DoF Magic system.

[Konstantin Fomenko]

Good point Darvin. But as you might notice, Inner Fire is a level 4 spell - the strongest spell in the Fire School. We tried to avoid cliché of the strongest spell being blow-all enemy units on the screen-up kind, and went for most potentially lethal, but tricky.

Inner Fire does have the ability to create something similar to Undead Army of BftME, or heal a whole city packed with hundreds of units, and at the same time - as you mentioned it is a devastating offensive spell. But one mistake, and it can obliterate your own army

But, seeing how this is the toughest of the fire spells, it would take player quite some time to get a hold of this capability. Actually let me rephrase it, this spell will be available midgame. But all the stats of this spell will increase exponentially as your spellcaster gains experience. So this spell will only become the ‘army killer/healer’ towards the late game.

And one more thing to keep in mind. Most of our spells act slowly, giving other player time to react and cast a counter spell. We want to see something like this down the road:

-Player 2 got player 1`s army encircled in a Fire Wall and has a hundred archers shooting arrows at him. Player`s 1 army will be dead with-in 20 seconds.
-Now Player 1 casts Inner Fire, and moves his units out of the Fire Wall trap.
-Player 2 then, who saw this coming, casts a simple water spell on Player 1`s units – lets say it`s a frozen rain. Player 1`s army again faces destruction with-in 20 seconds.
-But Player 1 can cast another counter spell to dispel that Frozen Rain.

Hah, hopefully this didn`t sound too confusing. But in a nutshell – such magic duels is one the goal we are aiming for.

[Darvin]

But in a nutshell – such magic duels is one the goal we are aiming for.

That much was clear from your first post, and I think it could be a very effective form of gameplay.

On the one hand, Inner Fire just seems like a classic component of an "instant death" spell combination. On the other hand, I can imagine if there is no spontaneous spell available to complete that instant death combination, it could still work out as a balanced ability. Certainly this is an extremely dangerous spell, and we'll have to wait to see how it plays out in gameplay.

That said, I'm willing to lay bets that the 470% increased vulnerability to water will need to be toned down. Even if a player has time to counter water spells before they kill him outright, the damage he takes before that could be decisive anyways. If you counter the water spell after five seconds (reasonable reaction time in a chaotic battle), it's still dealt the amount of damage it could have expected in 25 seconds. I haven't played your game, but 25 seconds of exposure to a powerful damaging spell is either lethal or crippling in most games I've played.

[Silent_Lamb]

With all that's being discussed I wonder how this will turn out in online play.

I know your having a balance system in place, as was mentioned, 2 level 1 n00bs can take on 1 level 2 guy, but how will the wizards and what not work out. I've played games where, a higher level guy usually doesn't have too much trouble dispatching lower level people even if they are working in a combined effort. That's my only concern with the system now that Darvin hasn't mentioned (Or has mentioned but I did not read).

Other than that, what has been worked out seems like a solid method of ensuring sizable magic battles, but will there a way to automate some spells so it doesn't over burden the player while he's trying to fight off units with his regular troops and counter spells at the same time. It may not seem like much, but half the spells in Warcraft 3 I never use because I just feel like I don't have time to switch to my spell caster and still fight effectively.

[Darvin]

I've played games where, a higher level guy usually doesn't have too much trouble dispatching lower level people even if they are working in a combined effort. That's my only concern with the system now that Darvin hasn't mentioned (Or has mentioned but I did not read).

Actually, I'd disagree with you on this count. If anything, spellcasters in this game seem to parallel heroes in Warcraft III, in that heroes were the only real counter to other heroes. In that game, the advantage of two players starting with two heroes, as opposed to one player starting with one, was such a huge edge that even very experienced players couldn't realistically challenge two reasonably proficient players. We don't know yet enough about how this game plays to see how it will turn out. It's too early to lay judgement on this matter.

Other than that, what has been worked out seems like a solid method of ensuring sizable magic battles, but will there a way to automate some spells so it doesn't over burden the player while he's trying to fight off units with his regular troops and counter spells at the same time. It may not seem like much, but half the spells in Warcraft 3 I never use because I just feel like I don't have time to switch to my spell caster and still fight effectively.

Didn't you know about subgroups in Warcraft III? You could access your spellcasters quickly just by grouping them together (say, putting them all in group 3). When you had group 3 selected, you could just press tab to scroll through all your spellcaster types. If you knew the spell hotkeys, you could get your spellcasting done in two or three seconds.

The problem wasn't that blizzard didn't afford players the tools they needed to manage spellcasters, it's that the feature was only ever described inside the manual ( who reads that thing ) and in one line of dialog during the tutorial that I think most people never played anyways.

