An idea to give strategic depth to Elemental Shards

(and possibly even more flavor to magic)

from Elemental Forums


As of now, once you find a shard, there is not too much to think about: you try to capture it and build a shrine to start generating mana. You can upgrade the shrine to get some area bonus in Beta 4 I believe. Each shard gives bonuses to spells of its element, and all shards contribute to generate mana to be used for all spells.

If Derek and the other devs have not thought about it, I would encourage them to think about a few twists in how the shards play a role in the game, which could potentially increase the strategic depth of the game with - I believe, but I may be wrong - little incremental effort on the game design part. These twists should be considered as non-mutually exclusive options to be chosen in the appropriate mix. In the following I use "Fire" to mean any element, "Water" to mean its opposite element, and "Earth/Air" to mean any element which is neither the element of the example nor its opposite.

1. each shard produces a different type of mana. Fire shards generate fire mana. Fire spells use fire mana. Fire mana can be transformed into Earth/Air mana at a 25% loss or into Water mana at a 50% loss.

2. once you find a Fire shard, you can choose to build a fire shrine and therefore generate mana at full-rate, or build an Earth or Air shrine to generate 30% less mana, but which counts as half an Earth or Air shard for spell-boosting purposes. Example: suppose you find one fire shard, one earth and one air. Building on each the appropriate shrine gives you 300% shard mana generation and +1 shard bonus on each element, while building fire shrines on all of them gives you 240% shard mana generation and +2 shard bonus on fire spells alone. Fire shrines cannot be built on Water shards.

3. once a shrine is built on a shard, this cannot be destroyed or unbuilt: it can only change controller (like outposts do now, I believe)

4. Make the type of shards that you control matter. For example, special fire spells become available once you control a given number of fire shards. Special spells become available once you control at least one shard of every type. As long as you control only Fire shards, all fire spells cost 50% less. Once you have at least 5 shards of a given element, all your units receive 10% less damage from that element. There are unlimited possibilities...

5. Child of Fire strategic spell: once you cast this spell, you renounce to use Water magic for the rest of the game. All your champions unlearn water spells. All water shards under your control, now and in the future, are considered as fire shards, but generate only 1/2 of mana and count as 1/2 fire shard for spell-boosting purposes. Non-fire spells cost 30% more. Fire elementals summoned by you or your champions are of a higher level. Flame Blade is cast automatically on your sovreign, champions and melee units at the beginning of every battle at no cost. You can cast Child of Element only once per game, and be Child of only one element at a time.

6. Bend Shard Essence strategic spell: trasforms target Fire shard you control into a Broken Shard of another element, which generates 1/3 mana and count as 1/2 shard of the new element for spell boosting purposes.

7. Once you have five shards of the same element, you can cast a spell that creates a pentacle, triggering a permament effect (also graphic) in the area that connects the five shards: this could be bonus to your units or damage to enemy's, or the summon of a very powerful elemental of that type.

8. Shard resonance: when a strategic fire spell is targeted on a fire shard you control, its effect is applied to all tiles and units within distance 2 of the shard. This could work on offensive as well as on healing spells, for example. The radius could increse with upgrades of the shrine.

The idea is to give players something to think about when they find a shard: which shrine should I build on it? Or even: should I build a shrine on it or not? Should I destroy it, change its element, or leave it as it is? And also give them a way to use shards throughout the game

19,356 views 22 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Some good ideas here.  I guess shard power would round down, or maybe halves could be used if there was room between +1 shard power and +2 shard power etc. in terms of damage done.  Probably most shard multipliers on spells could handle the halves between integers (for damage spells anyway).

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Gonna want to wait until Thursday +1 to make any design proposals. For all we know most of this is already ingame. Good ideas though!  :thumbsup:

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top


Definately like the thought of making shards a little more dynamic than as 'stop shop' for mana gen.

You're idea has merit, though there are also the light/dark shards to think about.

In addition, you're idea seems a little complicated...cancellations....balancing....too much math.

