New item powers brainstorming.

[Seravy]

We're done with the spell system overhaul and my todo list barely has anything left from what I was planning for the beta testing period so we might as well consider adding more content.
Item powers are easy to add so there is no harm discussing the possibilities now.

We can add some existing abilities that aren't available, or design new abilities.
However, as stacking defensive abilities is already over the top in effectiveness, we should either completely avoid these or limit them to the Chaos/Death realms and make them extremely rare drops in treasure. Life/Nature/Sorcery doesn't really need improvements in that particular area.

Existing abilities that could appear on items :
Stoning Gaze. Stoning Touch is quite weak and this could be a more powerful, higher level option for artifact tier items only, probably with a better save modifier like -3.
Doom Gaze. This is a straightforward added damage.
Bloodsucking. The new ability on Vampires. Probably way too powerful so I think we shouldn't add.
Healing Aura. The new ability on Phoenix. Definitely way too powerful to appear on items because heroes are Normal units so they could heal themselves.
First Strike. As far as I remember, this was considered and I didn't want to add it during CoM I, I don't remember the reasons though.
Wall Crusher. Would have been a waste of a slot in CoM I but might be still a decent low cost power for CoM 2.
Wind Walking. Don't think we should. The hero with the ability would stop being unique and popular.

New ability ideas :
Exp Bonus (Selfishness) - Death
Amplifier (deal 1 more damage/heal 1 more with spells in that battle) - Chaos
Dark Pact - Death
Scouting on map - Nature?
Scouting lair contents : Stealth - Nature? Death? (add to Thief, Assassin? Maybe also make hero not trigger pacts?)
Power Stealer : Create MP from mana stolen from the target (problem, most enemies don't have MP) or from damage (problem, too powerful, basically generates infinite MP as long as there are enemies left) or? (Death)
Shockwave - Chaos. Attack damage is dealt to each enemy figure separately. (do we have any endgame high figure count units this could be too good against? Death Knights maybe? Other very rares are 1 figure. Normal units being beaten by heroes is not a problem. A bit redundant with Immolation but massively more powerful so probably ok)


...

[JustOneMoreTurn]

Just off the top of my head:

Something to delay an opponent's ranged attack. Allowing a hero to cast a battlefield spell or protective spell before being hit by multiple Magicians or whatever would be nice, and more interesting than a simple bonus.

An item that duplicates a combat buff (or other spell?). Cast Resist Elements, and after choosing the target, you can choose another. I think this would need limits, such as 'common only' or level based on the caster's level.

A boost to XP if the hero is facing challenging odds. That would encourage risky ventures. Hmmm, except that many players would probably replay a foolishly risky combat dozens of times, just to get the bonus. Then again, if that's what makes them happy...

Something that bypasses the countermagic in nodes. Maybe realm-specific, such as allowing Death in any node, or allowing any magic in Chaos.

Something that reduces overland casting cost in combat for the Wizard. Maybe limited to melee weapons or armour?

What would be really nice is something that made the 'wimpy' heroes more desirable. I'm not sure how to work that, but it would be nice if you could find an item that would make you happy to get the Orc Archer or some other hero that you otherwise would reject.

[Seravy]

Delay ranged attack - this feels useless to me. You can have Elemental armor to be almost entirely immune to magicians, or Guardian Wind against arrows. So this would be only relevant for rock type attacks - steam cannons mostly as the AI doesn't use many catapults. (Not that I think about it, have we even seen the AI build one? I guess not because it overlaps with magicians too much in what races can build one?)

Boost to XP - I think this could work in a much more simply way like doube all experience earned in combat. Creates an interesting tradeoff too because you either use that item or something that makes the hero more powerful/better protected.

Bypassing countermagic - feels too specific and we have a retort for this so it would make that retort less important to pick.

Reducing overland casting cost in combat - Ok, I don't understand this one. I think you mean it reduces the range penalty on the spell cost? Same problem, a retort already has this effect and this would make the retort less useful.