That said, I can understand micromanagement issues becoming big. We don't want this to become something utterly overwhelming. For a lot of people, late game warcraft III became an attack-move nightmare because the battle was going so fast that they couldn't keep up.

[olauwers]

Actually, I'd disagree with you on this count. If anything, spellcasters in this game seem to parallel heroes in Warcraft III, in that heroes were the only real counter to other heroes. In that game, the advantage of two players starting with two heroes, as opposed to one player starting with one, was such a huge edge that even very experienced players couldn't realistically challenge two reasonably proficient players. We don't know yet enough about how this game plays to see how it will turn out. It's too early to lay judgement on this matter.

Well, seeing as how wizards will actually gain better spells as they level up and gain more experience and all, I think that two wizards that are half as good as the third one, combined, either are just as good, or worse than the third, experienced, magician.

[jap88]

I'd have to agree with Darvin for toning down the damage taken from water spells for Inner Fire, as he said a sufficient amount of damage is enough to cripple you and have you lose the game. You said that Inner Fire will become the healing spell, well if you had just used it to boost your army, the enemy casted a water spell, then you casted a counter, how are you going to heal your army? Inner Fire so that they just tkae more damage again? 470X just seems like way too much and for being a level 4 spell seems extremely easy to counter. If the enemy has no water spells than that would not be a problem. However a halfway decent player will have a balance so they can counter whatever may come their way, and given the amount of time that Inner Fire lasts water spells could be absolutely devastating and you casting a spell meant to help you could instead cost you the game.

[Konstantin Fomenko]

470X just seems like way too much and for being a level 4 spell seems extremely easy to counter

While I do have to agree with this, you guys are discounting the light and dark effects of this spell. If a Light magician has cast the spell units get 15+X healing (per second), that is enough to reduce damage from any potential water spell, to almost half. So now we are looking at something like 200X more damage from an ordinary water spell.

And with the dark effect - player will want to cast this on his weakest units, lets say Goblin Warriors, who have (I believe 7 base attack values.) With the use of the Inner fire, their attack becomes 17+x. (this could bring the value to 30 for experienced spellcaster). This is a lethal force, and we need to make sure there is actually a counter for it.

But with that said - all the values you have seen in these spells are temporary and will change dramatically once we get down to balancing things in-game.

[The Witch King of Angmar]

Originally Posted by Konstantin Fomenko

While I do have to agree with this, you guys are discounting the light and dark effects of this spell. If a Light magician has cast the spell units get 15+X healing (per second), that is enough to reduce damage from any potential water spell, to almost half. So now we are looking at something like 200X more damage from an ordinary water spell.

And with the dark effect - player will want to cast this on his weakest units, lets say Goblin Warriors, who have (I believe 7 base attack values.) With the use of the Inner fire, their attack becomes 17+x. (this could bring the value to 30 for experienced spellcaster). This is a lethal force, and we need to make sure there is actually a counter for it.

But with that said - all the values you have seen in these spells are temporary and will change dramatically once we get down to balancing things in-game.

Yeah balance is needed to me but I love the idea of having "magic fights" in addition to regular warfare. To me that really says DOF right there.

[Konstantin Fomenko]

Yeah balance is needed to me but I love the idea of having "magic fights" in addition to regular warfare. To me that really says DOF right there.

You should really enjoy level 12 in our single-player campaign then. There is a 5 minute duel between few fully developed spellcasters.

[Darvin]

While I do have to agree with this, you guys are discounting the light and dark effects of this spell. If a Light magician has cast the spell units get 15+X healing (per second), that is enough to reduce damage from any potential water spell, to almost half. So now we are looking at something like 200X more damage from an ordinary water spell.

Your math doesn't work out. If inner fire heals at a rate about half of the base rate of damage of a water spell, then the net should be 4.2 times normal damage. That's still a large sum.

Moreover, I notice that manypeople still haven't caught on to what I'm saying here: the person with the water spells is the same person casting inner fire. He is purposefully giving the enemy the buff in order to increase the power of his water spells. As such, we can probably presume he'll be using the dark version of the spell so they don't heal, and he'll use it in a situation where the damage buff will not be very useful. I would like to point out that my beef here isn't with specific numbers, but rather principles and applications. I'm pointing out that Inner Fire has a serious potential to be used as a multiplier for water spell damage, rather than its intended effect, if you aren't careful.

I do have one question however: if a player casts BOTH the dark and light version of inner fire on the same units (obviously requires two seperate spellcasters) how does that stack?


Anyways, Reverie will be play-testing and tweaking the numbers, and the end result shouldn't have terrible abuses.