GS5: Soon to Release

[l'Ancien]

admin said:

There is a change coming up for the Inferno spell, in the next Beta update.

Inferno will do 1 damage every 3 seconds or so, up to the caster's level. The duration however, factors in the fire resistance rather than the damage factoring it. So with the Infernal spell, those who have Fire resistance may still take damage but won't take as much damage if they didn't have any at all.

Also, the duration formula is like so:
[(2 x Caster Level) - (Target Level)] x Resistance modifier.

Also, the Inferno spell will ALWAYS do atleast 1 damage, and never reduce life below 1.

As far as Hero's Bane, I just thought it sounded nice. If there is a problem, I'll change it. It will be changed to Hero's Resolve.

Also, there are some artifact changes going to take place in the next update. You can find some, if any, on my website GS5 Artifact listing.

[edit]

I may just as well change the Inferno spell duration formula and have Inferno factor the resistance in the damage formula.

Inferno was recognizably the most powerful spell, with the most serious side effect in the game, and I don't want the overall character of it to change too much. If you're going to subtract the target level, I think the damage should be higher to begin with, like 3 x Caster level - Target Level, and I think the duration should still not be long: maybe one or two seconds per point. What is the duration now? I was used to it casting instantly, and going fast, which may be a little unbalanced. The delay worked OK, but if you instead want to make it cast sooner but take a little longer that's OK. Please just make sure it retains its character as "Oh Hell, the entire battlefield catches fire" rather than turning into an insipid "you are slowly dying" spell. Poison (of various kinds) is supposed to be slow, because it's more dramatic. Drowning and asphyxiation are somewhat slow. But burning up in a flash fire is pretty fast, and should stay that way. Also, the spell is supposed to be Fatal. Most people would/should die if the area suddenly caught fire. Certain hardy (dwarf) or fireproof (fire) people could survive. Some giant monsters might survive. Someone with magical protection of some kind might survive. But mostly, there shouldn't be much left afterwards, and it shouldn't require any additional spells to kill them when they should be well and truly toasted. The main point on any modification should be just to delay the effect long enough to have some time to counter. Some possible counters include doing enough damage to the sorceress that she kills herself before she kills you with the inferno spell (that stops it) or casting some kind of healing spell that keeps you from actually dying (for Life). Some possibilities might be a combination of regeneration and cure wounds or heal on the enchantress, possibly with a resurrection staff to restore others. Another possibility would be a "life support" spell that would block it from actually killing someone, by locking their minimum hitpoints from any damage at the caster's level. (Using the poison cloud effect, but on purpose). Since Life and Fire are neighbors on the standard map (and probably most maps), and elves are particularly susceptible to Inferno, because of their low hit points, I think that spell would be justified if for no other reason than to block Inferno a little. But I prefer to have an available counter, than to simply gut the original spell because it was "too powerful". It's supposed to be powerful - it's Fire.

In case you haven't noticed, I really dislike the 1 point minimum on Inferno. I don't mind on the others, but Inferno just doesn't feel right with it, especially since the solution offered when I mentioned it in connection with my "summon demon" idea was to just cast Fire Storm. What's the difference between casting Inferno and then casting Fire storm? 4 Mana points and a 3 additional mouseclicks. So, make Inferno cost 4 additional Mana, and dump the extra hassle. Inferno is not subtle, like the other continuing damage spells. When someone casts Inferno, you know about it, so it's not going to sneak up on you, and with the Fire Storm spell, there's nothing you can do about it that you couldn't do about the original spell anyway, so why have the minimum, except to make it easier when playing against the AI? It won't help at all in multiplayer.


On Hero's Resolve: You're right, Hero's Bane does sound cool. It's just the wrong name for the spell effect. Hero's Resolve is good.

