Ars Magica 2 - Ideas
Poll: If I were to implement an API, would you make use of it? (able t
Ended May 15, 2014
Poll: If I were to make the code for this mod available on GitHub, wou
Ended May 15, 2014
Poll: What specific mod integration would you like to see the most?
Ended May 15, 2014
thats basically thaumcraft aura nodes. another reason, why im in favour of basing both mods on the same resource and aspect system. the bigger the node, you have nearby your base, the more youre going to be able to cast spells and the more powerful spells you might be able to cast.
typical ars magica nexi could be constructed with vis capacitors as pillars, and crystal clusters, or even crystal cores (that would look awesome) as toppings. when forming the multiblock structure, the capacitors would combine to a connected model into the form of pillars.
the type of crystal cluster could create different nexi, that amplify spells according to affinity. for example 4 pure vis crystal clusters, could give you an arcane nexus. plus, it makes sense. nexi are multiblock structures, that can both store and create magical energy. the same, thing, that vis capacitors and crystal clusters do.
vis could fuel your spellcasting, while the core aspects (like i said, azanor is going to reduce them to about 8 in his 3.1 version of thaumcraft), could be worked into the affinity stystem.
thinking about the potential, how both mods could act as different branches of a greater complex, and how they could interact with each other, already blows my mind
1. Meet the Progression System
As the player progresses throughe the basics of your mod this book will become more than a mere guide and will catalogue their progress as a mage and guide them through further developments.
How will the player progress? Well that naturally revolves around the pathos of your mod. As you have clearly stated this mod is designed to encourage adventure and exploration, and so the progression should be further integrated into this philosophy without penalizing the player for not stumbling across the right kind of terrain generation. Instead of having adventure be a mear medium for the goal of progress, adventure a progression should be one and the same. Any form of exploration or experimentation should inform their knowledge of the world and its magics.
The first time a player makes a torch, they learn more about fire. The first time the player loots a seed or flower, they learn more about plany magic. The first time they reach a certain experience benchmark or enchant an item, they learn about the arcane in general. After that the player can literally place what they have discovered or created under further scrutiny by moving it into a slot within their Arcane Journal's gui whetere they can study the object and further their knowledge of the magics it embodies with rigorous notes. Doing this however, will require dissection of the item (like in Thaumcraft 3) and will give them research towards the elements it is made of and will give the player a temporary buff for knowledge gained by any activities they partake in.
What activities you ask? Well, slaying mobs for one could further enhance their understanding of the magics that bind such fould creatures to this world along with the elements that compose them (for instance a creepercwould be comprised of earth and lightning). Farming would enhance their understanding of earth and water, the bringers of corporeal life. Breeding animals could enahnce their understanding of the warm spark of life in all things (fire) and the life giving air that sustains them. Creating redstone mechanism could enhance arcane knowledge, while alchemy would increase knowledge of the transmutational properties of the void (the End). Smelting could bring a better understanding of the properties of Earth and Fire, and so on.
The growth of the subject's understanding on the 8 elemental schools could be summarized on the main page in the form of progress bars that track their progress towards the next level of their mastery. Progressing in any of these specific schools would inform your overall knowledge of the arcane, represented by an arcane progression meter. As this meter grows you will learn more about your own inherent capacity for magic, increasing your mana capacity and give you sudden spurts of genius that will lead to breakthroughs ib your magical studies (new spell types, recipes, and etc).
Though your curiosity about the world will steadily fuel your progress towards mastery of the arcane arts the best way to achieve this is putting into practice what you have learned through trial and error. Once begin to learn and craft spells you will advance in their respective schools through repeated, successful use (with diminishing returns). The more intensive and advanced the spell the more you stand to learn from its practice.
2. Mechanics for Town Fools
For one I think ores should be limited to 1-3 types of material (as it currently is) which can be supplemented by surface world gen. Such world gen already displays itself in the current Ars Magica in the form of collectible plants, but a I think it could be expanded to trees, farmable crops, and more drops from mobs. I really think you should expand the role of your 8 essences and utilize these methods of collection as the main means to obtaining them. The process for obtaining them could have room for some nuance, but I think the materials themselves should be limited in quantity, but not potential. This will suit your ideal of exploration as a means of progression in Ars Magica as people will be more inclined towards surface activity rather than rooting about underground for precious, rare materials. There are already so many mods that are dedicated to enriching the rather limited mining experience and as you already know the strength of your mod, and what makes it refreshing, is surface generation, and it deserves to be broadened while still staying focused on key elements to avoid clutter.
