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Author Topic: Warlock: Master of the Arcane [Paradox]  (Read 34587 times)

Chattox

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Re: Warlock: Master of the Arcane [Paradox]
« Reply #60 on: May 09, 2012, 03:26:27 pm »

This game is really very rough around the edges. I feel that, with a few patches, it could be a really awesome game. The gameplay is pretty solid, but the thing that irks me the most is how some information seems to be missing (or I'm too retarded to find it). For example; where can you find how long a building has left to completion? Where does it say how many turns you have until the next border growth in your city?
Also, the tech tree really annoys me. There's no way of seeing what comes after certain techs (I assume it's randomised, but they could still lay out a path for you) so I can't plan my research at all.

Other than these points, a pretty snazzy game. Fantasy strategies are too few and far between.
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IronyOwl

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Re: Warlock: Master of the Arcane [Paradox]
« Reply #61 on: May 09, 2012, 03:34:21 pm »

This game is really very rough around the edges. I feel that, with a few patches, it could be a really awesome game.
Yeah, there's pretty much a consensus on this at this point, and probably has been since at least the demo. Not sure what people were saying about the beta.


For example; where can you find how long a building has left to completion? Where does it say how many turns you have until the next border growth in your city?
Under the building/unit selection screens, there's circles indicating what you're building/training next. They have a number in the middle denoting how long until they're done. Also note that you can queue units using this feature.

As for border growth, it happens at certain population levels. Either 5 or 6, I think 6, for two hexes. Not sure what three hexes is, but I'd assume nine.

Now population growth I have no idea on, and I'm not sure anyone does.


Also, the tech tree really annoys me. There's no way of seeing what comes after certain techs (I assume it's randomised, but they could still lay out a path for you) so I can't plan my research at all.
I assume that's part of the intent in making it random. On the bright side, you can always choose between researching a decent but not terribly good spell or a cheaper spell and hoping there's something good after it.
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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: Warlock: Master of the Arcane [Paradox]
« Reply #62 on: May 09, 2012, 05:09:33 pm »

Also, the tech tree really annoys me. There's no way of seeing what comes after certain techs (I assume it's randomised, but they could still lay out a path for you) so I can't plan my research at all.
I assume that's part of the intent in making it random. On the bright side, you can always choose between researching a decent but not terribly good spell or a cheaper spell and hoping there's something good after it.

This worked better in Master of Magic, since you had a clear sense of advancing through low-level spells to reach higher level ones. Eventually, if you picked only good spells, your book of options would clutter itself with fast-researching low-level fluff that you'd repeatedly passed over, and you could reach a point where it was worthwhile to just spend a couple turns clearing them out so you could make more strategic research decisions at high levels. While I get the feeling there's a similar thing going on here, I've yet to reach a point where the old stuff I keep passing over was turning into 1-2 turn junk.
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etgfrog

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Re: Warlock: Master of the Arcane [Paradox]
« Reply #63 on: May 09, 2012, 07:27:18 pm »

well...fine, since i may as well go say the idea...pretty much since all the spells have several levels of them that is meant for early, mid and late game use, why not just condense them into singular spells that you have access all the basic ones that you have research its mana cost down enough to the point its viable to use then once you've gotten the spell you like to a decent mana cost then you can try to research how to make it more powerful in which it will boost the cast time, effect power or aoe size which will increase the mana cost again and possibly take a hit else where too like the cast time might increase and you have an option to keep, discard or create a splinter spell that is associated with it, now research would also improve other spells that are connected to it which would be like learning how to use firebolt better would also improve slightly deathbolt, the religion aspect can also be used in researching spells related to the deity that you are favored by will more often provide better research, this sort of change could be put into place without throwing away the current effect artworks since you would be able to simply use the basic spell for the low damage and set specific points of damage the spell does then it would use the higher effect...in my opinion this would create the powerful wizard feel late game instead of casting incinerate on an end game old troll and does 3 damage when it regenerates 20 per turn...speaking of regeneration and resistance...spells should also get the option of also debuffing the resist type in addition to doing damage, so if you can cast multiple per turn your first one would do 3 damage, 2nd one would do like 8, so on and so forth...also a spell like decay that will negate a creature's ability to be healed either through regen or through spells and higher levels of it would cause the healing effect to hurt it instead of heal it which would make trolls not nearly so devastating because with enough resists they just ignore any city...speaking of city...those need to be able to upgrade more...like every 7 population it also gains a wizard tower's worth elemental damage ontop of every 3 population gain a fort's worth of ranged damage and the ability to shoot farther every 6 at reduced damage, so at 6 population a city would have 2 range, 12 it would have 3 range but half the damage of shooting at range 2...speaking of...units should also be researchable just like spells in my opinion, the ability to upgrade them and find ways of making them better base unit...this would allow the snowball effect of the game to be able to continue enough that it isn't a grindfest of slowly killing heavily armored units the enemy has...

again...ideas of this kind of scale would be one of those nice things to have and might even make the game interesting enough like how master of magic was interesting because of the diversity of ways you can play and win...but...wishful thinking...
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Criptfeind

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Re: Warlock: Master of the Arcane [Paradox]
« Reply #64 on: May 09, 2012, 07:33:43 pm »

Now population growth I have no idea on, and I'm not sure anyone does.