Instead, I propose you come across a shard. It has a default property of one of the 4 elements. (say fire as an example). You may choose to maintain that default 'fire' property, gaining 100% of the bonous to spells and mana of that elemental type OR choose to change/warp the shard to your will, encuring 50% penalty to that potency, but gaining an element type of your choosing, (water air or earth).

This gives an element of luck in obtaining naturally what you were looking for, yet also provides strategic decisions to make should you wish to focus in one or two elemental type. Also, gaining X (whatever game balance dictates) shards of one specific type should grant 'bonus spells, abilitys, quests, etc'. This would further encourage strategic decisions and reward the rpg element of the game.

Something similar could be done for the shards for the light/dark. Maybe not 100%....but not fair if only 50%...so maybe you have no choice but to convert for 75% potency...having rewards for multiple light/dark shrines can also exist here. 

In MoM, it was interesting in that the shards were 'nodes', protected by elemental forces and fizzled magic unless it was that node type. This made obtaining the extra magic a challenge to overcome. It also prevented you from gaining too much of an early start advantage as the protection warrented some skill before conquering.

Hope this helps generate discussion...

 

 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting GFireflyE, reply 3

Instead, I propose you come across a shard. It has a default property of one of the 4 elements. (say fire as an example). You may choose to maintain that default 'fire' property, gaining 100% of the bonous to spells and mana of that elemental type OR choose to change/warp the shard to your will, encuring 50% penalty to that potency, but gaining an element type of your choosing, (water air or earth).
End of GFireflyE's quote

I like this simplification of the original idea. All you'd need to implement it is a spell similar to Corruption but for the other elements, and secondary versions of each shard that generate half the bonus. So you cast 'Immolate' or whatever on an Earth Shard, turning it into a "Lesser Fire Shard" that produces half mana and half bonus for fire spells (note you could avoid fractions by having each normal fire shard count as two "shards" and each lesser count as one, reduce the scaling of spells accordingly).

In fact that's probably how Corruption should work too, it's far too tempting to just corrupt every shard you come across so Dirge of Ceresa can onehit armies, as long as you have some mana to spare it's a no brainer; a sacrifice like losing half the shard's mana/spell bonus would make the choice more meaningful.

You might be able to just mod all that in - I haven't kept up with the modding capabilities unfortunately, so not positive on that. It's pretty straightforward from the player's perspective too, it doesn't get in the way of people simply building shards as they do now, it's just an extra option for anyone willing to dive into the spellbook and make that strategic sacrifice.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting GFireflyE, reply 3

Instead, I propose you come across a shard. It has a default property of one of the 4 elements. (say fire as an example). You may choose to maintain that default 'fire' property, gaining 100% of the bonous to spells and mana of that elemental type OR choose to change/warp the shard to your will, encuring 50% penalty to that potency, but gaining an element type of your choosing, (water air or earth).

End of GFireflyE's quote

I totally agree on that. It's basically what I meant in my point 6, but you put in down in a much simpler way :) Or in point 2, but I thought of using shrines instead of a spell.

About the shard element changing, I'd like to avoid that a shard can change element infinitely many times in a game, for a variety of reasons (just to name one, the AI would be better at coping with permanent shards). To achieve that, one option could be that once you build a shrine of a given element on a shard, the decision is permanent throughout the game, as in point 3 of my list. Or, if you want to use a spell instead, it could be that each time you change element to a shard, it halves its mana generation and spell-boosting ability: this way, each shard will not change element more than once or twice during the game since after a point it makes no sense to spend mana for the spell. In this option, the name of the shard could describe its power: Fire shard (full), Minor Fire Shard (half), Fire Splinter (a quarter). I'd also like to make the spell take many turns to be cast, so that you cannot quick-steal an enemy shard and change its element just to spoil your enemy's spell strategy.

