Might & Magic X Project Update (September 2011)

The role-playing games (I-X) that started it all and the various spin-offs (including Dark Messiah).
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MMXAlamar
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Unread postby MMXAlamar » 15 Sep 2011, 18:34

I'm working on getting more generic races developed. Males as well, since most of our completed characters are females. At the end of development, whichever characters we choose to keep will be in a complete set, including the new races.

We will consider making common spells much more available and advanced spells harder to come by. This can be accomplished by a probability system that is scaled towards making common spells (including books and scrolls) remain common, and rare spells very hard to come by. We can also make the promotion quests very challenging so the player will truly earn the reward along with the promotion.

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GreatEmerald
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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 15 Sep 2011, 20:42

The promotion quests in MM7 were already very challenging, I don't think that needs to be increased any further, since they hinder development by quite a bit. MM6 was a lot more flexible in that regard, the promotions weren't that difficult and you could develop every character as you saw fit. It was a little too open, in my opinion, but it wasn't limiting, and in my opinion that is a good thing. And speaking of difficulty, it often annoys me that difficult quests can be essentially cheated through by just running away from everyone (especially MM8, Hawthorne quest and getting to the dragons), so that should be avoided.

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Panda Tar
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Unread postby Panda Tar » 15 Sep 2011, 21:11

GreatEmerald wrote:The promotion quests in MM7 were already very challenging, I don't think that needs to be increased any further, since they hinder development by quite a bit.
Perhaps the late promotion quests, because the first promotion quests were a bit unleveled. In MM7, for example, for a Ranger to become Hunter, all you had to do was visiting the guy in Turalean, then going to Avlee, and then only enter the small dungeon to find the Fairy King. Too easy, right? Whilst you had to kill a blue dragon to become a cavalier, or steal that vase within the manor (with all those master of sword protecting it) to become a thief, or gathering all golem parts to become a wizard (and realize you need to click on the NPC and assemble yourself...:rolleyes:). You can do all of those with extreme ease after some experience, so I mean for first time players, ok? ;) They are very unbalanced if compared in difficulty between themselves, but when we compare the effectiveness of that character after promotion amongst their general value on the party, it's another matter. When you become a priest, for example, you'll be able to cast Master Body/Spirit/Mind spells, which is a huge boost, such as becoming a Wizard (only the fly spell makes all effort worth). So, balancing these two issues, a good level of difficulty for promotional quest may be clearer, mostly regarding magicians skills. What do you think?
"There’s nothing to fear but fear itself and maybe some mild to moderate jellification of bones." Cave Johnson, Portal 2. :panda:

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Aether_Wind
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Unread postby Aether_Wind » 15 Sep 2011, 23:57

Making higher level spells show up in shops less often makes it just feel more like luck (which it essentially is). I definitely agree that higher tier spells should be more difficult to obtain, but perhaps there could be a quest to unlock certain level spells, e.g. gaining ranks in a guild in order to get access to higher spells. Another option is to make a repeatable quest that must be completed every time a player wants to get the spellbook (essentially a trial of some sort). Naturally, this would make it easier to get at higher levels, but it makes sense that a higher level character would more easily be able to obtain a powerful spell than a low level. Anyway, just thoughts on the mechanic. Whatever the final product, I'm sure it will be good~

EDIT:
As far as help, I'm a software engineer by trade, so I'd be glad to help in what small way I could, though we've got the Beta of our language coming up in December, so probably not until after that ;|

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Unread postby MMXAlamar » 16 Sep 2011, 01:25

OK here's what I've gathered so far:

-For promotion quests, Tier 1 quests will be of medium difficulty, and Tier 2 quests will be of hard difficulty (Tier 2 is the final promotion level.)
-Balance promotion quests with class benefits.
-Grand Master spells will be extremely hard to obtain (the equivalent of an artifact or relic), Master spells will be rare, Expert, uncommon, and Basic, common. This goes for both spell books and spell scrolls.