As far a spell construction goes I think it should boiled Properties and Enhancements.
a) Properties are the basic elements of the spell that determine its form and function. It is broken up into 4 components - Type: Is it a Buffing Spell? An Offensive Spell? A Defensive Spell? A Utility Spell?; Target: Self? Area? Single Target?; Range: Projectile, Burst, Aura, etc. Element: Air, Water, Earth, Fire, Etc. Once the elemental category is chosen at last, the player choses the affect tied to the element they want and then gets to adjust its properties to a specified maximum or minimum (the higher they are, the more costly the spell). For instance a player could create a Buff with a Single Target Projectile that has the Water Element. From there the select a buffing affect from under the Water domain: Ice Walk (water freezes beneath the beneficiary's feet allowing them to walk over the surface of the water) and increases its duration from 1 minute to 2 minutes. By making a single target projection it adds a cost for not being a self buff (but is still less expensive that an aoe buff), increasing the mana cost from 20 to lets say 22. This is increased further for the extra minute of duration the player added making the spell cost another 10 mana.
Properties are all unlocked from the start or early on in your arcane career.
b ) Enhancements are specific tweaks to the behaviour of the spell and are simple in nature and the amount you can have on a spell is limited and increases its cost. Types of enhancements include things like Piercing (grants a chance for your spell to pierce through the first target), Crit chance, Chaining (a chance to hit more targets), Smite, Wither (against non-undead or Ender only), and etc.
Applying these enhancements could run on a system similar to vanilla enchanting, allowing you to spend experience on a thrilling, collectable crap shoot, or it could be just another selectable micro category that is learned randomly by arcane level ups, or by increased mastery of the elements that get these traits by default.
3. Tiers for Affinities
As the player grows more experienced with casting certain elements they develope an affinity for wielding such powers. The Elemental Affinity is the first tier of mastering a specific element and it grants certain benefits to the practitioner's mortal form:
Air: As seen on OP
Water: As OP
Earth: As OP.
Fire: As OP.
Lightning: As OP
Plant: Ought to fall under the life Element.
Ice: The current OP version seems it could be as much of an inconvenience as much as a boon as far as freezing water to ice and lava to obsidian goes and I think would be better suited as a spell. Instead it should just be a chance to slow upon melee attack.
Life: As Plant is on OP. Regeneration would be a later tier.
Ender: Grants "phasing" which gives the player a chance to phase out when struck by a projectile or melee attack, allowing them to effectively ignore it. The current bonus could be moved to a later tier or this one could be the later tier.
In addition spells cast by the player with the same element as the affinity have their mana cost reduced by 15%. The player can have up to 3 active affinities, allowing them further customization, but none of the chosen affinities can be opposing elements (Air-Earth, Fire-Water, Lightning-Ice, Life-Ender). As far as penalties go I do not believe an affinity should have any penalty beyond not being able to carry its opposite as another affinity, which gives these choices some level of gravity without (my philosophy is that the carrot is generally far more effective than the stick as far as gaming goes) making the player feel unecessarily penalized. A system could be incorporated that could allow players to swap the affinities they have unlocked for a nominal price.
When a mage reaches gains true Mastery of his or her element the connection goes beyond a mere augmentation of their physical capabilities, but instead begins to reflect itself in the very nature of their magic. Once an Elemental Master is obtained and chose the player's relationship with the magic of the world changes drastically, encouraging a more nuanced play style. Here are some examples on how certain elemental masteries could change how the mod is played.
Air: The player has a greatly increased mana regeneration rate, but a decreased max mana pool, encouraging bursts of spell casting mixed up with other forms of combat, utilizing the unpredictable ferocity of the wind.
Water: A Master of Water has a mind as mysterious and adaptable as his element, giving him not only an innate resistance to magic , but the ability to warp the distort the spells hurled at him by foes into more mana for himself.
