Thus the inclusion of Magic in a FANTASY game.  The whole idea behind magic and the ability to wield it is that it gives shortcuts to those who can use it. 

 

In the Lord of the Rings books, was it traditional warfare when Saruman cast a massive fireball to destroy the walls of helms deep?  Not at all and in fact they changed that scene in the movie version.  That's what magic brings to the table, the ability to harness powers that are almost god-like in their use.  As for balancing issues and other such endeavors, that must be dealt with by the developers and implemented in a way that doesn't break the game.

 

Here's something to think about though.  If one were to make it so that you would have to pour resources into either establishing and maintaining a large army or pour them in to research of that spell, but not both, that would be one step towards balancing this ability.  If you get to a point in the game were you attained both, then guess what, your reward will be a highly mobile army capable of defending your territory while simultaneously maintaining a threat with that very same army.  Magic allows one to do these things so tradition and realism go by the wayside when it enters the story.

Actually there is a good reason for speeding up the end game. There are people that do not like not playing games to the end but will complain about the end game being tedious. The most tedious part of about end games to me is getting reinforcements to the front. As such that is what (Mass) Teleport should be aimed at. This is done by sculpting the mechanics of it to not be useful otherwise. Such as setting the teleported units' movement to zero, making it take time between the casing and the actual event (with indication at the destination that units will be sent there), and leaving the caster behind with no move (and hopefully all spells to teleport the caster will require them to still have more points), ect.

You could try limiting teleportation to the Soverign and magically-gifted champions at the start, it's a bit difficult to defeat most of the early game enemies using just your leader or a hero with the weak weapons you get at that point; if you can't win the fight, teleporting won't make a difference.  Warcraft III handled teleports well; the first hero a player recruited always started out carrying a Scroll of Town Portal, which gave him/her a one-shot escape route back to his base (and ONLY to a town hall), can also drag an army with them.  However you only got one of those scrolls at the start, and any further teleports cost 300 gold; a LOT of money in a standard melee game.  Is it worth it? yes.  Is it overpowered? no; to use it offensively you'd have to actually build a town hall near the enemy to begin with, which not only costs a lot of money as well but takes a hellishly long time to build.  It may work well for defense but you still need to be able to actually beat whoever is attacking you.

Any other forms of teleportation were either single-unit only (Staff of Teleportation, Staff of Preservation etc.) or very rare items like the Amulet of Recall which are only item drops from monsters -- and that item only lets you bring your army to you, not teleport them elsewhere.  The lone exception was Mass Teleport on the Archmage, which allowed him to teleport and carry a maximum amount of units (24) with him anywhere he had an allied unit/building.  It was counterable if you scouted for the units/buildings he would inevitably use as teleport beacons, though.  Not to mention all you have to do is stun him while he's channeling it to break the spell.

If you are going to have teleports, you do need to place severe limitations; having the aforementioned first scroll of town portal type item for the Soverign might be a good start.  That will give players a one-time chance to save their city in the event some enterprising bandit decides to raid it and the owner forgot to leave a garrison there.  Limit more convenient and inexpensive teleports to single units and the spells to small groups only; in that case it will take you multiple turns to bring your army there, giving the enemy time to prepare their defenses rather than just get steamrolled.  The high mana cost may not be necessary anyway; I'll use an example.

Let's say you are going to teleport your army to defend or attack territory.  Your caster will need to shift himself and a portion of his army to a point, then he needs to shift himself back, pick up more troops, shift back, rinse and repeat.  This isn't even counting how much time and mana it will take to shift his army BACK to his territory in case he needs to retreat, ESPECIALLY if casting Teleport takes all of his remaining moves and leaves him unable to cast anything else that turn.  This gives your target plenty of time to prepare a defense, eliminating the overpowered steamroller that is teleports.

I hate to be this guy, but in C&C3 you could open a teleport hub as scrin that allowed for unfair access to an enemy's base. That would be a great shadow spell for this game. Shadow Gate would be limited to two points on the map, only castable once every century (400 turns). This is a great way to balance out the unfair advantage because both sides could use it to attack. It would allow for very far away nations to fight without needing to play diplomat with every nation in between. It would make the idea of invaders from a distant land come to life in the game.

A spell this powerful should be locked away in a dungeon somewhere that you can only find if you already know where it is. It should be guarded by powerful wraiths and cursed with dark magics. It should take the better part of the midgame to find  the spell and defeat its guardians. Once you have it, you can send a scout ahead and cast it on an unsuspecting enemy realm. The gate would last for 10 years (40 turns) and afterwards leave a permanent darkness over the area. 

That is how spells should be balanced. Once FE comes out, I will start making this kind of thing happen. 

