places / mountain peaks.

Spellcasters with a certain focus would know where to look instead of everything being completely random. You could give them appropriate starting locations as well.

We currently have automated restoration, and its very meaningless and not very engaging.

But, I do like you idea of using essence to create life and death "shards". Seems like a great way to introduce them into a game. I'm not too thrilled about the part where restoration then automatically spreads from the shard. I'd like to inject some strategic importance for the player in which land they restore and not restore (and make the whole restoration process their own).

However, you gave me another idea. In that other thread, someone else also mentioned how they disliked the idea of making essence no longer required as a key to restore land. So what if once a player finds a normal elemental shard, the player must first infuse some of their essence (1 essence, a low amount) into the shard in order to unlock it. Then once unlocked, a player can use the shard to restore the land (you need essence to make essence kind of deal). At first, the shard will only allow the player restore land up to a certain radius (say a 7 tile radius or something). Going back to the shard and adding more essence extends this radius, but at a diminishing rate. So its better if a player locates or "finds" (as mentioned in OP) other shards, instead of tapping the same shard over and over.

I also like your idea of having elemental appropriate creatures guarding the shards, and having shards located near land features they would logically be next to. Hopefully the random map generator can figure it out. The restriction for approaching shards might be too hard to balance, as certain shards would likely be a lot more restrictive then others, but its an interesting idea.

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*thumbs up*

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Excellent ideas Outlaw. I especially like this:

and

However, you gave me another idea. In that other thread, someone mentioned how they didn't like the idea of making essence no longer required as a key to restore land. So what if when a player finds a normal elemental shard, the player must first infuse some their essence ( 1 essence, a low amount) into the shard in order to unlock it. Then once unlocked, a player can use the shard to restore the land (you need essence to make essence kind of deal). At first, the shard will only allow the player restore land up to a certain radius (say a 7 tile radius or something). Going back to the shard and adding more essence extends this radius, but at a diminishing rate. So its better if a player locates or "finds" (as mentioned in OP) other shards, instead of tapping the same shard over and over.

It really is of monumental importance that there is at least SOME kind of mechanic which interacts with shards and restoring land. I'd also like to suggest that each shard have its own unique benefits allowing for example certain buildings or resources to be produced/collected more efficiently or better, allowing a unique resource to be collected only from the land the shard revived.

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NO, we discussed long way how shards are too much powerful and needed, surely there is something to improve in the shards gameplay but its absolutely not their strenght, shards already do too many things

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Quoting ddd888,

reply 8

But, they don't. They WERE involved in too many spells, but now they aren't.

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Quoting Autarkhos,

reply 9

Quoting ddd888, reply 8NO, we discussed long way how shards are too much powerful and needed, surely there is something to improve in the shards gameplay but its absolutely not their strenght, shards already do too many things
But, they don't. They WERE involved in too many spells, but now they aren't.

Right, shards were seen as too needed for casting spells. THAT was seen as not entirely fun, since you never knew if you could acquire the right elemental shards for your spellbook. So now many spells don't really need them, and shards are in a state of limbo with a sideline role.

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Alstein

Join Date 07/2004

+55

Maybe shards should boost spells, not be required , but help?

Restoring land around a shard, maybe remove the essence cost?

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2394

Shards = The primary way a faction can increase the essence of their units.
Restoration = A way a player can sacrifice essence to get fertile land.

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StevenAus22

Join Date 06/2010

+110

What do you think of Outlaw's suggestions, Frogboy? I'm interested.

Best regards,
Steven.

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Quoting Frogboy,

reply 12

Shards = The primary way a faction can increase the essence of their units.
Restoration = A way a player can sacrifice essence to get fertile land.

I meant to reply sooner, but summer events made me lose track of it.

In the recent journal you mention that "essence=mana cap. Nothing more or less", and it reminded me of this thread and the one linked at the top.

I'm very eager to see whats in store in 3-B. I think you agreed with a lot of us that there is something missing with certain parts of the game. Someone in another thread (I forget which) rightly pointed out the lack of immersion. I look at the ideas in this thread, and the one I linked, and they are all simply a cry for more immersion into the world of Elemental.

What ever you take away from these suggestions, I think you should know that the below image is what sold me on Elemental. This is the visual idea I have of elemental when I think about it.

Its the idea of the channeler, you, extracting the locked life essence within the shard in order to lead a group of followers out from the wastelands. I want to be immersed in this world. I'd really like to see a better connection to the shards (which the game is named after) and a better sense thats its the channeler that is restoring the land back to life/death for people to live in. I'm really no longer just advocating the suggestions in this thread, but simply the idea that this picture so gloriously demonstrates.