5461

Well, it’s not only that. It’s the way the AI sometimes won’t do anything, or sends units piecemeal, or puts its sovereign in harm’s way without any thought, or the combat AI and its multitude of issues…

5462

Oh, yeah. I’m not discounting that other stuff. I just found his excuse to be particularly nutty. Frankly, it smells suspicious. Was he really that disconnected? I mean, really?? How could you not be aware that players could steamroll the AI?

5463

You have to wonder what he though the monsters were there for if it wasn’t farming experience.

5464

Strictly speaking, the issue is that you can farm them for enormous amounts of gold. A sovereign walking around with a moderately competent stack o doom in the early-to-mid game (and an upgraded adventuring tree) can slaughter auto-spawning high-level monsters en masse every turn (especially before they removed item stacking–20 movement let you enter and win a LOT of random battles). These monsters can, as his post indicated, drop upwards of 1000 gold apiece.

And do you know what several thousand gold a turn finances?

12-stacks of elite horse-riding, God Hammer-wielding, Master Armor-clad Uber-Knights from every damn city in the Kingdom/Empire.

5465

Right. But I’d put forth that the problem there isn’t the farming of gold that allows you to buy the uber-stack of knights. The problem is the knights themselves. More to the point, it’s that a bunch of mundane knights is a zillion times more effective than anything magical in the game.

There really is almost no point to magic in Elemental other than researching the ability to make magical trinkets for your soldiers to wear.

5466

He’s mentioned issues like that in previous posts, so I’m pretty sure he’s aware of it.

5467

Sounds like Stardock needs to hire an actual game designer.

I seem to recall Brad also stating that many of the people at Stardock that worked on this aren’t game developers or even gamers and simply wrote code to the spec they were given. Having people who actually understand video games working on your project is important. They’re extra sets of critical eyes and have a better understanding of how their work will fit in with the whole rather than just doing the work they’re told to.

5468

That’s the impression I’ve always had of Stardock. Good people, good coders, but not game savvy. Their games always, to some degree or another, betray a lack of vision and a lack of focus on gameplay experience.

5469

That the real issue.

Magic is crap. Theres nothing fantastical about Elemental really. Its a game about dudes in armor with hammers riding around killing things. Sometimes those things are “fantastical” but it doesn’t matter cause dudes with hammers win against everything.

I don’t know why Brad and Friends weren’t say… playing the supposed inspiration for the game: Master of Magic. Or even Age of Wonders. Or… hell even a Disciples game. People don’t want fantasy games to watch a bunch of mundane dudes right around and kill things. Yet somehow the magic and fantasy of the game has always been dull and lifeless. War of Magic indeed.

Plus I can’t be the only one whos annoyed by the fact that I have to research knives and hammers. If I don’t have axes and I don’t have hammers, how the fuck am I constructing buildings? The whole “post-apocalyptic” thing just doesn’t work on so many levels. People forgot how to make a knife? Really? Hammers are too complex? Yet they can build houses and other far more complex things right away.

I think the critical flaw in the game is the whole idea behind units and research. It doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t seem to be able to be balanced. Its the boring ass “make your own units” thing that prevents sides from being remotely interesting. I’d much rather have a MoM/AoW situation where each race has preset units that actually are interesting. It sure as hell beats slapping a armor on a bunch of dudes, tossing them weapons and pretending its somehow exciting or that there are choices in doing it.

5470

It really does ignore the “Magic” from Master of Magic successor. I want Saruman in his fucking tower causing earthquakes and hurling lightning bolts on the peons below.

Some of the ranged/AOE damage spells are usefull for weakening units from range. Summoning early game is very powerful, as is teleporting. Beyond that, the low regen rate and high mana cost of most spells makes the rest useless.

Edit: What Shiva said too.

5471

I am with ShivaX, more or less. The idea of having to build your units seems great in paper.
“Why limit yourself to a few predesigned units? Design your own!! Even more options to your strategies!”, but in reality this concept steal the most important designer’s tool to define and design each faction.

