What I mean is that the areas are devided into segements that give basically bonuses or negative bonuses. It is a hidden layer of the areamap.
@Vaipen
Bees have hexagonal mapped eye-cells and they construct their honey combs similarly consequently.
Your idea of a hidden matrix is classic in game design and while squares seem to be a favourite for easy programming, hexagons have been used when radial symmetry was critically necessary.
In fact, hexagons are the crudest circles and they fit perfectly and seamlessly in a plane, so I guess that hexagons should be your best choice.
However, I would like to know why would a square tile be less than appropriate for implementing your idea concerning a “land-magic-value”?
If you realise that the land graphics was laid out as square tiles then would it not be more appropriate to assign a magic value to the same tile of graphics visible by the player to give an indicator of the type of spell most appropriate to use from that tile and onto another tile?
To give you an example of what I mean, I think that using the spell of thunderbolt in swamps would be perfectly effective due to electric conductivity of the ground.
Similarly, casting fire balls or magma bolts on arid and dry ground in dungeons that have cracks through which the red lava is showing would be fabulous as well.
So your idea is like as if the magician would really harness the available powers of nature in that place and concentrating it and directing it at the enemy.
Such an idea does not demand octagons or hexagons but demands an identical tile frame that coincides with that used for laying out graphic features of the terrain.
Kindest regards.
The reason I like hexagons is because squares have only 4 adjacent squares. In my original posy i may not have been clear on this. What I like is that when you are on a hexagon you draw energy from it. But it would be silly to 'gobgle' up all the mana in the land. So what I would like to see in that case is that in a circle around you you also draw that mana to you; the more powerful the mage, the bigger the circle. It seems silly to have a mage draw mana to him from 4 sides only. That is why i would make them hexagons. That way you can more easily as you say, do the circle thing.
I would make it 5 sides like a pentagram. But err...can you do that? Pentagons? Do you get empty spaces then? Well, even that would not be uncool. Places where there is no magic. I like the pentagon idea because it represents the 5 elements. It also provides options for the interface cause if you want to see what power you have in each elemental energy you can show a pentagram with its 5 'spikes' representing your power.
And so things would fit together. A harmonious whole from interface to the magic systems used.
Your idea about indicators is a cool idea. I see a spell or skill where you click on a piece of land and then a gauge appears in a colour asociated with that segment. But in my vision when you are in a wooded land most adjacent segments will have earth energy embedded in them. Now if you have an evil shrine or a dark tree I suppose that gauge would not be green but show that it is a dark spot. So yes, could very well be an option. I think the possibilities to show what sort of land you are walkin on is endless; it could be a map that pops up, a gauge with colours, a glow effect as an overlay of the land...that would be up to the developpers and it involves the limitations of the programmers and if it is too graphical intense or it might just not look good. In that case the simple options are best, say, the gauge or map popup.
I prefer the gauge then cause that way you dont have annoying popups and you can click on land as oftena s you will as gauges come up instea dof your pointer.
For the rest you give an example of thunderbolt. I had the same reasoning. Spells are affected by the magical energy embedded to the limits of the mana available in that hexagon and depending on the power of the mage, the adjacent hexagons.
A thunderbolt by a level 7 wizard e.g. will have a power of 100 if no mana is tapped from the land. The mage uses his own resources. Remember that I have 5 elements that you gain XP for independantly. You also have an overall energy level that increases as you level up. So E+F+W+A= Total Power in Mana. That total power is how much energy of these elements you can channel. So envision in your mind a screen with 1 BIG gauge and 5 smaller ones.
Okay so you do your thunderbolt for 100 mana untapped. This sounds a lot like Magic: The Gathering but I assure you, the resemblance is superficial.
Now when you tap the swamp which I would think gives you 25 water mana and 25 earth, your level however allows you to only tap 50% of that total. So you use your skill and tap 12,5 water, 12,5 earth mana = 25 mana. That gets you a total of 125 in power for your spell. You can ONLY use that mana for this thunderbolt! Because your ideas was that water and electricity combine and allow for a thunderbolt. I would think electricity is air but this is just an example.
I suppose this would be best explained in a small table.
So, let's get out of the example and elevate ourselves to the system. Each land segment has these hidden stats, I don't lkike it to be random because you can actually plot quests a lot better and balance the game better. What if you need to travel to a cabin in the swamp and the air is poisenous! In your quest the NPC gets you this breathing scroll that allows you to make apocket of fresh air. Now you travel to the cabin and you cast the scroll and u use up all the mana in that path you walk on, when the magic runs out you recast and have just arely enough mana to move on. Stopping will be the death of you. A challenge!
Like this the options are endless. Imagine fighting a terrible foe and he can be defeated only by 1250 mana used in spells in total power but the only available earth mana in the ground gets you in that enclosed area 800. You need to rely on ...well, fill in .....magical items that do damge for 200, a mana potion for 400. That gets you 1400 mana, which is enough.
The more I think about this system, the mlore complex you can make it, the more ideas I get!
Your have grasped my idea well when you said that you harness the magical energy in the land.
What I dislike is that magic is so linear. That is why I use 5 elements. This way, by seperating the exp. gained in each element you really have to plan ahead what sort of mage you want to be. It will alos mean that at certain points in the game certain enemies cannot be defeated unless you use magical enhanced weapons, e.g. a fire demon will be deafeated using water spell yet if you did not utilise water mana a lot you have little exp. in that element and as such the power of your water spells is insignificant. So then you buy your 'Rain Blade' and voila! A chance...but still a chance.
What you also get is 5 different potions. Not blue flasdks for mana. You have flasks in shapes and sizes for each element.
So to summarise, as you gain experience for each element, the accumulated power you can wield is shown by a Big Gauge. It is the adding up of the 5 elements. You gain exp. per element. The more you use a spell of an element, the more exp you gain in that element thus the more energy you will be able to channel.
Thanks everyone for their interest! It is very inspiring!
