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 5)
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on Nov 18, 2010

Wow, all this and the beta isn't released yet.

on Nov 18, 2010

What's the point of turning grassland into wasteland, or the opposite? Does it even have a mechanical effect?

(with loftier goals already being plotted for future patches).

When the patch is released, will we get a very rough roadmap of what's to come?

on Nov 18, 2010

RFHolloway
Anyone else thinking "Apocolypse" spell from Populous (or am I the only really old one around here)

Judging by how many here can quote the MoM manual blindfolded, I don't believe you're that much above average age. =P

My favourite was blessing the enemy territory with great lush forests. And then the tiniest little... spark...

Such natural synergy with spells is something I'd like to see in elemental, too.
For instance: an enemy army is traveling through a long mountain pass. (that you conveniently constructed there)
You close off both ends with Raise Land... and create a flood inside...
Or magma. Everything is better with magma.

(more or less) real physics such as more than one altitude level and water flowing downwards would add a massive amount of options. Kinda like a large scale Dwarf Fortress.
You would create a high basin and fill it with flood spells, only to pull the plug when an enemy army passes by and wash the heathens into the sea.
Something for the 2nd expansion. =P

on Nov 18, 2010

Werewindlefr
What's the point of turning grassland into wasteland, or the opposite? Does it even have a mechanical effect?


(with loftier goals already being plotted for future patches).


When the patch is released, will we get a very rough roadmap of what's to come?

This has generally been the case after they release one patch they then post about future patches. I think they will want to evaluate response to the 1.1 patch once people have played it too rather than bjust from reading the log in order to look at future direction. This is not including the first expansion of course which will be another work stream.

on Nov 18, 2010

We probably won't discuss futures unti 1.1 is out the door, though I think some PR is being done on Fallen Enchantress as we speak, so you may hear about that through more formal channels before we blab about it here

on Nov 18, 2010

I do hope that Stardock haven't stripped the game of the unit based mana system, since (some) modders will still want to use that system with or instead of the new system.

I support the new system though, cheers!

on Nov 18, 2010

Campaigner
Looks good. I'm however hellbent on the spellcolors in Magic The Gathering and Master of Magic so anything else than that seems not as good. Might be wrong....

 

Me too. But no point moaning about that, the name of the game is ELEMENTAL.. so it's fire, water, air, earth.... 

on Nov 18, 2010

luketan



Quoting Campaigner,
reply 54
Looks good. I'm however hellbent on the spellcolors in Magic The Gathering and Master of Magic so anything else than that seems not as good. Might be wrong....


 

Me too. But no point moaning about that, the name of the game is ELEMENTAL.. so it's fire, water, air, earth.... 

 

And Heart!  That poor Indian kid got the shit end of the stick with Captain Planet rings...

on Nov 18, 2010

BoogieBac
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!
BoogieBac
We probably won't discuss futures unti 1.1 is out the door

Make up your mind! =P

 

on Nov 18, 2010

Gazz_: We'll be consistently taking suggestions from you guys while solidifying the future designs internally. Once a vision is solidified and agreed upon, we present that vision in some official manner (and the cycle continues).

At no part will we break the comminucation cycle, but as future design/vision decisions are agreed upon and finalized, us mortals in the bullpen have to be careful not to step on the toes of the almighty marketing and PR departments, lest their wrath descend

on Nov 18, 2010


Quoting RFHolloway, reply 60Anyone else thinking "Apocolypse" spell from Populous (or am I the only really old one around here)
Judging by how many here can quote the MoM manual blindfolded, I don't believe you're that much above average age. =P

My favourite was blessing the enemy territory with great lush forests. And then the tiniest little... spark...

Such natural synergy with spells is something I'd like to see in elemental, too.
For instance: an enemy army is traveling through a long mountain pass. (that you conveniently constructed there)
You close off both ends with Raise Land... and create a flood inside...
Or magma. Everything is better with magma.

(more or less) real physics such as more than one altitude level and water flowing downwards would add a massive amount of options. Kinda like a large scale Dwarf Fortress.
You would create a high basin and fill it with flood spells, only to pull the plug when an enemy army passes by and wash the heathens into the sea.
Something for the 2nd expansion. =P

All of that sounds cool but horribly complicated to implement.

on Nov 18, 2010

BoogieBac
Gazz_: We'll be consistently taking suggestions from you guys while solidifying the future designs internally. Once a vision is solidified and agreed upon, we present that vision in some official manner (and the cycle continues).

At no part will we break the comminucation cycle, but as future design/vision decisions are agreed upon and finalized, us mortals in the bullpen have to be careful not to step on the toes of the almighty marketing and PR departments, lest their wrath descend
Let's have an independant faction in the game: "the Dreaded PR Department". It's evil and its wrath tears continents asunder and topples mighty kingdoms and empires!

on Nov 18, 2010

@ BoogieBac

Just pulling yer leg. =P
I don't expect any "feature bleh will be in 1.131" because that would be a dumb thing for exactly the reasons (or departments = ) you listed.

And sometimes even the best idea in the world just doesn't work in the context of a specific game. *shrug*
That's no reason to stop posting ideas, though. Even if I expect it to be impossible within the scope of WOM, the idea might spark another one that does work...

Werewindlefr
Let's have an independant faction in the game: "the Dreaded PR Department". It's evil and its wrath tears continents asunder and topples mighty kingdoms and empires!

It could have the power to prevent everyone from casting farseeing spells for a while.

on Nov 18, 2010


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.

Hmm... Now it looks somewhat... poor for me? Well, unique is good, but if it limit diverse...  I am not sure... 80 looks too small choice for spells...

Wait (I already peeked next, changelog, post) - is it possible to have "shaped" spell? I.e. now we have Fire Bolt - and it is single Bolt in game. It is good, but not enough. Can it be "Force bolt", and add elemental power from owned shards? I.e. if you have nothing, it is basic "Force bolt", if you have Fire shard, it can become Fire Bolt, Ice Shard - Ice Bolt, etc? The same could be true for Elementals, and so on. Can it be?

on Nov 18, 2010

Raledon
I do hope that Stardock haven't stripped the game of the unit based mana system, since (some) modders will still want to use that system with or instead of the new system.

I support the new system though, cheers!

I think you will find they have. Although I believe post 1.1 they are going to be looking at changing special abilities so they have a cooldown timer instead of workin on mana so you should be able to use specialabilities to create unit spells.

The question I have for them is how will special abilities work in 1.1?

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