[l'Ancien]

I haven't downloaded your most recent update yet, but one thing I noticed in the description of the changes doesn't seem right. The "Amulet of Illusion" should cause some kind of illusion, like Confusion (the illusion that your friends are your enemies). Tourniquet isn't an illusion, it's a useful healing spell. I would suggest leaving Confusion on the artifact, or changing its name to match its attributes.

I was also a little confused by the description of the poison ring. Does it have a negative effect on both the wearer and the target? Does the negative effect on the wearer operate as quickly as it would on a target? If so, it seems like it wouldn't be a very useful artifact, because it would leave you very vulnerable to being killed. It might be funny to have a very small chance of poison being cast on the wearer instead of the target when attacking, but it shouldn't be automatic, and should be much lower probability than of casting poison on the target.

[Boaster]

Amulet of Illusion is now Amulet of the Spirits.

Inferno will be [(3 x Caster Level) - (Target Level)]. I will not change it anymore. But the wait period of after the casting will be tweaked.

Amulet of Poison will not change. The wearer loses 1 life every 10 seconds whereas the target has a 50% chance to lose 1 life every 3 seconds. Also, the wearer's life will not be reduced below 1 life point as a result of the the degeneration. Victims who have been poisoned will not be killed as a result of the Poison, but weakened no further than to a minimum of 1 life point. The wearer is healed afted combat.

I will be adding the following spell to the Life Book.

Regenerate Army
Mana cost 10
Targets caster army
Every 5 seconds, the army regenerates 1 HP up to a maximum of (Caster Level). Death units apart of the army will lose 2 HP every 5 seconds up to a maximum of (2 x Caster Level).

Why not just use Holy Visit you might say... This way will require less Micro management.

Bless mana cost reduced to 4.
Holy Visit mana cost reduced to 6.

These are the final changes to the mentioned items.

[Boaster]

I'm considering the following:

All Life units: +25% Order Resistance
All Order units: +25% Life Resistance

All Death units: +25% Chaos Resistance
All Chaos units: +25% Death Resistance

Earth and Water are already like this, respectively.

I think its crazy enough that it just might work nicely.

[l'Ancien]

I think the resistences make sense. Although everything can be calculated, by having varying levels of resistence among disparate groups, it makes it less easy to predict exactly what a spell will do, which is probably better. Sometimes the calculations became very mechanical in the original game, because you knew exactly how many of each spell would be required to kill a given target.

I tested Inferno, and discovered that it definitely doesn't work as well as it used to, apparantly by design
Both times, the enemy targeted my mage and killed her before the spell finished. Because I had been relying on my usual technique of a mage (to take out the troops) and demon (for the champions), the demon was quickly surrounded and killed also. Unfavorable terrain did not help, but I had not expected it to be a significant problem. I also noticed that high-level elven riders also seem to have more hitpoints than they used to, and so will normally survive inferno. Before a level 10 sorceress would normally kill all troop units except dwarves. I like practically all of the changes in the game, especially those that make it more challenging, but I find it quite frustrating when one of my favorite spells is simply weakened to the point that it just doesn't work.

I also know that I'm not going to be nearly as afraid of attacking a developed fire AI, because even with Inferno, surviving the fight will be rediculously easy, with the delayed casting, slow effect, and safety feature. (Safety features just don't seem appropriate for fire; part of the tradeoff was the risk of killing your own troops, which was what kept the spell balanced.) I think there's too many limitations on it. One of those three new limitations may be appropriate, but not all three at once.

I also discovered that Leeches and Balkoth's Leeches both work even when your enemy is dead or out of mana, or both. That means that any enemy mage over level 6 can provide a nice powerup after the battle. It's a little strong, but I like it and I think it's appropriate to the faith. (Tapping dead people for power is really appropriate for necromancers!)

Your clarification of the poison ring artifact helps. Now I see. I still think it would be funnier if it was a random effect, rather than a certain one, but at least it's workable. When I mean funny, I just mean looking at your guy and seeing the "Poison" effect on him instead of on the target, and imagining the assassin swearing at himself for jabbing himself with the stupid ring, when he was trying to use it. (Assassins inspire gallows humor in me).

