Arcane arrow and spell blast still OP in 1.09r despite nerf

from Elemental Forums

Overall, 1.09r is looking much better. Have had a couple crashes but just finished up a couple hours of playing with no issues. Resources, especially Gildar is starting to constrain production. I like the nerfs to gildar bonuses, they're working nicely and really making me think where I want to spend. Materials and pop are still not constraining production in any significant way except very early in the game.

However, a couple of spells, namely arcane arrow and spell blast are still overpowered.

Even with the slight nerf in 1.09r I was able to blast through an entire army defending an enemy capital in one turn near the beginning of the game. I had four spell casters, my sov plus three others capable of arcane arrow but not spell blast. Also had four meat sheilds but never needed them. I opened the battle. By the end of my turn enemy sov and half the opposing army was dead the rest would be mopped up next turn by my meat shields to save mana. It was never even a contest. 

My worry is that this problem doesn't go away even if we teach the AI to use magic. The problem is that tactical combat is simply all about who moves first when arcane arrow and spell blast are so overpowered. The only real way to solve this is some sort of limit on casting per turn. Without that the only way to nerf them significantly enough is to make them worthless.

Suggestions- Most of these have been discussed in more detail elsewhere so i wont elaborate, but most suggestions fall into three areas

1) Easiest method within the current system, just make spells cost more action points, say 4 instead of 2.

2) Make some sort of limit on spells cast per turn based on INT. Say INT x 3 mana per strategic turn and INT mana per tactical turn worth of spells for each caster.

3) Implement some sort of spell cool down system. For instance each caster can only use arcane arrow ever 3rd round in tactical combat (However this still doesn't solve the 1st round problem).

elemental
13,799 views 18 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

However, a couple of spells, namely arcane arrow and spell blast are still overpowered.

Even with the slight nerf in 1.09r I was able to blast through an entire army defending an enemy capital in one turn near the beginning of the game. I had four spell casters, my sov plus three others capable of arcane arrow but not spell blast. Also had four meat sheilds but never needed them. I opened the battle. By the end of my turn enemy sov and half the opposing army was dead the rest would be mopped up next turn by my meat shields to save mana. It was never even a contest. 

End of quote

At what "difficulty"? Normal doesn't count. I want reports on Hard & Extreme before I accept "overpowered".

I also hope Brad et all don't start accepting these one player one hour played after patch guys coming in here and saying this and that is overpowered. There's too many variables that need to be included. When they've played a large map with full AI players and defeated it entirely then perhaps you might take it into "consideration" not fact that it might need some more adjusting.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

3) Implement some sort of spell cool down system. For instance each caster can only use arcane arrow ever 3rd round in tactical combat (However this still doesn't solve the 1st round problem).
End of quote

If you have a cooldown, each caster will only uise it once. That's not such a big deal Also, no more free Imbue Champions explouts !

Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

All that means is casters would use three different spells per turn.

 

Making the mainline direct damage spells only useable once per turn might be a good thing, as it would encourage the use of the elemenntal books, which need a buff.  (I'd suggest letting Shards boost up spells for even the low-level elemental spells again)

 

 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Alstein, reply 3
All that means is casters would use three different spells per turn.

 

Making the mainline direct damage spells only useable once per turn might be a good thing, as it would encourage the use of the elemenntal books, which need a buff.  (I'd suggest letting Shards boost up spells for even the low-level elemental spells again)

 
End of Alstein's quote

 

Make touch of entropy usable once per 4/5 turns. Make arcane arrow usable every 2/3 turns. Make flame dart usable every turn or every other turn. 

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top


Even with the slight nerf in 1.09r I was able to blast through an entire army defending an enemy capital in one turn near the beginning of the game. I had four spell casters, my sov plus three others capable of arcane arrow but not spell blast. Also had four meat sheilds but never needed them. I opened the battle. By the end of my turn enemy sov and half the opposing army was dead the rest would be mopped up next turn by my meat shields to save mana. It was never even a contest. 

My worry is that this problem doesn't go away even if we teach the AI to use magic. The problem is that tactical combat is simply all about who moves first when arcane arrow and spell blast are so overpowered. The only real way to solve this is some sort of limit on casting per turn. Without that the only way to nerf them significantly enough is to make them worthless.

1) Easiest method within the current system, just make spells cost more action points, say 4 instead of 2.

