Alexander82 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2019 9:25 am
Whoa guys, I couldn't really read everything xD.
Anyway I like the idea of mana but I'm not sure how this would affect balance.
Should it coexist with cooldown?
Yeah, they will coexist, there is no reason to remove cooldowns, they will actually work better having each other, the cooldown will mean the channeling time to the spell be casted, while mana the amount of energy that it will be needed for the spell to be released.
Also, right now, we can balance very strong effect/magics with the cooldown. I suppose that wouldn't be that easy with mana.
Actually the idea is to make that be even easier, the plan is to make spells be cheaper in the mid-long term, when we get elemental dmgs running on, so having a second parameter will make easier to create and adjust stronger spells without make units wait +8 turns to use the same spell, also would be easier to create scaled spells based on their growing power and many variants of the same spell without outdating previous versions that already exist.
Eg: We have our 20 dmg fireball with 3 turns cooldown, but what if someone want to create a fireball of 25 dmg or 33 damage one, or 40 dmg, or 45 dmg, 51 dmg, or any other amount up to 100 dmg?... And also what about other variants with or without DoT and AoE? I'm not even mentioned the combined elemental spells... How would these be scaled in cooldowns inside these 0-10 turns without giant amount of cooldown and without overlaping each other? With MP there will be room for all these spells at once and more!
How long would it take to recharge mana?
Every unit will have its own recharge rate based on its own category and parameters. For example, spellcasters will be naturally better at recharge rate and MP capacity than the rest of the infantry to compensate their natural psysical weakeness.
So for example, a 2 turns cost swordman/pikeman/shielder don't need to rely to magic, so they will have around 5% to 20% of the recharge rate of their MP, while a 2 turns cost "wizard aprendice" that rely on magic will have from 50 to 75% of recharge rate, and ofc a higher capacity amount.
That would create a fixed limit to the cooldowns based on mana cost.
E. G.
We have a strong magic that we don't want unit to use very often.
Let's say that the unit has 50 mana and regenerate 10 mana per turn.
If we give it a 30 mana cost (more than half the max mana) the unit can use it 2 times in a row
If we raise the cost higher the unit might have no chance to use any other spell the following turns
Let's say we want to make the spell cost 50 mana (so that you can use it only once in 5 turns). You can do it only if you don't use other spells in the meantime, meaning that a wizard should stay resting 4 turns over 5.
Putting a high caliber spell on a weaker unit is ok... That's a possibility, if you want to have a unit that have that spell cost and recharge rate, no problem, but that would mean that he isn't a very reliable wizard, but maybe another class with some afinity to strong magics or just a caster out of the curve...
As i mentioned before, their MP amount and recharge rate will be based on unit category, Spellcasters will have a higher recharge rate than melee or ranged units as they are psysically weaker on both base dmg and health, btw we can create more scaled units based on those parameters with lower or higher production cost if needed, bcz there will be plenty new options to use as spell for every unit, so all that would be need is to pick the desired unit/class and filter an affortable level of the desired spell based on the frequency for him to use... So you would be able to create units with good consistency of spell rate or create units with lower fire rate by using high caliber spells, it will just depend on the vision/taste of the person.
I think that cooldown alone is able to provide a good control over frequency of the spellcasting of certain spells, preventing magic users to be useless in the turns after the casting of the spell.
I think that setting mana properly might still work ok but is the final result worth the work behind?
I think not.
Ofc it will, but i agree that it will require some time to be made, the first part will be the discussion of how much each spell will cost and who will use them will make us spend a good couple of months untill we finish discussing them. Time enough for other key features be fixed or implemented.
I still would implement it in a hero mode even because checking the mana over 800 units would really be a pain.
It is not a complete no but I think there is no reason to do it without overcomplicating thinkgs that are already working.
I agreed, i actually think that adding it as new game mode with separated definition list will be much better to work out, maybe we should consider do it with the 4 starting races first to balance it out, it isn't like i'm excluding dwarfs ane scalefolk, it is just the old "breaking a task in smaller pieces" tatic so it could be made faster... But i believe that is possible to adjust a whole category of units at once, so that can enshort the whole work nicelly aswell.
) So...