[Boaster]

There is a reason for the Inferno stopping at 1 HP.

For one, its a damage over time spell.

Secondly, it does massive damage. It would be unfair to other human players.

Thirdly, all units have resistances to their respective faiths. All Fire units have no less than 25% resistance, and champions have no less than 50% resistance to their own faith. If inferno did not stop at 1 HP, it would be grossly overpowered.

Finally, it would make dungeon Leveling with her solo no problem. All the Sorceress Lord would have to do is slap on a spell that gives her +25% fire resistance, and then cast inferno and BOOM she takes no damage. Lords have a natural 75% resistance to their own faith.

These are all very good reasons as to why Inferno should stop at 1 HP.

Inferno was reduced to 12 mana.

Tremor does a random damage between 1 and (caster level), but only effects enemies and ignores Earth resistance, and costs 12 mana.

I've reduced the duration of Sands of Sleep by 50%, and reduced the mana cost to 12 from 15. This spell along with some other disabling spells factor in resistances into their duration. Turn to Stone and Freeze will not because they set resistances to a certain number. However Petrify, Icy Coffin, Entangle, and Web will factor in resistances. Strangely enough, Web is considered an Earth spell.

Firestorm mana cost was reduced to 3 from 4, but the tooltip still display 4. That will be fixed.

[Boaster]

Another thing I'd like to mention about Fire's Arsenal. Flame Arrows is quite a good spell. Like Justice, it costs 12 mana and deals damage equal to the caster's level. This can be quite good.

Fire only has one new spell because they've got everything covered practically.

[Boaster]

I fixed up Leeches and Balkoth's Leeches. These spells will no longer work on units with less than 1 HP, or MP.

Embrace of Golgoth is going to be different.

Cost 4 mana.
Kills a friendly unit.
Evenly divides the targets's life into
the caster's life and mana.

So this means, if a unit has 20 life and is targeted by Embrace of Golgoth: 10 of the target's life will be added to the caster, and 10 (-4 for the cost of Embrace of Golgoth) will be added to the caster's mana pool.

I'm considering changing this spell even further. Have it only effect Creatures, but cost Zero mana. But I don't think that would go well.

[l'Ancien]

admin said:

I fixed up Leeches and Balkoth's Leeches. These spells will no longer work on units with less than 1 HP, or MP.

Embrace of Golgoth is going to be different.

Cost 4 mana.
Kills a friendly unit.
Evenly divides the targets's life into
the caster's life and mana.

So this means, if a unit has 20 life and is targeted by Embrace of Golgoth: 10 of the target's life will be added to the caster, and 10 (-4 for the cost of Embrace of Golgoth) will be added to the caster's mana pool.

I'm considering changing this spell even further. Have it only effect Creatures, but cost Zero mana. But I don't think that would go well.

Oops, maybe I shouldn't have mentioned that those spells both work even after the unit is "drained."

Do not have Embrace of Golgoth target creatures only! Creatures for Death are necromantic animations, they require power to stay active, but they are not a significant source of power. Read the description, it talks about tapping the life-force. I found that when I want to use Embrace of Golgoth, it's best to target a high hitpoint unit like a rider or halberdier. Creatures are rarely useful as a target, because their hitpoints are just too low. And if you're sacrificing one of your own units, the benefit should be substantial.

On Inferno, I realize that it was a little overpowered, although it seemed to fit in the context of the game (and Fire Sorceresses were not easy to start with, so it was a sacrifice of an easy start for a more powerful finish). Since I never could afford to start with Inferno, it simply became the second quest of the game. (First, temple, second Inferno, third, Staff of Incineration, fourth, Balkoth).

Anyway, so I realize it was overpowered. I feel like a few new solutions introduced can limit its usefulness sufficiently, but that applying too many actually make it underpowered.