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MMXAlamar
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Unread postby MMXAlamar » 16 Sep 2011, 01:26

@Aether_Wind

We'd love to work with you! Please return when you're more available :)

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Panda Tar
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Unread postby Panda Tar » 16 Sep 2011, 02:28

MMXAlamar wrote: -Grand Master spells will be extremely hard to obtain (the equivalent of an artifact or relic), Master spells will be rare, Expert, uncommon, and Basic, common. This goes for both spell books and spell scrolls.
Are there unique spells? Anything that you actually cannot learn but you can find a scroll with it?
"There’s nothing to fear but fear itself and maybe some mild to moderate jellification of bones." Cave Johnson, Portal 2. :panda:

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MMXAlamar
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Unread postby MMXAlamar » 16 Sep 2011, 11:25

Panda Tar wrote:
MMXAlamar wrote: -Grand Master spells will be extremely hard to obtain (the equivalent of an artifact or relic), Master spells will be rare, Expert, uncommon, and Basic, common. This goes for both spell books and spell scrolls.
Are there unique spells? Anything that you actually cannot learn but you can find a scroll with it?
We actually haven't laid out all of the spells/schools yet, but that's a pretty good idea you have. The only non-learnable spell I can think of in M&M is Ritual of the Void. Maybe we'll have a unique Ritual of the Night scroll that your Sorcerer will need to become a Lich. Maybe there could be others too!

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Unread postby GrayFace » 18 Sep 2011, 15:41

I completely agree with Aether_Wind. Getting master spells already has a lot of luck involved, especially in MM8. I also wanted to propose quests that grant access to spells of higher levels. There should be something deterministic instead of probability.
As for grand spells as artifacts, it makes sense. Obviously, they won't be sold in magic shops at all, right?
My patches: MM6 MM7 MM8. MMExtension. Tools. Also, I love Knytt Stories and Knytt Underground. I'm also known as sergroj.

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MMXAlamar
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Unread postby MMXAlamar » 19 Sep 2011, 02:45

GrayFace wrote:I completely agree with Aether_Wind. Getting master spells already has a lot of luck involved, especially in MM8. I also wanted to propose quests that grant access to spells of higher levels. There should be something deterministic instead of probability.
As for grand spells as artifacts, it makes sense. Obviously, they won't be sold in magic shops at all, right?
Good ideas grayface! We might make a few questlines based on certain magic schools. basically you would go to the institution and learn spells as you go through quests.

It should be very exciting!

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Aether_Wind
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Unread postby Aether_Wind » 19 Sep 2011, 06:48

Grand spells as artifacts seems totally reasonable, though would the book still be consumed? On the one hand, yes, these spells are supposed to be *really* good, and typically I think it won't be too significant. However, if you make a party of clerics, it's going to be really difficult to get all of them. There's definitely an argument for both ways. I do think that there should be *some* luck involved in getting grands, but it's a matter of how much.

Also, I was tossing the quests unlocking spells idea with a friend, and there are a number of different ways to do it. One idea that I thought was pretty good was to have a pool of quests that can be chosen from (by the game, not the player). That way it wouldn't necessarily be so repetitive if you wanted to get the same spell multiple times, and it would make replaying a bit more interesting. It would mean more work, and likely that on a given playthrough a player wouldn't see more than one or two of them, but I think that the benefit of having a sense of variety and change in the game would be worth it

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MMXAlamar
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Unread postby MMXAlamar » 19 Sep 2011, 15:22

We're going to make all of the quests available to everyone. There will however be exclusive quests much like the good/evil threads in MM7. We're going to call them Order and Chaos.

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Unread postby nutman » 01 Oct 2011, 09:20

HI, is good to see the project is still going but these posts we are seeing about what will go in the game etc are posts we were seeing 3 years or so ago. Why start with a new engine - stick with what you have. The screenshots that vector posted ages ago looked very good, might and magic is about the gameplay, not the latest graphics. By the way is Vector still the team leader as I havn't seen any posts from him for a while?

Anyway keep up the hard work and please post some screenshots.
cheers
Nutman

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MMXAlamar
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Unread postby MMXAlamar » 01 Oct 2011, 15:38

Thanks nutman!

Vector is still the team leader, and why we're changing engines is because Horizon, our old engine, is over a generation old and too much of a hassle to program.


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