More in general, I'd like shards to be a much bigger part of the game. After all, the name of the game is ELEMENTAL :D I numbered and rearranged my points in the list above, and added one more. I like when people play with ideas and comment on them, I hope this can become a productive discussion. I think this twist on shards could be a minor change code-wise but a big addition to the strategic depth of the game - and to the fun and replayability  as well.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top
Wouldn't these changes actually simplify the game a lot? I mean I could just decide to play a fire mage and make every shard I meet have a fire shrine. Every game I could accomplish the same thing, no matter what the map layout would be.
Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Vallu751, reply 7
Wouldn't these changes actually simplify the game a lot? I mean I could just decide to play a fire mage and make every shard I meet have a fire shrine. Every game I could accomplish the same thing, no matter what the map layout would be.
End of Vallu751's quote


This is where balance is of absolute importance. Transforming a non-fire shard into a fire shard should come at a cost, high enough to make you think about it.

In MoM, you had to choose your spellbooks in advance, and keep them throughout the game without being able to change them or add anything (except finding extremely rare additional books in the very late game). So, one could have thought that MoM was always the same, and that magic was too simple and always the same. In fact, it was the opposite. Precisely because you could choose at the beginning, you once wanted to try playing a fire mage, then a black mage, than a life-water mage and so on. Once you add the race choice, this already made for so many possible combinations. There was some randomness in the type of spells that you were getting after the book choice, to avoid things being too deterministic. 

Thinking of MoM makes me believe the system that we propose here would be in the end more fun. After all, it would still be more random than in MoM, because the shards you find are still random, and forcing all of them into the same element could be too costly. So the choice of the element would be still partially driven by what type of shards you find at the beginning, but less than it is now.

On a different note: reading the list again, these new ideas/rules could create incentives for people to either be a generalist or focus on a single element. In order to leave the option to focus on two or three elements a good viable strategy, we could make the Bend Shard spell (point 6) into 6 spells, one for each element,  and place a cooldown on each of them, so that you can transform a shard into a fire shard only once every, say, 100 turns, but while that spell is on cooldown you can still cast the Bend Shard spell and transform another shard into, say, an Earth shard. This way, rather than changing all your shards into fire, one could be better transforming shards into fire and earth shards in half the time. Also, this would avoid that one keeps all shards unchanged until mid-game to generate tons of mana, and then all of a sudden changes all of them into fire shards to get a huge spell-boosting power.

Bottom line: the idea is still rough, which also means versatile, but to me seems to be worth investigating. And I am not only saying that one should be able to change shards. If you read my list there is more than that. Shards could play a more strategic role even if we think of leaving them as they are for the entire game. All I am saying is: MAKE THEM MATTER MORE THAN BEING JUST "MANA MINES". Btw, I read that Beta4 will include upgrades for shards to give bonuses. This could give them more flavor, but maybe not more strategic depth. Anyway I may be wrong... I really have a lot of faith in Derek, and the changes they made to cities seem so good already :)

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top





7. Once you have fire shards of the same element, you can cast a spell that creates a pentacle, triggering a permament effect (also graphic) in the area that connects the five shards: this could be bonus to your units or damage to enemy's, or the summon of a very powerful elemental of that type.



End of quote

I just wanted to post and say I aboslutely love this idea. It is exactly the kind of interaction between mechanics and visuals that make for "awesome" spells.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top


Shard 'scaling' can be done however the developers want. However, I do like the idea that marionesi suggested: Fire shard (full), Minor Fire Shard (half), Fire Splinter (a quarter). Change it a fourth time and it fizzles into dust. This way, magic has a price, and abuse of that magic will cost you. Only thing to watch out for here is the AI being dumb and continually changing there own shards into oblivion. oops.

Also like the idea of a 'shard warp' spell. Shrines should be constant, synominous with your empire's culture. It's the magic in the shard that should be changed if you don't like what you get....and it should cost you something to change it. Not so much that you'll always take the random....yet not so little that you'll be willing to abuse your shards to oblivion as the game progresses. Definately some balancing there...