1. It already had one limitation: that it has the potential to affect friendly troops, which is unique among major attack spells. Although friendly troops can have resistence to it, it still causes damage to most friendly units. Before your changes, most fire units did not have fire resistence. Perhaps Inferno can take only limited account of fire resistence, except for Fire Elementals (which could be actually healed instead). For example only 50% of any fire resistence applies. That would mean that a spell granting additional 25% fire resistence on the Lord would only result in 50% effective resistence overall. Inferno is supposed to hurt everyone, even fire units, and allowing too easy of resistence to it should not be allowed anyway.

2. Longer delay before spell effect begins. Although I was used to the spell acting quickly, like most Fire Spells, it seemed extremely reasonable to me that the duration be delayed somewhat, since it was such a major spell.

3. Slower effect. This should not be extremely slow, and could be a little too much when combined with 2, but a slightly slower effect would be appropriate, and would give a little opportunity to counterattack. Although it is true that Inferno is technically structured as a damage over time spell, I always considered it to be more of an instant attack spell (like Ray of Hope), so the slower effect should be slow enough to take a little defensive action, but not really enough time for charging across the battle field and engaging the sorceress in melee attack or showering her with missiles (which is common with spells like Poison Cloud). There should be time to cast about one spell while the effect is taking place, whether it's a healing spell (Holy Visit) or an attack spell on the Sorceress so she might kill herself before everyone dies (100% effective resistence should be impossible or extremely difficult to obtain).

4. High mana cost. I think it used to cost 8 mana. If you have increased the cost to 12, then that reduces the ability to cast it and still have mana for other spells or later fights. A powerful spell should be suitably costly.

5. Level-Based Resistence. By making the effect of the spell partially dependent on the level of the target, you increase the ability of high-level units (like champions, creatures, high-level troops) to survive. Additionally, I notice that some of your units have higher hitpoint levels than before, so it is not as overpowered as it used to be, and might tend to leave some enemies alive anyway.

6. Non-fatal. In addition to the above limitations, you have redesigned the spell to be non-fatal. This means that even if a unit begins the fight with one remaining hitpoint, the most wantonly destructive spell in the game is incapable of killing them. This is the one that bothers me, and honestly the only one of the six limitations that bothers me. I also think that making it consistent with other time-based attack spells is boring and unbalanced the other way. None of the other spells have all of the other limitations this spell does, so why should it have the same limitations they do? And why can't the spells be more unique to the personality of the Faith? One of the joys of Lords of Magic is that the teams are not just clones of each other (despite the similarity of the unit types.) They had significant unique strengths and weaknesses. This spell was one of fire's unique strengths, despite its limitations. But I feel that this last limitation does not add enough to game balance (with the multiple other limitations already in place or possible to apply) to justify removing an essential part of the game-play feeling of fire, especially since you haven't added the "affects friendly units" limitation to the other spells (which I do not recommend). Why should Fire's spell have more limitations than everyone elses spells?

At least test it and see if the spell is still too powerful after applying all of the other limitations I suggested, and removing the non-fatal limitation. Most Lords can clear dungeons alone anyway, so what's wrong with Fire Sorceress being able to do it too? See if she fares better than a solo Paladin Lord against both Order and Fire dungeons (to give both non-resistent and resistent samples).

[Boaster]

Okay. Heres whats going down now.


2 Caster Level damage to all units on the field, and only 50% fire resistance is factored.

This means, if a Fire Sorceress Lord is level 15 and casts Inferno, she will take no less than 15 damage, but no more than 30.

You can now relate this spell as a Hand of Fate spell which damages both sides, and all units.

[Boaster]

Tremor and Aftershock were changed in a recent update of the GS5B.

Tremor now does:
Random: 10 (factor in Earth resistance) to (Caster Level) damage.

This means the damage potential for mages less than 10 will not exceed 10 unless a unit has negative earth resistance.

Casters greater than level 10 will have a minimum damage potential of 10.

So Earth Resistance effects the value of 10 in the equation.

