Era of High Sorcery

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Elvish_Pillager
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

Lollipopz wrote:Spell suggestion: Opposite of "Corrupt Ground" - "Bless Ground" would make similar ground effect as Corrupting it, but it would only harm undead, note, only harm, as it would be too powerful otherwise. Dispelling touch would dispell it, just like corrupt. And when Bless and Corrupt hit same tile, they neutralize eachother, creating normal tile. Like the idea?
No.
Lollipopz wrote:EDIT: Moving wizard riding gryphon above deep water makes that silly floating effect. Would look nicer if that gets fixed.
Already fixed for the next version.
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Dixie
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Dixie »

Hey, downloaded your era yesterday and played it a bit, it's very fun and well-made, congrats!

I haven't read the whole 7 pages, but here are my comments. Feel free to disregard any of it :P

- It could be nice to have more magic schools, with every school having an opposite (can't get level in). If there are more than 4 (like, 6 or 8, but I'd aim for 6), you could re-arrange them in a circle, and the ones adjacent to your opposite could cost more picks to buy from. That would somewhat break your archmage "purchase mages" things, though, and you main wizard (leader)'s ranged attack.

Some ideas for schools:

- Illusion/Divination:
a) Summon illusory units, either working like Archaic Era's vapor or like Steel Hive's Light-something. Or something else.
b) Create illusory terrains: like water/flats/forests/hills that when you step on them, revert to their previous form, or illusory chasms that vanish when you stand next to them (could work like ambush and "surprise" your unit, removing all its remaining moves). Difficulty with this could possibly be path recognition, though...
c) Some disorientation spell that could either lower a target's chance to hit for a turn, slow it, remove it's moves/vision...
d) Some srying spell that could give you vision over a shrouded/fogged area for the turn.

- Shape Shifting:
a) Obviously, a lot of spells consisting of various new shapes;
b) Maybe the option to shapeshift adjacent unit of same side, maybe alter on the ability to shapeshift adjacent enemies.
c) Maybe summonable weaker shapeshifting units, with inherent shape shifting abilities.

- Adjuration:
a) Could consist of a bunch of enchantments to help your troops/hinder the enemy. Affecting units/units in an area, not terrain... I have less stuff to suggest here :P

Other, unrelated comment: I think pick points are a bit hard to earn, although I'm not sure what else could be suggested. 2 when defeating an enemy leader is rare, but 1 for any kill would obviously be way too many... Still, I think they should be somewhat easier to come by. Maybe 1 for every 3-5 kills, and a bonus 2 for enemy wizards?

Kepp it up, people! :)
Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny - Frank Zappa
Current projects: Internet meme Era, The Settlers of Wesnoth
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Elvish_Pillager
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

EoHS 0.6.0 released.

A near-total rewrite. The primary purpose of the rewrite was to stop using so many huge macros - instead, I use the magic of [insert_tag] with a fancy system that allows me to use scoped variables and true subroutines. The post-preprocessed code size is approximately one-third of what it was before.

From the user end, what this means is that the people who had huge amounts of lag and delays before should now be able to play it practically. On the other hand, the players it worked fine for may see some new delays in the spellcasting and training screens - I know about this issue and plan to fix it soon, but it'll be non-trivial and I wanted to make the main release first.

Internally, I also restructured a lot of the data, which allowed me to remove a lot of duplicate code (summons and non-summon spells no longer use entirely different engines...) and improve things a lot. Countless bugs have been fixed and almost every spell has changed in some way, so I won't list everything I did, since it would be such a long list. Here are some highlights, though:

- Disallowed wizards from going below 70% exp, even if the setting is below that.
- Devour Soul only gains you 1/4 of the unit's hitpoints instead of 1/2.
- Dispelling Touch can now dispel wizard swords, even during combat.
- The quick-skill-buy picks have been replaced and are more convenient. You now type in the amount of the skill you want to purchase.
- Covered most of the rest of the action-during-unit-animation bug. This is fixed in 1.8.3, but for backwards-compatibility, you now can't move or attack during an animation.
- Changed all the transmogrifications - Mud Touch, Aberrant Growth, and Wraithform - to use the same system. They now all carry over enchantments and work properly with reanimation, among other things.
- Circle of Protection hates allies again, because I haven't figured out how to deal with changing teams or the new team name system yet (it was buggy in some cases before.) Circle of Protection now reports its damage modification in the attack dialog, and is only *0.4 to reduce the extreme rounding-down issues.
- The mounted wizards' graphics engine has been refactored and mounted units now show poison, among other things.
- You can use mud touch on the unit an enemy wizard is mounted on, and Mud Touch is even sillier with high-level units than it was before.
It's all fun and games until someone loses a lawsuit. Oh, and by the way, sending me private messages won't work. :/ If you must contact me, there's an e-mail address listed on the website in my profile.
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1000hp
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by 1000hp »

I downloaded and played some games using this Era and I must say it is one of the most unique ideas that I have seen for Wesnoth. :D I didn't find any bugs or complaints (besides it slows down the app a bit but there is not much anyone can do about my slow computer) :wink:

The thing I feel the Era needs is more schools of magic. I understand that it would large undertaking and you probably have some ideas already so I will just give my opinion.

