Why does the sovereign even need to be a unit in the game? Maybe im just a MoM fanboy but if the game is going to end when your sovereign dies then he should not be your main hero. I like the idea of the sovereign being holed up in the capitol city and not even moving around on the map. If the game is going to start by letting you have a hero then maybe it should be one of your sons... not the sovereign himself.
We feel that having your leader as a playable unit will set Elemental apart as something different, and hopefully better, than what's come before it (in both gameplay decisions and in more immersive storytelling).
I like the sovereign is one of the unit in game.There so many reason.
- That can make me feel I'm living in the world of the game not just the god who command the other just like so many strategy games.
- This game is RPG that you take the role of the sovereign of the fantasy empire. Why my son, my men, can take the quest for adventures but I can't?
-So what the problem when the sovereigh die and the game is over? You can load the game like many RPG.
-I love to see me, my self lead the troop in the battle.
Believe me the sovereign is the unit is a greatest idea of this game!
Like
In Age of Wonders I the "sovreign" was a unit in the game and when he died the game was lost. Then they realized that the whole game became just a "sovreign hunt" and added the "no sovreign" option in the game. That way the game was playable again.
In the sequels of AOW, the sovreign became an immortal wizard who could respawn after death as long as he had an extra tower to go to. A much better option, but still some players like to create maps where the sovreign is unreachable, to simulate the no sovreign option they would like.
Having a mortal sovreign is a pain in the butt, unless when they die, one of their children can take their place with his\her own skills\attributes (like in the Total War series). A kingdom after all, doesn't end because the king dies!!
The problems you describe were present only in competitive multiplayer. As stated by Brad previously, Elemental has a multiplayer component but it is being designed from a single player viewpoint.
Either you mean that the AI won't be smart enough to act like a player and go into a "sovreign hunt", or that you as a player can reload and replay the turn when the leader accidentally dies... in both cases there is something wrong!
I agree with Black-Knight. I think the the dev team will see very quickly in mid-beta that having a soverign as a strong hero unit will present many, many difficult balance issues--- especially if dying means an abrupt game over. I think they already have numerous ideas where-by sovereigns will have some failsafes to afford them some protection and possibly even (as I would like to see) the channeler's essence being passed to offspring.
One of the things I mentioned in earlier posts on this discussion was that a sovereign super unit that makes a player lose when they die creates a situation where "cheat loading" gives the player a massive advantage over the AI. After all, the AI has to be cautious with their sovereign, where as the player can take every risk and never suffer any consequences. Even if the player doesn't use their sovereign haphazardly, the human player obviously isn't going to throw in the hat just because their sovereign was killed in the middle of a 10 hour game--- they will naturally load their game, otherwise most of their games will more than likely end in anti-clamactic, and often pointless, deaths. As a result, a subconcious "moral hazard" is created whereby they are inclined to take greater risks than they normally would because they know they have a safety net.
I personally agree that "no sovereign" in AoW is much more fun than having one. However having a super power-house running around might be fun too. Which is why I'm holding off really making a big deal about it.
I like the idea of the sovereign being able to pass his essence down to his children, but with a catch: he must do it before he actually dies, or it is lost. That way, you can gamble: do I put the entire essence in the sovereign, split it 50/50 with a chosen heir just in case, or put 1/3 in the heir, etc.?
I'd like to see the soveriegn on the map, as much like other heroes as possible.
I'm not worried about his early death meaning end-of-game because I think one of his kids will inherit, or maybe there will be some way to bring him back to life (there's a thread on that somewhere). Otherwise will cheat-load like a maniac, and I may anyway
I quite like the sov as a unit, makes the game different, and as said above not like you HAVE to move him around...although it's smart in early game.
hehe Nice. Hey, at least you admit it brother. Same here too until I at least get the basics down on what I'm doing in the full game.