This is a 12 mana spell, and this is the perfect formula for it.

Aftershock was also changed, but remains relatively the same.

Rather than having a repeat count 1 4 gamerand, it is now 1 2 gamerand. And rather than having a repeat modifier of just 1 damage, its 1 2 gamerand now. So it still does a random 1 to 4 damage just a new formula.

[l'Ancien]

admin said:

Okay. Heres whats going down now.


2 Caster Level damage to all units on the field, and only 50% fire resistance is factored.

This means, if a Fire Sorceress Lord is level 15 and casts Inferno, she will take no less than 15 damage, but no more than 30.

You can now relate this spell as a Hand of Fate spell which damages both sides, and all units.

Looks good. I can't wait to try it out!

Oh, one last idea. Can you change the animation to be the same as the one immolation uses? I think it would look really cool if everyone actually caught fire, instead of just having a flash of light. If it's too much trouble, don't bother, it's just an idea.

Thanks a million.

[l'Ancien]

lancien said:

admin said:

Okay. Heres whats going down now.


2 Caster Level damage to all units on the field, and only 50% fire resistance is factored.

This means, if a Fire Sorceress Lord is level 15 and casts Inferno, she will take no less than 15 damage, but no more than 30.

You can now relate this spell as a Hand of Fate spell which damages both sides, and all units.

Looks good. I can't wait to try it out!

Oh, one last idea. Can you change the animation to be the same as the one immolation uses? I think it would look really cool if everyone actually caught fire, instead of just having a flash of light. If it's too much trouble, don't bother, it's just an idea.

Thanks a million.

Is it possible to make Fire Sorceresses remember the spell they were casting even if they are attacked? I discovered when I attacked a Fire Encounter with Earth units, that the Sorceress charged close to my lines, then tried to cast inferno. A couple of flying axes made her forget the spell, and nothing happened at all. She spent all 12 mana, and did not a shred of damage to me. (She should have killed me too, because I'd come in without healing up, like I should have.) Or maybe something to have the AI cast it from further away? Anyway, I just don't want it to be so easy for me to derail, and when a Fire Sorceress starts to glow red, and then just sits there like that for a little while, it's pretty obvious that she's casting Inferno, and makes it real easy for me to stop her. That or make it take effect sooner, but I'd rather have her cast it even while she's being attacked.

[Boaster]

The casting time is a feature. The spell is interruptable. I will not change Inferno anymore than I have.

[l'Ancien]

admin said:

The casting time is a feature. The spell is interruptable. I will not change Inferno anymore than I have.

OK. And I know that it was a feature. I took more damage from the lower-level sorceresses in earlier fights than I did from the higher level sorceress because of the spell choices, that annoyed me, because I played stupidly but was saved by a feature that could quickly turn into an exploit. Because the spell stops when the sorceress dies, attacking her still can be effective.

As an alternative, I was thinking that a human player would be most likely to cast it at the beginning of the fight, aware that it is both delayed and interruptible. The AI seems more likely to cast it only when threatened, which means it ends up being a wasted spell because they get interrupted before it casts. Can you change the AI spell priority to maybe cast it sooner, but still only once? That would work too, although I thought the effect might be better if it was uninterruptible (except by dying, of course).

By the way, I checked out the necromancer to Lich transformation, and discovered that after adding the artifacts, the stats were corrected to match the editor. It was wierd because right after transformation from a level 10 necromancer to a level 8 lich, the combat stats only went up one point, but the mana went up from 20 to 30. After equipping and removing the artifacts (so the stats were corrected but unadjusted) the attack and defense should have gone up by 7 and 5, but the mana should have only gone up to 26. The mana difference may have been caused by miscalculating the wisdom, which went from 28 to 33, but should have gone to 24, which dampened the mana bonus from changing to a Lich. I don't know why it didn't transform correctly, but on the whole having more attack and defense probably outweighs the mana disappointment pretty significantly, because it means the Lich is pretty much as deadly hand to hand as anyone, besides whatever magic he feels like using.

