That's the crux of a good magic spell list.

Really discouraging to me to hear all the complaining, and I am not even on the dev team.   I don't necessarily disagree with the desire to have more spells, and in fact I would love to contribute to creating those spells (with Murteas' Grimoire or something simiiar), but the way people are demanding and even predicting a complete failure at this point is ridiculous. 

Give feedback, and suggest spells, encourage, and give advice - don't berate, belittle or predict failure it is just not helpful.   

I and others are trying to get the spell xml so we can see what is possible with the engine, if not earlier then I will do it when we get the beta, and then we'll see what is possible.

I'm not suggesting people just be happy, but at least think what it would be like for someone to read your post who is working on the product, is your post more likely to encourage them to do better or discourage them and make them feel like it isn't worth the effort.  Take a big breath, and recognize that FE is a process (as any stardock game is), and they will get better, they do in fact listen to people, but a well constructed post with specific ideas is more helpful, than a post which says "epic fail, these spells aren't as good as MoM, AoW2, etc."

I love the post earlier which gave a spider spell book, in fact I would love to look at implementing it as soon as possible, just because someone gave a good idea, and wasn't demanding about it.  

I guess maybe I don't fit the attitude of the forum anymore.  

I like the ele-mantle 'group' of spells.  The art is iconic and they have a nice variation in effects.  The nature cloak is able to increase defense against damage types which looks interesting and shows some great potential for making buffs and debuffs, such as traking -3 to water spell resist (take more damage) and +3 to fire spell resist (take less damage).  Could damage/to hit be modified by the type of creature attacking?  Could a spell effect diferent creature types differently, such as boosting one type and giving a penalty to another?  Could a spell make it so a target could absorb damage of one type but take more from another or others?  So a mana bubble that makes the target immune to magic damage but has some negative effect like reduced evade vs. arrows (missile weapons) and reduced accuracy with attacks due to the obscuring effect of the bubble. 

If a tactical tile can be turned into impassable except to creatures with flying/burrowing (and may reduce effectiveness of ranged attacks passing thrue the tile) you could create an ice wall on the map where each section has a given amount of health (+x per water shard) say 100 hp.  The wall could loose power per turn (ie 10 hp per turn -1 per water shard) where each peice gets weaker the longer it persists.  By it having HP it also allows units to attack it to bring it down faster or reinforce it by casting the spell in the same area again (adding HP to the existing pieces).  You may then have those pieces take more damage from say fire and much less or none from water (or cause it to absorb it as negative damage/ healing).  The AI would have to be able to determine or choose if it should go thru the wall or around it.

Overall there looks to be many more oportunities to create a larger variety of spell effects than in WoM.

I think the stats probably do have an effect on the spells, just that they aren't listed in the descriptions as that is more on the mechanical side of things (which may even still be in a state of flux).  Although it could be neat to have a spell function determined off of a different stat or a combination.  Say have one spell that changes the stat reference from INT to STR for the duration of a battle or for the next spell (probably with some sort of upkeep per turn or something). Or you get a charisma boost for a season (to make hiring or diplomacy more effective). Or something like a 'battle banter' spell that gives you a to hit bonus based off of your charisma.

Yeah, I guess it is that old expectation/entitlement thing, one which is reasonable, one which probably isn't.  But my two posts recently (97 and 100) were not unequivocally negative.  So if it sounded unduly negative, I'd like to say that I still am looking forward to FE, however I was expressing an emotional response more than anything else.  And I agree that the current spell list is a work in progress.

Also, if the AI can effectively use the spells on the list, that would be a significant improvement over MoM , which had cool spells, but the AI was very weak.

Best regards,
Steven.

Spot on. It is getting rather sickening to hear all this crap.

The demandbots are indeed out in force.

Be constructive or just don't bother to post.

I'm sorry if i came across that way. All i meant was that this dev post is a hint of things to come, i didn't think it was the final copy of what things were like. Maybe they just didnt want to tell us the int bonuses to spells because it wasn't finalized yet. I meant no disrespect. I too am curious about how stats affect spells and how spells affects stats and i can't wait to hear about it when the team is willing to share.

I guess i am coming from the perspective that the dev team can only provide a limited amount of info in the forum since they have to save a lot of it for marketting. But i am not using that as an excuse for coming across as rude, i simply did not mean to do that.

EDIT: fixed typos

Just wanted to point out an often overlooked but important detail.

WMD spells do have some checks making them somewhat less effective and more strategic in this game by the way cities mechanics are laid out.  Because each square is only a small part of a very large city, you'd have to destroy it piece by piece or resort to using a super spell like volcano.  So every time I sink/raise the land I would only destroy X squares of buildings from the targeted city per cast.

Example: Create Mountain would wreck a specific area of buildings leaving it completely uninhabitable but not the whole city while earthquake would randomly level it in one hit waiting to be rebuilt.

Some very clever ideas at work here. 

It is kind of frustrating to me to have to acknowledge that -no matter what- there seems to be no way of getting, some 20 years later, a game with the kind of variety that MoM had. Just consider that MoM had, right from the start (no need for an expansion, let alone two!) all the spells it needed, including a magical items crafting spell, all the units it needed, including flying units, all the races and heroes it needed, dimensional traveling, and everything else.

As of 2011, things like these are too much to ask, for some reason. That *is* frustrating to me. Well, we still have MoM anyway. I must force myself to re-adapt to the graphics and the interface and remove the need for a new game...

You're not the only one, or the first one for that matter.

