Debate: overland offencive spells/abilities?

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Age of wonders 3 lacks good offensive spells.
No wrath of god, thunderstorm and sun burst arent good.

We know that we will never see the return of enhanting units on the overland map :'(
And no we wont see the return of mutliple heroes casting in the same turn :'(

But meaby.
Just meaby.

We can see the return of offensive overland spells that are worth using.

For me the biggest issu with wraith of god, thunderstorm and sun burst is that there single tile spells.
There damage is lacking and there expensive to cast.
The only time i use them is when bored.

Simple changing it so they hit the serounding tiles aswhile would significalty increase there value as they would accauly be usefull for damamge several adjacent stacks.

And if we look at age of wonders 2 shadow magic.
There where many spells that could be used to weaken the enemy before fighting it.

I would love to see the return of spells and abilities that could give you an edge in the comming fight.
Instead of having the same tatical fight over and over again.

How about you?

[Lampros]

Please don't boost spells - any spells.

[Professor Hardknocks]

There are two crowds in conflict. Multiplayer Players just want 100% balance, so everything good must be nerfed. Competition and all. Single Players want "fun" often more than balance, there is no measuring contest of a competition. I am in the latter boat.

Unfortunately, the most "fun" isn't usually very balanced, and in AoW3, this is true to a fault. That is, everything is "too balanced" in the name of "challenge" and the luster is lacking because of it.

[Marik]

Maleficus, why don't you learn English already?

[buzzshiza]

I would be in favor of a new spell or two for each class, Tier VII probably, that would be an offensive strike against a tile and its surrounding tiles. As long as there is a possiblity to defend against it, possibly making a portable 'Spell-Limiter" that could be built in enemy territory when anticiapting these stronger offensive spells (a weaker version of the spell-jammer), or even a counter spell of some kind.

This might appeal to both sides the best. Balance, and more potent, practical magic for the overworld.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Originally posted by Thadian:

There are two crowds in conflict. Multiplayer Players just want 100% balance, so everything good must be nerfed. Competition and all. Single Players want "fun" often more than balance, there is no measuring contest of a competition. I am in the latter boat.

Unfortunately, the most "fun" isn't usually very balanced, and in AoW3, this is true to a fault. That is, everything is "too balanced" in the name of "challenge" and the luster is lacking because of it.

The sad part is that it is not difficult to balance.
Thunderstorm i believe cost 120 mana and 80 casting points.
That is late game income.
And even then the damage it does can easly be outhealed.
It is pointless to use againt any army with healers or any city with a hospital.
Add to that any commander with a brain will kill enemy scouts.
Without line of sight you cant cast it at the desireable target.
So thunderstorm having area of effect wouldnt even be a balance issu.
It would just give you a reason to use it.

But you are right.
Multiplayer players only play on one setting.
ANYTHING that makes there rush less effective is hated by default.

Suchs a pity.
Age of wonders 3 is better then shadow magic on all fronts execpt spellcasting and logistics.

Originally posted by Marik:

Maleficus, why don't you learn English already?

I am trying to improve my command of the english languese.
But without knowing what i do wrong i cant really improve.

[sethgaines]

I would really like to see more effective map spells as well. I used to love using those in previous games. Don't really see a balance issue. If I can do it, so can my opponent.

[Morphic]

Originally posted by sethgaines:

I would really like to see more effective map spells as well. I used to love using those in previous games. Don't really see a balance issue. If I can do it, so can my opponent.

^This. I used to love spells like Tornado, which does light damage to units but splits up the stack. Then you had cool/useful Domain spells, like Life Domain to give your units extra HP regen per turn and Blight Domain which damages any and all Living units per turn. Even spells like Domain of Darkness, which "unexplored"/Fog of War'd your entire Domain every turn was useful.

It was just really fun, especially when you were playing with others who were doing the same thing. People playing Frostlings would cast Artic Domain and you'd watch the map convert to Artic while their armies turned invisible thanks to Artic Concealment on everyone. Sure it was unbalanced in certain regards but it was a ton a fun.

While achieving "perfect balance" is something to shoot for ... you can't balance a predominate single player game to multiplayer standards. Furthermore you can't give a lot of weight to "pro" multiplayer players' opinions and feedback. Once you start solely listening to these "elites" you quickly alienate average and casual players, not to mention screw with the single player crowd.

Just look at balance decisions in Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2. Some weapons and spells were amazing for PvE and abusable in PvP, when char built around them. Now those same spells and weapons are pretty mediocre and downright trash compared to other stuff. Hell Dark Souls 2 nerfed Miracles to oblivion so now it's pointless to be a Faith build unless you got the DLCs. Another example is AirMech. There has been so many balance buffs, nerfs and entire mechanic changes it's ridiculous. Units that were good turned crap, crap units turned OP which caused new units to be added to counter the now OP units which made crap units back to being good ... it just turned into one big clusterF$%^.

