I agree with Tormy on being concerned about the combat system being too simple. Having only ATT/DEF/LIFE/SPEED makes it extremely difficult creating many of the fantasy creatures. I've mentioned this topic previously, but revisiting the most important attributes which are missing from Elemental. If we were dealing with only boats, siege weapons and single skilled humans... aka the original CIV_4, then those 4 attributes would be okay. Each of the examples below explain why a specific attribute is needed.
EXAMPLE A} If someone wanted to create a mind flayer this creature attacks primarily with its mind, thus units with low intelligence such as giant ants would die easily while a wizard would be more difficult and a catapult would be immune because it has no mind. In this one example it would not be possible to create a mind flayer accurately in Elemental because a wizard would have less defense than a well armored barbarian. Here is just one example why the intelligence attribute is important... others can be provided.
EXAMPLE B} Also consider the fantasy creatures/beings which can corrupt enemy units/beings using one of the well known seven sins, yet there's no attribute which can be linked for these ethical decisions/attacks. I would not suggest linking corruption attacks to intelligence since we all know lawyers, high rank government officials, doctors, etc., etc., can also easily be tempted by seduction, bribery, domestic violence, etc., . So a seduction attempt from a succubus may work on a wizard, but fail miserably on a paladin... unfortunately this does not seem possible for Elemental unless more attributes are included. Here is just one example why the wisdom attribute is important... others can be provided.
EXAMPLE C} Let's now examine a battlefield which has a group of archers and some swordsmen fighting a few giant spiders(size_of_a_human) and one enormous giant spider(size_of_a_house). All spiders are equally skilled. The group of archers would naturally find it easier to aim at the larger target... whether or not the arrows penetrate is a different story. The size of a unit should also be the most important variable for determining the life of a creature/being this is best explained by taking any unit then having the unit paralyzed 4 turns where it cannot defend itself... naturally the spider the size of a house probably won't be killed by two swings of a sword, but the human sized spiders would be killed. Here is just one example why the size attribute would be important along with its link to hitpoints/life... others can be provided
EXAMPLE D} Currently it seems the attack attribute will be used for both archer types and melee types. However this creates a problem for units which are skilled in both weapons... naturally a unit which has spent his entire life fighting with the sword should not be able to be trained inside a town using a bow and then have a lifetime worth of archery skill. The aiming of a missile weapon is completely different from the skills of a sword and each should have their own attribute. Here is just one reason why the precision or accuracy attribute is important... others can be provided.
I recall reading from the developer journals how it would be interesting if the game could be modded to the point of providing an RPG. I cannot remember the last RPG which had only 4 attributes.
(Read only up to the middle of page 2)
Here are the statstics that factor in any combat system:
To-hit chance, Damage potential, Avoidance and Mitigation. That's it. The minimum number of attributes needed is three (attack, defence, something to count the fact that damage has been done [common use is 'HP']). I'm bored so I'll clarify my previouse statement.
The calculation for every attack has to take into account the factors stated above. They might disregard them (I.E. mitigation=0), or roll saveral into a single attribute (Damage potential may be tied to the To-hit chance, for example), but these are always part of the equation. The equation itself is made of two parts, hit and damage.
[a]-attacker attribute and [d]-defender attribute.
Hit: To-hit Chance[a] versus* Avoidance[d]. If hit then:
Damage: Damage[a] versus* Mitigation[d]
*versus is my word for the mathmatical function the game designer used for the specific issue.
My point is, that magical/psionic/divine/empathic/moral attacks are practically the same. While the spells attributes of To-hit and Damage are often very-well stated, the defenders' Avoidance and mitigation tend to be overlooked. The simplest option is to give the units an attribute of 'magic resistance', and handle all the exotic attacks the same way. The more complex option is to make each and every unit an RPG character...
How about this idea: The player can choose in the UI how much info he wants. The default would be very basic, while an expert player can choose to see more minute detail. The calculations are the same, the only difference is wether the player wants to be shown the bigger picture or the finer details.
True. And currently as proposed Elemental only has 3
Oh sure we probably don't want a slew of statistics like Dominion has , but only ATTACK/DEFENSE/SPEED ??
What's wrong with the way MOM did it? a generic resistance statistics, modified by resistance to elements etc.
Would be nice to have so sort of armor rating, but i'm okay with attack/defense standing in both for ability to hit, and ability to do damage (the plus to hit in MOM kind of allowed you to split the two anyway).
