Hi. I haven''t been on Gamedev.net for a while, but I''m sure somebody around here recalls me. Anyway, I''m me, and I''m back. I''m still working on design for my first "big" (relatively speaking) game, too. It''s an action RPG called Pentaverse, and it''s got quite a few neat little gameplay mechanics in it. Foremost among these is the spell school system. In addition to elemental damage types and all that good stuff, there are five schools of magic. These are not your good old Transmutation and Enchantment schools. These are "blurry" schools, rather similar to the ones you find in Magic: The Gathering, and the lines between schools are rather poorly drawn indeed. For just about anything that one school can do, another school can do something extremely (but not quite) similar. The effect of all this on gameplay is that when you cast a spell, you must spend Magical Alignment Energy of the type that corresponds to that spell''s school, in addition to spending MP on the spell. The only innovative part of all this is that the aforementioned MAE is never lost. Instead, when you cast a spell, MAE drawn from that spell''s school is divided by four and added evenly to the other four schools. Essentially, when you cast a spell, that spell''s school energy level goes down and all the other school''s energy levels go up. Since MAE costs are based on an exponential curve, you have to cast a progression of spells to build up to being able to cast a stronger spell. All this is old. The only thing I have to add to all this is that I think it would be very neat to make it so that the higher your MAE for a particualar school is, the higher your defense against negative magic of that type is and the stronger the effects that positive magic of that type would have upon you. Another tangent of this involves the fact that status conditions in Pentaverse have tags attached to them, such as the tag (attached to ALL effects) that says what school of magic the spell that gave the character/item said condition came from. The names of the spell schools aren''t final yet, so I''m just going to call the schools by their easy-spot colors for the moment: Black, Red, White, Yellow, and Blue. Let''s say, for example, that somebody casts a Red spell on your character that increases your speed. Now you don''t want to cast Red spells if at all possible, because with a loss of Red energy, all ongoing positive Red effects applied to you will weaken and all ongoing negative Red effects applied to you will stregnthen. On the other hand, if somebody casts a Black spell on you that reduces your Intelligence, you''d better believe that it would be a good strategy to ditch whatever Black energy you have at the moment in hopes of boosting your Int a few points. Keep in mind that effects cannot be weakened or stregnthened beyond certain points by your magical alignment levels. Any effect applied to you can be changed by a factor of 50%-150% by your alignment levels, and no more or less. Anyhow, that''s my idea. Any opinions? Cool enough for you? --- "Ph''nglui mglw''nafh Cthulhu R''lyeh wgah''nagl fhtagn!" - mad cultist, in passing

cool enough for me, no doubt.

no comments, except that it sounds neat.

err. It doesn''t really make senes to me, The opposite seems to be far better system in my mind. What I mean is that when cast a red spell your red alignment goes up and all others decrease. This makes it more advantages to cast spells of the same color.

While your system seems to force players to balance all 5 magic aligments. I would find that a very poor style of game play since in order for me to cast my powerful black spell, I have to take the time cast a lot of wimpy spells of the other colors. Complete ruining any flow and making combat against hard enimes next to impossible espically if you need that certain spell.

That why I think the opposite would be better let say in the game you have an MAE pool of 50 points 10 divided between each school. When I cast a plac spell 1 point is removed from each other shool and added to black, the next spell removes 2 points from each other pool and so. If a pool is to low you wouldn''t be able to cast a spell from that school.



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Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document

quote: Original post by TechnoGoth
I would find that a very poor style of game play since in order for me to cast my powerful black spell, I have to take the time cast a lot of wimpy spells of the other colors. Complete ruining any flow and making combat against hard enimes next to impossible espically if you need that certain spell.

i guess it depends on what spells are available in each "school"... the OP said that spells in different schools might have very similar effects, so i still think it could work if the spells were arranged properly.

DuranStrife: could you by any chance list some spells in each school? TechnoGoth has a valid point, and it all boils down to whether the player can cast useful spells in various schools to build up that powerful blast in some other school, or if they must cast relatively worthless spells to build their potential.

Crap another person with "Techno" in their name. >8^( Okay TGoth the system could be see as 5 bars starting all in the middle, as spells in one are used that color bar gets reduce by an amount. And the same amount is distributed among the other 4. Now the higher a bar is when its used the more powerful the spell of that color, see? It takes a while sometimes.


Anyways good to see you you again DuranStrife, heh I certainly remember you when you brought these same mechanics up before. I like the addition of the ways spells can be affected. A few questions, did you have any plans for a feedback system? I see some form of feedback as being in harmony with the MAE system. And is their any of way of affecting MAE bar levels? Like a meditation spell or something that would work to rebalance all the bars?

Thanks to all of you for taking a look at this.