TLDR: Balance is a thing to strive for but not something that should be paramount. At least when it comes to a game like Age of Wonders. Most 4X-ish games aren't MP orientated, they focus on the SP aspect more than the MP aspect. That doesn't mean MP should suffer but that's what defined game modes/settings for competitive are for. In AoW a lot of things become either OP or useless simply by changing the map settings. Settler start with no starting cities suddenly makes Rushing horrible and practically unviable. Throwing the Terrain slider to Volcanic or Mountains suddenly makes Draconians and Dwarves OP. You can't balance everything.

[Lampros]

Originally posted by Thadian:

There are two crowds in conflict. Multiplayer Players just want 100% balance, so everything good must be nerfed. Competition and all. Single Players want "fun" often more than balance, there is no measuring contest of a competition. I am in the latter boat.

Unfortunately, the most "fun" isn't usually very balanced, and in AoW3, this is true to a fault. That is, everything is "too balanced" in the name of "challenge" and the luster is lacking because of it.

An utterly false and ridiculous generalization. I seldom play PvP, but I want the game balanced.

[Professor Hardknocks]

Originally posted by Lampros:

Originally posted by Thadian:

There are two crowds in conflict. Multiplayer Players just want 100% balance, so everything good must be nerfed. Competition and all. Single Players want "fun" often more than balance, there is no measuring contest of a competition. I am in the latter boat.

Unfortunately, the most "fun" isn't usually very balanced, and in AoW3, this is true to a fault. That is, everything is "too balanced" in the name of "challenge" and the luster is lacking because of it.

An utterly false and ridiculous generalization. I seldom play PvP, but I want the game balanced.

Of course you do. You probably also want a challenge. That doesn't mean everything needs to be dumbded down as mush as possible (like Chess) just to ensure everything is geared for PVP. The more complex a game, the less natural balance you can have (Axis and Allies).

I don't want the game so balanced that its too simple and magic too underpowered.

[BBB]

Originally posted by Thadian:

There are two crowds in conflict. Multiplayer Players just want 100% balance, so everything good must be nerfed.

Wrong, so wrong.

The opposite - everything should be good, and useable.

Infact, that is the design thinking of Triumph, everything is "OP" in the right conditions - it's up to the player to engineer those situations.

Also, those aforementioned spells are plenty good enough, if oyu know what to do with them. Catch the stack at the right time with wrath of God, and if you can't exploit that edge then nothing short of an extermination will help you imho.

The balance argument is totally rubbihs imho.

Now, in terms of flavour, this is much more interesting.


I can see Air mastery getting tornado, Earth getting a strategic slow spell (spread mud on a few hexes for a few turns, reducing mp therein), Water getting a strategic freeze spell (basically retool the spell that creates ice on water to affect land as well, and apply debuffs to units caught in, call it a blizzard or whatever), and fire getting meteor storm, area of effect, dealing some fire and physical damage.


All in Mastery, and you've noticed all in elemental specs (for flavour) that anyone can pick (player agency).

[sethgaines]

I want my Holy Woods back! Suck it, you wandering mob of Archon Titans!

[Jeined]

I am all for strategic area spells. I miss them very much.
Concerning balance - they can be less about damage and more about other effects: buffs, debuffs (vision, speed, DOTs, stats), scouting and shrouding vision, terraforming and others. And some of them should be active for several turns.

[sikbok]

Originally posted by BBB:

Infact, that is the design thinking of Triumph, everything is "OP" in the right conditions - it's up to the player to engineer those situations.

This is spot on.

[buzzshiza]

Originally posted by BBB:

I can see Air mastery getting tornado, Earth getting a strategic slow spell (spread mud on a few hexes for a few turns, reducing mp therein), Water getting a strategic freeze spell (basically retool the spell that creates ice on water to affect land as well, and apply debuffs to units caught in, call it a blizzard or whatever), and fire getting meteor storm, area of effect, dealing some fire and physical damage.


All in Mastery, and you've noticed all in elemental specs (for flavour) that anyone can pick (player agency).

Really like these ideas.

[Shaithias]

I really would like to have the return of altars. And things like the holywoods, and the ability to make hazards in your own domain.

I can see elemental altars that would allow a person standing on them to unexplore the terrain in an area, or to change the clime out from say arctic to volcanic, or to curse the ground for x turns. These things are the big large scale stuff of spells

On that note, cursing an area would randomly spawn 10-12 spider webs and poison ivy in an area that is 8 hex in diameter, and turn that ground to blight. Also fire would be added and a volcanic altar would light random fires. These could be cleared from a domain by teraforming.