Mists of Deception -- exploit??

[Edi]

It's the same issue.

Whether an enchantment is autocast by an artifact (Heat from Hell (Unquenched Sword), Solar Brilliance (Forbidden Light), Will of the Fates (Aurgelmer's Sword) or a regular item (Banner of the Northern Star) or a mage or the autocast being the property of a certain monster (Darkness for Mandaha etc), this bug tends to manifest the same way, i.e. enchantment stays in effect even if source leaves battlefield.

[K]

I don't think this is a bug, but a feature.

At that level of play, if all spells dropped when the caster left then you'd rarely see a use for battlefield enchantments like this. This level of play is so deadly that most battlefield spells rarely are as effective as just having one mage casting blasting spells, so nerfing them further would be to nerf them out of play.

[Endoperez]

It's only a question of keeping a mage alive. There's no way to target the one mage who cast a battlefield spell, so it wouldn't be any more dangerous than having that mage cast blasting spells. Their effects end if a mage dies, but if he doesn't, they can be used to great effect, while blast spells provide quick results, but usually affect much fewer enemies at a time.

[Edi]

K said:
I don't think this is a bug, but a feature.

At that level of play, if all spells dropped when the caster left then you'd rarely see a use for battlefield enchantments like this. This level of play is so deadly that most battlefield spells rarely are as effective as just having one mage casting blasting spells, so nerfing them further would be to nerf them out of play.

It just so happens that we have Kristoffer on record being surprised that battlefield enchantments did not end when the caster left the battle and saying this should not happen, so it's a confirmed major bug.

[Chris_Byler]

If you can end a global by killing the caster, you should be able to end a battlefield enchantment the same way, IMO (and for item-autocast spells, by killing the item's wielder). Retreating is a bit more of a grey area, but because of this type of exploit, I think it's better to not allow battlefield enchantments by a retreater to stay in effect. (Call Horror x4, Returning is still ok though - once they get rid of the horrors the battle will end.)

[K]

And Kris O. is also famous for saying that he doesn't know every feature of the game unless he goes back and looks at the source code.... and thats not surprising, considering that he's the content developer and the other guy does most or all of the programming.

But back to the discussion:

Killing one mage is really easy in the late game. You send in a few high HP mages to cast battle field-destroying magics, and the anyone with merely human mages loses (which is the vast majority of nations).

At least if the spells don't leave the battlefield, then everyone tends to die (meaning that its a costly tactic for attacker and defender).

[Velusion]

This whole discussion comes as news to me. Casting battlefield enchants and running away is a relatively common tactic in MP games... I've used it many times and had it used against me.

Because the spells function the way they are described (they say the caster has to die to cancel the spell) I'm not sure why people assumed this was a bug in the first place...

[Jazzepi]

The concern, if I've read it right, is that mist of deceptions continues to stay around even after all the mages are gone AND enemy army. So you can string Mist of Deceptions + any battlefield wide nuker/disabler together ridiculous army crippling combos.

For example.

You could teleport in a mage with a staff of storms cast mist of deception, teleport him out with returning, while another mage teleports in at the same time with the solar brilliance item and casts returning as well. Until the 50 turn limit comes up, and your enemy's units route, they're forced to run around the battlefield attacking the Mist of Deceptions units. While this is happening, the secondary enchantment is devastating their entire army.

So basically you've turned two mages into an unstoppable army killing machine. The staff of storms prevents anyone from flying to their location, so the only way you're going to kill them is if it you have a bunch of guys set to slay soul near the front of your army.

To me, this is an exploit. These battlefield wide enchantments are clearly suppose to be balanced by two things.

1. They go away when the caster dies, which implies 2.
2. You have to have a big enough army to sit around and die while the other army is riddled with afflictions/dies to the enchantment.

Since you're eliminating both of the drawbacks by abusing the way the battles end, and actually making them better with the returning (the casters can do this strategy EVERY TURN as they're returned to a province with a lab), I'd definitely call it an exploit.

Jazzepi

[Velusion]

Jazzepi said:
The concern, if I've read it right, is that mist of deceptions continues to stay around even after all the mages are gone AND enemy army. So you can string Mist of Deceptions + any battlefield wide nuker/disabler together ridiculous army crippling combos.

For example.

You could teleport in a mage with a staff of storms cast mist of deception, teleport him out with returning, while another mage teleports in at the same time with the solar brilliance item and casts returning as well. Until the 50 turn limit comes up, and your enemy's units route, they're forced to run around the battlefield attacking the Mist of Deceptions units. While this is happening, the secondary enchantment is devastating their entire army.

So basically you've turned two mages into an unstoppable army killing machine. The staff of storms prevents anyone from flying to their location, so the only way you're going to kill them is if it you have a bunch of guys set to slay soul near the front of your army.

To me, this is an exploit. These battlefield wide enchantments are clearly suppose to be balanced by two things.

1. They go away when the caster dies, which implies 2.
2. You have to have a big enough army to sit around and die while the other army is riddled with afflictions/dies to the enchantment.

Since you're eliminating both of the drawbacks by abusing the way the battles end, and actually making them better with the returning (the casters can do this strategy EVERY TURN as they're returned to a province with a lab), I'd definitely call it an exploit.

Jazzepi

There is going to be a problem enforcing this in MP play though if we actually consider this an exploit. So now are we saying you can't script retreat/return and use any sort of battle field wide spell??? Our only options are to commit our mages completely to the battle if we cast em?

P.S. In your example I didn't think you could teleport into on ongoing battle.

[Evilhomer]

Perhaps just ban mists of deception until this issue is resolved.