Lastly, to reiterate, and perhaps open it up for suggestions: Would love to see something added to the game where, if you obtain control of X shards of a specific type, you receive something unique to that elemental type: a spell, an effect, or a quest. Definately should go with "Fire Mastery" as the term to define this state. XD I like the idea of a stat effect idea the best because an opponent then has the strategic ability to take the effect away from you, should be conquer enough of your shards.

Effect Suggestions:
Fire Mastery: Enemies take 1 pt burn dmg while in your territory
Water Mastery: Tiles (or maybe just river tiles) in your territory produce +1 food
Earth Mastery: Roads allows your units additional +1 movement while in your territory
Air Mastery: Ranged attacks while in your territory are increased by +1

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top


As always, leaving what you wrote "cooling down" for 24 hrs and then reading it back gives you a new perspective on it. Hence, I read my post again and I think that

And I think what I wrote is amazing :D :D :D

Ok, no jokes, actually I thought that at this stage in the development of the game, some suggestions may be to deep to be implemented. Allowing shard changing is - imo - a very nice idea, but at this point it might change the game too much (but please Derek tell me I am wrong :) ). Still, there are plenty of ways in which shards can play a nice role beyond mana generation and spell boosting. I hope Derek will consider some of them especially since people seem to like the idea - if it is correct to assume that people who read the post and did not write anything are moderately happy with the idea but felt they had nothing to add, mmm...

I had another idea, mostly a free lunch and hopefully a tasty one:

9a. Imbue Elemental Spirits: this is a spell you cast on a non-magical weapon of choice to imbue it with special elemental powers. The power that the weapon obtains depend on the shards you control. The number of shards determine how powerful it is. The type of shards you control determine its specific powers: mostly fire shards? flame blade, melt armor, immolate enemy... also some death shards? A little bit of life drain, or a small curse, and maybe chance to inflict a disease... And if it's an amoror? Frost protection, Fire aura, damage shield:fire and whatnot. You can come up with nice things for bows as well I suppose. The quality of the materials determine the maximum power. So do not use wooden swords please :) You can add cooldown and increasing mana cost proportional to shards to balance it, of course. This spell would make for a lot of different magic items, Diablo-style, would vaguely remind of the Item creation in MoM that everyone loved, but would be somewhat unique. And you can still make some special powers only available through artifacts so that going to quest still makes for great emotions.

9b. Elemental Golem: same as above, but with a golem unit. Pick some faction that is dwarves-like, and give them the ability to build a Golem unit imbued with the power of the elements. It doesn't have to be a spell, it could be a tech. Same story as before: the shards you control add nice properties to the golem. This would probably make sense to be more deterministic.

And let me add to my list this small point:

10. Prismatic shards: there are some rare shards (5-10%) that have all the elements in them, and who find them first can choose, once and for all, their element. This would be a nice complement once you introduce something that makes the type of shards matter, but possibly also a nice thing to make the shards of the elements slightly less random. Actually, one could leave the option to create maps where you have ONLY prismatic shards, for a change, so that focus on a single element. As I said, just for a change, I like that shards are mostly pre-determined, as long as the spell boosting effect is not too powerful to force a death mage using mostly fire magic just because he did not find enough death shards...

 

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting marionesi, reply 11


10. Prismatic shards: there are some rare shards (5-10%) that have all the elements in them, and who find them first can choose, once and for all, their element. This would be a nice complement once you introduce something that makes the type of shards matter, but possibly also a nice thing to make the shards of the elements slightly less random. Actually, one could leave the option to create maps where you have ONLY prismatic shards, for a change, so that focus on a single element. As I said, just for a change, I like that shards are mostly pre-determined, as long as the spell boosting effect is not too powerful to force a death mage using mostly fire magic just because he did not find enough death shards...

 
End of marionesi's quote

oooo. Really like this idea. Nice thought!

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

After seeing the new system, how would you change this idea?

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top


bah. Haven't seen the new system yet. Waiting on the download....

