Wish-List for Dominions 4

[nordlys]

Correct, but if we can "wish" even for doom horrors themselves and they can't do anything but pop up (whether for good or for ill, that's another story), a plain beacon for horrors should be trivial to deal with by means of "wishing". I am not asking for any lesser means, but a "wish" is thematically ought to be an ultimate healing resource, able to deal with curses, afflictions, marks, insanity, old age, whatever.

Point about Furies taken, but we're speaking of curses given away left and right by lousy S1 shamans, not by The Kindly Ones Somebody's got to eventually have found a way to deal with something as common a nuisance, and unlike horrors, it doesn't even come from the great lovecraftian beyond where basic rules of the Creation cease to function.

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by nordlys

I am not asking for any lesser means, but a "wish" is thematically ought to be an ultimate healing resource, able to deal with curses, afflictions, marks, insanity, old age, whatever.

Originally Posted by BigDaddy

I think you should be able to wish for traits, such as trample, immortal, fire resistance, etc...

Or you know, you could just wish for a Chayot, Seraph or one of those big Lanka demons (Rudra, Rudara?) and get a new fresh SC, that's likely better than the old one.

Wish is so expensive that you will go for the strongest option, adding a buch of commands that are sub-optimal would be kind of moot.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

Wish is so expensive that you will go for the strongest option, adding a buch of commands that are sub-optimal would be kind of moot.

No.

There are already many suboptimal wishes possible, some suboptimal in most situtations but not all, some just really poor things to wish for. You might have a point regarding the latter (though they could be fun to use in SP even if they got no MP use) but most certainly not the former.

Examples of wishes that may occasionally be worth it but aren't in the game:

• Immortality - adding the recuperation effect and being able to die in own dominion is the big one and utterly thematic to boot. The wish caster that is created solely as a wish machine might not want to cast this, ever, preferring to summon in an SC instead - the wish caster/battlefield mage/SC might, depending on circumstances.
• Getting rid of horror marks - not worth the hefty price in the majority of cases but there are situations where it might be worth it.
• Elemental immunity - gain 100 resistance to fire, water, cold, poison. Yes, this would probably be used almost solely in SP; so what?
• Ritual Spell - attempts to duplicate the designated ritual spell as if the caster had his astral path strength in the relevant path but with no extra gems. (Yes, this is not worth it if you actually have the research and a mage with the proper path to cast the spell you wish to duplicate, if it goes through it creates a fairly weak global with minimal overcasting from paths only, and it also creates balancing issues with globals more costly than wish - but it is very thematic)

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by Peter Ebbesen

There are already many suboptimal wishes possible, some suboptimal in most situtations but not all, some just really poor things to wish for. You might have a point regarding the latter (though they could be fun to use in SP even if they got no MP use) but most certainly not the former.

The thing is that these "new wishes" do not come as a gift from Santa or something. A coder will have to dive in to the ancient code that "wish" uses (it has been around since Dom:PPP, mind you) and add that new option. And coding time from Illwinter on Dom3 is a rare occurance nowdays, a very rare resource if you allow the simplification.

I just think that if JK really finds the time or intrest to do some coding on dom3*, it would *really* be wasted on adding some excessive wish option that almost no one would use. There are much much more crucial things that could be fixed. Just check the bug list for some of them.

Sure, if some "coding fairy" comes along and just happens to fart all the code needed to make a bug free "immortality" wish, yeah, we could add that. But I wouldn't waste precious dom3 "code time" on the matter.

It's sort of moot to discuss this though, we both know that there will likely be no big update pathces ahead, just tweaks and fixes.

[korenje]

ok I have a serious wish.

The problem is with magic (dom3). Why can some über strong mage (fire 20 for example) cast some spells at the same level as some very weak mage. There should be a slider where you change strength of some spell and slider for quantity. So basically when you want to cast weak spell, the mage should cast more spells per turn until he runs out of action points.

All magic should be linked to mage strength - for example summoning. Strong mage should summon stronger monster or more monsters or have ability to summon more different stuff. (perhaps add some action points while in map mode).

Also in dominions 3 everything leans towards death at the end of the game. Assuming the game is played for infinite time, you should have ability to change capital, move population there etc. Perhaps something more strategic.

Also if some death nation can easily create some of their death monsters, there should also be a harder way for other nations to create the same monster by not using death magic. (perhaps magic levels should be limited for other nations).

Dom3: The capital should be holy grail for every race? in single player mode shouldn't opponents attack my capital with strong spells to halve population or something? At 6 opponents at impossible level that never happens. Should be fixed in dom4.

[Rookierookie]

A lot of spells do scale with magic level.

[Tonno]

Omg guys u are killing me,I have read this 2 days and still I did not red it all...

I have seen a bunch of great ideas...
I would change only few things...
1)Change the battle graphics in 3d mode,some thing like the total war stuff (not to put the unite control mode,just do the graphics)
2)need to make all nations good in something,and bad in something as well
3)put some new spells and items...

I could write some few things,but I would be happy with this
I know that there is a lot of stuff to do,and that is not easy but, I really want to see dom4...

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

The thing is that these "new wishes" do not come as a gift from Santa or something. A coder will have to dive in to the ancient code that "wish" uses (it has been around since Dom:PPP, mind you) and add that new option. And coding time from Illwinter on Dom3 is a rare occurance nowdays, a very rare resource if you allow the simplification.

I just think that if JK really finds the time or intrest to do some coding on dom3*, it would *really* be wasted on adding some excessive wish option that almost no one would use. There are much much more crucial things that could be fixed. Just check the bug list for some of them.

In case you somehow failed to notice it, Burnsaber, this is the wish-list for Dominions 4 (hint: it says so in the title) - a hypothetical game that quite possibly will never exist - not a wish list for changes to Dominions 3 to be added in minor content patches that would be better spent on fixing existing bugs.

Sure, if some "coding fairy" comes along and just happens to fart all the code needed to make a bug free "immortality" wish, yeah, we could add that. But I wouldn't waste precious dom3 "code time" on the matter.

Since neither of us are in control of the development budget or developer time, there is no way that any of us can waste precious dom3 coding time either way. On your general point that any developer time spent on Dom3 would be better spent on other things I do agree, but that is utterly irrelevant to this thread.

It's sort of moot to discuss this though, we both know that there will likely be no big update pathces ahead, just tweaks and fixes.

I refer you again to the bloody title of this thread. This is a thread for wishes for a future game in the series, not a thread for players second-guessing developers on what would be a good use of developer time in Dom3 patches.