Earth: A Master of Earth relies on the steadiness of his will to carry him through and tribulation and thus has longer lasting and more effective buffs.
Lightning: A Master of Lightning is energized with erratic protential allowing them to occassional cast a spell at a higher level than its set potential.
Ice: A Master of Ice has a much wider mana pool, but a decreased capability for its regeneration. The more he calls on his icy affinity, the more frozen his spirit becomes, reducing his mana production while also coating him in a thick layer of ice. Eventually his chilling calling turns him into an icy juggernaut, nearly immune to harm, but unable to generate mana until he has thawed. (Basically the more spells he casts the more his mana regen is debuffed for a time, but also the more his defense is increased. This encourages him to change his tactics after casting for some time).
Life: A Master of the magics of Life wields spells so vigorous that they can randomly reknit his wounds and rejuvinate his spirits with small burst of mana thanks to the backlashes of energy coming from the vivacious practice of their art.
Ender: Those who master that obscured and alien Ender element are unparlelled manipulators of the primal energies of the void, and as such they can use its raw potential for enhanced conjurations, whether it be merely making a tool or object crafted from raw magic and imagination last longer or lengthier and more effective visit of a summoned creature, ripped from its own dimension to do the bidding of the mage.
Arcane: Unlocked by a great understanding of magic those who choose not to be constrained by a specialty have an understanding of raw magic that is so innate that they have a small chance of casting their spells for free.
Unlike affinities only one mastery can be active at a time and swapping it is both costly and complicated (maybe even requiring outside help to accomplish), but unlocking it also allows mages to learn to summon their own familiars. These creatures masters by fighting along their side, performing attacks based on their form, and by further enhancing physical and spiritual connection to their element to even greater heights, giving them a further 5% reduction to the spells of the cosen element and affording them a further augmentation to their physical capabilities based on their shared element:
Air: Slow fall while sneaking mid air.
Water: Faster underwater mining and water breathing.
Earth: A chance at extra nuggets from ores harvested and player is effected less by knockback.
Fire: Fire immune and faster swim speed in lava.
Lightning: Jumps higher and can walk over one block high inclines.
Ice: Enemies that strike you are slowed and have a chance of being weakened.
Life: Added health regeneration.
Ender: Enemies cannot teleport near you.
Arcane: You may choose a 4th affinity. Or alternatively it could allow you to choose opposing affinities.
Familiars of the same element but with alternate benefits could be yet undiscovered.
Anyway, thanks if you read through any of my ideas. I know it was all rather verbose or possibly muddled, but the possibilities of this mod are just very exciting and I couldn't help but throw some of the half-brewed ideas bubbling around in my head on the forum as quickly as possible. If you like any of the ideas let me know and I can always elaborate more, but for now I will leave it at this and hope that you find some to your liking. Thanks for the time and your open ear Mithion, and above all thanks for the wonderful mod! I look forward to seeing what you do with it.
how about eating food would heal 1 to 2 hearts instead, additionally to filling the hunger bar? some food can be eaten, even with a full hunger bar, so eating food could be used for healing.
fire affinity could add the ability to toggle auto smelting on your tools, or fire damage on your weapons. sounds a little bit cooler and more useful than a bit of damage reduction. you can use enchanted armor for that.
I love the idea of having mage-specific armor, but I do NOT like the idea of the mage armor being literally "diamond armor, but better." It's completely overpowered, as anything that's not from Ars Magica, or lava, can't even touch you, most of the time.
Consider the following:
Ars Magica armor offers no physical protection (no armored shirts), but, instead, offers tiered magical protection (leather->chain->iron->diamond). To gain physical protection on it, you must enchant it with the Protection enchant.
Likewise, since you can already get magic protection on regular armor, the physical defense alternative would be to use the vanilla armors. If you want magical defense on those, you just enchant them.
I think this would balance out the HUGE amount of protection the Ars Magica armor gives. Even with other mods installed, there was no reason for me to use their armors because I could fall from great heights, stop fire from burning me, get extra oxygen, and recover from near death, all while being super protected from almost every form of damage in the game, modded in or otherwise.
