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Death & Life magic system (For, Against, Abstain)

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Death & Life magic system (For, Against, Abstain)

from Elemental Forums

All elements are created equally but some are more equal than others. I felt this topic deserved its own thread and the OP of the thread it was being discussed asked for the conversation to be moved.

 

As it currently stands all Channelers get the choice of life or death magic at the start of the game. A Channeler would not require control of a shard to generate mana for one of these two elements. In other words life & death magics are core abilities .

 

Several in the community feel this system is fine or preferable to death and life acting similar to the other four elements. I personally would like the choice to pick whatever starting core magic I want with its particular type of mana being generated naturally.

 

Death and life mana generation could either be moved to a shard system similar to the other elements or be represented by everything that lives / dies. I’m partial to the latter myself but I would find shards acceptable. I’m not a fan of the current system where the Channeler always acts as the life or death shard but I don’t outright hate it either.

 

This about sums up the discussion from the other thread, the debate can continue here if anyone has something to say.

 

elemental
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Reply #51 from Elemental Forums Top

I am at a bit of a loss on the death mana being generated by the transition from Life to Death though. Does that make Death Magic a form of Vampirism? Kind of sounds like death magic drains life from living things to form mana.
Well, depending on the game's metaphysical "gospel", there are any number of ways you could get death magic:

  • The act of something dying could generate mana (or something might have to specifically be killed by the chaneler to generate it).
  • Suffering could generate it, as opposed to jsut death.
  • You could also get it from areas without any living things in them.
Reply #52 from Elemental Forums Top

If it works the way I'm thinking the difference in life and death magic is going to be about the aggressiveness of the player.

So long as things have to keep dying for you to gain death mana then theoretically KILLING is the best way to get more.

ANd if living things give you life mana then growing your cities would be the best way to get it.

 

That's assuming of course that the description Brad gave translates to gameplay in any way.  Perhaps life and death mana are gathered in identical ways with only cosmetic differences.

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Reply #53 from Elemental Forums Top

I was under impression that the difference was more in graphics for aquisition, and the real difference lay in the type of spells each sort had.  deah = spells that cause death decay destruction etc.  Life = spells that heal, buff defenses, resurrect, grow, and otherwise protect.  Was I mistaken in that impression?

Reply #54 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Gamespot,
You can win through sorcerous means (a combination of extensive magical research and controlling different magical shards that may be attuned to one of five different spheres of influence: earth, air, water, fire, and life)

This is an interesting quote from the article. I wonder has Gamespot just made a mistake or has the model of the Channeler generating Death / Life mana been altered? I would personally consider this a step in the right direction but I also question if any changes have really been made. 

Reply #55 from Elemental Forums Top

I saw that too, and I just assumed that they messed up or were looking at the old screenshots, which do appear to have a life shard in them..... hope they didn't change it!

Reply #56 from Elemental Forums Top

@ scoutdog: Your ideas unnecessrily complicate the game. Are you saying that if I want to be a fire mage I have to go conquer a desert, as opposed to simply a shard that could be anywhere? What if I want to take away my enemies ability to cast water spells? Rather than concentrating on a few strategic points I instead have to destroy the entirety of thier coastal presence... The idea of shards is that you have a concentrated source of magic that can be fought over, as opposed to haveing it everywhere all at once. You noted several times it would be difficult to balance but "they could work that out". No, they have already balanced it, you just don't see it.

 

on topic: The death-life system sounds good, we will have to see when it goes into beta. The idea is good, but why are you the only source of mana? Perhaps as you expand you chosen terrain within your borders your "pool" becomes larger.

Reply #57 from Elemental Forums Top

No, they have already balanced it, you just don't see it.
They have already balanced the old system. Not the system I came up with. One thing I thought of to eliminate the land-grab problem is easy terrein modification, and another is the possibility of different elements cancelling each other out. Now, I know that there are issues, but once I can properly test this out (via modding EWOM) I'd be extremely suprised if there was no solution at all. Just because it's new doesn't mean it's automatically not going to work, and just because it's somewhat complex doesn't mean it won't be fun.

Reply #58 from Elemental Forums Top

While I think the idea of territory control generating mana is a nice one. I don't beleive it fits in a game who's history states:

"the powers gathered up nearly all the magic of the world and concentrated them into a series of crystals that represented the basic elements of magic: Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Life.

In the climactic battle that resulted in the cataclysm, the crystals were shattered thus creating the shards of magic in which most of the magic of the world is now stored in."

 

This is why you need to control the shards (including life/death) in order to gain specific mana to cast spells.

Reply #59 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Scoutdog, reply 57

No, they have already balanced it, you just don't see it.They have already balanced the old system. Not the system I came up with. One thing I thought of to eliminate the land-grab problem is easy terrein modification, and another is the possibility of different elements cancelling each other out. Now, I know that there are issues, but once I can properly test this out (via modding EWOM) I'd be extremely suprised if there was no solution at all. Just because it's new doesn't mean it's automatically not going to work, and just because it's somewhat complex doesn't mean it won't be fun.

Just because its new doesn't mean it will necessarily be better either. Wait and see, you never know, the people who make games for a living might have a decent idea