Well, my specific game idea has everyone having magic in some way. I'm thinking in terms of Diablo 2 skill trees with everything that isnt a basic attack skill being a 'magic' skill. This leaves all players with a range of ability. That aside, I am thinking about this topic in a broad sense though my application of it would indeed leave mages that had run out of power with fighting ability.

In thinking about how brawl plays I see that the 'spells' take little time, some ahve longer durations that leave you unable to change what you are doing leaving you vulnerable, but there is no cool down and no cast time. Adding in those things as a time based resource would slow down the fight, something I think is a huge asset to the brawl style fight. Its fun because it doesnt let up.

I think one reason the moves in brawl are balanced though is because they dont do a whole lot more damage than the more physical attacks. The specials and the attacks are balanced in power. Think about the fact that you dont have cast times and cool downs for swinging the sword, just throwing the fireball. Now if the two did near the same damage, you wouldnt really need to make the fireball cost any more than swinging the sword, which is practically free.

A majority of spells might be balanced against the physical attacks in this way, though I think to have the fun ultimate spells (and super cool physical attacks) you do need a way to limit their use by giving them a cost.

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A majority of spells might be balanced against the physical attacks in this way, though I think to have the fun ultimate spells (and super cool physical attacks) you do need a way to limit their use by giving them a cost.

How about costing HP? Paladin's Quest didn't use Mana, instead it drained away the players health to cast spells. So if you wanted to cast the "ultima-nuke-your-ass" spell it would leave your HP drained making you vulnerable and unable to cast again until you'd recovered more HP (lest you die).

It may not be so bad having ultimate spells with no consequences provided there's a counter to them. For example lets say it takes a few moments after casting an "Ultimate" spell for it to take effect, in that time someone could cast a counter spell (such as fire to ice) negating it before it could take effect. Part of the trick then to casting a big spell would be distracting your opponent long enough for it to strike him.

Theres an idea. Balance it within the spell or ability. Its powerful but gets a delay to allow counter attacks. Weaker abilities could be faster and so harder to counter.

Even more than a delay to allow counterattacks, you could take it further and give a direct penalty if casting is interrupted.

A nuclear blast spell becomes less unbalanced when, if interrupted, the blast is centered on the caster and companions...


Of course, the other point to remember is that a game doesnt necessarily need to be balanced. Dungeons and Dragons classes arent balanced for combat, but theyve never had much problem being fun in cooperative play. Its only for PvP or situations where you dont have other offsets (social skills, leadership skills, etc) that combat balance becomes so important.

I liked the magic system of Chrono Cross, which bypassed the "dead weight mage" problem mentioned. Basically, the player could equip each character with a limited number of spells (multiple copies of the same spell were also allowed) subject to some constraints.
Each spell could only be used once per battle, and to use them you had to charge up a power meter by attacking normally. It made for nice battles, but I imagine it must have been hard to balance.

why not use the same tactic as AD&D(TM)?
You have X spell points (X gets bigger with levels), each speel cost N points, and the spell point pool refills after one game day....

By the way JasRonq, exactly this kind of thinking is what is required to make better games - trying to make every element of the game naturally fit into the system rather than artificially controlling things to make them fit.
The more natural a fit the system is, the less the player will notice the seams and you have a more immersive game. Humans are built to spot things that don't match, or don't make sense, when we notice the system that is delivering the experience, we are no longer in the experience, we're looking at the system that is delivering it.

Anyway...

The main question is - how do you provided wicked powerful spells in your game, but not have the player use them all the time?

I'll throw a few random thoughts out that might help you find a solution that works for your game:

The first, obvious but quite valid answer is that players learn spells over the course of the game, so he only has weaker spells at the start, and only the powerful ones at the end.
But I assume you would want the player to still have a variety of moves even at the latter stages of the game.
This is usually then balanced to have a few spells that work in different situations so that the player will have a variety of moves. But still, generally the player will learn which should be used in each situation and it quickly gets repetitive.
Another idea is to make the spell difficult and more time consuming for the player to perform, the more difficult the spell. This is getting more like it as the player is then rewarded for being skillful, and must know when he has time to be able to perform the harder spells.
I like this, particularly as it then opens up the idea that all spells might actually be available right from the start (great for a natural fit).
You would be taught how to perform different spells as you go on so that you would know how to execute them.
But then whats to stop the player looking on the internet at how to perform the spell? The answer is nothing of course, but it doesn't necessarily have to be as bad as you might think.
Why would a powerful mage not teach his apprentice the most dangerous spells?
Because he might not be able to control it! Because he might get the spell wrong slightly and accidently cast an undesired spell. A summoned minotaur might attack everyone instead of just the enemy, a hurricane might tear about in any direction, and the player might be powerless to call it off...
Make the difficult spells extremely difficult to actually cast, and some so similar in execution (perhaps button sequences with ruthless timing) that you could very easily turn yourself into a frog when you were trying to generate a thunderstorm.
also consider not just the spell's affect in the game world, but also on the player - could the performing of a powerful spell cloud the screen, even make it pitch black as he concentrates?

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Original post by thelovegoose ... might not be able to control it! Because he might get the spell wrong slightly and accidently cast an undesired spell. A summoned minotaur might attack everyone instead of just the enemy, a hurricane might tear about in any direction, and the player might be powerless to call it off... turn yourself into a frog

Hehehe, while that's a brilliant idea (I really love that one), I doubt that it would find acceptance among the broad masses.
People are only too happy with scoring "critical hits" all the time, but they'll quickly start whining when there is anything like a "critical miss", even if it happens only once in a million times.
There's something similar in the "Eternal Lands postmortem" articles where the author describes how he tried to make harvesting more interesting.

Thanks samoth,
Interestingly, while it might offend the most hardened gamer, you might also have the sister, mum or dad looking over the player's shoulder thinking- wow thats cool, and adding a few brand new gamers.

Not that anyone who has the power cares what I think, but it really is daft that publishers feel they have to cower before their teenage male target market and do what they want. There is a massive potential market out there that isn't hardcore, they just need to be shown what games could be.

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Original post by thelovegoose it really is daft that publishers feel they have to cower before their teenage male target market and do what they want.

Unluckily, that's how it works. For anything RPG, "male 15-35" is roughly 90% of your customers, and "teenage male" makes up to about half of that. Therefore, if you want to stay in business, you must do what they want.

I mentioned Ryzom in one of my previous posts. They are a good example of doing it "wrong". Actually they did it right, but it was still wrong.
They made a really cool game where you could freely compose your actions (not only magic, but everything) to the particular situation using many, many different options and parameters. Add to that the bizarre, surreal look of everything, which made it really unique.
It was entirely up to you whether you wanted a spell to have a bomb or ricochet effect in addition, or whether you wanted an attack to cause bleeding or area of effect (or both). It was entirely up to you how you paid the "cost" for your action, too. When crafting an item, you would combine different materials of different kinds and quality classes (each with different physical properties) to produce an individual item with individual stats. All in all, the most versatile and most fun-to-play system that I have ever seen.
And...? They never had more than a few hundred subscribers at a time and went bankrupt (twice, even). You can of course blame bad management, insufficient advertising, etc. for the bankruptcy too, but I'm sure that "too good for the masses" was a major factor.