I like having the Sovereign on the map. I also don't see a problem having him as powerful as he is. He should be. I don't think anyone has anything to worry about when it comes to "balance" issues at later stages of development. There Are going to be insanely powerful "though rare" monsters running around the world. I'm sure we'll see them in later stages of beta. Now think about that word "rare" and it's use in game. When you count the Sovereigns on the map, then count all the monsters and NPC's on the map, things as Powerful as the Sovereign are indeed rare. 10 out of 1000 creatures is rare. IF just 4 of those are Dragons you can kiss your Sovereign's tail good-bye. He's meant to be powerful, it's supposed to be that way. Even in old school MoM there were times when you'd build that perfect hero. Make him insanely powerful magical items to use that make him a GOD. Then use him to get those super tough node spawns and huge enemy armies. It's one of the funnest things about the game and those like it today. If they gimp the Sovereign I'm sure we'll all see real fast how much fun falls off the game.
Also, worrying about cheat load is silly. People will do it with or without sovereign so to use it as reason is (partially) invalid. I agree that for sandbox it would be nice to have some extra mechanics about "succession" and/or "reincarnation" but I really really like the idea of losing the game if I manage to lose my sovereign (or if extra mechanics are in place, if I manage to fail in creating failsafes for my avatar's demise).
Yes, people will cheat load, but my point was that if you make cheat loading too powerful in favor of the player, you are severely encumbering the AI who is unable to cheat load.
Let me illustrate. If you throw the sovereign at every potential battle that you might remotely win and load your game if you lose (or keep reloading every time until you win that super tough battle) then you end up with a super dooper powerful sovereign waaaaaay before the AI does--- a sovereign that will probably pretty much be able to walk around without an army and slaughter everything in site (after all, you can just load your game if he dies, right?) This is a problem. To balance it, you have to let the AI cheat, which we all agree can be aggravating. If you do let the AI cheat, then the people that don't cheat load (like me) will have to play it cautiously like the AI but without the extra bonuses that the AI has. The net effect will be that you always have a sovereign that is substantially weaker than the AI.
Yes, I would like to see the sovereign be a playable unit in the game, but balancing him/her is going to be extremely tough given the current parameters that have been set.
I think the point a lot of people are missing is he's supposed to be over powered and uber powerful to everything else in the game. He's a channeler. He can use magic and 95% of his enemies Can't. He can throw lightning bolts to kill you and raise a Volcano in your city to kill everyone in it including all the units stationed there. He's Always going to seem Over-powered. When the game gets into higher stages of Beta and we start seeing what the Sovereign can really do I'm already afraid too many people won't understand this and they'll start screaming to "Nerf the Sovereign!!!" and the whole mechanic will change.
I truly, Truly hope that doesn't happen.
The fact is the balance of using/not using essence will be hard : if you don't use essence what is the main drawback ? Few cities. But you're so powerfull that you can take any city you want anyway ! I really like the fact that it'll be played as in supreme commander where they are super-units, but the balance of this will no be a simple task.
The decision to make the sovereign a unit is a great decision.
If people want to do that, then that's their perogative. Why do you care how they play thier games? I personally want a challengning game; plain and simple. If someone else wants a cake walk by reloading everytime something unfavorable happens, then let them have their fun doing that. So in the end, create a challanging game designed around people who will play the game 'fairly', and let the ones who want to take the easy way out do so.
This is a good point--- developers shouldn't be forced to accomodate a certain playstyle. But in my post before the one you quote, I made the point that the vast majority of players will inadvertanly load cheat regardless of whether they make it a habit--- the game being promptly over if the sovereign dies too easily forces them to, otherwise they face an often anti-climactic ending (the AI on the other hand, will never reload regardless of how lamely their sovereign might die.) If most people play a certain way, it's very relevant how that game is designed.
The bottom line is that everyone is drunk on this idea of an autonomous and roaming sovereign unit and very few people are concerned about how to balance it. I think a lot of us are making decisions about what we want to be in the game solely on a 30 second snap shot of a kick-ass sovereign wading through the battle field with impunity, vanquishing scores of foes beneath his spellblade. Like, I said, I love the idea but having a sovereign unit coupled with "sovereign death = game over" produces a lot of unique problems. If it comes down to having a flagrantly unbalanced strategy game because everyone wanted a cool and crazy-powerful of a sovereign unit, then that is a pity.
Scroll up to the top of the topic and put both sides of the debate in two separate columns. On the pro-sovereign unit side you'll see a lot of "it would be 'cool' to..." and on the skeptics side you'll see, "but balance issues!..." An idea can be very cool, but not necessarily workable.
