I'm glad you guys like the concept.
The concept is
not supposed to feel like this: Every hero gets a new ability, only it's just outsourced to the writing room.
Rather, it should feel like this: The hero makes his knowledge available to his people by writing it down with the help of the writing rooms and thus making it accessible to Erestor.
You can achieve this difference, in my opinion, by three points:
- How do you get the ability as opposed to "normal hero abilities"
- How can you activate the ability, use it, or how is the ability present in the game?
- What does the ability do?
To point one:
I think it's important to "replay" the writing process one way or another when exploring the ability.
Your suggestion in this regard @The_Necromancer0.
I would remove the requirement that the hero be alive and just make it, if the hero has met the requirement, then the work button becomes permanently unlocked at the Writing Hall and the player can start the research there like any normal research except that it's free.
is for me personally (if I understood it correctly) a bit too close to a "normal" hero ability. I think the hero should be alive during the research, because only a living hero can (let) write down his knowledge.
I think your suggestion @Halbarad
I also like the combination with the writing workshop. Note: Currently Erestor is doubling their resource production. You could also pause the upgrade pausing thing in that you divide the work into 3 chapters for example:
Chapter 1 can be researched from level 3, Chapter 2 from level 7 and Chapter 3 from level 10. Also fits better from my point of view, as many important stories were also written after the death of the heroes.
comes closer to the point.
On the second point
I think that if researched, the effect (via Ersetor) is available even after the hero's demise, fits the idea of the "finished book" and provides a noticeable contrast to "normal" hero abilities.
However, you (@The_Necromancer0) raise an important point with
that I hadn't even thought about before.
But counterplay possibilities could be besides the very quick hero kill, among other things, in the effect itself, as the following example should show:
Cirdan:
- Work: architecture/building plans of Elosterion
- Exploration trigger level: 7
- Building (for Erestor): siege works???
- Effect: As long as Erestor is in the Siege Works(??), there is a "White Tower" upgrade in every Lindon Tower and in every "Fortress-inbase Tower", which has to be researched (not for free). This causes the tower to be upgraded to a white tower and thus inherit the "Into the West" effect from Cirdan. There can be a maximum of three white towers at a time, and their "Into the West" abilities are over the same cooldown
This ability can be countered by destroying the White Towers, for example.
On the third point:
Abilities should be designed to not so much directly influence a fight as to support strategies or selectively mitigate glaring weaknesses. Of course, it's not always possible to separate them that way, and sometimes an ability can help in combat.
For example: The "Cirdan Werk" should not solve a big weakness of Imladris, namely that it is difficult to split and fight on several fronts, but it should reduce it a bit in the lategame.