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting seanw3, reply 13
After seeing the new system, how would you change this idea?
End of seanw3's quote

Not sure what you mean. How is the new system changing the role of shards as of now?

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

I think these changes are best suited for an expansion. I hope that Derek & Co. will keep in mind these suggestions for the future...

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

Now that shards upgrade to better shards, it would be good to include that in the idea. What level would a shard have to be at to switch it over? It's not my idea, but I think it could make an excellent mod.

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting seanw3, reply 17
Now that shards upgrade to better shards, it would be good to include that in the idea. What level would a shard have to be at to switch it over? It's not my idea, but I think it could make an excellent mod.
End of seanw3's quote

I am not in the beta - not much time to dive in right now - hence I am not sure how shards have changed in Beta4. All I know is through reading the forum once in a while. I agree this could be a great mod. I have no programming  skills but if you know someone willing to put this and more into a mod, I'd be glad to contribute with these and other ideas. I'll watch your beta4 videos to find out more about how shards work in this last beta...

Reply #18 from Elemental Forums Top

Good to know. I thought you were in based on how relevant your idea is. Each shard now gives +1 mana at the start. They can be upgraded as the game goes on to do +2, 3, 4 mana. I was thinking that in this case it would be a cost-benefit balance between magical power and mana generation. That is something we need more of on the strategic level. It's that sort of thing that connects the strategic to the tactical battles.

Reply #19 from Elemental Forums Top

I think the upgradable shards, if anything, create even more options. Yes, one could imagine mana generating- upgrades and spell power- upgrades, maybe mutually exclusive, with the path-choice after the first level shrine, which always generates mana. This would already achieve some strategic choice regarding shards, and also force the player to focus on some elements more than others ( since mana gen is same for all elements, but spell boosting is only for the element of the shard where the shrine is built). 

Personally, I would love to see something more related with shard elements. Something where a sovereign can relinquish the use of one element to increase its power on the others, up to devote himself to just one element being granted significant cool powers specific to the element chosen. Some option of this sort should be given during character creation, imo. The idea to allow sov to change a shard element (with limitation and penalties) would also fit nicely here. I have quite a few ideas along these lines...

What do you think guys?

Reply #20 from Elemental Forums Top

Currently when you research the proper techs you can upgrade a shard up to three times. You first build on a shard and you get +1 mana every turn from that shard. If you research the first shard tech you can then upgrade the shard so that it produces two mana a turn and increase the spell power of that shard's element by +1. So if you have two fire shards upgraded to level two you are now getting +4 mana per turn and your fire spells get a +2 power boost. There are two more techs after that which you can eventually research which will allow you to upgrade your shards twice more. A fully upgraded shard will give you +4 mana per turn. Now this is where my memory is just a bit hazy. I can't quite remember if a fully upgraded shard gives you +2 or +3 spell mastery in that shards element.

Note: This may be why some people are confused about spell power. They say that they have multiple death shards yet their death spells don't increase in power. Perhaps they should check if their death shards are upgraded to level two.

If I were to suggest a change I would suggest that the player should be able to either upgrade a shard to produce more mana or increase an elements power not both as is currently done. This would create strategic choice where a player would need to choose between increasing the amount of mana they get per turn or the amount of power their spells do. If this choice is presented to a player when they first level up a shard and if they must then stick to that upgrading path for that specific shard it would force players to make some interesting decisions.

