> The design should allow for a lot of spells if other authors want to create those (for their own packs) though.

It's more of a game design point. At some point we will have to say "put one in, take one out". I mean, we could still end up with a different selection of spells for each scenario, even though I would generally advise against that as well.

Hmm, you name only pros of the magic system, also I fear we are at cross-purposes because:

>-a normal menu has the same disadvantage and, in addition, the way to some spells is longer than to others (for the mouse)
>-a ring menu has a constant time that is needed between opening the menu, getting feedback of where the spells are (since the position in the ring menu changes with the available spells in a scenario) and selecting the spell - if you want to be able to cast the spells fast you would have to memorize their position at the start of each scenario
>-most players in CR use the combo system

So I need to add my point of view. I was not talking about the combo system in specific but the magic system in general. Of course, the combo system solves some of the issues the original magic system had, but the sole fact that the mana-menu-magic system had big problems in it's design that somehow had to be tackled, should be a reason to distance oneself from the original idea of the magic system.

Where the magic system came from and what it has become

The original CP magic system was designed to only have some limited amount of more or less useful spells with almost no direct attack spells. Therefore the time to select a spell was not high and there was normally also no reason to be as fast as possible at it. Over time, and this is IMO typical for the community-driven development during Clonk shareware times, more and more spells were added, also containing attack and defence spells, generally spells that had to be cast fast. By doing this, the original concept of the magic in CP was distorted as it was just not working any more: The normal magic menu had become useless in the game. When Sven implemented the combo magic system, it was essentially a crutch to deal with this issue. Consider this metaphor:

Imagine your CR clonk had an unlimited inventory and he can theoretically use any item there is in the world. While running around, he just needs to spend some gold (or not at all, by rule) to have this item appear in his hand. Let it be a tera flint, a construction kit, a monster egg, a bow and arrows,... anything. At the same time, he can also do magic, but he needs to pick up a spell at his base and can only use it once. Because of the sheer mass of items the clonk can summon and because of the nature of their application (fighting), he needs those items fast and a normal menu will just not suffice any more when there are more than just a few items to select from. So a system of combinations of numbers is introduced. You just need to memorize the corresponding number for a particular item, for example "114" for the tera flint, type it in and you are ready to go. Sounds familiar?

By turning it around, I want to show some of the inherent design weaknesses about the (combo) magic system. First of all, the magic turned out to be parallel to the standard system of items. It is a completely different concept of controlling your clonk, fighting/acting in the world and at the same time, it is just better than anything else. It's like a cheat-mode and that's also my impression of the many (league) scenarios there are for the combo magic system: When I watch people playing Etagenkampf, a scenario that takes full advantage of the combo magic system, it doesn't look like clonk, it feels like Street Fighter II played with combos only , one of the dragonball scenarios or Clonk Matrix. I must confess, I never played one of these scenarios because I don't have the patience to memorize all those number combinations, yet this is the only way to use the system in a battle that is fast enough.

Different design foundations in OC

Now in OC, we have a more powerful item system. It is not so limited any more as in C4-CR. You can carry a lot more tools and weapons and use them faster. The item system is simple and fast to use and easy to learn. What you suggest now is to introduce another item, that can be used in 100 different ways (when there are 100 spells). An item, that can theoretically do anything and replace each and every other tool but at the same time needs special controls and the player needs to memorize combos to make it even possible to practically be able to use it. That does not only sound, but is absolutely unbalanced. What reason is there to have that item not in the inventory? You yourself wanted to make the shield weaker to make it more balanced. How does this go together with (essentially) a cheat-item like this? (Rhetorical question)
I don't like the direction into which this project would go if this is implemented. I made great efforts to create an easy to use and yet powerful control system that got rid of all those complicated double-left-down-throw, double-down-left-right controls that was one of the biggest points about clonk that were criticized by critics. If the combo system gets reimplemented like this, we didn't learn anything.

Conclusion

The only place I can imagine such a specific, yet powerful and complicated to use item is in an extra pack or extra scenario but IMO it very much conflicts with the current balancing and game mechanics as well as the current controls.

See also: Alas statement.

> If you have another idea that also fulfills the needs while actually being more newbie friendly, feel free to open a discussion about it - nothing is carved in stone at this point.

Without reading the Rest of this thread, here it is:
Just a simple taught, a great difference between OpenClonk, and all the old Clonks is the usage of the mouse. So why don't use, kind of mousegestures to cast spells. As a player you have a staff, like a normal weapon in your hand. The staff only contains a few spells, that are all kind of related with each other, for example three ice-spells. While playing you press the mouse, and move it in radial direction. This will cause, for example the frostbolt (ger: frostbolzen), when you move your mouse in circumference direction it will cause an other spell, maybe a iceshield, that vanishes after a short time. So you can cast your spells fast and intuitive. An important aspect is that there is a length of the way of your mouse, this could be an input for the strength of the spell and how many mana it will use. The distance to your clonk can be used as well, so to evoke the shield it will use up more mana the more far it is away. Alternatively you can use the x and y axis - maybe for other kinds of spells.
Additive to moving your mouse you can just click on a point. This could be used for more tool-like spells, for example heating which melts ice to water, stone to lava, sets trees on fire, and hurts clonks, or freezing water to ice, lava to stone and freezing clonks for a moment. Here you can't use the way to power up your spell, but the time. So you aim on a rock, click and wait (the stronger you are, the faster it works), first you just melt a little area, like a pixel, then 5 pixels, then more, and more, so that you get an expanding circle around your pointer. The bigger the circle is, the more time it takes to expand, and the more mana it will use. Here the distance to your clonk is important for the power and usage of mana too.
This way you get like three spells in one staff, and with two hand, you can only manage six spells at once. So, when you want to have it more complex you can make more complex gestures. You can draw Z and then make a + where your target is, and a flash will hit it. That would allow combos too. But that's kind of complex for programming.
So only think of six spells, you can still combine them, in another way. As an example: You use a shockwave (special-jedi-forces-like-staff - circle) to throw your enemy in water and than freeze it (ice-staff - click). Or you melt rock to a piece of lava and then hunt your enemy with telekinesis-flying-lava (special-jedi-forces-like-staff - click, to grab the lava, than move while holding).

This concept is fast in use and easy, but it limits the amount of spells by the number of staffs (and other stuff) you can carry.

edit: a feature (not necessary for this system): when you have used up all your mana, it will use up your health. This would make it kind of more dramatical.
Kind of: Moses standing on the sea, lifts the water up, his folks walk thru the sea. With the last power of his health the last child passes by, then - nearly dying - he lets the water smash the egyptian army. (Please, don't take me serious.)

What I think we should put some thought into (as hinted above) is the spell selection. We might want to have a basic rock/paper/scissor in there somewhere in order to ensure variety of play. Like, say, have four elements where one defense spell counters two attack spells (and therefore each attack spell is also countered by two defense spells).

On the other hand, we could encourage specialization by having casting certain spells change your "aura" into this direction, buffing your spells, à la Hold Your Colors. That would encourage team-play between mages, as otherwise you might easily get countered.

Apart from that, we also need to consider fights between mages and normal Clonks. No single "attack" spell should be that much better than Clonkish spears or arrows. And no single "defense" spell should make the mage utterly imbalanced against getting attacked by a sword.

Those are the interesting design decisions imo. The combo-menu is pretty much a non-brainer compared to them :)

>Hell, no. :)

I really enjoyed this feature in CR. It had a special feel to it, casting felt so natural.