After all that Airwalk just seems lame...

spells are supposed to change the tide of a war.  That is the point in having spells.  The teleporting spell only moves the units back an forth within your territory.  If they run into an army that is better then whats the point of teleporting them there.  Its like teleporting the sheep into the wolves den.

I also think we are forgetting that the spell only works within your borders.  That limits how much you are going to be able to do.  If you are exploring and outside of your territory, than you can't just teleport back.  You need to run back to your territory and then teleport to where the attack is.

Each discipline has a game changer, they just do it in completely different ways.

If you have gotten to the point in the game where you have the best army, the best equipment, the best champions and you are bouncing around your territory at will and still have enough mana to cast spells inside a tactical battle, then you are probably just playing with the enemy anyway.  Something to hurry up and finish game is probably a better way to go.

Besides, if I had to say one spell is all overpowering than the others, then I would say it is the Spell of Making, since casting this spell just one time no matter how bad you are actually doing in the game means you automatically win.  That is an overpowering spell.

 

Another option could be----Move Cloud Walk to the researched spells.  Make it a level 4 or 5.  Take the Eyes of the Eagle Spell and move it to the regular Air spells.  Eyes of the Eagle is a level one spell so you would need to move Evade to a level 2, and Guardian Wind to a level 3.

I hate to break it to you, but Eyes of the Eagle is the worst spell in the game.

Mage: "Meh... I don't feel like walking this season. I think I'll explore two moves in every direction and get rid of all this icky mana."

Would probably be better to have the size of the revealed area set to intelligence and the cost set to the number of tiles revealed.

 

Sigh. Indeed magic is magical and all tactics are tactics... What are your points exactly? Your saying absolutely anything goes? A level 1 summon godzilla spell would be fine with because well it's magic, and summoning Godzilla on turn 1 would be a legitimate strategy because in the end all strategies are strategies?

The points against cloud-walk are as follows, in a easy to follow list.

-It's unbalanced to such a degree that it's the most powerful spell in the game at level 3.

-It requires no real sacrifice to get, just level a champion to level3.

-It kills game diversity because not only is it game breaking but who would walk when you can teleport.

-It kills strategy because you don't have worry about scouting, logistics, garrisons, splitting your forces, retreating, planning ahead, contingencies, troop placement, or many other things.

In short the game would be much more strategic without it. Generally when you play a turn based strategy game you do want to have to think about strategy. If you disagree feel free to present a counterargument that is better the magic is magical so anything goes.

@KingHobbit; I believe I did mention in my earlier posts how it guarantees it's user has a larger army, and the ability to kill anyone who even walks near the players border instantly. Ya, I guess you could call that a game changer. Also I am assuming it means teleport into your territory from anywhere, because that's how it works in WoM with the same description. Even if it worked like you said it would still mean you would only ever be forced to defend one city, and could still insta-rape anyone who came near your borders if your sovereign was home. I would take that over fireball anyday.

Took a while, but apparently quite a bit of people start seeing what I have tried to point out for a looong time

And I'd really like to know what the devs think about all this...

 

Or they have forgotten that some games have got teleportation to work, it is just a matter of taking the time to properly balance it. Though it is not a fantasy game, Sword of the Stars is a great example of a game that balances it well.



And quite a few of us still think your take is a bit extreme, including, I'm sure, plenty of people who are tired of the arguments and not posting. 

The teleport functions need to be more interesting and fun, not simply removed. I'd be all for some options during game setup, but WoM never did manifest the Book of Options notion that was around before the first beta builds. I'm pretty sure I'd find plenty of replay value in things like toggling teleports on and off, as well as summoned units, or even whole schools of magic. But it must be really hard to consider fine details like that when the core game design is still in high flux.

I have a few points:

 

1) Teleport does not inherently ruin a game

2) We don't know how much any of these spells cost... you can balance spells by changing their cost

3) every 4x game i have played has had overpowered technologies/spells. 

4) Not all strategies are viable, in 4x games there are usually a few that rise to the top. 

5) Balance is much more important for competitive multiplayer games than predominantly single player experiences.

 

 

1) In my experience it always becomes the main focus of the game (Heroes of M&M, Age of Wonders I, and any other TBS game I have ever played... meaning almost all TBS games ever made plus many fantasy/scifi board games) - You may say you like that, of course, but such a overwhelming option takes over the whole game, thus limiting its strategic options, and therefore its lifespan. To me that means that it does "inherently" ruin a strategic game.

2) Cost to me is not an issue, since teleport=victory, therefore any price is a price I would be willing to spend.

3) True, but it's their weakness and when games get to that point victory is just a matter of turns, fantasy games turn into sci-fi games with their strategic approach pretty much dead (strategy is mostly movement, let's not forget that!)

