Imbue champion (Cast before battle, remove after exploit)

from Elemental Forums

Idea for a very basic fix to what seems like a major problem: imbue champion spam.

Right now there is no real downside to imbuing all champions prior to battles, removing afterwards. It creates all kinds of weird balance issues with the spell system (from spamming arcane arrows and heal, to allowing essentially all your armies to fly around the map like drunken hummingbirds). It's just too easy to immediately get an entire army of spell casters.

Basic fix: just up the initial casting cost of imbue champion. There no need to make it permanent, give it a cooldown period, etc. If the initial casting cost were just upped significantly, to say 50-60 or even higher, it instantly creates a very real decision about whether to cast. Then after it was used in a battle, to move an army, etc. the sunk cost is already paid and it then becomes a major decision on whether you should dispel or not (only dispel if you think you'll have no use for that caster in the next 60 turns or so).

Just a basic philosophy, there should never be an enchantment that has a casting cost that is equal to its upkeep. This just creates the incentive for cheese moves. For instance, its always a smart decision to cast arcane weapon on all units prior to a battle, just dispel afterwards, nothing lost. For the most part enchantments follow this generally good rule in Elemental. However, the most important one in the game, the creation of new spell casters, does not. Fix it and we'll move a long way towards balancing some of the other exploits were all complaining about.

elemental
8,706 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Agree with the principle "there should never be an enchantment that has a casting cost that is equal to its upkeep".    I think that some npcs should be able to cast spells by default though (like some monsters can cast spells when I receive them as guardians of my cities), but I wouldn't be heartbroken if this weren't the case.

 

I am trying to think of a way to make imbue champion feel like you are sacrificing personal power for spreading the magic out to your heroes.   Something that was the original goal.   Maybe you should have to spend arcane knowledge on training a champion up, or sacrifice XP or ???   I think that giving up 1 MP/turn is pretty good, but we could probably make it more flavorful than the same cost as summoning an imp or making food in a city.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

If I were calling the shots...

1. Enchantments would be slot based.  A starting kingdom would have none.
2. The first elemental temple constructed would add an enchantment slot.
3. A mid-rank (level 3 town) 1 per kingdom structure would provide the 2nd enchantment slot.
4. An end rank (level 5 town) 1 per kingdom structure would provide the 3rd and final enchantment slot.
4. No maintainance costs to enchantment
5. Enchantments are permenant.  Dead imbued champions = wasted enchantment slots.
6. All enchantments would be reworked so that they had material costs AND effects so powerful that imbued champions should look risky (after all, the champion could fall and you only get 3 enchantments).
7. Because they are permenant, other factions could capture towns and benefit from your enchantments.

Some possible effects.... Food +6 per season.  Guildar + 20 per turn.  Tech + 10 per turn.  Arcane + 10 per season.  Champion + 4 to movement.  Champion + 50 to health. 

Anyhow, it would be nice to make elemental nodes more valuable, have some powerful lasting magic effects,

Oh well, day dreaming away... :)

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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

The enchantments for cities are honestly pretty lackluster. Without the need to revamp how enchantments work it would probably be a fairly simple fix to provide a city level specific bonus so that larger cities recieve a larger benefit from the enchantment. This could be as complicated as providing +1 food per city level or +30% science. Alternatively (or perhaps in tandum) higher level spells could be available for enchantments. In any case +1 research or +3 gildar per turn are both not worth the mana cost involved.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Imbuing a champion seems like a pretty heavy enchantment to cast for the champion and the sovereign, kind of a strong magic bond between the two. Maybe this enchantment shouldn't be that easy to cancel, maybe even plain impossible. Or add a costly spell you can use to sever the bond.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

remove? surely shouldn't be able to remove imbue. like it wasn't possible before. i imagine even death shouldn't give you back the regen.

 

 

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Imbue, to me, should be non-dispellable.

Maybe it should be reworked entirely, and based on sov lvl, no upkeep cost.

A lvl 1 sov can imbue one champ.  Lvl 4 two, lvl 9 three, and so on.

 

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

They did adjust so that it costs a lot more to cast now.

Joel

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

One 'fix' would be to have it cost what it does now - 4 permanent essence points, but award only 2 to the receiving character.  That makes it very impractical to spam.

However, this still leaves the strategy of being able, once you have a number of heroes with enough essence attained through levelling, to imbue your sovereign by taking essence away from your lesser heroes - even the soverign's kids.  That's pretty evil, but I actually don't necessarily see a gameplay problem with this, because it tends to leave you with one more powerful soverign and several very weak support heroes; that would be a strategic decision.  It should, however, reduce reputation.  Brides aren't going to want to marry someone who is likely to suck them dry of essence.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

I think it is good as is.  Even if you imbue a ton of heroes it does take away from your ability to replenish your mana pool.  If you are imbuing one hero for one battle and then dispelling it, that is a huge waste of mana if you do it over and over.  I think they are working on balancing how much things cost, and maybe a little higher would be good.  But another problem I run into is, even if they have the ability to cast magic, their intelligence is often too low to do any good.  They would need to level up a few times first and only level up in int, handicapping their growth in other areas.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Andrew, reply 8
One 'fix' would be to have it cost what it does now - 4 permanent essence points, but award only 2 to the receiving character.  That makes it very impractical to spam. ...
End of Andrew's quote

That would be great, if the devs hadn't made the wacky decision to ditch essence entirely. If they've offered a detailed explanation of that decision, I missed it. But I thank you for pointing out yet another plausible argument in defense of retaining and developing the essence 'versus' mana thing. Maybe the devs can be talked into undoing the damage via the first expansion pack.

p.s. I know it's 'still there' as a yes-no flag. I just believe that it is not at all the same thing as essence as a stat that you can build up and spend, and that all along should have had some derived-stat roles like casting time and mana generation rates.

Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top

I honestly liked it the way it was first done (and still is in the full-release version) where it costs essence (lowers max-essence) for the Sov.. makes sense.. works well.. keeps you leveling the Sov j ust to keep the essence 'up' if you want to keep doing imbues. And it made perfect sense, and that you couldn't dispel it, which seems idiotic in the first place