This was on top of the armor auto-repairing itself as long as I wasn't going through my mana like mad, which I only ever do when I am spamming augmented Arcane Bolt or any level of Blink.
Another thing I'd love is to have spellcasting not be so easy to do. Instead of an instantaneous spell, or the charging that only takes the time for drawing back a bow, spells should have a level of complexity that allows us to build them on the fly. Such as your spell book opens when you right click it and you then have to put together the effects you want to cast a spell (things like "I want a heal other spell," so you put together the target, "other," the type, "projectile," and the effect you want, "heal" and then click a cast button and your character casts Heal Other on someone).
I simply feel like the ease of casting spells just makes them overpowered beyond belief and makes the vanilla weapons almost stupid to use once you're able to cast Firebolt, toward the beginning of the game.
What I'm not asking for is a system that makes casting them a chore. I'm asking for a system that makes them take a bit longer to cast. Even, maybe, a system where you have to precast your spells and save them in a book to cast them later? I don't know, I'm just throwing ideas out there.
In essence, I love this mod to death, but I feel like using this mod basically takes away all reason to use almost anything from Vanilla minecraft. I don't feel like a mod should take away from the game, but should, rather, add to the game, on top of what's already there. Fact of the matter is, if you encounter Arcane Bolt early on, you're set for the rest of the game, offensively. You don't even need to carry a sword, and, if you're quick and aware, you won't even need to waste time on armor because it's insta-cast and has the full knockback effect of any other attack while costing next to no mana.
Being able to find a few spells in world gen would also be wonderful. Maybe there should be another multiblock structure and some slightly expensive method to break down spells you've found so that you can learn how to make them.
In many of the fantasy books i've read there have been times when wizards were experimenting with spells, and they made a mistake where they helped the "s" sound at the end of the spell just a little too long and it had dire consequences. So i think there should be some sort of system where when experimenting with the creation of the spells, if you were to do something wrong, it would have dire consequences. Depending on the materials you are working with, you could have different effects. Say you are working with spider eyes or zombie flesh, you could get poisoned or spiders/zombies could suddenly spawn near you. Say you were working with ghast tears and something went horribly wrong, and a ghast was suddenly spawned in the dimension you are in. Maybe if you are working with 1 piece of gunpowder, and something goes wrong, you could cause an explosion similar to 1/5th of a block of tnt (because it takes 5 gunpowder to make 1 tnt). But as you work with more, and something goes wrong, the explosion size should increase too. Something like this would leave room for the possibility of you creating your own effects.
Using the above, i think there should also be good accidents that can happen. Maybe your working with healing potions/food/ to try and create a healing spell, and instead you give your self a new affinity that allows your health to recharge faster than normal, and with less food. There could be many other good things that can happen to you as well.
I think it would be good to be able to have mulitiple affinities. But they should level in what they do and how strong they are/how many effects they have depending on how much you use spells from that affinity. This way you can become a mage who is a master in all of the arcane arts. This should get harder as your level for each increases. There should also be a slight boost to the base power of all the spells from a certain affinity when that affinity is leveled up. If you decide to use this, a special menu to manage your affinities, check stats, and upgrade perks on the skill tree might be a bit helpful. I think it would be helpful either way.
I think there should definitely be other mages around. Special mage towns or cities would be a really cool feature. Special areas where you can buy/trade spells, methods of making spells(which should be more expensive), potions, and other magical items. Kind of like the tale of Kingdoms mod, but not exactly. I think it might be good to add new plants and such that you can also research to be able to make new spells. I'll help you build the cities if you do decide to add these. I have a few design idea already.
Possibility of dragons?
I don't know if you've read the book series "Septimus Heap" but there were dragons in it. And these dragons were extremly hard to find. And only 2 humans before the main character of the book had ever found and hatched a dragon. All other dragons were hatched from their respective mothers, but they are next to impossible to tame. These dragons were of course magical, they had special abilities and such that could be used. They also have very special personalities. And they eat alot. They have this one distinctive magical quality where the dragon can transform for it's master. They can only transform once, and can never go back to their original form. One such dragon in the book transformed into a massive ship. It was still a living breathing dragon, and it could fly, but it was a ship. Dragons have been in many tales that involve magic so i think they would be a great feature.