I think the population number has it, it fills with dark and light green, I think dark green is how much it's growth is and light green is the growth added at the end of the turn. As for what governs that I have no idea other then it is effected by food and how long the game has been going.



I really wish that certain buildings, maybe forts, had zero pop cost and high upkeep.
« Last Edit: May 09, 2012, 07:35:27 pm by Criptfeind »
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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: Warlock: Master of the Arcane [Paradox]
« Reply #65 on: May 09, 2012, 08:01:07 pm »

Now population growth I have no idea on, and I'm not sure anyone does.

I think the population number has it, it fills with dark and light green, I think dark green is how much it's growth is and light green is the growth added at the end of the turn. As for what governs that I have no idea other then it is effected by food and how long the game has been going.

How long the game has been going? That would surprise me -- it seems like a bad thing to tie population growth to.

Are you sure it's not just the size of the city and/or the number of cities you have?
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IronyOwl

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Re: Warlock: Master of the Arcane [Paradox]
« Reply #66 on: May 10, 2012, 12:27:59 am »

I think the population number has it, it fills with dark and light green, I think dark green is how much it's growth is and light green is the growth added at the end of the turn. As for what governs that I have no idea other then it is effected by food and how long the game has been going.
Yeah, I meant I don't know what governs it, beyond lack of food.

I really wish that certain buildings, maybe forts, had zero pop cost and high upkeep.
That's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure if I like it. I suspect it'd get out of hand for anything except defensive structures.



By the way, I've figured out another meaning behind your starting race- all non-starting race cities suffer a -20% penalty to food, gold, and I think mana production for being "Different Race." Or I guess it could be all non-majority cities, but usually those would be the same thing.




well...fine, since i may as well go say the idea...pretty much since all the spells have several levels of them that is meant for early, mid and late game use, why not just condense them into singular spells that you have access all the basic ones that you have research its mana cost down enough to the point its viable to use then once you've gotten the spell you like to a decent mana cost then you can try to research how to make it more powerful in which it will boost the cast time, effect power or aoe size which will increase the mana cost again and possibly take a hit else where too like the cast time might increase and you have an option to keep, discard or create a splinter spell that is associated with it, now research would also improve other spells that are connected to it which would be like learning how to use firebolt better would also improve slightly deathbolt, the religion aspect can also be used in researching spells related to the deity that you are favored by will more often provide better research, this sort of change could be put into place without throwing away the current effect artworks since you would be able to simply use the basic spell for the low damage and set specific points of damage the spell does then it would use the higher effect...in my opinion this would create the powerful wizard feel late game instead of casting incinerate on an end game old troll and does 3 damage when it regenerates 20 per turn...speaking of regeneration and resistance...spells should also get the option of also debuffing the resist type in addition to doing damage, so if you can cast multiple per turn your first one would do 3 damage, 2nd one would do like 8, so on and so forth...also a spell like decay that will negate a creature's ability to be healed either through regen or through spells and higher levels of it would cause the healing effect to hurt it instead of heal it which would make trolls not nearly so devastating because with enough resists they just ignore any city...speaking of city...those need to be able to upgrade more...like every 7 population it also gains a wizard tower's worth elemental damage ontop of every 3 population gain a fort's worth of ranged damage and the ability to shoot farther every 6 at reduced damage, so at 6 population a city would have 2 range, 12 it would have 3 range but half the damage of shooting at range 2...speaking of...units should also be researchable just like spells in my opinion, the ability to upgrade them and find ways of making them better base unit...this would allow the snowball effect of the game to be able to continue enough that it isn't a grindfest of slowly killing heavily armored units the enemy has...

again...ideas of this kind of scale would be one of those nice things to have and might even make the game interesting enough like how master of magic was interesting because of the diversity of ways you can play and win...but...wishful thinking...
This is nearly impossible to read; I'm not surprised most people would just ignore it.

Parts of it are also poorly explained and vague, which tends to be a big no-no when trying to describe what someone did wrong and how they could do/have done it better.