I think the classical preset units system, with perhaps a layer of customization on top of it with some trinkets would have been a better idea.

5472

I sort stopped keeping track of this track a few weeks ago, but just skimming it now reminded me that I never did get the LE box that I ordered. Anyone else still waiting for it?

I suppose I should send them an email, but from the looks of other peoples efforts contacting support it would be just more waste following the original waste of pre-ordering this CF. Even if it arrived now I doubt I would open it except to give my wife the Dragon (she collects them). :(

5473

But is that really the case, or is it rather that the way SD implemented this system leaves a lot to be desired?

For example, if SD had stuck with stock fantasy, it could be balanced somewhat similar to P&P rpgs. Dwarves can use heavy hammers and axes very efficiently, but cannot use polearms and large shields.Elves excel at swordfighting and especially archery, but cannot use heavy two-handed weapons and heavy armor. Orcs can only have crude variants of most weapons. Etc. and so on.
Even a make-your-own-unit workshop can be unique and meaningful.
But you have to put actual thought into how you are designing everything.

rezaf

5474

I mean that could work, but in the end you’ll more or less end up with people making 2-3 units because thats all that makes sense. You have maybe one stop-gap unit and then its all the best you can make. Or maybe an archer and a melee dude at best. It doesn’t leave room for anything to be interesting.

I mean ultimately all units are boring normal people. All that changes is what kind of gear they’re carrying. Dude with Plate and a Hammer is no different than Dude with Leather and a Spear other than his gear is better. Give Leather and Spear better gear and he’d be the same dude. Noones a berserker, or a shaman, or even part of a Holy Order or anything cool. They’re all Dudes.

5475

While there have been several other nominations so far, I would nevertheless like to go ahead and nominate this for the official /thread statement.

5476

I’ll admit the concept can work, with a much better implementation.

edit: How? Let’s see

  1. It’s a mix & match system, to produce fun, interesting units, the pieces you mix & match have to be fun and interesting. So less mundane shit, more crazy stuff. I don’t need 7 types of shield, with a bad one and a good one is enough. examples of the interesting stuff? Dunno… let’s say just play King’s Bounty and see how almost each unit have something unique to it. Create a piece to imitate each “effect” or “feature”.
  2. A decent amount of the pieces (1/3?) have to be unique for every faction.
  3. And the pieces of every faction have to fullfill the theme of the faction, it can’t be random shit thrown together.
5477

Well, of course the implementation has to be good for it to be interesting, that was my point.

Think the Master of Orion 2 ship construction, only with arms/armor/accessories.
Do I take the arrows of which I can carry more, the arrows which have better armor penetration, the arrows of which I can carry a lot more … or maybe the flaming arrows … or the arrows which are especially effective against summons.
Do I take the heavy armor which slows my unit down, or do I take the light one which only my faction has and which allows me to become invisible in forests, but prevents me from using a 2-handed/offhand weapon or shield.

In a world of magic, the possibilites are virtually endless.
Of course, most players would always end up using the same stuff, but just because in MoM, I always ended up using Paladins, that doesn’t mean lots of Spearmen with tons of enchantments were completely useless.

Unfortunately, while MoM might have benefited from such unit creation (though the game was just fine without one), in the Elemental world, where magic is weaksauce, units have only so few stats and so few special abilities etc., it’s probably not as easy.

rezaf

5478

Wow, my games never go that long. I usually get up to warhammers and leather cuirasses and dominate everyone with my sovereign stack. One time I got far enough to get legendary stuff, but that was it.

5479

Tom put an Elemental article
http://fidgit.com/archives/2010/09/the_future_of_elemental.php

Imo, it’s a bit too optimistic. First, Elemental initial state is much worse than GalCiv 2 initial state.

5480

I haven’t played that version of GC II…because I brought the previous two version and got bored after a bit.

To be fair, not right away, but they didn’t hold me like Civ at all. I was up playing Civ 4 until almost 1am just last night. I don’t even have GCII installed anymore.