The vials recently added to alpha should help making your early heroes who leveled up but have poor abilities better, but of course it doesn't make it worth hiring obsolete heroes with no levels. I don't think that's really necessary though. If you mean early game heroes, you hire the one(s) that match your strategy best. This varies for each game, for example the Orc Archer is great if you need a Supply Commander which is otherwise a rare ability, but not very useful if you don't. Even one of the best early hero, the Beastmaster, isn't particularly useful if you don't have fantastic creatures to use Soul Linker nor Heroism to gain relevant amounts of SP from AEther Master.

One more idea : Greed. Gain gold for each unit killed by the hero. Problem : it's a "win more" ability, as winning battles is already rewarding - it removes the enemy army from the game. It's also completely useless for the AI.

Maybe " Glittering Touch" instead? "Save at -X or die, gain gold equal to 5 times the destroyed hit points", basically petrification but turns to gold, not stone so it makes money. But we already have a lot of these abilities in the game and again, not useful for the AI. It also encourages playing in an unfun way - killing everything with the hero while the other units do nothing and pass their turns.

[htester]

I propose adding new heroes/ unique items with very powerful auras ("combat globals"), spells or traits like the ones we discarded when braintorsming for spells. Another idea would be designing an arcane spell like "Incarnation" but instead of the hero we get an artifact that is so powerful tha we need to spend mana per turn to control it and get dispelled if we don t pay the mana (a true "magic weapon). This certainly
aligns with the new design and direction the game is going on (more powerful very rares, more players, more difficulty -phantasmal- etc...).

Item effect ideas:
Nature- The Stone Age modifier every troop gets the Stoning effect (-1 save modifier) on melle attack only.
Death- Aura of Terror (Another black prayer effect tha stacks with it)
Sorcery- Maybe a time stop spell for battle (1 turn)
Chaos- Amplifying Wave effect (When the wizard's spells deal or heal damage to a unit, they deal or heal 1 more damage to that unit.)
Life - The Destiny spell effect (Hero unit becomes a Supernatural Life creature permanently, with doubled base melee and ranged attack strength, health, and +4 defense and resistance)

I am still not sure if the concept should be "command auras" or a "super unit" (like in the Destiny effect) or both. The main points are: an unique item, works like a summoned unit (but can' t be dispelled by enemy spells*), has a very powerful effect (whatever can be balanced and AI friendly).

[Seravy]

New heroes will be a separate topic, I plan to start next week.

Amplifying Wave sounds interesting and would make Chaos good for hero builds. That, plus Insulation and Immolation is likely enough to be worth investing into the realm for Artificers.

The others seem too powerful for regular items.
Unique items as a concept wouldn't work well in the game. It's something like Wonders in civilization games where researching/building them fails if someone else does it first. That's not very fun. If everyone can summon one, the item is no longer unique because you take items from other players when you defeat their heroes. It also doesn't work well with the fact players can destroy items.
These abilities would work better as unique hero abilities for new champions that are restricted to players who play the realm. We did remove that mechanic only because there weren't enough hero slots to waste on realm bound heroes but now we can consider reintroducing them.

[Seravy]

One more :

Dark Pact (Death)
At the beginning of the combat, the hero is healed to full health and gains 10 additional hit points, +3 attack and defense.
At the end of each of their combat turns the hero takes 1 irrecoverable damage.

Problems with this one :
-Makes random items worse because it's obviously a disadvantage to use on stronger heroes. Can be solved by random items never gaining this power.
-Not AI friendly. If you manage to stall the AI, the hero dies. Can be solved by random items never gaining the power, and AIs never creating/equipping it, or requiring a specific condition to do so (for example hero must have 7 or more movement and the ability to attack a flying unit.)

Advantages :
-Defensive ability for Death that helps keeping heroes alive in the early game.
-Doesn't interfere with Death's ability to heal the hero (Life Drain still grants extra hit points even if the damage is irrecoverable)
-Does interfere with Life's ability to heal at least before Exaltation so using it on Life hero strategies can be undesirable.