I liked the way Dom3 did their sovereigns so you weren't forced to reload. You would be reincarnated at a friendly city in X turns (dependent on how much you devoted to calling them back) and when you did come back you had permenant stat loss. It sucked losing your leader, but it didn't always mean immediate game over/load.
But dominion had an strong influence implementation. There won't be any thing like faith in elemental that would let you win/lose, even if you're military stronger/weaker.
Indeed it does, and that's why there needs to be fail-safes so that in case your Sovereign is defeated in combat, he is not killed. But there must be a good penalty to pay for it, otherwise it will become risk free or too rewarding a risk. Defeat of sovereign = game over is a bit too steep. There must be alternatives so that people can accept the cost of their choice instead of reloading; and then move on with the game. That's a true RPG
But having the Sovereign on the map as a powerful unit is definitely I and many others want in the game - all that needs to be done is to balance it, which I admit, is not an easy task.
The cheat load, again, has nothing to do with sovereign and the AI. Those who cheat load will do it anyways for ANY reason. "So that war I started turned bad so I'll load a save game of before the war 20 turns ago.". How can the AI cope with that? The same way as with sovereign death: no way. So as I said, cheat load worries are silly. Worries about a proper balanced and fun mechanic about sovereign (life&death) that we and the AI can properly use (cheat loads ignored) is a different beast tough.
I like the idea of Sovereign = Unit that if dies means game over. But obviously I only want it if it's properly balanced. Altough we all know that "balance"'s meaning changes a lot depending of who you ask. Having the sovereign overpowered hasn't to be unbalanced per se, it depends on context.
Failsafes are a must (if he an raise volcanos at high level, some kind of relics or even dormant clones could be an option too) and if possible varied in ways and levels of efficiency (so you could create a low level failsafe just in case altough it wouldn't be so effective as one of high level, be it losing essence or exp). Essence costs, city vs essence hoarding, unit developments, economy model... all those things must be considering when talking about sovereign balance (the whole game as unity). If as the betas go and we get to shape more mechanics we see that the idea is just to difficult to set right and/or bad and/or whatever, Frogboy already said they will be listening and adjust.
A lazy solution like giving a them certain amouts of lives wouldn't even be that bad. I'd still prefer him just respawning after time with some stat/level loss after a certain amount of time. I could easily see some random rare monster coming out of the fog and killing you early to mid game and I don't know if losing the game is an appropriate punishment for that.
Most games should have some sort of victory condition anyways and if you kill someones sovereign four times I highly doubt you won't be winning the game anyways.
You could make it so that sovereign respawning requires some sort of super expensive sovereign summoning building (you would start with one in your first city and could even make it exponential in cost for each one you build). This way you could still continue if your sovereign got unlucky, but players won't just have their sovereign respawning constantly and being undefeatable.
Firstly, the term cheat-load is not good one, IMO. The "cheating" invlolved is trying not to lose the hours put into the game. Also, this is especially true of TBS games, which tend to be very long. I very very rarely reloaded an AOK game, but have reloaded AoW2 games several times, especially during campaigns. It also has something to do with the RPG element, perhaps. Losing a level 30 hero decimating enemies by the dozens is simply too much for many people, including me.
The only reason I mentioned reloading was that in the 'lose your Sovereign, lose the game" scenario, there's no other choice. The game has ended! As to your general observation about not considering reloading for game-balance, I agree. I have to, don't I? You can't design the game balance for a human reloading 20-30 turns back.
So, this is my wish-list:
-I want the Sovereign to be a unit in the game. A powerful unit.
-If the Sovereign is defeated in combat, the game should NOT end. There should be fail-safes for that.
-The penalty for having the Sovereign defeated in combat should be heavy, but not too heavy.
-The benefit of not using your sovereign for exploring and killing should be significant, but still less than using him for exploring etc, as it is risk free. Like massive benefits to the city he is in, as mentioned in the first reply to this post.
That's all I can think of right now. BTW, I am not in favour of his children being replaced by him. It somehow just doesn't fit into my mind with the story that his game has.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