[Boaster]

Not sure if you're using the latest version, but I did add 5 more mana to the Lich's mana pool just so he is on par or better than a Necromancer Champion. Also, Necromancers are about as strong as a Vampire at level 15. So thats awesome since the Lich can cast spells and was given the ability to Leech life through attacks like the vampire. Vampire, Bat Scout, and Lich all leech life on melee. Bats never really do enough damage to actually leech the 25% damage dealt, and never really last long enough due to low stats and HP. Perhaps they'd fare okay in Scout vs Scout battles though.

[l'Ancien]

admin said:

Not sure if you're using the latest version, but I did add 5 more mana to the Lich's mana pool just so he is on par or better than a Necromancer Champion. Also, Necromancers are about as strong as a Vampire at level 15. So thats awesome since the Lich can cast spells and was given the ability to Leech life through attacks like the vampire. Vampire, Bat Scout, and Lich all leech life on melee. Bats never really do enough damage to actually leech the 25% damage dealt, and never really last long enough due to low stats and HP. Perhaps they'd fare okay in Scout vs Scout battles though.

The Lich with Vampiric attack is awesome. Usually I start by draining the mana from the enemy mages, then send the Lich out to fight. If something big comes up I drop a Lost Soul on it. Everyone else just stands around and watches, and cleans up anyone that escapes the Lich. Actually, most of the enemy forces attack my defensive line, and the Lich comes at them from the side, but still, he comes back with all the hitpoints he lost from the mana drain spell.

P.S. I hadn't installed the update yet, because you said it was just a text change (I've downloaded it) and because I wanted to isolate the bug I was having with the temples, without changing versions in the middle.

[Boaster]

It may be possible that since you last downloaded the GS5B that it was somewhere along the line fixed through fixing errors. Like I said, you should check and see if this is happening with the latest version of the mod.

[l'Ancien]

admin said:

It may be possible that since you last downloaded the GS5B that it was somewhere along the line fixed through fixing errors. Like I said, you should check and see if this is happening with the latest version of the mod.

Yes, it was still happening. More comments on the other thread.

[l'Ancien]

lancien said:

admin said:

The casting time is a feature. The spell is interruptable. I will not change Inferno anymore than I have.

OK. And I know that it was a feature. I took more damage from the lower-level sorceresses in earlier fights than I did from the higher level sorceress because of the spell choices, that annoyed me, because I played stupidly but was saved by a feature that could quickly turn into an exploit. Because the spell stops when the sorceress dies, attacking her still can be effective.

As an alternative, I was thinking that a human player would be most likely to cast it at the beginning of the fight, aware that it is both delayed and interruptible. The AI seems more likely to cast it only when threatened, which means it ends up being a wasted spell because they get interrupted before it casts. Can you change the AI spell priority to maybe cast it sooner, but still only once? That would work too, although I thought the effect might be better if it was uninterruptible (except by dying, of course).

…

I just noticed two more things that eliminate my most recent comments about inferno. One, how much does flame arrow cost? It's possible that the marauder sorceress was winding up for flame arrow instead of inferno anyway. (I got a faceful of flame arrow in a different encounter when a mage went through the same actions, but I didn't have someone near enough to interrupt her.

I also got annihilated when I attacked a fire encounter that was a little too strong for my army, and the sorceress laid out inferno right at the beginning of the fight, just like she should. Of course, I was playing as Fire also, but it still blasted my people enough that the dragon laid waste before I could kill it, and the fact that I was outnumbered by well-upgraded units meant that my people died faster than theirs anyway, from inferno and from combat.

That fight alone was not enough to assess the effectiveness, because it was between two fire armies, who naturally show some resistance. But it was effective enough even there that I am confident it will be exciting to use in a fight with non-fire units. Some of the impact may have been reduced by increased maximum hitpoints for all units, but I think it will work reasonably well.