[General] Article: Five Types of Power (game dev)

[Nestharus]

Concept of power- life force, mana, and physical power (stamina, strength, etc). Can be used for RPG games : D. I think this concept would be quite interesting in an MMORPG. It'd be very likely that the dark arts would be outlawed and things like necromancers would be especially targeted by everybody (understandable as to why, as people would lose their characters and necromancers would be extremely dangerous). This also falls in line with traditional fantasy (undead hordes, extreme power of dark magic w/ pain involved, extreme power of holy magic but only few can use, etc).

By trying to explain the process behind each thing, it allows one to better emulate traditional aspects of fantasy magic in a game =).

Type 1: physical
Physical power is used for things like physical attacks, running, walking, and etc. It involves things like strength and stamina. With physical training comes more physical power.

Type 2: borrowed magic
Borrowed magic borrows the power of something else. For example, holy magic might borrow power from a god, and that god might act as a conduit for all of the believers (more believers in a sect means more power total). From here, select few can pretty much perform astonishing miracles far beyond what anyone could ever do. However, this would of course require permission from the god as well as great support from a large community.

Type 3: ordinary magic
Every individual is a battery and contains a set of mana. The more mana one holds, the more powerful spells one can cast. They slowly (very slowly) recharge over time. For example, a grand arch mage might only be able to cast one extreme spell in a very long period of time. In fantasy, a lot of magicians generally conserve their magic, and when they cast a major spell, they might not be able to do so again for another 10 years (if they had an asinine mana pool).

Type 4: dark magic
Dark magic works on both life force and mana. The life force acts as a catalyst for the mana, meaning much less mana is required to cast extremely powerful spells. A small bit of life force is equal to a much larger amount of mana. However, life force can never be regained. Many dark magicians might sacrifice others or steal life force away from others to fuel their own spells. Some don't use mana at all (mana isn't necessary for these types of spells). Dark magicians, when using their own life force, age rapidly and go through intense pain with every spell, but they are able to cast much more powerful spells than regular magicians. Mana is typically used to drain the life force of others, and then the life force is used for actual spell casting. Mana can also be drained for others, but draining mana is pretty much useless as life gives much more power with much less effort. Many dark magicians might use a small fraction of the life force they drain from another to raise that other person to be one of the undead (hence necromancers, a very formidable art).

Type 5: borrowed dark magic
Dark magic combined with borrowed magic (a god working off of the pain and hatred of its followers) can lead to especially cataclysmic events. Liches act as conduits for their hoards of undead creatures. They take the mana from those undead creatures so that they might have power rivaling that of a god with little to no loss (as mana will recharge over time). This is what makes facing something like a lich virtually impossible. The few dark gods have very few followers, but even with so few followers have power well beyond what some of the greatest gods have.

 

[chenlimin]

does this really belong here?

 

[Nestharus]

sure does

you can generally post articles on system concepts and what not here =). This would be for magic.

 

[RLstorm]

didnt read all but how about idea factory ?

 

[Nestharus]

I always thought idea factory was for map ideas, like footmen wars ; P

This is more of a system idea

->Have a map idea that you are unsure of? Get opinions about your idea in here or toss out your map ideas for others to use.

edit
Also, the actual act of casting spells is still under a lot of scrutiny (like 4 different possible techniques atm) =). Unsure of which is the most suitable for game play right now =P, there's been quite a bit of debate on the different ones.

 

[RLstorm]

Is it idea ? yes.
What idea factory is for ? ideas.
(same logic as: )
(nietzsche is dead)
(god is dead )
(nietzsche is god )

 

[Nestharus]

If you look at the sticky
->Here you can tell about your map idea(s) which are not yet in development and get usefull feedback on them. You can also share your idea(s) in here for others to use.

It implies map ideas. If you look at the majority of threads, they are map ideas =).

If you look at the history of World Editor Help Zone, system ideas have been posted into it, not the idea factory. It might make more sense to post any idea into the idea factory, but system ideas have traditionally been posted into the world editor help zone as designing usually occurs from it (people giving opinions on how to write it, syntax, etc).


That's how it's been ^)^.

 

[Pharaoh_]

Looks nice, but I spotted some stuff:

a) Borrowed Magic: This type of force is too pretentious, it looks like a situational kind of assistance and its identity is only conceptual (magic gained through quests, etc.); functionally, it does not differ from Ordinary Magic, at all.

b) Ordinary Magic: More mana equals greater power (damage). You could add the feature of "concentration", that lets the character perform a spell, but the power is concentration dependent, so that the mana pool is nothing more but a spectrum of values, 100 mana, 120 mana, etc. Although the concept of 10 years-delay sounds nice in lorecrafts, it's hard to implement in a game that you will be playing for a maximum of 5 hours. Unless the RPG holds some feature of fast forward to time or the night cycles really fast, then it will be nothing more but annoying.

c) Dark Arts:
Combined with the feature of concentration I suggested, the magician is able to cast the spell via their mana pool with a casting time of e.g. 5 for the Incarnation ability. When the caster sacrifices their own life force, you will be noticing a really huge difference in casting times, from 5 seconds to 1. So, it will help the player decide which case they prefer in various circumstances: powerful spell and low casting time, but lower life or mid-powerful spell and highest possible casting time with life pool stable?

d) Borrowed Dark Magic:
One thing I never liked in Warcraft 3 is how they let the Undead race have mana; Undead are supposed to be the corpses of previous forms of life or beings of ethereal substance, most likely with lower intelligence than the living. But Warcraft III introduces an agility and cunning spirit in these beings. If they had to 'sacrifice' something, it should be part of their existance, they lie between existance and non-existance anyway, they are objects of energy, so, the energy wasted for one spell or another would lead to wasted energy off their substance. As a concept, each spell would partially raise the transparency of theirs, to state the decay of their matter, until they vanish completely (= removed from the game).
I think Borrowed Dark Magic is redundant, it follows the classic holy vs. dark line, every fantasy game hosts as a concept.

 

[Nestharus]

a) I was thinking of borrowed magic as something to explain magic used from gods

b) I was thinking more along the lines of 48 hours for extremely large mana pools to regenerate

c) Actually, using a good magic system, casting time is entirely based on how fast the player actually casts the spell as well as the complexity of the spell. More complex spells have greater mana efficiency (can't just focus mass energy into a small boom or you'll lose tons of it). This idea also works off of items for different amounts of mana (staffs can channel more mana, but leak more (20% loss for the best), hands can channel infinite, but have like 95% loss, and wands might have 10% loss for the best but can handle much less than a staff, etc).

d) I thought of the same idea, but an undead being isn't really dead, it's sort of an unlife. For example, a vampire is undead and it gets its energy by renewing its blood from the living. In this way, the undead would indeed have mana, although whether that mana actually recharges or not is uncertain. A possible source of mana would be eating flesh from the living? Etc... in this way, a Lich could puts its minions to sleep while they wouldn't be doing anything to conserve energy, gather energy by attacking others, and etc... also notice how the undead in every case work off of life force (draining blood, eating flesh, etc)... so the undead would not have mana, but rather a variable life force that continues to decay until it is renewed. Because life force has so much more energy than mana, they don't have to renew it very often, and by lots of renewal can become explosively powerful. As most undead things are controlled by something else, the controller takes the majority of that energy.