5581

I really like this game, up until I interract with the AI and realize how braindead it is and all the warts of the system start showing up then. I hope the changes they make fix it.

I’m also pretty annoyed at the diplomatic system. I keep getting messages that a nation wants to deal, so I click on it and the leader screen pops up with no listed proposal. I look at what I could trade and see that they pretty much think all my crap is worthless. WHY BOTHER ME THEN AHOLE!!! FORGET IT I’M JUST GOING TO KILL YOUR SOVEREIGN WITH MY LAVA GIANT AND WIN OK?? OK??

5582

It sounds like Stardock is focusing on the balance aspects of magic. That is important, but magic imbalance is not the most important problem with the system. It’s boring. Most of the spells are yawners. I’d rather have imbalanced but awesome (e.g., MoM) than balanced but uninteresting.

5583

I’m putting this aside until the 1st or maybe the 2nd expatchion is out. I’ll come back then to see if its any better. Hopefully you guys don’t run out of steam by then.

5584

I predict this thread will be on page 4 by… say, Thursday.

5585

Agree totally. This is a single player game - I don’t care if the balance is perfect, I just want fun!

5586

Most of the spells are pretty bland but you can do some real damage with Earthquake and Flood. I hit a town with Earthquake and that killed the faction. The leader happened to be in. Flood created a circular lake a few squares across.

With Flood and Raise/Lower Land you can sculpt the map to the shape of a peace sign or something.

5587

A discussion about resource-generating buildings in the Elemental forum:

5588

Wardell expounds on the implications of the global mana system:

With a global mana system, we gain the ability to have strategic spells be caster independent.

It also opens up a lot of very important game elements for the AI as well as the player in terms of making spells have more “interesting choices” such as:

* Spell cool down (N turns before being able to cast again)
* Turns to cast a spell (a spell that takes N turns to cast)

The reason these two things become possible is because in Elemental v1.0x, your maximum mana was tied to the caster’s essence.

In v1.1, magical essence is a boolean (you got it or you don’t). Anyone who has magical essence can thus draw magic from the global pool.

Children of sovereigns become crucial because unlike imbued heroes, they naturally have essence (so there is no imbue cost associated). It also opens up the possibility of being able to use stored mana for enchanting items or forging tools and such in the future.

Now, while you humans may find this stuff “fun” it’s the AI that benefits the most from it because I can write the AI with a system where there’s a specific goal – maximizing mana production. Plus, if a channeler can cast strategic spells into a tactical battle even if he’s not present, it justifies putting lots of time into intelligently choosing which spells to cast.

I.e. if I, as a developer, KNOW that magic can be part of every battle, then it justifies the time to create and use more interesting spells.

Now, someone might/should ask, why didn’t we have this from the outset? I’m sure some beta testers suggested something like this (MOM had this). I really don’t have a good explanation other than to say that we fell too far towards the RPG line of thinking – treating each unit as if it were an RPG character rather than thinking of your kingdom strategically. In short, we really wanted to find a way to have our cake and eat it too but you know what they say – even when you don’t make a choice, you’re making a choice. In this case, not biting the bullet and being decisive in making magic a strategic game mechanic rather than an individual quasi-RPG with some strategic mechanic has been crippling across the board to the game’s overall design.

There is no “magic bullet” of course but nearly all mechanics, balance, etc. flowed from the decision of having mana tied to individual magic casters rather than having them make use of a global pool that is derived from a single source (the channeler sovereign). With everything revolving around a mana limiter that can only be raised individually by going up levels, you cripple the scope of magic and in turn the combat and the variance in the world (i.e. things get boring).

Worse yet, the per unit mana limit in Elemental v1.0x also limits modding because modders too are stuck with the same problems I run into – all spells have to be between 1 and 15 or so mana. Look at the change to teleport – 15 mana. Not that big of a deal if you’re using a global mana pool but it’s a big deal if you max at say 12 mana because of an essence block.

EDIT: Related, Wardell talking about the new 15 mana cost of the Teleport spell:

The 15 mana cost is only a problem because of the tie in with Essence in v1.08. We’re going to hold off on further balance to magic costs until v1.1 since it does make things seem ridiculously expensive.

5589

If I, as a developer, KNOW that magic can be part of every battle, then it justifies the time to create and use more interesting spells.

That’s the explanation they’re going for for the bland spells etc?

5590

Sound more like he couldn’t justify changing the spells until he could tie it back to his AI obsession.

5591

New patch out tomorrow

5592

Is this the first free expansion you get if you made the mistake of, er, supported Stardock by buying Elemental?