TechnoGoth : (sighs ) No, that would NOT be a good idea. All you''d have to do is cast black spell after black spell, and there''d be no build-up involved. The whole point is to make the player start off with moderately powerful attacks and build up to the strong ones. After casting a strong spell, the energy is redistributed. That''s the point.

krez : As a matter of fact, the actual spell lists are what I''m working on balancing and distributing right now, so I''m afraid that a full answer is impossible, but let me assure you that you do not have to cast "crappy" spells to build up to a strong one.

Think of it in D&D terms (but only for a moment!). Under my system, you have to cast Fireball before you can cast Firestorm before you can cast Power Word: Kill.

Since total MAE increases when you gain a level, the "minimum" spell power available to you is increased proportional to what your most powerful spell level available is. You will never have to start off with 1st level spells once you get up to higher levels.

TechnoHydro : Yes to the second question (there are quite a few spells that play around with your MAE and the way it works for brief periods of time), but as for the first...

quote: A few questions, did you have any plans for a feedback system?

What do you mean by a "feedback system?" If you mean a display showing the levels, then yes, there will be one. If you mean something else, please help me out here.

Hey again sorry I was a little unclear in the last post. When I asked about ''feedback'' I meant in relation to the ability of spell affects being changed because of clashes between colors. The feedback part was in reference to like a powerful black spell is cast on you by another giving you a bad status or something. If you then try to counter or remove using a white spell, does the possibility exist that you will take feedback damage from that? Hope that is a little clearer. The feedback I''m talking about refers to backfiring of spells and such.

And by the way I meant to say Meditation Skill instead of spell. So I meant to ask if its possible to change the MAE bars without casting spells. Really don''t remember what the point of my asking about this was but anyways...

Over the course of a Full Rest action, your MAE bars will be rebalanced.

And I wasn''t planning to include checks for feedback. Something I learned from the old NES Final Fantasy II is that players get mad if it''s unreasonably hard to remove status effects. Making them take HP/MP damage would be interesting, but personally, I think it would cause more annoyance than enjoyment. Besides, to hear some talk in that last thread, my system would already make it hard enough to cast spells.

Also, the colors aren''t really opposed to other colors, like in Magic or ChronoCross. Each color excels in certain areas, and that''s that.

As for affecting MAE...

My favorite MAE-affecting spell (Shaman spell, Blue, MP: 10, MAE: 100) reverses the effects of a single target''s MAE gauges upon magic resistance. That is to say, while this effect is in place, the spellcaster to whom the effect is attached is penalized for having high MAE gauges, rather than the other way around. A nifty spell, and useful both for offensive and defensive reasons.

My favorite MAE-affecting skill would be the one that lets you cast a spell without shifting MAE, but forces you to pay large amounts of MP in exchange.

Another MAE-affecting skill that''s nifty attunes your MAE levels to those of everyone around you while it''s active. This is to say that when somebody else casts a spell, your MAE will shift; the positive aspect of this is that your spells will also do the same to everybody else''s MAE levels.

Finally, there''s a pair of skills that allows you to attempt to detect which MAE level of any given target is highest/lowest. Can be very useful for offense... or even for pre-emptive defense, if you understand how the various schools are attached to the various elemental damage types.

Great ideas!

Would you build an affinity towards any one paticular color throughout the game? Would you start out as a jack of all trades and the pick a certain school to master in? You could
still use the other schools to build that one color up, just the spells you would cast would cost that much more?

I like the idea. Almost similar to Chrono Cross battle system?

Thanks!

Yes, my concept is very similar to the ChronoCross spell system. I know you''ve heard things like this a billion times before, but I actually came up with this system before I ever played ChronoCross. However, my advanced system involving casting weak spells before strong ones is partially inspired by the way Gear combat works in Xenogears, where you have to use several normal attacks in a row before you can use a Big attack.

As for elemental affinities... I''d really like to, but I have no idea how to make it work. In fact, I think I need elemental affinities, because one character in the game (unique class: Pyromancer) would need a lot of re-balancing to make his class work. At the moment, >90% of her spells seem to be either Red or Yellow. I''d have to make up an awful lot of Blue, White, and Black fire spells to make the class work without some kind of acquired affinity to Red...

Perhaps there could be a skill set that characters can learn that permanently bends the way your MAE is redistributed after a battle. The more skill points you point into the Red version of this skill, for example, the greater the percentage of MAE that is diverted to red after casting a non-red spell. Needless to say, these skills would be one per character. After you learned the Red version, the Blue, White, Yellow, and Black versions would be disabled on your skill menu.

Hmm... I think that''d work, actually. (Writes down idea. ) The skill is too abusive if it can be turned off, like most constantly active spells can, so I think it''ll fall under the category of permanent character modification spells. I''ve already done something similar for elemental affinities (increased damage from one element type, decreased damage from opposing type, cannot be deactivated), so this wouldn''t be too hard to do, since the framework for this type of skill is already in my design.

Thanks for the inspiration!