Thats everything i've got. Hope you consider some of these idea and even use some. It'll be awesome if you use all, which i doubt, but still. Ars Magica has been a great mod and still is, and i'm looking forward to whats yet to come. Keep up the good work.
ok, but why does it have to be a multiblock structure though? i hate, when people make things multiblocks, just for the sake of making them multiblocks.
multiblocks are cool, but whats cool about them is, that they are modular. forestry alviaries for example make sense as a multiblock structure, because you can replace some of the blocks with frame housings, mutators, heaters etc. in short, the multiblock changes in functionality according to what blocks youre using in the build.
its also reasonable for multitanks, that hold liquids, simply because it makes sense, that a bigger tank can store more of your stuff, and if you want to insert more valves into your build, to connect more pipes and machines from different sides.
if i want to make my spell creation place look like a big shrine, i can still do so with any decorative blocks, without actually being forced to cramp a huge build into my house, or to use a specific look or build.
I've been playing with Ars Magica for several months combined with ThaumCraft. IMO, this is a ground-breaking mod for wizardly type magic. I like the direction that v2 is headed, so here are some thoughts after playing with v1 for a while. Just as a bit of background, I've been an active board/miniatures/computer/RPG gamer since 1976 during which I've playtested many games (and even designed a few), and a software engineer for 23 years. I'm currently a beta tester for Stonehearth, and providing feedback for several other Kickstarter software games.
Here are some preferences and ideas to facilitate brainstorming. I realize that some of these items may require more time than what you may want to currently invest, but it's fun to think about with the group here.
Discovery/Exploration
I like how AM encourages exploration and examination of the world -- even to the point of providing good uses for the vanilla MC items that are just bling. For example, flowers/dye in vanilla MC are nice to look at, but merely wallpaper items. Now with AM, they are highly sought after. Since the Mo Creatures sharks love to kill the squids, my character jumps into the water to fight for the precious ink sacs. So, finding new uses for items already in the game does not overload the player with tons of new items, and provides for more difficult decisions. Do I use the bonemeal for white runes or to super-grow some precious plant? The economic tension spurs additional decisions and quests that are fun puzzles to solve. Please continue with this type of design.
Progression
I agree with Zabadar's earlier post about progression. First, having a AM guide in-game, like ThaumCraft and Tinkers Construct, is a good mechanism from many aspects. The mod would be more immersive since there would be fewer reasons to jump out of the game to consult a wiki. The guide would not need to give away information, but, like ThaumCraft, reveal what you know and a bit about what you think you know without showing what you do not know. This way, the guide is just that -- it helps guide your direction by encouraging deduction without spoiling the mystery and wonder of discovery. At the same time, the guide provides clues for the next steps for magical research areas, so the player is not blindly wandering the world in frustration, hoping to find anything. As Zabadar said so well, the reason for exploration is to find a few more clues to what you think you know (from the guide) and even discover ideas/items/properties that you have no clue about. This allows progression on desired areas, but also opens up new choices. Items/ideas with partial knowledge at least provide some hints so the player could deduce what they should pursue to complete the research. This will initiate more quests that are more directed, rather than random. Now if other discoveries are made along the way, well, that is okay too. All in all, the semi-directed, but open system allows the game play to be fresh every time, and not just the first time.
I definitely like your idea that AM progression should not steal MC experience away so much that players either have to farm many more mobs or just exercise much more patience is acquiring more levels for MC and AM.
Affinities
The more activities the player is involved with world interaction, the more magical aspects and knowledge they will learn. I wonder if it's too much to take a page from the Skyrim magic system in that there is so much to learn that a player, in one game, would take a very long time to learn everything there is to know about every affinity of magic. That forces players to specialize a bit such that there is something to newly explore in the next game. That also would allow a player to choose between a jack-of-all-magic-trades with a working knowledge of all magic affinities, specialize in one or two, or something between the extremes. Experts in their affinity would receive bonuses which would balance with the jack-of-all-magic-trades. In any case, this would help avoid the uber-mage that cannot be touched by any attack/effect and waltz through the game. Maintaining the fear of dying, losing levels/items is healthy to keep the game fun, IMO.