5593

BASTID , I kept clicking wondering why it kept opening my Amazon page telling me I ordered 2 days ago, lol.

5594

That is why I am waiting it out. Maybe this ugly duckling will become a swan… but I have better things to do with my time/money than test a beta I had to pay 50 bucks for.

5595

Wardell on the future of the combat system:

There’s two ways to look at this.

First, let me say that in Elemental: War of Magic, the game mechanics of v1.1 are pretty much the set game mechanics for the game. The reason is that Elemental: War of Magic needs to rise or fall based on its basic design.

That said, my general reaction at this point is that after v1.1 we move to Elemental: Expansion 1 (which will be free to all Elemental players) where we can start making some changes, particularly to the combat system which is what Gnilbert’s concept focuses on.

The combat system is core to a given game like this. The simplistic combat system of Elemental: War of Magic is one of the reasons why the magic system has spells that aren’t that interesting.

Thus, as we think of a new combat system for an Elemental expansion, we should be thinking about what kinds of magical spells we would want to create as well. In other words, both need to be considered at the same time.

Then, the system has to be made in such a way that it can be exported to Python so that modders can expand and extend it as they see fit.

5596

Given that they’re supporting it and sorting out all the mistakes, and will be for months, and yet still will (somewhat deservedly) feel the full blast of negative publicity, it really boggles the mind why they didn’t just push the release date back, even if it meant pushing it back 6 months. All the future lost sales, bad word of mouth and costs of ongoing support and refunds, for a company like this, don’t seem worth it.

5597

Combat system? Make it simple. Civ IV with the modifiers that were displayed, as well as a percentage chance of winning made things transparent, as well as suitably informing the player of what needed to happen (ie: should there be another barrage from a treb before throwing that lowly axeman against the longbowman guarding the city on the hill). Combat played out in the way that there were die rolls in the background (which was logged), but for me, the important thing to know was the modifiers. If I cast a spell or fire an arrow, or swing a sword in Elemental, give me a chance to hit. Give me an indication of damage that will be done before the swing is made. Heck, create a whole tier in the tech tree that enables the accuracy of chance to hit/damage improve if needed so people don’t feel it games the system. Final Fantasy Tactics was good in it provided those chance to hit mechanics. Better yet, positioning was important - attacking from the rear was more valuable than from the front, however, it did mean that rear attacks were pretty much always carried out. That aspect needs to be broken a little bit to ensure frontal or side attacks still maintain some viability, whether, within the current system cowardly backstabs reduce an army’s morale, or units have some sort of zone of control around them. Either idea doesn’t fill me with much confidence of working (especially the zone of control idea). I’m not entirely sure, but raw numbers that are visible, and apparent before triggering the attack is good. Give the player something to work with.

Finally, a little rant to follow.

<rant>

Goddamn. I have to wonder if someone is sitting in a little bunker somewhere, smirking to themselves as they repeatedly push the big red button flashing on a desk to enables a microchip inserted into the general populace’s brains to type

“Why didn’t Stardock push the release date back?”

Crazy thinking I know! It’s all well and good to say that retrospectively, but it don’t change diddly squat besides more speculation and reasoning of what’s broken because of the release date. Shit happens, move on. Stardock are doing their best to do so, why can’t QT3. The release date is done, get over it.

</rant>

I could provide my own little analogy to Elemental that expresses my own depressive feelings towards the game right now; I certainly don’t love it, nor remotely like it currently, however there’s enough (justified) negativity going around right now.

5598

With all my respect, reading these changes reports make me feel pain.

Is like a dude tryiing to build a stack of chairs and tables to get to the space. Sure, he can probably get to 20 m of heigh, and after that collapse. He is doing incremental enhancaments on a game that need revolutionary changes, whole systems remade. At some point even him will realize… “oh… all this work of the last 6 weeks, the result kinda suck anyway”. And Elemental will “die” as a Gal Civ with fantasy tropes theme.

5599

This thread has given me more entertainment than the game, by far.

With Civ5 today, Elemental is dead to me. If they offered a general refund, they would lose over half of their sales. Its been a month now, the game is still so full of problems. I dont know how long its going to take them to make it good, much less great. And I am not sure they will get to good or great.

5600

With Civ5 today, Elemental is dead to me. If they offered a general refund, they would lose over half of their sales. Its been a month now, the game is still so full of problems. I dont know how long its going to take them to make it good, much less great. And I am not sure they will get to good or great.

Yeah, I haven’t touched it for over a week now and with Civ5 in a few short hours I would surmise it’ll go untouched for many, many more weeks. Honestly, I’m not sure I want to touch it until combat is actually fun and we might not see that until the first expansion pack.