2) Make some sort of limit on spells cast per turn based on INT. Say INT x 3 mana per strategic turn and INT mana per tactical turn worth of spells for each caster.

3) Implement some sort of spell cool down system. For instance each caster can only use arcane arrow ever 3rd round in tactical combat (However this still doesn't solve the 1st round problem).
End of quote

Instead of reducing the damage of Arcane Arrow and Spell Blast it would be better to look why these spells are very good. The reason is that these spells WERE the only ones with a very good damage scaling. Instead of reducing their damage the other spells should get the same amount of damage scaling to make them useful or the HP scaling should be reduced.

I think it is a mistake to have a system where some parts are scaling with the level and some parts are not scaling with the level, because spells like Heal are very good at the early game, but less powerful in the late game, because they do not scale with the level, but the HP scale with the level.

If most of the spells would scale with INT or other stats and if a casting limit would be implemented, as you suggested, the spells would be balanced.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I consider these spells extremely expensive. They are usefull yes, but they come with a steep price-tag. Fire spells are much much cheaper and practically free.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

I think there needs to be some reasonable counter/defensive spells at lower levels. Part of the reason DD spells are so effective, is that there isn't a way for spellcasters to defend themselves or their armies from the first strike. Also, you might want to limit the range on the earlier DD spells, that is also a major factor in their effectiveness.

 

 

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting TarlSS, reply 7
I think there needs to be some reasonable counter/defensive spells at lower levels. Part of the reason DD spells are so effective, is that there isn't a way for spellcasters to defend themselves or their armies from the first strike. Also, you might want to limit the range on the earlier DD spells, that is also a major factor in their effectiveness.
 
End of TarlSS's quote

 

I would actually rather see the arcane spells' ranges drawn in and their old damage restored, then give range precedence, and a bit better scaling to the elemental spells.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

TC is probably not balanced yet, and probably won't be that balanced until 1.1, when initiative comes into play.  A spellcaster may have a long leat time to get a spell off in a round.  If the spellcaster starts, and you can interrupt him (because it takes some time for the spell to take effect), I don't see a problem with the big spells being overpowered.  Lots of time available to riddle the guy with fast arrows or countermagic.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

i just dont understand why not use the books in mom .. choose your set, and research from that, get lucky ingame and find more

when it comes to the arcane spells .. it should be arcane arrow (int 10% lvl 1), arcane bolt (int 30% lvl 4), arcane blast (int 30% large aoe lvl 6), arcane torrent (int 70% small aoe lvl 8)

and making spells cast only 1 per round, or one per other round .. just dont do it, dont make this game into wow or war .. look to mom for spells or pick up a book called Ars Magica, good for inspiration when it comes to spells

and other spells should follow int too, like the fertility and that line of spells

 

one could also have a another factor put in called spell power, based on int, lvl and shards, then use this to calculate spell damage / effects

 

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

@Rossanderson48, Used hard difficulty for this game. Just tried another with extreme was able to do something similar.

Granted this is early after the patch. The problem here is that even this early you can pretty easily discern that the something is out of wack. Elemental is in many senses a steam rolll game. I.e. the person with the largest production/resource base will almost always win the game; currently there is no real meachanism to penalize large empires or slow down the 'guy in the lead'. Based on this, if I'm able to steamroll an enemy capital within the first hundred turns or so using something that I would consider sort of a cheese tactic there is virtually no way that i'm going to loose later down the road. It may take me another 400 turns to finish cleaning up the map, but at this point I have nearly double the resource base of any other empire. Victory is inevitable. 

 

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

@Winnihyn

Agree with you that tactical combat probably will not be balanced until some sort of more realistic initiative system comes into play. If the initiative systems really is implemented in the way that you lay out then this may become less of a problem.

The problem currently, and something none of our suggestions really deal with is the fact that combat is still, one side moves, other side moves, etc. So long as this is the case there will be a huge incentive to 'game' the system in weird ways. Bottom line is that tactical combat is just too much about who goes first right now. Even without magic, the first one able to strike in hand to hand is also usually able to game the system in some way to come out ahead. Right now, who wins a tactical battle is a coin flip (even if we teach the AI to use magic). Given balanced armies, if you strike first you should almost always win. 

