[Balance] How shards should affect Spells

from Elemental Forums

From previous playthroughs it has become painfully obvious that the ammount of damage bonus from shards is well beyond what it should be, in addition being able to pick and choose your shards (see death magic) the benefit you can obtain needs to be adjusted in some way. I'm going to lay out a number of options that you are free to discuss.

Mana Shards should

1. Provide a smaller damage bonus to keep the base damage and effect of the spell relatively similar and adjusted by less random elements.

1.x Provide no bonus to damage (or effect)

2. Have their bonuses capped to x number of shards. This will prevent larger maps with more nodes or the ability to change the type of node from getting out of control.

3. Reduce the mana cost of spells appropriate to their school. This should provide diminishing returns (and probably work multiplicatively with traits) to prevent spells from being free.

4. Limit the maximum spell level of that school based on how many shards you have under your control. This is a pacing measure to prevent high level spells from being cast too early in the game.

5. Be changeable in type by either

A: Any caster with x rank in the appropriate spell school

B: The sovereign with x rank in the appropriate spell school

5.x Not be changeable in type by any means

6. Provide unique effects that are otherwise unobtainable, such as a burn effect to fire damage spells, or movement reducing effect to earth spells or fear chance with death spells, etc..

7. Give new champions the related spellschool that are already casters. This could be a chance based on acquiring them, a chance on level up, or a chance per turn, based on the number of owned shards.

8. Be linked to the soveriegns spellschools at the start of the game. That is to say when a player starts a game the nearest shard is always either one of his spellschools or is a special type of shard that can change it's type (once or multiple times) to that players choosing. (idea stolen from marionesi)

The above options are not mutually exclusive, nor dependant upon each other. Implementing some of these may be more difficult than others.

 

3,475 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top


My personal preference would be unique effects (6) capped at a certain value (2), with reduced mana costs (3) once you reach that cap, diminishing to a 'soft cap' of 40% spell cost. In addition any sovereign can change the node (5.b ) to a type they have at least 2 ranks in.

I would be satisfied with a smaller bonus to damage (1) instead of unique effects.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

1. Provide a smaller damage bonus to keep the base damage of the spell relatively similar and adjusted by less random elements.

1.x Provide no bonus to damage (or effect)
End of quote

No, the bonuses are fine the way they are.  The Evoker trait is, imo, the biggest current problem to spell damage, and as such it should be toned down to ~ +20% damage per level from the current +50% damage per level.  I also feel the Evoker trait should make mana costs go up as well.

2. Have their bonuses capped to x number of shards. This will prevent larger maps with more nodes or the ability to change the type of node from getting out of control.
End of quote

Caps suck.  Always.  No to this.

3. Reduce the mana cost of spells appropriate to their school. This should provide diminishing returns (and probably work multiplicatively with traits) to prevent spells from being free.
End of quote

You've got it backwards.  If the caster receives MORE mana from having MORE shards, they should pay MORE mana per [appropriate] shard per spell to balance the equation, since the caster is getting GREATER output from the spell.  This would help alleviate bloated mana stores towards the late game.

4. Limit the maximum spell level of that school based on how many shards you have under your control. This is a pacing measure to prevent high level spells from being cast too early in the game.
End of quote

This would be ok...something like this was in WoM.  Don't really care either way.  I have a feeling once the XP problem is handled, getting those level V disciplines will mean a lot more.

5. Be changeable in type by either

A: Any caster with x rank in the appropriate spell school

B: The sovereign with x rank in the appropriate spell school

5.x Not be changeable in type by any means
End of quote

I think nodes ought to be changeable through researched spells or buildings.  And on something like a 2-for-1 or 3-for-1 scale.

EDIT: I guess what I'm talking about is not "node conversion" per se, but mana type conversion.

6. Provide unique effects that are otherwise unobtainable, such as a burn effect to fire damage spells, or movement reducing effect to earth spells or fear chance with death spells, etc..
End of quote

I like this, but effects like these should be essential parts of those spells in the first place, imo.

Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top


1. Provide a smaller damage bonus to keep the base damage and effect of the spell relatively similar and adjusted by less random elements.

1.x Provide no bonus to damage (or effect)

2. Have their bonuses capped to x number of shards. This will prevent larger maps with more nodes or the ability to change the type of node from getting out of control.

3. Reduce the mana cost of spells appropriate to their school. This should provide diminishing returns (and probably work multiplicatively with traits) to prevent spells from being free.

4. Limit the maximum spell level of that school based on how many shards you have under your control. This is a pacing measure to prevent high level spells from being cast too early in the game.