[htester]

After some time thinking:

-Heroes and thus artifacts will probaly never be friendly for the current AI anyway so we should focus in the player experience on using heroes.
-I insist on the concept of "powerful artifacts". Looking at this Dark Pact effect I can kinda see how that would work on lower tiers of power (maybe I could could classify this one as an uncommon effect ?)
-AI heroes could benefit of those extra habilities if they had a different Hero RNG and AI heroes had a chance to acquire heroes with those habilities as traits as opposed to items. Actuallty that's something to think about: should we leave those new "super artifact effects" as extra traits that have a chance to appear on heroes? Maybe the Famous/ Charismatic retorts could interact with that somehow.
-The current "benchmark" for item powers is rare tier and more importantly most items are based on spells. Most unused spells we have are at very rare tier so it's kinda unlikely we will be able to design that many new artifact effects on other tiers.

Some thoughts if that helps (probably not >_<).

[Slingers]

Some thoughts on new item powers:

Scouting 3 - Telescope
Most heroes are bad at scouting and the maps in COM II are huge. Exceptions at the moment are: Draconian, Beastmaster, Druid (Scouting 2), Ranger (Scouting 3), Elven Archer, Chosen (Scouting 4)

Looking through walls/ Infrared vision
A hero with such an item could peek into lairs and reveal the secondary monsters. Quite often heroes without Wind Walking run around in front of their slower armies with nothing to do. This could also be an ability to beef up the Thief hero.

Baba Yaga's house
It is not possible to give movement orders to the house, but it runs after the hero with the item at speed 3. It has Attack=0, Defence =?, Resistance=around 10, HP=many. The hero can find shelter at any time. When he is in the house and it is his turn, he can either leave the house or stay inside = skip actions. The house doesn't move until he comes back out. Perhaps it shouldn't be possible to go out and re-enter during one turn. Of course, if the house is destroyed while the hero is inside, the hero dies. Even if it was destroyed, the magic house will be back in the next battle with the item used.

Snow Queen's Gloves
It is not easy to approach her. Stepping or flying on a tile next to the Snow Queen takes two attempts. This graphic effect would add more drama: Let the unit slide back on the first try! Enemy units standing near her suffer small cold damage every turn. The Snow Queen is also an idea for a new champion with caster and magical ranged.

Degeneration
When a unit takes damage from a weapon with this ability, it loses 1 HP extra each turn for the rest of the combat.

Explosion/ Area effects for ranged attacks
- small additional damage in the area around the target tile

Martial arts/ Area effects for melee attacks
- main damage for the attacked unit - small additional damage for opponents who happen to be next to the hero

Set up a Trap
I think the AI can't learn to handle traps. Pity! In other games it was cool.

Freyja's necklace
Every tile on the overland map that the hero walks over receives a guaranteed Gaia’s blessing effect.

[dashley]

Some ideas. I considered flavour rather than balance:

Lich Phylactery (death, misc)
Regeneration (0), when the bearer regenerates from death in battle they become undead. Undead heroes cannot gain experience or be healed.

Rage (chaos, melee weapon)
First strike, +1 movement, +5 attack (for example). The bearer cannot be controlled in combat. They will always move towards the closest enemy and attack in melee.

Destruction (chaos, melee weapon)
Each melee attack destroys a random magical artifact held by the defender.

Destruction (chaos, armour)
Any melee or ranged artifact use to attach the bearer is destroyed.

[jhsidi]

Aura of Chaos
Once per turn, a Warp Creature type of effect has a chance to be cast on a totally random unit; meaning, your own side can be affected as well.

Power Stealer
The hero's attacks steal mana and send it back to the owning wizard's mana pool. Doesn't deal additional damage, it just converts 1 damage to 1 mana. This could be associated with Death. (The exp stealing effect for Death sounds good too.)

Bound spells - Unlock by level
Also, I think it would be nice to see more single-use bound spells like the Web spell that the Huntress has. The spellcasting heroes feel overpowered to me; they just have way too much utility value, being able to cast anything in your spellbook plus what's in theirs. I'd prefer Rakir, for instance, if he just had a couple Bound spells, maybe Wild Boars at base level then another copy or a different spell at 4th level.