I think that logically the next school should be some sort of Monastery/Temple/Holy school where you use the powers of the white mage. Some summon ideas are shamans and white mages. With that said. Whatever you do with the era I will enjoy it. If you like the idea I can work on more. If not, can't wait to see what you come up with.
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Zerovirus
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Zerovirus »

Perhaps a spell that creates a landmine of sorts if the hex isn't occupied? The enemy(ies) can't see it, making it effective for places like villages and high defense hexes. If it dealt (like energy bolt) 6+magiclevel or something along those lines, it'd make a nice annoyance or trick.

"Oh no my unit is low HP, I'll get him to a village to regen"
-boom-
Low HP goes to No HP with the landmine on the village :P

Not sure which school this might go under.
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Elvish_Pillager
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

EoHS 0.7.0 released. Yeah, I skipped from 0.6.0.11 to 0.7.0.

The entire engine has been rewritten in Lua and is much faster and cleaner.

Additional major improvements:
- Wizards now receive random skin and hair colors at game start, instead of being uniformly blond and pale-skinned. Also, you can change your hair color at will via the unit settings screen.
- Instead of the RPG/Survival era, there's a generalized "Alternative settings" era which allows you to pick from a list of canned settings (default, survival, RPG) and also to choose your own custom settings. It's not too customizable yet, but more settings will appear in coming versions.
- There is now a version of the era that is compatible with MP campaigns. It (by necessity) requires download. The two campaign-incompatible versions still do not require download.
- There is an in-depth new terrain system that all the terrain-modifying spells now use, and all the existing terrain-modification spells have been adjusted somewhat. It also makes the era much more compatible with maps like Dark Forecast. (On the other hand, it makes it slightly less compatible with maps like A New Land. Such is life.)
- There is a fancy new animation system, which allows cleaner display of monster-riding wizards (they now display their mounts while doing casting animations, for instance.) I haven't used this new system to NEARLY its full potential yet; if I continue working on it, a lot of the spells will get much cooler animations in coming versions.
- Wizards can now level up indefinitely beyond L4, with hitpoint and ranged damage bonuses to match. You can even get things like L10 leadership.

(Some of the) additional minor improvements:
- Lot of bugs cleaned up.
- Wizards' attack-stopping ability now actually caps damage at maxhp/4 in addition to stopping the attack.
- Grow Vegetation is now temporary, and depletes the nutrients of the underlying soil. Sink has been replaced with Downpour, which is temporary and somewhat different, but has the potential - if you cast it multiple times on an area - to cover castle entirely, turn villages to mer-villages, and reduce water to deep water (allowing drowning), while the effect lasts.
- The Ancient Lich has been removed, due to its relatively poor graphics and general cruddy balance. Of course, since all wizards can now level up indefinitely anyway, this is really only a graphical change and minor attack-damage nerf.
- Wizard Sword damage is now based on the level of the unit with the sword.
- You can now attack/cast after switching back from Wraithform, as long as it's not the same turn you cast it.
- Rampage no longer allows the casting wizard to attack, but the bonuses remain until the beginning of your next turn.
- Reanimating Touch no longer increases already-extreme resistances and weaknesses, and has been cleaned up in general.
- Arctic Drakes now have a nicer color change, which should make them much more identifiable as distinct from normal Drake Fighters.
- Fireball is now actually called Fireball instead of "Fire Ball", and it has a cool new animation.

Also of note: Some fans have started making a wiki about EoHS at http://eohs.wikia.com/wiki/Era_of_High_Sorcery_Wiki.
It's all fun and games until someone loses a lawsuit. Oh, and by the way, sending me private messages won't work. :/ If you must contact me, there's an e-mail address listed on the website in my profile.
Lich_Lord
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Lich_Lord »

A few things that I've noticed, corridor of frost doesn't work, wizards sword doesn't disappear, for some reason when I mounted a wolf, I moved to the wolf's hex and didn't get extra moves. Also, when I cast grow vegetation, it destroyed a village, I don't think that's supposed to happen. You probably know of most of these bugs Elvish Pillager, but just pointing them out in case you don't.
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Rigor
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Rigor »

from recent games i also wanted to point out that the temporary advantage you get by bee-lining to a high-grade spell (lvl7+) in one class, you have such a huge advantgage that the disadvantage that u actually cant o other things doesnt manifest in your games, because u were able to overwhelm your opponent so early and so powerful. the rest is a spiral of village/gold losses which lead in T4 to an early decision.

i tried to go random some times, and then i even wanted to see especially picked mixed skills work, but i always got heavily flogged, i dont think that i played that bad.
Molean
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Molean »

Yeti is problematic, its very slow, and if you lay down forest or water with magic, this gets even worse. Considering you have to potentially leave behind things like archmage and superb summoner that make summons more affordable in the first place, it doesn't seem like a good trade. It has the potential to just become a level 4 worth of experience that sticks you to one spot with its slowness, to defend it.