4) ??? Not sure what you mean by that one. In Age of Wonders shadow magic there are tons of different strategies, very different among them, that may bring you to victory. (defensive examples: elven cities invisible in woods, an aura of darkness that covers your territory and limits visibility, all sort of defensive spells active in your territory... offensive example: units that are invisible in woods to evade the enemy and approach unseen their cities... Flying machines... All that would become much less relevant with the use of teleport)

5) Well, that's a matter of taste. Personally I don't like when the AI is unable to do what I do or counter my strategy, but I am quite an experienced player, newbies may like a little advantage. Still an unbalanced game, as the one you seem to suggest we are about to get, won't have a very long lifespan.

 

I wouldn't get rid of it myself either, I would either make it caster only, or make it level 5 and deplete all movement points.

Your right, but implemented the way it is now it does.

At level three it is unlikely to cost more then level 5 spells but would be more powerful then any of them.

These are all really one slippery slope argument. Just because you can't have a perfect balance doesn't mean it isn't extremely important to try. We are simply singling out teleport as being one of the most unbalanced things in the game right now and in FE.

 

RE: Airwalk - ala Teleport

What if: You had a teleportation spell that powered a portal. Telporting an army requires a portal at the start location and the destination. To build a portal you need crystal and gold. To get crystal you need to mine crystals. To use the portal you the army needs to be in the town where the portal is located and using a portal expends mana for each unit that uses the portal.

I agree that teleport style spells can be a huge advantage. I disagree that they should be banned.

 

There are plenty of ways to balance this. You can limit the range, limit the size of the group, increase the cost, etc. Anything that lets you teleport an entire army over huge distances should be a super expensive, hard to get spell. The kind of thing that is very rarely achieved. I picture this spell being used by a desperate mage that takes their army on a last ditch attack on the enemy capital, teleporting past their superior armies to strike at the enemy King or whatever. It couldn't be done often though due to the expense or other factors.

 

Can we combine these kinds of threads, since this one has multiple going at once?

I feel that there's something I should point out: Cloudwalk is a very powerful spell, but its school is not that great. You have to go through three ranks of spells to get to it, and most of them aren't that great. Obviously, it's good enough that this is a worthwhile tradeoff, but in this vein, there's a solution beyond just making it cost a lot. My solution would be to make Cloudwalk the 5th level spell, Tornado a 4th level spell, and bump Escape down to 3rd level. I don't think it should be crazily expensive, if the mana economy works the same in FE as in WoM it should be somewhere from 20 to 40 points. It doesn't need to cost more than Then an archmage of air will still be massively advantaged in terms of mobility, but that's how it should be. A player with superior logistical ability will have been able to pour resources elsewhere, and will have their own powerful abilities. It may be more powerful than a hurricane or earthquake, but not more than Grip of Winter.

Regardless of the merits of your arguements, the fact is that this can be easily modified on our end. Really, everyone can be happy. I can't help but feel like this has played a big part in the developers not responding to your many posts about the spell.

I was completely serious before when I said that I would remove/tweak it for anyone that wants it that way. I like it, myself, but as a high-level high-cost spell. I'd much rather that they focus on things that we won't have eventual control over.

The fact that the game can be fixed has little bearing on the notion that it should be released in as good a state as possible. It's certainly the case that we could remove or alter the spell, but the developers can do it as easily as we can, and in a case like this where they obviously should alter it in some way, there's really no reason they shouldn't. It's true that it matters more for them to do a good job on things we can't fix ourselves, but what people want from a game is, in fact, a good game, not the opportunity to make a good game by scuttling and rebuilding a flawed mess. Sure, people did that for Oblivion, but that's a long-time franchise that already had a huge mod community, and it's part of a genre where people have very low standards. Elemental doesn't have either of those luxuries.

 

EDIT: Not to imply that Fallen Enchantress is necessarily going to be a flawed mess, it honestly seems to me like it's going to end up pretty good. However if the philosophy of "modders can fix it, so it's okay if this sucks" is applied, then it could well end up horrible.

Right, I don't want to pay full price just to have a broken/lame toy that can be fixed. I want a good new toy that works well! I want to play the game everyone else plays! Let those who like to exploit the AI with cheap tactics modify the game to get all sort of silly options like teleport!

I want to be able to play this game in multiplayer without having to explain every time that we have to use my rules because teleport is dumb etc...

Obviously all this issue is relevant mostly for multiplayer, because in single player games I just don't use teleport AT ALL, and I can already do that (The AI by the way doesn't either and just stands there and gets abused because it is just unable to use the one superstrategy that wins all!! Spells are hard to use for the AI, and even in Age of Wonders the AI is unable to use them all, but AOW is conceived as a multiplayer game, while Elemental is supposed to be mostly a single player game!!)