5. Be changeable in type by either

A: Any caster with x rank in the appropriate spell school

B: The sovereign with x rank in the appropriate spell school

5.x Not be changeable in type by any means

6. Provide unique effects that are otherwise unobtainable, such as a burn effect to fire damage spells, or movement reducing effect to earth spells or fear chance with death spells, etc..
End of quote

1. Yep. Instead of the current + 50 % per shard it should be + 25 % per shard and shards should affect all spells

1.x Nope, because there should be a reason to capture different shard types

2. Not needed if the bonus is smaller

3. Nope, because the current + spell effect and + mana is much better

4. A big and shiny NO, because a player who is lucky with the avaible shards would get a big advantage

5. Yep, but it should be a level 3 spell in the appropriate school with a mana cost of 100

6. I think these effects should be included in all spells to make them more interesting

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting mqpiffle, reply 2

EDIT: I guess what I'm talking about is not "node conversion" per se, but mana type conversion.
End of mqpiffle's quote

There is only one mana type in the game ...

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top


Shard change may be a good idea, but should be considered carefully. It should be hard to do and have limitations, otherwise the risk of players having all shards of one type would be very high and unbalance the game. I suggest a spell that costs a lot of mana, with prerequisites, and that allows only some changes, like a "Reverse Entropy" that can change a shard only into its oopsite element (a Fire shard into Water or vice versa, an Earth shards into Air or vice versa and so on).

Ee could also imagine some prysmatic shards in the game that can be changed into a shard of choice by the first sovreign who finds it, to smooth randomness in shards.

I still find awkward that one can pick a lot of skills in, say, fire magic and be unlucky enuogh to find no fire shards. For those who have played the beta: is it really a problem as it seems?

For the rest, I am generally against caps and more inclined towards decreasing marginal returns...

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting mqpiffle, reply 2
Caps suck.  Always.  No to this.
End of mqpiffle's quote

Comments like this want to make me punch babies.

Rant

Are you aware that almost every single commercially successful game includes caps in their games? Warcraft III has a limit to the number of troops you can command, a limit to the level of heroes, a limit to the number of heroes and a limit to the number of items they can use. Was this game successful? Did these caps help to balance the game? Hell yeah to both of these.

Another example is world of warcraft. There is an armor cap, there is a cap on the rank of skills you can obtain for each level, there is a level cap, there is a cap to the number of people you can bring into any given instance. Do all of these things contribute to the game being more balanced an fun? Of course they do! Even games that you might not normally consider to have caps, still have them.

Think about civilization IV: Your cities have a limit to the number of tiles they can work at a time and consequently have a maximum population. Cities have a maximum number of trade routes, and units have a maximum strength. Can you mod these things out? Sure you can, and that was what made the game awesome, but the caps in the original didn't make it any less fun. People probably never even thought twice about worked tiles as a limit, but it was one of the biggest contributing factors to properly pacing the game.

/End Rant

Most of your other comments are really odd: Different mana conversions? What?

Obviously both the high evocation bonuses and the high shard bonuses are contributing factors to why magic spells can get out of hand. This is largely in response to death shards being convertable and reducing the random chance of getting fuxxored on spells because of a poor start.

Unless increasing the mana required to cast spells affected the number of spells you could cast per combat or increased the activation time of those spells it wouldn't contribute to balancing the function of each 'action'. If it did, that might work out okay. It is much easier to strike a balance by making a spell do a static ammount of damage and simply allowing more of those actions.

Quoting marionesi, reply 5

Shard change may be a good idea, but should be considered carefully. It should be hard to do and have limitations, otherwise the risk of players having all shards of one type would be very high and unbalance the game.
End of marionesi's quote

Part of the problem is that the ability to do this already exists. If you play as Ceresa you will have an idea of how rediculous this can get.

For those of you that don't want to read my rant, or that still have adolescent fear from the words 'nerf' and 'cap'. Let me explain that some things lend themselves better to diminishing returns (soft caps) than others. The level of your character for example. Let's say you capped their levels at 15 in order to strike a balance with regular units. If that unit could still gain xp and required lets say 8 times as much to reach the next level, would it break the game? Probably not. Especially since xp will now be shared and having more champions at level 15 is far more effective than your one champion that might reach level 20+

However a soft cap (diminishing returns) might not work so well on shard bonus to damage because there is little reason to do any other action. That is to say if you could increase your blizzard damage by 20% more but you never used any of the other spells besides blizzard, it might get out of hand. Additionally having soft caps on both of these things might break the game.

That isn't to say I'm entirely against soft caps with any of those elements in the orginal post, just that there are consequences of letting values have no absolute maximum. I like the idea of a prismatic shard being at the start location of the soveriegn! I'll update the post with it as well as another idea that came to me.