I like the idea of affinity advantages/disadvantages, as long as they are not major. Significant advantages/disadvantages are harder to balance and it's easier to deliver or receive(!) one-shot kills. I prefer interesting, useful but minor advantages/disadvantages. I do agree that a master of fire would also have a bit of disadvantage with water magic. What you and Zabadar mentioned sounds like a good starting point. The only trick here is how to handle a mage that wants to be a master of an opposite affinity. My opinion, along the lines of what I mentioned above, is to make them choose between diametrically opposed affinity mastery. The player can always specialize differently for their next game. That provides for a fresh gaming experience not just this time but for the next several games as well.
Spell Research/Design
I like your proposal for a magical framework to research/design spells. This, coupled with the guide idea above, allows all kinds of research, exploration/quests, and progression. Since the guide records what you know, what you think you know and (hiding) what you do not know, a mage could single-mindedly pursue a particular research area or several at once. This open, sandbox-like system allows the player to choose their own style of play and experiment with differing play styles. This all helps games unfold in different ways such that the first game not only has amazing discovery, wow! moments, but subsequent games as well with moments of "I did not know you could do THAT". This leads to new ways to play with AM which equals more fun.
Items
Personally, I like that part of the wizardly progression path includes discovering/researching and crafting devices. Personally, I'm a fan of the fabricator. I agree that now it's a bit overpowered, but I would be saddened to see it removed altogether. The fabricator helps mitigate the lack of necessary and/or very good items just because critical resources are scarce. Instead of removing fabrication, why not just make it more expensive in terms of essense and/or crafting materials? Anyway, just my plea to rescue the fabricator from the feature chopping block...
That's all I can think of fow now, and thank you for listening.
Thank you, Mithion, for all the hard work and dedication that went into AM v1! I know that whatever v2 becomes, it's gonna be even more awesome!
Game-Breakers:
We wanted to make a server where survival was actually an issue, but several spells broke any challenge provided by the game or our other mods. Flight in particular made almost any mob encounter (up to and including the Ender Dragon and Wither) completely trivial. Arcane bolt was so effective, so easy to craft, and so easy to cast in augmented form that there was never a need for any other offensive spell.
In addition to the spells, the fabricator and reconstructor were broken. The fabricator because it allowed trivial production of things intended to be rare or expensive, and the reconstructor because it could trivially repair virtually anything, even if it was intended to be an item with limited charges. It's true that this mainly came from interaction with other mods, but in general nobody plays with only one mod, so it's prudent to allow some consideration for them. One example is the ubiquitous Biomes'o'Plenty, which adds some magical staves with 4 charges, and Twilight Forest which adds some other magical items with very few charges. The reconstructor "repairs" these items at virtually no cost, spoiling key features of these very popular mods.
The armors were also broken, and far too easy to craft. They were so powerful that it took an act of very serious stupidity to put yourself in danger wearing it. I can't remember having any reason to enchant or upgrade anything to wear after crafting the mid-tier AM armor, and only upgraded to the master armor for lack of anything else to do. There should be some reason to choose between alternates, or the game just becomes deterministic- a fatal blow for a sandbox game.
In short, if I wanted items on command that would never break, and didn't want to have to worry about the challenges of the world, I'd play on Creative Mode.
Filler Spells
We noticed that a lot of spells just seemed to take up space. Nobody was using any offensive spell other than arcane bolt unless for the sheer novelty of it. Spells that did trivial damage, required very specific environments (e.g. the shields) and spells that harmed the caster more than the enemy were just never used by anybody. The intervention spells were so dangerous to use that they were avoided as well. A variety of spells is great, but when many feel like they're just there to fill out spots in a spreadsheet, it's grating.
Spell Creation
In my personal opinion, this is just a bad idea. It's a neat sort of gadgety feature that encourages creative thinking, but it very quickly makes every aspect of the game a complete cakewalk. The main argument against them is that they just aren't needed. If you are providing a good selection of truly useful spells, there is no reason to let players craft more other than sheer cosmetic value.