@Carewolf

Addressing spell expense, at this point int he game I had nearly 300 mana saved up. Yes I blew through about 100+ mana in the battle but it was a battle for an enemy capital w/ two shards next to it. Spending 100+ mana for a piece of land that will almost double my mana generation (and also boost it significantly higher than any rival) seems like about the best use of mana in the game. Grab a couple enemy capitals in this way and it really doesn't matter if you drained your mana pool, you'll make it up soon enough.

Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting tamides, reply 10
i just dont understand why not use the books in mom .. choose your set, and research from that, get lucky ingame and find more

 
End of tamides's quote

 

+100000000000000000000000..

 

I'll be honest... I have yet to find a fantasy 4X game that compares favorably with MoM, even with the incredible snowball effect of the later game. For the life of me, I can't figure out why there was never a sequel made. Or at least an update for modern systems. 

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Sounds like you burning through massive amounts of mana. How do you get so much early game? Especially with so many imbued champions. How do they have enough intelligence to cast arcane arrow? 

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

Well, the issue is:

-Either they nerf the spells to take into account the fact that we can cast lots of spells every round, we can imbue/desimbue at will, etc., making them feel weak and magic will be boring. Probably balanced, but boring.

-Or they leave them like that. And magic is overpowered.

As long as there is no limiting factor on the number of spells that can be cast each round and how many casters you can have, it's going to be this way. Several of use gave a solution (cooldowns), but any other solution that severly limits the number of spells that be cast in a battle works too. 

 

I mean, AoW had a *GOOD* magic system because the amount of magic you could use were limited for each strategic turn. That meant that in a battle, you could cast a certain number of spells, and then you were out of juice. And if you had another battle in the same strategic turn... well, you could end up in a difficult position if you weren't careful with spell points usage.

That was a good system. You could use powerful spells (never more than one per combat turn), but if you did, you'd end up not being able to cast any more spells for that round after 1/2 (early game) or 3/4 (late game) spells. 

Elemental desperately needs a similar mechanics. We shouldn't have more than 1, maybe 2 touch of entropy per strategic turn. Powerful spells need to feel powerful, and they need to feel like they're a big deal and you have to time their use carefully. And lesser spells still need to feel like magic, not like a sling. I'd rather not be able to use them often but have them feel strong when I use them.

Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top

The issue with spells is that you cannot defend against them. Resist should not be a percentage unless it uses resist vs the casters intelligence, and would have to be much higher than it is currently. Resist could use the same mechanic as armor and it wouldn't be too awful.

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

@ DSraider

Sov with attunement = 4 mana per turn, plus had two shards under my control= 8 mana per turn.

got two more shard when I conquered the first enemy capital = 12 mana per turn.

I'm currently sitting on 738 mana on turn 138 in that game. Mana is almost never an issue for me.

Key is never keep any ongoing enchantment running. See a battle coming, imbue all champions arcane weapon everyone, battle over, remove all enchantments. For a stack of 8 this costs only 16 mana for the fight. If you leave them on then yes mana will start to be a problem.

This is a problem in and of itself, I've written about it before, basically, there shouldn't be spells out there that have a casting cost equal to their upkeep costs, it leads to this sort of cast before battle, remove immediately after type of gaming. This is particularly true for something as powerful as imbue champion. Make the casting cost much higher and I may think twice before dispelling it at the end of the fight.

As far as intelligence requirements go. You only need to get to level 4 in order to cast arcane arrow, not much of an issue if you just send your champions out to fight creatures and quest a little bit.

Reply #18 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Werewindlefr, reply 15

Elemental desperately needs a similar mechanics. We shouldn't have more than 1, maybe 2 touch of entropy per strategic turn. Powerful spells need to feel powerful, and they need to feel like they're a big deal and you have to time their use carefully. And lesser spells still need to feel like magic, not like a sling. I'd rather not be able to use them often but have them feel strong when I use them.
End of Werewindlefr's quote

 

I could not agree with this sentiment more.

 

ALL magic should be awesome. Even the teensy weenie stuff, because your character is one of like 6 people on the planet that can do it. I am a proponent of the "less frequent, more powerful" school of thought on the matter.

 

Casting magic takes herculean effort, and casting even the smallest spell ought to use up most of a character's actions for a turn. Do I elect to move twice and attack once? Well, no arcane arrow for you. I want to cast a spell to soften up that group of spear wielding baddies over there, well, you probably aren't going to do anything else for the turn and they will be well aware of your opinion on the matter.