Like, the very first part is just a ramble of this and maybe this and this and then you could do this and that and this and then the other thing, when it could probably have been described as something like:

Quote
Rather than having different grades of spells that do the same thing, I think spell components (range, mana cost, damage, etc) should be modular, with research going to improve one or more areas. Some improvements could also set you back in other areas, so raising damage, for instance, could increase mana cost, requiring you to continually research lowered costs to keep your spells feasible.

Which not only would have made it shorter and easier to read, but gotten the concept across better than your current jumble. On a related note, it probably should have gone into its own paragraph, rather than simply comprising the first third of a giant wall of text.


As to the meat of your suggestions, more modular spell research sounds kind of interesting. I suspect it's too complex for what they were going for, though, and it does have its own pitfalls, but it's not a bad idea.

Chain-debuff casting is a pretty bad idea, however, especially when you've just advocated boosting spell damage by a ton. It means there's often no real point in casting if you're not going to kill the target in one turn, since each subsequent spell nets you more than the last. It could have some merit when combined with specific applications of the casting limits per turn, but that'd probably require a whole new set of suggestions and design goals, since I don't think it's really up to it at the moment.

Making standard spells also prevent healing rather defeats the point of having healing in the first place. I'd argue that being able to one-shot everything with spells would make the game less interesting and fun, not more, but if I did think this was an issue I'd recommend a healing/regeneration overhaul, not just making spells ignore healing. Unless there's some reason healing isn't an issue for other units, which you haven't mentioned.

I think cities could stand to be a bit beefier, but you do have a lot of them, and the idea is certainly to defend them with units and spells, not for them to be untakeable in their own right. Improving tower damage and such is not where I would go with that, because it more or less accomplishes the opposite- it makes taking cities costlier and encourages a faster blitz, rather than forcing players who want a city to grind away at it for a while.

I could agree with more unit types, but I don't think we need a third tier to everything we've already got. Rather, I could see some fairly specialized units becoming available if you really want them- maybe sea monsters, things with roles or abilities not normally found elsewhere or in your race, possibly a really powerful but prohibitively expensive unit for when you absolutely need a siege beast, that sort of thing. That'd give you something special you could look into if you needed to, without just handing it to you outright or adding another layer of Upgrade To These When You Can.

I disagree with researching them, though, unless they're summons. For one thing, that forces you to choose between spell and unit research, which I don't consider a good choice; I think research should remain spell-oriented. For another, it'd break the usual paradigm of Want Unit = Build Structure, which would probably throw things out of whack.


Finally, I find your closing statement about how MoM was awesome because of the variety of ways you could play and win kind of strange, since you've basically advocated stronger spells, no healing, more damaging cities, and stronger units, which sounds to me like you want the game to pander to you being a turtle mage with a side of More Dakka. Admittedly I've never tried being a turtle mage with a side of More Dakka, but your suggestions don't sound very compatible with playing the game many other ways.
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etgfrog

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Re: Warlock: Master of the Arcane [Paradox]
« Reply #67 on: May 10, 2012, 01:48:40 am »

I took a step back and read my own posts and I can see where your coming from regarding the way I put forth the idea, so best advice is to try not to talk/post when your tired(I'm running on 4 hours of sleep in the last 35 hours and look what kind of stupid stuff I posted), it tends to cloud your judgement to the point you look like a rambling idiot that is bad for proving a point.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2012, 02:20:50 am by etgfrog »
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ThtblovesDF

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Re: Warlock: Master of the Arcane [Paradox]
« Reply #68 on: May 10, 2012, 03:25:59 am »

Bought it, wish it had MP...
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Dariush

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Re: Warlock: Master of the Arcane [Paradox]
« Reply #69 on: May 10, 2012, 03:53:53 am »

For instance, I thought pumpkins were just useful for pumpkin farms. Turns out monsters have a Shrine to Hill'o'Win that gives regeneration +3. Yessssss.
Monsters as in if your starting race is monsters or if the town is monsters? Because the first one would really suck.