Configurability
This is really just an issue I have with most mods - not enough was configurable via config files. You can essentially make your mod (in large part) to be effectively declarative using config files, which makes your job easier as well as making it easier for server ops to customize functionality. A large percentage of the problems we had with the mod could have been fixed with more config ability. Flight too powerful? Disable it. Hecates too hard for your carebear server? Turn them off. Reconstructor works on things it shouldn't? Set it not to work on certain items, or multiply the costs, etc.. The fact is that most configurability is about playing nice with other mods to some extent, which is an inevitable factor.
I hope there's at least something helpful in here, and I'll keep considering it and talk to the people on my server for more thoughts.
I was originally thinking about how the Multiblocks in Ars Magica, i.e. the nexi, can be upgraded, So yes, i was actually thinking about the blocks being replaceable with better ones. Ex. How the Light nexus can have the glass replaced with Gold or Diamond Blocks to speed up the production of power. Similarly, these multiblocks will be very crude in the beginning and will only be able to do so much for the creation of the spells. But through research of the world, and the first few spells and such, you will get a better understanding of how they work, and can then upgrade them to make spell crafting much more stable and less buggy (meaning you are less prone to have horrible accidents from simple things). So basically, trying to work with advanced spells before you have the buildings to contain the magic and keep it from going out of control will have very bad results. The original thought was that you would need different parts, such as a magic barrier(to better protect yourself with), the magic enhancing circle(to make it more stable), energy circle (To make crafting of the spells slightly cheaper and easier in terms of requirements) and the magical book( a block that acts as a recorder. it will record all of your findings and will not be easily destroyed by spells gone wrong. It will be able to hint at next steps for you in what you have to do. The findings it will list can be item specific, affinity specific, or both and will give info about them both. The Book can be removed so that you can view your findings on the go, and record more findings automatically on the go. But it must be put back into the block to be able to record anything from spell creation attempts). None of this stuff will actually be required, but rather, boost your ability to create/breakdown spells safer(less chance of things going wrong), easier(wont have to do extremely massive amounts to do research), and cheaper(wont need to sacrifice/bind/etc as many items to get the desired spell).
I'm sorry i didn't expand further originally, it was late and i was studying for finals at the same time, so it must have slipped my mind. But yeah, that was my original reason for having them be multiblocks.
Anywho, onto my ideas.
I'll split it up into spoilers because you know...organisation.
Leveling System
That being said, there isn't much to do with your Minecraft experience. Its used by mods to some extent but mostly its used to enchant. Not super exciting. My suggestion? We find a happy medium. We give those those little glowing orbs a REAL use but still give would-be Mages the feeling that their actions effect their growth.
How to do this? Simple. Every use of a spell has a chance to increase your Affinity with its corresponding type. Every time you use a Fire Spell, there is a chance your Affinity will shift closer to an Alignment with Fire. If you really wanted to make it dynamic, it could lower your Affinity with its opposite, in this case Water. As your Affinity with a particular element increases it gets less and less likely that a use of a spell will increase it further. This, plus its semi-random nature will discourage players from simply spamming Fireball a set amount of times to get to a desired strength of Affinity. I know I wouldn't do it if I didn't know how long it might take. (This also adds the possibility for enchantments that effect the chance of increasing a specific Affinity.)
But what to do when our Affinity reaches a new level? Why, we go to the Arcane Empowerment Table. Its bigger, better, it has twice as many glowy thingys! Who doesn't want more glowy thingys? Seriously though, once we get to the table, a GUI opens, Showing us our Affinity with each element, and how much experience we have. And what Tiers we have unlocked on which element. Under each Tier has a corresponding number. This represents the level of Affinity we need in order to buy traits from that particular Tier. And we use experience to buy those Traits.
Example:
We only have an Affinity of 12 in Fire. So can only acquire Tier One Fire Traits. The one we want costs five levels of experience. We click it, confirm its what we want, and boom, we loose five levels and that trait is ours now.
This system forces us to choose between getting a better enchant on a weapon, or getting a cool new trait. And there are so many traits you could make!
Fire Starter: Fire based spells cost 5% less to cast. (There could be one in each Tier, with the effects stacking)
Forged in Fire: Take 10% less damage from fire and fire based spells (Again, once in each Tier, with stacking.)
