Caster of Magic Release thread : latest version 6.06!

[Nelphine]

at most you need 6 weapons. at least you need 6 accessories (upwards of 12).

there are 66 caster weapons, 58 melee weapons, 16 bows (total of 140 weapons); 66 accessories; and 44 armor.

While i understand that there are a lot more weapon abilities, this still leaves a HUGE amount of weapons. Which means, a large number of treasure results that are 'item', are rreally 'discenchant for more mana'. Which I don't think is particularly helpful.

I'd rather see ~120 accessories, ~40 armor, and ~90 weapons.

Yes you'll miss more of the weapon abilities, especially spell charges.. but I think that's infinitely preferable over getting MORE results of 'here have some mana, disguised as an item' in various treasures.

However, I guess I can try the 'more random items' (or turning it off, whichever I don't have now). But I would expect that won't actually change the TYPE of items all that much? I specifically just want a better ratio of accessories to weapons. (In fact, ideally, I would make spell charges an accessory only thing, instead of on staves/wands, as that would then encourage a huge pile of accessories.)

[Seravy]

at most you need 6 weapons. at least you need 6 accessories (upwards of 12).

Erh, no. At least you need 6 weapons. But if you don't get the type your heroes can equip, you might as well need several times more. I think this is the third time I have to say this.

Either way, feel free to browse the predefined items and suggest weapons that are unnecessary and could be turned into accessories. However if you pick any weapon I like, I'll say no to that one for sure. I spent lots of time coming up with fun and interesting items, so I'm not removing any of those.

But I would expect that won't actually change the TYPE of items all that much?

I think it gives you an equal chance for each type (don't remember). So 1 accessory, 1 shield, 1 plate, 1 bow, 1 chain, 1 axe, etc.That's worse than the predefined if you are looking specifically for fewer weapons and more accessories.

(In fact, ideally, I would make spell charges an accessory only thing, instead of on staves/wands, as that would then encourage a huge pile of accessories.)

Impossible. It's hardcoded to be an ability for only the first item slot on each hero which is always the weapon. You can put the charges into anything in theory but can't cast the spell if it's not in the first slot.
Accessory is especially impossible as you can only have one spell charge on a hero, but two accessories.

[Nelphine]

I agree with most of what you said - but while you think 'i might get the wrong type, so i need more' i think 'there should be less weapons, so i'm not getting the wrong type so often, because disenchanting the 13th weapon when i don't have 2 pieces of armor yet is just saddening (or worse, my 3rd accessory)'.

And yes, I fully understand the time put into designing very cool weapons. I've done the same in my time. For this particular thing, I think balance happens to trump that even if it sucks to waste that time, effort, and creativity, but I also accept your point of view.

[Drax]

Here is how the game works :  ... they'll get a random uncommon spell they are allowed to have with their existing books.

This is precisely the part I dislike. It is "HARD disallow" to obtain any higher rarity spell. And leads to two things: 1) you rarely get spells. 2) you very rarely get any spell that you can't research yourself. What I was saying was that if there was a "roll" to let you obtain the preselected spell regardless of it's rarity that would be better.

For example say there is a Rare spell in the treasure and you have 2 books in that real and 7 books in other realms, then the chance to get it from my formula would be:

(0.15+0.10*(books in realm=2)+0.025(books in other realms=7))*4/(rarity rare=3) = (0.15+0.2+0.175)*4/3 = 0.583 = 58%

if you had 5 books in realm and 6 in other realm chance to get the spell would be:

(0.15+0.10*5+0.025*6)*4/3=1.066=100%

Values can be adjusted of course. The logic is that if you don't have enough books you still can get something rarer and having other books does help a little bit(if you have many other books you're knowledgeable after all). This would also make having a single book in a realm valuable, which right now is not the case.

Further explanation:
in the formula above
the base chance is 0.15=15%
book in realm modifier is 0.10=+10% per book
other books modifier is 0.025=+2.5% per book
rarity modifier "4/rarity" probably not optimal, but the idea is to make the chance lower for higher rarity spell.

