Magic system

[lgromanowski]

I do not have any idea for combat system, and there are already some very good stealth systems in other games but I have idea for magic system. I wanted to relase it as a mod after a learning scripting language but it seems that it would have to wait few more years So I decided to write it down instead.

I splited it into parts so at the moment I will post only part 1, with most basic concepts.

Part 1: Casting, mana regeneration and willpower factor to damage
Current system sucks. Magic is very weak, weaker than enchanted items. Mage has lower mana, less magic points, casts slower, and sometimes he screws up the spells.

My idea: charging spells. Player goes into casting, choose the spell and presses his mouse button. In morrowind the character would try to cast spell, but I think that he should start charging his spell while players keeps button pressed. Every second of charging increases the chance to cast spell by a factor, however it should start at lower point than base chance and get to the base chance after 3 second of charging. For example if we have a fireball spell with 75% basic chance to cast, without charging we will have 63,75 chance to cast (if 1 second of charging gives us +5% of basic chance to cast). If our basic chance is 120% we will get 102% chance to cast spell instantly. Spam mode on!

OTOH, we will be able to cast more powerfull spells after long charging. For example 25% to cast gives us 1,25% extra chance to cast per any extra second of charging. If we will cap charging at 20 seconds we will get max 17*1,25=21,25 extra chance to cast. 46,25% chance is still low, but it's a lot easier to cast.

It would be great to have special bar to show progress of charging and the current chance to cast so If character gets hit or jump the bar will regress. The bar should also move slower while running (for example 3% vs 5%).

Another issue is mana regeneration in realtime. IMO mana regeneration rate should be based on willpower and current mana level. For example this could look like...

(C/M)*(F/20) (%/sec).
C = current mana points
M = max mana points
F = Character willpower
%/sec = percent of mana regenerated per second

This is easy to understand. Mana regenerates freaking fast if current mana is close to max mana but if you spend your mana foolishly you won't get it back that easy, and even high willpower won't help you!

Another idea is for willpower factor to damage. I seen it in any oblivion mod. Idea is simple the damage target gets from magic is moded by
modifier = (T/S)
T = Target willpower
S = Spellcaster willpower

And damage to target is =(T/S)*BD
BD=Base Damage.

So only adept mage will be able to easily hurt sleepwaker or other powerful enemy. OTH monsters like this will become dangerous for warriors (hell yeah, morrowind is to easy).

Part 2: effects
In many cases effects requires tweaking. This was discussed some time ago at mailing list. I suggested that we need some distinction between particular kind of damage. For example, according to the morrowind lore fire damage is supposed to be "unsure" - therefore I think that it would be good idea to increase the cost of adding additional minimal damage, and to lower cost of additional maximum damage. Nothing big, really. We can also make poison damage cheaper in long lasting spells, cold damage can have chance to slow down enemy, while shock damage may be able to damage not only the target but also create chain lighting to near enemy.

Another issues are connected to the new effects. At our sweet wiki, we have some very good ideas already! Also in scripted spells by cortex we had some ideas like shapeshifting.

I think that some of new effects will be from mixed schools. For example shapeshifting can be alternation/mystic - this means that for the sake of the "test" we will take average of this too skills.

And I think that we have to rid out duration of summoning spells. Instead summoned creature should drain character mana in rate of 1 point per second. If the current rate of mana regeneration is higher than mana points wont drop. OTOH summoning more powerful creatures requires more mana - this means that after summoning we will have lower mana and our regeneration rate will be also lower.
Also summoning only one creature per type really sux. We have been discussing at the mailing lists and we decided that the number of summoned creatures should be caped by a attribute. For example at 1/10 of intelligence. Character with 40 intelligence will be able to control two skeletons and two bonewalkers at the same time. Sounds fine to me.

Part 3: Interesting stuff
Ok, we all know how spellmaking works in morrowind, and it works the same way in oblivion.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/image ... 513725.jpg

We can create spells that works on touch, all sorts of fireballs and spells that are casted on self. Everything is a effect.

This is wrong.

It's difficult to make funny spells this way. It would be much better to have more complex system with Forms, Triggers, Effects and ingredients.

http://imagebin.ca/view/iC2Y6pH5.html

And this is how our screen should look. At the left corner we have tabs, choosing one will drop down list of the Forms or Triggers or Effects or Ingredients. The big, green square is our spell construction side

Forms are the way we cast our spell - we may cast on touch (like in morrowind), on self (like in morrowind), cast as arrow (almost like in morrowind but we can also regulate the speed of bolt), cast as ball (parabolic trajectory), beam (instantly hits target and lasts for regulated amount of seconds, we can't cast a long lasting spell this way, but we can hold the beam on target).

Form is the thing that points out the target of the spell at start. We need this

And this is the first thing we add to spell construction side. Let's take Beam, and drop it at construction. Now we want some fire damage to that. We drop fire damage at Beam, and voila we have ultra basic fire beam spell.

http://imagebin.ca/view/CN-rIQx.html

But we should be able to also create chain effects, for example IMO casting on area should involve adding new effect: Area.

Form of spell effects EVERYTHING that is in chain. For example fire damage in the diagram above wont deal damage over few seconds because root = beam. Also forms should have special options. For example arrow may go trough targets if we turn this option in spellmaking screen (but it will increase mana cost), and ball may bounce few times before turning on effect!

Some effects shouldn't be possible to connect with others. Connecting fire and poison damage have no sense.

So, what about triggers you ask?

Trigger is special condition necessary for effect to work. Trigger can be static (certain hour, target is standing in water etc.) or dynamic (I will say a word about it in part 4). So why we should bother about triggers? Coz, trigger will improve power of effect that is connected to! We can do something like... sunbeam

http://imagebin.ca/view/uEpy8uNG.html

That will be slightly stronger than firebeam. Adding triggers also increases mana cost though.

Ingratiates reduces mana cost. They are not connected to effects or forms but they are somewhere in this spellmaking screen. This is not important so no fancy diagram right now.

The idea is simple - we are not using mana, but we are wasting any item. More expensive and heavier = better, we will save more mana! So we may create spell that eats out deadra heart but costs less - no heart no chance to cast, though

Well. This is it for now.

I'd like to have magic have alot of eye popping effects and more seamless usage instead of having to switch between combat and magic. And also having certain keystrokes to make it touch or long range... Idk... Be creative.

I'd like to have magic have alot of eye popping effects

Yeah! But IMO there is not point to toy around with this at the moment. Ogre has some rly UBER particle plugins. When one of this will be implented... low priority though.

And also having certain keystrokes to make it touch or long range...

This system is already damn scary, big as hell concept and I have no expierience with anything besides bash. And this idea would require additional tweaking :/

and more seamless usage instead of having to switch between combat and magic.

Like in oblvion/daggerfall? Sure, but as seperate mod.

Cool that somone wanted to say something. thx vance