Annoying death magic

[customer717]

Lots of death magic is really cool, but for the love of all that is unholy why must my mages spam what they spam?!?

I absolutely dread researching the raise blank skills (enchantment?). Sometimes I like them and I want to go for that, but other times I want to be able to use something else. I feel like it is a waste to research anything else once I have researched the raise spells as that is all the spell AI seems to want to cast.

How bout a shadow bolt or some terror Mr.AI? No? Okay keep spamming raise dead even though I have 400 skeletons already that are stuck against a wall and being destroyed by arrows and priests...sigh.

And decay. I HATE decay. Once I have that and a raise spell, forget it, thats ALL they will do. What makes it worse is I never see decay do anything other than make my mages useless. I keep checking the numbers on the guy they are spamming, but his protection and defense stay the same.

I know I can give specific spell commands, but it seems a bit iffy. Sometimes they do what I tell them, sometimes not. Even if they do, I will only get 5 spells I want, then they are back to raise/ decay mode. I wish I could tell them which spells NOT to use. I would like to erase decay from every spellbook save one mage per battle. Or be able to tell them not to raise as I already have enough troops and rather need more direct offensive casting.

Am I doing something wrong or is this just the way of things?

[Kryx]

I think we all agree that a commander-per-commander DON'T CAST/DO X would be nice. That seems like a temperate enough suggestion that I also would agree.

[Arryn]

This issue has had numerous debates over the past 2+ months ...

As a piece of friendly advice (to both of you), might I suggest that you do topic searches before creating new threads? It helps to avoid umpteen different threads asking the same questions and getting the same answers.

[Kryx]

Oh, sorry I do tend to start a lot of threads/answer ones with few answers.

[SurvivalistMerc]

I actually think it's useful to find folks start new topics on issues like this with their own words.

Because it lets the devs know that this is something for which there is a perceived need for change. And orders "don't do x" don't seem that difficult to implement to me from a programming perspective.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by SurvivalistMerc:
I actually think it's useful to find folks start new topics on issues like this with their own words.

They can still use their own words in existing threads. And using existing threads avoids much confusion.

[Aikamun]

The issue of Do / Don't Cast lists comes down to game balance. Mages, backed by just moderate research levels, would be immensely more powerful. The recruitment costs of mages would need to be raised proportionally to their new powers.

Aikamun

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Aikamun:
The issue of Do / Don't Cast lists comes down to game balance. Mages, backed by just moderate research levels, would be immensely more powerful. The recruitment costs of mages would need to be raised proportionally to their new powers.

I strongly disagree with both it being a balance issue and with mages needing to cost more if it's changed.

It's a design flaw/oversight, technically. The devs only have so much time to create stuff, and to fix bugs. When they built the system, they (being a very small team of 2) didn't have the resources (time, etc.) to plan for every contingency and code accordingly. They implemented AI-driven combat spellcasting code that is one notch above basic. The only "frill" is a 5-order queue. Extra niceties like exclude lists, or a UI with enabling checkboxes they simply didn't have time for (assuming they had the idea in the first place). Therefore odd things happen during combat. No one in their right mind would intentionally design code that would spam useless spells. And to say that mages should cost more after this is fixed implies the system works as intended. Hardly. The devs have already stated that spell-spamming is not intended behavior for the combat AI. The current costs of mages assumes the combat AI casts spells rationally, which isn't the present situation.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by customer717:
How bout a shadow bolt or some terror Mr.AI? No? Okay keep spamming raise dead even though I have 400 skeletons already that are stuck against a wall and being destroyed by arrows and priests...sigh.

How far from any enemies are your mages. Terror is range 25, shadow bolt is 30. They won't necessarily even be able to hit any enemies if your mages are at the very back, so they will cast other spells.

And decay. I HATE decay. Once I have that and a raise spell, forget it, thats ALL they will do. What makes it worse is I never see decay do anything other than make my mages useless. I keep checking the numbers on the guy they are spamming, but his protection and defense stay the same.

Have you made any attempt to figure out what decay does? If it hits the target, and they fail a magic resistance check, then they will die unless they are regenerating. You mages will also cast decay if their fatigue and death skill is high to prevent them from going unconscious.

I think many complaints about spellcasting come from people that haven't put enough effort into figuring out why their mages cast the spells they cast.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
I think many complaints about spellcasting come from people that haven't put enough effort into figuring out why their mages cast the spells they cast.

This is likely true. However ...

A mage spamming Body Ethereal 6 times in a row, while within range of other spells, *is* a bug. As is a mage casting Air Shield when it is already protected with Air Blessing 10, or when there are no enemies on the field that are capable of launching missiles.

The problem is legitimate, regardless of the competency of some new (or even old) players.

EDIT: oh, and if a mage is too far for any useful spells, then the AI should simply DO NOTHING (and avoid spell fatigue) rather than cast useless spells.

[ March 02, 2004, 01:56: Message edited by: Arryn ]