[Drax]

My problem is that there are too many items.  

The common items found in treasure are not really any good and just about every one of them are with some perverse humor(*Excalipoor*) behind them so I find them funny at least and try to work with them. Few are "kind of good" and most are excessively one sided(like +1at,doom,lightning,flaming mace). So if you want something proper you can create it yourself. Sell the crap for mana.

I would like to point out however that I think merchant frequency should be higher. It allows you to buy items at high price and not get them for free after all.

[Nelphine]

Drax I think seravys problem is not about single books (although honestly, each realm has some very nice common spells - just trading with AI can make single books worth it).

His problem is that right now,there is already practically no reason to get more than 7 books - 8-10 really only offer very minor reductions (which a retort would do better), and a few extra rare/very rare spells.
If we make the formula any easier it makes 8-10 books even worse, and might even make 7 just as useless.

Which means what you're really doing is not making single books OK, instead you're making single realms useless (or at the very least any more than 4-5 books useless).

While single books may be weak,I think seravy is right to worry more about making 4-6 books literally the best number of books for a realm.

Even with the current formula 7-8 is optimal (more likely 7) and realistically that's too low, given that the AI can regularly have 8+ books in a realm.

Because AI are hardcoded to have a lot more books than retorts, and because we want AI to have the option of single realm, we really need to come up with something that makes the 8-10 book realm more valuable, then sorry about the lower numbers of books.

[Drax]

His problem is that right now,there is already practically no reason to get more than 7 books - 8-10 really only offer very minor reductions (which a retort would do better), and a few extra rare/very rare spells.
If we make the formula any easier it makes 8-10 books even worse, and might even make 7 just as useless.

That is a valid concern indeed. It is however not against solving the other side of the scale(i.e. few books). 

Actually my main problem with the game is pretty similar in a way. I find myself too often with waves of useless enemies flooding the entire screen. I say it is similar problem in the sense that you can saturate some aspects of CoM way faster than you could MoM and in more scenarios. Which is maybe ok for blitz games, but make long games tasteless. I personally like certain types of scarcity in games.

On the problem with useless many books... probably the only proper solution would be scarcity through the entire spectrum. i.e. fewer spells per book, fewer initial spells etc.

[Seravy]

1 book for common, 2 for uncommon, 3 for rare and 4 for very rare is and will always remain a hard restriction.
Otherwise the entire book system is pointless and 1 book in all 5 realms is the best and only worthwhile wizard.

[Drax]

His problem is that right now,there is already practically no reason to get more than 7 books - 8-10 really only offer very minor reductions (which a retort would do better), and a few extra rare/very rare spells.
If we make the formula any easier it makes 8-10 books even worse, and might even make 7 just as useless.

That is a valid concern indeed. It is however not against solving the other side of the scale(i.e. few books). 

Actually my main problem with the game is pretty similar in a way. I find myself too often with waves of useless enemies flooding the entire screen. I say it is similar problem in the sense that you can saturate some aspects of CoM way faster than you could MoM and in more scenarios. Which is maybe ok for blitz games, but make long games tasteless. I personally like certain types of scarcity in games.

On the problem with useless many books... probably the only proper solution would be scarcity through the entire spectrum. i.e. fewer spells per book, fewer initial spells etc.

[Drax]

1 book for common, 2 for uncommon, 3 for rare and 4 for very rare is and will always remain a hard restriction.
Otherwise the entire book system is pointless and 1 book in all 5 realms is the best and only worthwhile wizard.

Well 5 books that give you 30% chance to learn common spell and maybe 5% to learn rare won't do you much good. Dungeons are pretty tough in current game so you won't get too many chances.
Trading would be rather hard too with specialized wizards since you would most likely NOT have anything to give them. GalCiv has a setting to disable crosstrading which is solving such a case.

And on that note I do like my extreme "Archmage"(meaning all realms in other games) runs which are completely impossible right now.