Wishlist: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.

[Illuminated One]

While I would thematically like the ability to add new paths I like Jim think it is hard to implement.

Adding/changing a nation, spell, unit, item, magic site affects nothing but that nation, spell, unit, item, magic site.
Adding a new path requires all nations to have places where the gem income is stored and all units need some place to store their pathlevel, too.
And that is both in the UI and behind the curtains.
If those places have not already been reserved then old games probably would be incompatible with a version that has more paths.

[HoneyBadger]

That's correct, Illuminated One. This would require help from the Devs.

[Aezeal]

hmmmm a very very late fase in dom3K would be to remove all spells that don't fit in there thematically. Most damage spells could stay and it would mostly be the summons that would need to be removed. Also a lot of the globals should be renamed and or deleted. More importantly would be the magic item modding though (and even that would be something I'd only do in a very very very late phase) since those (in general) hardly fit with the setting. THe effects could stay but new names and sprites would be needed for the mod. I'd also love to delete all mercs (impossible now) and rename all magic sites (forest = space so that will give a somewhat unrealistic amount of space with "groves of this" and "tree of that" etc etc. Well enough on dom3K since it wasn't really the topic but since it was brought up....

On topic:
New magicpaths might be a nice idea but I think the problem would be that the AI wouldn't recognize the new spells and wouldn't use them anywayso ti would severly demolish SP gaming. And if JK was going to put effort in something I can think of a few things higher on my list... since.. let's face it magic CAN be modded quite extensively already and there are other things (see mu dom3K wishlist above) which need more love in the modding department. (can forts be modded now btw.. I've looked for it today but couldn't find it)

PS where is that thread where they keep us posted on what is going to be in the next edition?

[HoneyBadger]

Well, yes, making the AI work with the new paths would just be a part of the whole "This would require help from the Devs." statement that seems to be throwing everyone off so badly. Is there some sort of psychic block in place here? I didn't think this idea, that we can't actually do this now, was so darned hard to grasp.

We can't do this now. That's why I'm suggesting it be altered to another state in which we could. If we could now, I'd just do it.

And yes, there are other things that I wouldn't mind seeing JK spend his time on, and fortresses is a good example of that, but having only 8 blesses, several of which aren't very good for almost every Nation, is a big deal.

[HoneyBadger]

http://ulm.illwinter.com/dom3/dom3progress.html

[Endoperez]

Having a typo or a minor bug fixed is "would require help from the devs".

Adding in fort modding is "someone just spent few weeks on this thing, and there are still bugs and creating new forts or changing sprites is still impossible".

Your request is on the "divine intervention" level.


I could see extra blesses (although I don't know how the bonuses could be expressed), and I can see how that would require extra paths, and that'd be nice. But where could you put the new paths so that you could choose them in pretender creation? There's no space in the current magic screen, and if we're asking for a major rewrite of that...

well, I'd as soon have blesses/themes that could be independent from magic paths and could be used to alter anything from blesses to starting sites to starting gold/equipment to national recruitment and spell list to dominion effects (Arcos scrying, strength of popdeath, Abys heat spreading, etc).

When you wish upon a star, don't settle for just the impossible.

[HoneyBadger]

I honestly can't see equating expanding the magic screen with "divine intervention". For all we know, it's as simple as adding a few lines of code and a sprite at the end. Not necessarily major at all. It's a computer, after all, and one could potentially just scroll the page down = All the room in the world!

Now the "themes" you're talking about sound a lot more like wishful thinking than anything I'm suggesting. Plus, it would require the Devs going backwards to Dom2.

You do realize that your idea would require entirely new mechanics not currently present in any way, shape, or form, to the current game, while mine only ask that we be able to more robustly mod what's already present, and already atleast semi-moddable?

[MaxWilson]

Much as I like the idea of adding mod nations with access to warrens like Kurald Galain, Kurald Thyrllan, Ruse, Serc, Tellann, etc. (done up as paths), the idea of moddable magic paths seems to me as fundamentally difficult as moddable stats. By this I don't mean altering the stats a unit has (Strength -> 30) but adding the concept of a new stat (Initiative) and semantics for it (Initiative affects how likely a unit and its army are to 'win' if it's trying to move straight at an enemy army; high Initiative means you almost always move first and thus wind up in the territory you were trying to move to). You'd need a whole new metasystem.

It's much easier to envision moddable blessings for the existing magic paths, but even that would be a lot of work to design and implement.

-Max

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

I honestly can't see equating expanding the magic screen with "divine intervention". For all we know, it's as simple as adding a few lines of code and a sprite at the end. Not necessarily major at all. It's a computer, after all, and one could potentially just scroll the page down = All the room in the world!

You do realize that your idea would require entirely new mechanics not currently present in any way, shape, or form, to the current game, while mine only ask that we be able to more robustly mod what's already present, and already atleast semi-moddable?

It COULD be as easy as you think, or it could be that all pages and references to magic paths would have to be updated. Commander handling, empowerment handling, gem income/storage handling, pretender creation, calculating bless effects, creating magic sites and putting them into maps, searching for magic sites, Acashic Record and perhaps some other spells, checking for innate magical bonuses of commanders... Magic paths affect pretty much everyhing. If it's not been designed mod-friendly, adding your request would change everything. If it HAS been designed that way, it would be rather simple, or at least not as complicated as we disbelievers think, and you'd have been right the whole time.


Implementing either suggestion would require adding new choices to the pretender design screen, and adding to the basic gameplay interface. "For all we know, it's as simple as enabling the parts of code that were used for themes and adding a few lines of code. Not necessarily major at all." It might be easier re-implementing something from earlier iterations than adding something drastically different. Of course, we'd still not have a modding interface for adding any/all effects that already exist in the game in new ways and in new instances, like dominion effects or magic path bonuses to leadership.


I'll grant you something, though: there's at least one currently unused magic path, Unholy. Modding that probably could be implemented without too much hassle, as long as you don't want it to have gems, give a mage innate bonus (Fire - attack, Air - precision etc) or grant bless effects. Bless effects and innate bonuses would have to be able to read unit modding commands in some way, because that's the only way to have enough choices to make them matter, and that's something else that I think would be really complicated. Of course, "for all we know it could be just a matter of adding a few lines of code" as well.

[Aezeal]

Your request is on the "divine intervention" level.

--> seems how it is too me, and I really think it wouldn't be the effort. If you want to change something you CAN delete all spells and make new ones in the paths that exist. I mean especially when on of the replies to the idea is to make "adding mod nations with access to warrens like Kurald Galain, Kurald Thyrllan, Ruse, Serc, Tellann, etc" which could probably PERFECTLY fit in the existing path system. As I said before I'd rather have them spending time on giving me a "space" terrain type and a space form, fort modding, decent magic item modding to be honest.. but I might be biased there.