And you know what? It would be so funny to see these people who defend teleport having to deal with an AI that uses it properly:

They would build a strategy, approach enemy cities and just before they could attack some stack of super units they didn't even know existed, would appear from somewhere in a way that they could not prevent or foresee at all and destroy their group of attackers.

Fun uh? A "strategy" game uh?

Make this game a real strategy game by improving multiplayer and teach the AI to use spells well, then test it and you'll see.

 

 

Teleportation isn't inherently dumb, it's just extremely powerful, and thus hard to do right. 

Stardock games aren't really multiplayer experiences. I don't know that anyone much will use multiplayer. That's not just because Stardock isn't great at mutliplayer, it's also because the majority of the fanbase prefers single player. If a multiplayer community actually develops, I'm sure some standard of what is and isn't allowed will be developed then. If the community decides Teleport isn't a fun and fair option (very likely as it currently stands, far less likely if it gets bumped up to air's fifth level spell and is made too expensive to use heavily) then you need not explain things, and if it's not deemed too powerful/not fun, then you can just suck it up. Just because it ruined your AoW multiplayer experience doesn't mean it will necessarily be as bad in Elemental.

I would actually really like to have to react to bullshit like that. It shouldn't happen on easy difficulties, but for those of us who like a challenge, something dramatic and huge that requires us to rethink our strategies would be great. Of course, all this one requires is that we pull in a huge army that can trump their huge army.

On a different note, a potential limited teleport: Move the party a number of tiles equal to casters intelligence, plus 4 for every air shard you control. That should actually be okay as a third level spell, at least on decently sized maps.

An AI able to use all spells effectively would be great of course, and IMO that's the least one should expect from a game that is not specifically aimed to become multiplayer. My favourite way to tweak teleport would be to make it unreliable, so that sometimes you just miss the target (I say that because I have seen that working in the first Age of Wonders, I am not just guessing) - But then again in single player games players often reload the turns, while the AI doesn't... Are you really sure you would like to have a game where units pop up from nowhere and kill you without you being able to foresee that or do anything about it? I suspect most people would get annoyed to say the least, as I suspect that people who now defend teleport just don't fully realize what they would have to deal with, if the AI also used it right.

I like the idea of unreliability too. If there's an amount of potential scatter based on the distance teleported, that would go a long way to make it balanced. Do that and move Teleport to the 5th level spell, or maybe even just 4th, and it would be balanced fine, I think. Especially since teleporting into the water or into a mountain should result in the army being annihilated, with no exception that I can think of.

It's true that people can reload saves if they want to, but that's true of any random feature. Of people really want to make the game easier, they could also mod in a super powerful sovereign and faction for themselves. You can't accommodate for all meta actions like that.

I don't want to be mean, but as it is now this game is this slow and tedious, anyone would reload when something critical happens which would advantage the AI. And that would be especially true for things that players don't perceive as their mistake

This game is already filled with wrong concepts. The AI  units have a huge amout of hit points which is supposed to make fights interesting, but which instead makes battle slow and tedious because games are fun when the AI is good, not when it sucks but takes 1000000 clicks to win! ... Alright that is supposed to change in FE... Let's hope for the best, but is the AI going to be able to use all spells? Probably not, which will give another huge advantage to players.

You know if multiplayer has become so popular these days is precisely for that, because it is a lot easier adding lots of options in a game than to teach the AI how to use them properly, especially in a game as complex as a good TBS game. Multiplayer is the only thing that can save Elemental, that and the opportunity to make stuff like super spells (teleport) optional!

 

 

 

 

I think the "teleportation sickness" idea mentioned elsewhere could work well.  Something like halving stats or attack/defense/damage/current and maximum health (including champions and sovereign) for three strategic turns and doubling the mana cost of all spells cast by affected units, using the regular teleport to anywhere in your territory (Cloud Walk and any similar spells) or the spell that collects all units in one spot (Call of the Titans and any similar spells), and one strategic turn for the teleport spell that brings the army with the caster back to the capital (Return and any similar spells).  I think this would allow the strategic advantage of teleporting back home or to your territory, but with the proviso that combat will be very costly if you don't allow or have enough time to recover from teleportation sickness.  If a unit already suffering teleportation sickness teleports again, the normal sickness time for being in one teleport (regular or Return-type) is added before they are back to normal.

So guys, what do you think?  Derek, I think this would be an easily implementable drawback to counter the great advantage of being able to teleport entire armies.  What do you think of implementing something like this "teleportation sickness"?

Best regards,
Steven.