Unquenching Flame: Fire spells can be cast under water.
The Phoenix: Standing in Flames increases your health(or Mana) regeneration.
And that's just a couple for Fire. If you hadn't guessed yet, I'm a fan of Fire Magic
Spell Creation:
Use the basic Runes you already have, but use those to make Runewords. These Runewords could be the spell traits used in the System you described. Say, a couple of the red, a black, and a orange could be "Ignis" the one that gives a spell the ability to set things on fire. (Holy flaming Creepers Batman!) Then you take these Runewords and combine them in whatever device you decide to use as the spell creator. Maybe have different slots for different types of traits. Such as Affinity, spell type (damage, summon, heal, buff), range, ect.
Some Examples:
Chronos: Sets the Duration of a spell to three seconds. And it stacks!
Fuego: Sets the Affinity to Fire.
Venetus: Sets the Spell effect to blue.(Go Go Blue Flames!)
Spatium: Sets the area of effect. (One spatium = 3x3. Two Spatium = 4x4, ect.)
So "Fuego Ignis Ventus Chronos Chronos" Gives us a spell that sets things on fire with blue flames for six seconds(three seconds for each "Chronos"). Or maybe "Fuego Ignis Ventus Spatium Chronos" Sounds like a nifty chant doesn't it. Now you can chant your spells! Maybe add some instability depending on how many Runewords you use. Or just make the spell take longer to cast.
Now, of course you can't know all the Runewords right off the bat. That's where the Research system comes in.
Researching the Awesomeness:
But don't just use the summoning circle. Make Alters as well. Maybe you come across an Alter to some forgotten god out in the wilderness. You could even use the books found throughout the world to tell the Mage how to make a couple different kinds of alters, and how to activate them. By doing a specific action on the alter you may be gifted with an item to research, or even, if your very lucky, the knowledge of a Runeword or Device. These actions could be as simple as offering up a diamond sword, or as weird as sacrificing a farm animal on the alter. Or possible a villager if its an Alter to a Dark God. You could even make these actions dependent on the time of day. And if you don't preform the ritual correctly, something bad might happen. Being randomly teleported somewhere, or maybe have to fight a big bad monster.So many neat possibilities. Though, for balance purposes, the alter would have to either be one time use, take a lot of mana, or have a hefty cooldown time.
You mentioned you wanted to cut down on world gen. I can understand why. I ran into a Mage Tower quite often, and it quickly lost its "wonder" feel. But that doesn't mean you should do away with them entirely. Just make them much rarer. And put a Hostile Mage in each one. Killing the Mage gets you a page from a spell book that can be used to research. Maybe have a chance of a podium with their spell book on it, and researching the spellbook gets you multiple Runewords or Devices.
If you wanted to tie Affinity into research, make it so your more likely to discover devices and Runewords connected to your current Affinity. (maybe another trait you can select at the Arcane Empowerment Table.) Or you could tie some Runewords to your Affinity level, and can only use them if your Affinity was equal or above its requirements.
Again, so many possibilities.
So, there you have it, my twentyfive cents. Cuz who want's just two cents? At least with a quarter, you can get something out of the gumball machine.Edit: I'll think on some energy and artifice ideas tonight.
I also like this idea. It's very reminiscent of Skyrim, and Skyrim got a lot of things right when it comes to character development and leveling. For example, someone may be good with fire magic just because they frequently practice it, but that does not mean they truly understand it like someone who invests research/experience/level points to unlock aspects, etc. Spending experience should provide minor extra perks that can build up (stack and/or complement) as the character invests in that affinity of magic.
Most likely it will (just from my experience with mods) since hes doing a complete rewrite most things will break and they can't be helped.
I feel that making the spells have multiple steps necessary to cast spells a little to cumbersome. For example if there is a creeper coming right towards you you dont want to have to flip though 5 different things in order to cast one spell. IMO i think the spell casting is fine the way it is
Happiness is like peeing in your pants, everyone sees it but only you feel its warmth.
Also, try to keep the world gen non-repetitive. The same tower three times in one exploratory venture is a bit dull.
P.S. if you want some more towers, PM me, and I will send you some schematics