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Re: Warlock: Master of the Arcane [Paradox]
« Reply #70 on: May 10, 2012, 05:57:07 am »

For instance, I thought pumpkins were just useful for pumpkin farms. Turns out monsters have a Shrine to Hill'o'Win that gives regeneration +3. Yessssss.
Monsters as in if your starting race is monsters or if the town is monsters? Because the first one would really suck.
Undead get a building too. I forget what, I never built it.
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lastverb

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Re: Warlock: Master of the Arcane [Paradox]
« Reply #71 on: May 10, 2012, 06:29:10 am »

Population number over the city is in thousands, dark green is current progress toward next thousand, light green is after turn increase. Exact numbers are written in city screen at bottom left. If you mouse over there is a hint with exact number of added population at the end of the turn. More population you got, lesser increase. So far i have found only one way to increase it - "Prosperity" spell adds 40 per turn (90 mana casting cost, 2 turns casting time, 2 mana upkeep). Having more food doesn't increase it, however having not enough will decrease. Additional food isnt accumulated just changed into gold (2food per 1 gold).
Anyone found a way to further decrease casting time other than -20% perk?
« Last Edit: May 10, 2012, 06:30:57 am by lastverb »
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Simmura McCrea

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Re: Warlock: Master of the Arcane [Paradox]
« Reply #72 on: May 10, 2012, 07:41:45 am »

There's a late game spell that halves the time needed to cast stuff. It's a 3 turn cast, I think 400 mana.
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Kurte

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Re: Warlock: Master of the Arcane [Paradox]
« Reply #73 on: May 10, 2012, 09:34:42 am »

Flying overenchanted donkey knights with giant siege turtle just meta-teleported to capitol cities of my enemies and obliterated them. Easy win.
http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/2458/warlockz.jpg
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Bluerobin

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Re: Warlock: Master of the Arcane [Paradox]
« Reply #74 on: May 10, 2012, 11:14:45 am »

For instance, I thought pumpkins were just useful for pumpkin farms. Turns out monsters have a Shrine to Hill'o'Win that gives regeneration +3. Yessssss.
Monsters as in if your starting race is monsters or if the town is monsters? Because the first one would really suck.
All of the race-specific buildings are tied to the town, not your starting race.

Flying overenchanted donkey knights with giant siege turtle just meta-teleported to capitol cities of my enemies and obliterated them. Easy win.
http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/2458/warlockz.jpg
Hehe I did something similar with a group of zombies that I got by chance from an abandoned caravan. He held off one NPC while I went to war with another. Granted, I had him loaded up with enchantments, training, and upgrades that decreased the damage he took, but it's pretty neat.


Also, brief review (in my unfortunate posting style of saying something and explaining it in parentheses afterwards): having never really gotten into MoM (I didn't play it when I was younger/it was newer and for me it's fairly impenetrable with a not so great interface/graphics at this point -- sorry, guys, just my opinion) I'm pretty fond of Warlock. Yes it's relatively simple compared to what people describe MoM as, but it does things well enough for me to feel like I spent my $20 well. I like the variety between races (there are some buildings in common, but overall the "tech trees" for both buildings and units are very different) and spells seem to let you do a pretty wide variety of things. Granted, I haven't researched everything yet, so I'm not sure about the entire scope of the number of spells (I have a spell to dispel global enchantments but I haven't found any global enchantments yet, so we'll see about that), but it seems like you have to gain favor with gods to unlock about half of the total spells. Units seem pretty well balanced and I personally like the style of Majesty 2, so the art/sound works for me in Warlock.

My biggest complaints at this point deal with the AI (it's basically impossible to stay allies after the early part of the game, regardless of how you compare in number of cities/army size/tech/religion and they demand resources from you even if your relationship is decent), the gates to other worlds (yes I understand they're supposed to be hard, but at this point I basically plonk a city down next to the gate, put some guards up, then ignore them because they were fairly impenetrable, plus I don't even know what the reward is for going there except losing some troops to monsters), and the spell research (basically the randomness that's already been discussed -- it would be nice to have some choice, just for customization/individuality's sake, since only having 5 choice basically necessitates having some of everything). A lesser complaint is that gaining favor with gods seems to be important (even tied to one of the victory conditions (which aren't mentioned anywhere in game as far as I can tell)), but it's not possible to do on purpose as far as I can tell. You have to wait for a quest to come up and hope it's for a god you like.

Also, a few things that I'm not sure about, but have hunches: I think spell access might be tied to the mage you pick (although this is only based on seeing other mages use things I don't have, so it could just be chance). I feel like secondary worlds have to have something other than just better treasure troves (but that's just because it's an odd design decision otherwise). I feel like there's more to the gods than is immediately obvious (based on the fact that the neutrals you have to kill for their quests are pretty powerful -- with two tiers of god-troops you could extend the military of the game past the base level of troops trainable/summonable). Then again, all of these could just be wishful hoping. I've sunk a good 8 hours or so into this one game and I'm just now starting to get to the point where some of this is actually testable. Regardless, I've had 8 hours of fun with it, so for me that's already getting close to my "worth it" level.

Edit: Oh and the beta of multiplayer's supposed to start up in about two months, from what I've seen.

Edit2: Wheee colors.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2012, 12:07:37 pm by Bluerobin »
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