I mentioned this is my Let's Play video thread but thought it probably should have its own thread. The more I think about it the more I think it will help the game.

The problem

The problem is two-fold. Players want powerful and interesting spells yet as you hit the mid game if you have a lot of one type of elemental shard your spells can become over-powered. It basically means that to balance the game you need to weaken the cumulative effect of shards on spells - which I think is a shame. I would prefer spells where controlling shards is an important strategic consideration.

So the problems are:

1. Shard buffs on spells can over-power the game; leading to

2. To balance the game shard buffs need to be nerfed.

Neither of which is a good situation for the game.

The premise

The basic premise behind the suggestion is that for each game turn, shards are a diminishing resource. As you cast each spell in tactical battles that makes use of a shard it decrements by one until you no longer have a shard bonus. And casting a spell that uses shards on the strategic map uses up all the remaining shard power for that turn. Or perhaps there is a property for spells that dictates if it decrements or negates the shard count for the specific spell usage.

As an example, Lets say you have the Heal spell at 8hp + 4hp per Life shard and you control 3 Life shards. The first time you use the spell it will heal 20hp (8 + 4x3). The next use in that turn it will heal 16hp (8 + 4x2). Then 12hp (8 + 4x1). And finally just 8hp for every other time the spell is used (8 + 4x0).

Now let's consider two different battles in the same turn. If in one battle 2 healing spells are cast, there would then only be one shard left to be used in the next battle.

And if a spell is cast on the Strategic Map then it should use all the remaining shards of it's type if it provides a bonus for the spell.

The benefits

The benefits of this approach is that you can err on the side of over-powering the buffs from shards making the initial spells much more interesting at the start of the turn. Then as they diminish you need to manage their usage. It means you can make high-level strategic choices during each turn in the order of spell-casting and battles without adding at all to the micro-management for the player. Instead of showing 3 Life Shards in the UI, you would show the remaining/total shards; 3/3 Life Shards etc.

It also means that you don't absolutely have to understand the mechanic to cast spells yet the more you understand it the better you can play and plan. Making the mechanic easy to use but difficult to master - which I feel is important and I believe has been an important focus for the changes in FE.

It adds a lot to the strategic choice without complicating things.

Thoughts, comments?