Spells That Pack a Punch
Published on November 17, 2010 By ScottTykoski In Elemental Dev Journals

Since launch, one of the major complaints about Elemental: War of Magic was that the last bit of our title (the "Magic" part) was found to be...lacking (to put it gently). Global mana addresses areas of cheese, but without a significant overhaul to the Spellbooks and Spells you’re casting, that side of the game would still feel weak.  We’ve taken the following steps to rectify this in 1.1....


1. Spellbook Re-evaluation: There were several problems with the way spells have been organized in Elemental thus far, the most damning being the selection of Elemental based spells when designing your Sovereign. We’ve now moved these out of customization and into the tech tree, so you can make the choice to grab those books as shards are discovered. In their place, players can select books specific to a given strategy. The “Mobility” book has movement and teleportation spells, “Enchantment” gives the players city buffs, “Combat” does damage and protects friendly units relative to the caster’s INT, and “Terraforming” gives players the ability to sculpt the landscape in interesting ways.

2. No two spells should feel the same: Spellbooks in v1.0 through v1.09  were filled with tons of spells that all felt the same: Lightning, Fireball, Hurl Boulder, etc.  They were various tweaks on the formula, but the end result was a magic system that lacked interesting (and cool) choices.  Our motto going into 1.1 was that each and every spell (and each spellbook, for that matter) should feel unique and tempting over the use of another.

3. Bigger, badder, more ballsy high level spells: When I get a level 5 spell, it better not be a ‘slightly stronger version’ of a level 1-4 spell, ‘cause that would be lame.  Instead, I demand serious L5 muscle to my magical might - uniquely awesome options as I conquer the world.  For example...

L5 Mobility - Call of the Titans
A unstoppable spell that gathers ALL friendly unstationed troops and lets you target them directly into enemy territory.

L5 Air - Tornado
Cast upon the army of your foe, this spell will scatter all units in the stack, making them easy targets to pick off.

L5 Life - Death Ward
Taking 250 mp and 1mp/turn maint., Death Ward will allow any champion unit to escape death at the end of a losing battle (even if the battle is fought on enemy soil).

At the end of every spellbook the player will be greeted by a spell that was worth the effort to learn it.


Most of the old spells have been stripped out, and the v1.1 beta will have 68 new and improved spells. While the final 1.1 build will have around 75 spells to help your rise to power, we’ll continue taking suggestions on how to best make the ‘Magic’ half of our subtitle really shine!

Enjoy!

 


 


Comments (Page 7)
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on Nov 19, 2010

Wintersong
... and really, it's not like the name has influence about how magical the game is, the spells do)

That's definitely an eye-of-the-player thing, not an objective fact. Immersion is a big part of why I got hooked on games like MoM and the early Civs.

Clumsy wording in UIs makes it harder to maintain immersion, so I put a high value on 'minor' things like spell or spell book names. You see them all the time as you play, and I'd rather see names that fit smoothly into an aesthetic whole and not random-seeming or bluntly generic labels. (Gods above, below, and sideways I hope Stab of Ice has joined the great piles on the cutting room floor.)

on Nov 19, 2010

Stab of Ice 1, 2, and 3 are now the first three water spells...with Ultimate Stab of Ice 1 & 2 the last two.

Sorry, GW

on Nov 19, 2010

BoogieBac
Stab of Ice 1, 2, and 3 are now the first three water spells...with Ultimate Stab of Ice 1 & 2 the last two.

Sorry, GW

The crack-head smiley has me confused. Are you offering a reassuring joke, or are those actual spell names in the latest internal builds?

on Nov 19, 2010

Why not go into floats? Stab of Ice 1.238 has a nice ring to it...

 

on Nov 19, 2010

reassuring joke
 

on Nov 19, 2010

Nah, numbers really sound a bit lame. It should be something like

Watery Stab of Ice
Minor Stab of Ice
Lesser Stab of Ice
Stab of Ice
Major Stab of Ice
Greater Stab of Ice
Massive Stab of Ice
Ultra Stab of Ice
EPIC STAB OF ICE
EPIC STAB OF ICE 2 (sorry, couldn't find a good name for the lvl 10 spell)

on Nov 19, 2010

BoogieBac

reassuring joke 

A smile is worth at least a few hundred words?

on Nov 19, 2010

Nah, numbers really sound a bit lame. It should be something like

Watery Stab of Ice
Minor Stab of Ice
Lesser Stab of Ice
Stab of Ice
Major Stab of Ice
Greater Stab of Ice
Massive Stab of Ice
Ultra Stab of Ice
EPIC STAB OF ICE
EPIC STAB OF ICE 2 (sorry, couldn't find a good name for the lvl 10 spell)

  • Stab of Ice
  • Stab of Ice Reloaded
  • Stab of Ice Revolutions

Hopefully better than some movies...

on Nov 19, 2010

Wintersong
...
Stab of Ice
Stab of Ice Reloaded
Stab of Ice Revolutions

Hopefully better than some movies...

That hurts like too big a slurp from a very cold slushy on a very hot day.

Not least because I wish Elemental had been mostly about an art project and not at all about starting a new franchise...

on Nov 19, 2010

Stab of Ice
Lance of Winter
Frost Giant's Fist
Artic Wyrm's Claw
Dire Penquin's Peck of 0 K Doom

... From what I have read, there are only 5 spell levels.

on Nov 19, 2010

Are the dire penguins for sale?

on Nov 19, 2010

Annatar11
Are the dire penguins for sale?

Maybe. 0 K = 0 Kelvin = Absolute Zero.

on Nov 19, 2010

GW Swicord

Quoting Rune_74, reply 83I don't get why in a game called elemental you do not use elemental resistances?

Maybe because the project has been, consciously or not, about making v1 of an engine for GalCiv 3 and magic has never been taken seriously as an aesthetic, much less as the core of the game mechanics. I'm still a tad hopeful that magic will become adequately magical by the 1st or 2nd expansion, but I remain sorely disappointed that it has been an ugly stepchild so far despite several years of talk about and work on the 'spiritual successor' to MoM.

 

Trying to be optimistic here , there *seems* to be some improvement to combat and magic systems. But you are right it won't be MoM level in terms of magic system for a while (the release was way too weak to be improved in one shot), thinking of holding off until the first or 2nd expansion (which I think i get free), rather than playing 1.1 which was my original plan..

on Nov 19, 2010

Hey stab of ice was one of the 2 usefull first level damage spells. Sure range and damage were low but heck i could bog down dragons 10time stronger then my stack. That the enemy lost a turn was worth the effort.

on Nov 19, 2010

Nah, numbers really sound a bit lame. It should be something like

Watery Stab of Ice
Minor Stab of Ice
Lesser Stab of Ice
Stab of Ice
Major Stab of Ice
Greater Stab of Ice
Massive Stab of Ice
Ultra Stab of Ice
EPIC STAB OF ICE

EPIC STAB OF ICE 2 (sorry, couldn't find a good name for the lvl 10 spell)

another set of suggestions could be

tonne of ice,

ice avalanche,

ice cap,

ice glacier,

ice world,

any and all of these could be used for the level 10 name

harpo

 

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