I was also thinking the same thing with one or two fanboys coming out and saying what amounts to "praise it or GTFO." That was exactly what happened when people started saying WoM wasn't ready for release, and got jumped on by both the community AND Stardock for it. Of course, said people were entirely correct.

This thread has actually only been negative if your idea of negative is anything other then praise. It's not a trollish "you suck" thread, most of the issues have been well explained and there's already great examples from past games of what people are looking for. If the list is too short and the spells don't feel powerful enough? That's entirely valid feedback.

@Luketan: If everybody is comparing WoM and especially FE to MoM it's because it's the devs first goal I believe to make a game that can call itself a dign successor of MoM (which is not easy, numbers have tried and they all failed ! AoW 2 was still the closest from MoM but it was still lacking what MoM had in spells).

+ I'd like to add that Derek said it himself, that they're trying to get the game as closer to MoM as they can.

Even though MoM is so old, he's still among the best turned based strategy game ever made and with all the technology of these days, nobody can compete with a title over 10 years old ? Maybe even 20, if not, close enough. MoM was 1993 I believe or 1994, I can't remember.

With that, each game was truly unique and there were so many combination possible that the replayability was really high.

The best way to compete with MoM IMHO is to copy / paste their spell list (or most of them) and add some new original ones... but again, since MoM is still under license (I believe) it's something that might be hard. But on another hand, most of MoM spells are found in role playing books (PnP) so it shouldn't be too much of a problem to take them I guess. But ya, I don't know the implication of copying MoM spells from a copyright point of view even if those are seen everywhere.

Compete with MoM is far from being easy, the devs chosed a difficult path knowing how criticized they will be for every single step they make but knowing how many people are still fan of MoM and that still new players get addicted to MoM, I think that it would be really rewarding for them if they succeed.

Now the devs have made a fantastics work with the game, the tactical combat, the customisation, heroes /mercs, the cities, dynasties, the world, the monsters, the events ... everything feel awesome but the magic system is their biggest challenge now and the part of the game that will be the most criticized.

I think that WoM magic system is already in place and hard to modify to reach that level but since FE is started from scratch or almost, there is still hope. It's by listening to our (violent) critics that they will make a game that will be remembered as the true successor of MoM.

I must say I am mildly disappointed (not by the art, which I liked), possibly because I had very high expectations. Here my comments.

The things I liked

1)      There are tactical spells, strategic spells, universal spells, city spells, enchantments. This is all very good! – except that World spells are mostly missing L

2)      One cannot have both Life and Death magic. This makes sense and adds an interesting specificity to the choice between Kingdoms and Empires

3)      I appreciated the nice pdf document!

4)      Quest spells are a nice idea – within certain limits, see point 3 below

5)      Combined-school spells are a very cool idea

6)      Some spells are quite innovative: growth and shrink for example, I like them!

Something that could be improved

1) More spells: A game like HoMM V could live with just 2/3 spells per magic realm per level only because the game focuses mainly on tactical spells. In a MoM-like game, as developers have rightfully done, there are tactical, strategic, enchantment, city-spells,  so a much higher number of spells is required;

2) Broader effect spells: Here again MoM is a good example (sorry folks, but it's true). Every realm had several World spells, and they were among the nicest. This was also a very unique way that magic could influence the world. Some suggestions: make a spell that increases the regenerative power of one’s troops all over the world (Blessing of Life?). Make one that decreases if for enemy troops (Festering wounds?). Make a spell that decreases the movement of all enemy troops in one’s territory (Dark Fatigue, Guarding Winter…). Make a spell that reveals all shards on the map that are within a certain distance of your territory, and an improved version that shows their type. Please, do make world spells an important piece of spell choices. Also, please make tactical-global spells, i.e. spells that affect all units within a tactical combat. Some examples from MoM: Prayer, Dark Prayer, Call lightning, Blur, Flame strike, Warp Reality, Metal Fires.

3) Randomness in spells is nice, but it should not be overdone imo. I like the fact that every game will be somewhat unique, but I personally like to be able to plan ahead my game to a certain extent. I know you want to avoid that people plan everything ahead and end up always playing in the same way, but using random events and spells is only one way to achieve this, the other being to design the game – and the spell system in particular – so that there are many different combinations of strategies that one can choose, all of them interesting, different, and powerful - so that a player wants to try them all. Bottom line: when choosing how to specialize in magic, I think one should have a pretty good idea of what one is likely to get – beyond this, some randomness is nice to have.

4) minor point: I believe champion should be able to cast spells only within a given range. I can't imagine a champion casting a Tornado on the other side of the map, while a Sovreign sitting in the capital... well, it's a different story

Another idea for a spell: "Curse Shard" -> can be cast on shards owned by opponents and reduces the amount of mana that the shard generates

All this said, I am sure it is a very challenging task to create a spell system that fulfills all our expectations and is a balanced part of the game. So, good luck! I’d be happy to contribute with suggestions.

I do like the idea of the mystic laboratory to use the shard another way; however, that being said.

Isn't stock piling mana just a game strategy---to go through the game without using magic until the end when you have bigger and badder spells.  I do that in MoM and Elemental now.  What is the point of summoning a pair of spiders if I am researching a Great Wyrm.  I just don't want to spend the mana or the upkeep on a spiders or even a stone giant when I have bigger stuff coming (colossus).

It is some what maniacal to save up for 13 volcanoes, but let it a warning to the rest of Elemental.  If you rise up against me, I will not only destroy your people and cities, but I will destroy the very land you walk on---(Insert crazy evil laugh here).