I also like the idea of being able to enchant weapons and armor. I would go about it differently though. Make it so that you first need to build an enchanters work shop in a conclave city. Then you move the sov., champ., or unit you wish to enchant to said conclave. Once the sov, champ, or unit is there give the option to enchant. This will then take you to the enchanting screen where you choose the weapon or peace of armor you wish to enchant. Then you choose the enchantment which is available for said equipment. You can enchant armor with defensive spells, weapons with offensive spells, and equipment with utility spells. The type of enchantments available is determined by the type of shards you own. Air shards will allow you to enchant a peace of armor with evade, a weapon with electric damage, and a trinket with either +initiative or +movement. Enchantments have three levels of power. For instance a sword might be given a +1 electric attack or a +5 electric attack or a +1 per level electric attack. A level one enchantment requires that you have a level one shard of said type. A level two enchantment requires that you have two level two shards of said type. And a level three enchantment requires that you have three level three shards of said type. An item can only be enchanted with one enchantment thus making certain quest items of value since they may have more then one enchantment. Enchanting an item will cost crystal and some mana. The crystal and mana cost will increase based on the level of the enchantment. Also the cost will then be multiplied by the number of individuals in a unit. So a level three enchantment placed on the swords of a nine man unit would cost a lot. A level one enchantment on a champions sword on the other hand would cost little.

This enchantment idea might be too complicated so feel free to simplify if necessary.

The nice thing about gaining enchanted equipment this way is that researching up the warfare tree becomes a valid choice. As things stand I only research the very basics of the warfare tree and then focus on the magic tree because the magic tree provides enchanted weapons and armor. If on the other hand you needed to first have said weapons and armor and then enchant them... Going up the warfare tree suddenly matters.

Also it would give conclaves more meaning. You create a unit at a fortress city and then move said unit to a conclave to enchant their equipment.

Again this might be a little too complicated so simplify where necessary.

Reply #21 from Elemental Forums Top


As to the enchanting of equipment, it's an interesting idea, though I doubt it'll have to be done in a conclave city. All the trading and shop purchasing only requires you to be in your zone of control. A little lame, imo, but I suppose if everyone has that same advantage, then nothing is lost. It's just that when you're attacking an opponent in their turf and you end turn, they could totally buff up right in front of you.

Reply #22 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting j_wl_b, reply 21

If I were to suggest a change I would suggest that the player should be able to either upgrade a shard to produce more mana or increase an elements power not both as is currently done. This would create strategic choice where a player would need to choose between increasing the amount of mana they get per turn or the amount of power their spells do. If this choice is presented to a player when they first level up a shard and if they must then stick to that upgrading path for that specific shard it would force players to make some interesting decisions.

End of j_wl_b's quote

This is what I had in mind. I'd rather have the first upgrade always give mana, and start the upgrading path from 2nd level, either more mana or spell power, but this is a minor detail. Since one needs to get mana somehow, this implies that people will choose to boost some elements while using the other shards as mana pumps. Indirectly, this could lead players to specialize in certain elements, although one could also spread spell boosing buildings evenly among all elements.

Your idea on items is good. It reminds of MoM in a certain way, but you consider shards under control unstead of spell books when allowing for certain powers to be imbued in a weapon. What I had in mind with the Imbue weapon spell was something for heroes, but you broaden it for all units. Overall, I think your suggestion is more flavorful, but

1. I'd rather not require sov and champs to be in a city to create a magic weapons, nor to equip them. Teleport equipment at a cost was a clever idea from MoM.

2. I'd rather not allow the creation of magic weapons for normal units. Now, I must say that not playing the beta I do not understand the implications of magic and warfare trees that you mention, which seems a good one, so I am careful here. But from an epic point of view, a magic weapon forged at a magic altar in a conclave city sounds like something unique for a champion, not for every soldier :)

Bottom line: I think this double upgrade path for shards can give some additional strategic depth to the game, but what I had in mind with this post was something... bigger. I would like elements to interact with playstyle. I still believe the option to flip the element of a shard would be a very interesting one. Say, you renounce to use all elements but one, but you are granted the power to transform all shards into you element of choice's, with some penalty, and you gain bonuses and/or spells of your element of choice - why not a free city enchatment of that element on all your cities of level 3+?.

It would be great to allow people more important choices during character creation, something different from what one can obtain by levelling the sovreign. Maybe something is already there... but I am not talking of +1 initiative here, I am talking of something more MoM-style, i.e. summining spells' casting cost and maintaining cost are halved...