And if muded, a yeti is a easy source of experience as a level 4 mud with great fire and arcane weakness. Perhaps those level 4 muds (spell description could use updating to let you know these can happen) could actually be level 3, with all the same abilities. This way they are not such good sources of experience for the enemy. Do the two dragons turn into level 4 muds?

I recommend that yeti get move 1 on forests, shallow water, and swamp. Yetis seem like they would be creatures of the forest, and why would a few twigs (trees) slow it down? And on shallow water/swamp, its like probably only up to its ankles. That way yetis don't become such a liability for your own side, especially because of your own spells.

Touch of mud can mud mounts, which sticks the rider with some of the muds weaker defenses too. (and unable to dismount for a whole turn, if the enemy wishes to wail on them) the defense of mount thing only has a partial effect though it seems, and strangely, it seems a person with a few levels of Evocation with nature and archmage don't get their fire resistance reduced. Maybe a non-archmage would get even more reduced fire resistance/weakness? Also, the act of muding a mount is very very slow on a slower computer.

Dispel touch will unmud a creature that was muded as a mount. Not sure if it will unmud other creatures. Furthermore this unmud effect happens instead of the damage effect in the case of a creature that was a summons when it was muded. I personally find it bad to have ones own dispel touch, benefit the enemy. Its not a bad idea though to have a spell one can cast on ones own units to remove things like mud touch and perhaps other negative effects like poison and stun too?

Speaking of stun, when you lightning bolt a enemy leader, it is still totally able to attack with spells etc, which makes using it on a enemy leader rather not worth the cost.

A idea for a nature spell, "Natural form" or perhaps "A creature of nature": gives a unit with it shallow water, swamp, and forest move 1, and 40% defense on those things (unless naturally already higher) Wears off after awhile, perhaps lasting one round/turn per level of nature above 4.

Question:
For riding a red dragon, do you need 1 point more in evocation then it costs to summon the red dragon? Or in nature? Because the mount description says you need 1 more point in nature then it took to summon it, but red dragons are evocs.

Should red dragons even be ridable? That seems a bit extreme, and what mighty dragon is going to let anyone ride it? Plus the issue of them being completely different magics. And if you have that many points, you don't really need a red dragon mount too, I would think.
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

EoHS 0.7.1 released.

- Water Serpents, Sea Serpents, Yetis, and Fire Dragons now have traits.
- Custom settings can now set a multiplier for all spell costs.
- The "Forbid unit creation" now thoroughly forbids Reanimating Touch and every spell that's useless without other units.
- Devour Soul now turns Illuminates into Deluminates.
- New animations for Downpour, Devour Soul, and Energy Bolt. New graphics for Dark Pact.
- The touch attack overlays now display above the head of the wizard's staff instead of in the middle of the unit.
- "Enchantment" now appears in the spell cost string, like "Instant", to make it clear which spells count as enchantments.
- Some animation glitches have been fixed. A major bug with Superb Summoner (you could cast a non-summon spell and then a summon spell) has been fixed.
- Changed the name of the default era to "EoHS: Era of High Sorcery" so that you can filter for "EoHS" in the multiplayer server lobby.



Molean: (spoilered to keep the thread from being cluttered by a point-by-point reply)
Spoiler:
It's all fun and games until someone loses a lawsuit. Oh, and by the way, sending me private messages won't work. :/ If you must contact me, there's an e-mail address listed on the website in my profile.
Molean
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Molean »

Ok, I will do it that way too, for you.
Spoiler:
Last edited by Molean on August 7th, 2010, 11:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Stern
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Stern »

I have played a couple games with the Era of High Sorcery, and I quite like it.

Infinite Wizards Trick
Spoiler:
*Edit: See attached.

*Edit 2: Odd... The save file doesn't work. I think that the "Infinite Wizards Trick" is merely evidence of a peculiar desynchonization in the order of events within the Wesnoth game.
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Elvish_Pillager
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

Stern: Do you have a savefile that can be used to reproduce this bug?
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by wesfreak »

I tried it just using Stern's instructions and it worked. I attached a save, but it might not work.

When you play with mana to cast spells rather than gold you can't cast a few of the high gold spells like meteor storm, summon dragon, summon yeti and summon skeletal dragon because of the maximum mana cap.

[offtopic] why is the elvish lady avalable as a choice of leader in your high seas add on? it's a lvl 3 with no attacks or leadership, how is it usefull in any way? [/offtopic]
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Re: Era of High Sorcery

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

wesfreak wrote:When you play with mana to cast spells rather than gold you can't cast a few of the high gold spells like meteor storm, summon dragon, summon yeti and summon skeletal dragon because of the maximum mana cap.
The max mana is based on your leader's level. With normal settings, you can't have the skill to cast any of those spells before you're high enough level to have a high enough mana cap.
wesfreak wrote:[offtopic] why is the elvish lady avalable as a choice of leader in your high seas add on? it's a lvl 3 with no attacks or leadership, how is it usefull in any way? [/offtopic]
It's a joke leader. It never comes up if you choose random.
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