As for the argument that 99% of units would have the same score, I say that's BS, surely an elite paladin unit would have greater general resistance than a greenhorn milita unit. Mage units would resist magic more etc. Difference races would have difference resistance levels etc.You could do it with traits sure, but there is enough natural variance between units of different experience and race that you might as well model it as a stat.
Surely there should be a difference between being able to resist magical attack as opposed to physical attack!
A morale stat would be nice, but can't think of a game that has done this well.
As an aside, I don't understand why so many people sing Dominon's praises. It's not a patch on MoM/HoMM/KB/AoW/any other game that can be reduced to an acronym.
As an aside, Idon't understand why so many people sing GalCiv 2 praises. It's s solid game, but a bit boring.
As pointed out numerous times on this board, GalCiv had a boring tech tree, boring combat.
Elemental is supposed to draw inspiration from MOM, but unfortunately MOM seems to be polar opposite from the SD philisophy of making games which is basically keep it simple (minimal stats, boring tech system, Laser I, Laser II etc and RPS design).
I've read about the idea where there is no "spearman" unit, and you can recruit and train troops, equip them etc.. sounds cool, until you realise it's all cosmetic because they all have the same statistics, so what's the point?
If you have say more statistics, at least you could vary the units a bit more.
I read about the proposed combat mechanics rolls (the shortcomings of which have being pointed out in another thread).. But again it's clearly drawing from GalCiv2.
So elemental probably going to end up as FanastyCiv probably, which is as boring as you can imagine despite the eye candy.
Magical dmg types are in [4 in the vanilla game], so natural resistances must be in as well.
As for morale...it's a must have feature imo.
Attack/Defense/Speed/HP/Essence mechanicly explain pretty much everything needed, the only stat I think that I'd like to see added is Morale. It looks like attributes are planned to be implemented with various damage types and immunties, and really attributes can take care of pretty much any type of flavor or diversity you're looking for.
There are a several ways to implement morale, and personally I like the idea of it mimicking HP, and being a stat that gets widdled away by special attacks and abilities. How would it be different to HP? Well there would be no attack or defense involved, it would simply work, lowering the units morale by a certain amount. Upon reaching 0 morale a unit is essentially defeated, cowering in fear, fleeing the battlefield, or maybe even turning on their comrades. Attributes could lower the damage taken in this manner or even negate it all together. And you could have units with an essence score be particularly resilient against morale damage.
Any mind related attack or ability that doesnt directly injure a unit could instead hit morale, the functionality would be the same and would make such creatures frightening.
But in the end, even with just the 5 basic stats, attributes can accomplish the depth and diversity everyone in this thread seems to be shouting for. They can cover different types of damage, strengths, weakness, etc.
Few stats with a lot of unique special abilities to compensate is not the way to go. Special abilities are individually coded and you'd save a lot of time just by having more attributes and then adding abilities when absolutely needed.
If stardock is scared about new players getting confused by stats then you could easily hide a lot of the secondary attributes that they wouldn't necessarily care about. These might only be viewable on a detailed mouse over or something.
An attribute is an individual value that works within the games implemented mechanics. A stat being added requires alot more time and effort to get implemented and balanced to work properly without being overly powerful or underpowered. I do think a morale stat would be a good addition, without overly complicating the game. More then that I just don't see being worth the effort and time.
If they are unimportant enough to be hidden, then they aren't important enough to use. Thats my point of view at least.
I've seen stats and attributes used interchangeable to represent the same basic str-dex-int type thing in many games. Since stat is short for "statistic" asking "What's your strength statistic?" is just as odd as asking "What's your strength attribute?"
Regardless, I'll use your way to avoid confusion. I'd rather them balance an extra stat than band-aiding creatures with unique traits when they realize that many creatures don't fit into their current system well.
Dom 3 and many other games have statistics that are derived from other stats (and can also be manually overwritten). Most gamers won't care or notice, but there's no reason not to let the people who want to see those stats. In Dom3 you could click an attack stat and then it would show a breakdown of related stats (like number of attacks, any effects that might happen on striking, amount of armor piercing, etc.) and why the attack is the number it is.
So without actually adding in secondary stats, in Elemental at the very least it would be nice to click on the units attack stat and then have it bring up the breakdown of why that stat is 20.
12 base att
+5 Awesome sword
+3 Long Spear
-6 dual wiedling (basic)
-4 dual wielding (length of weapons)
+2 Frenzy enchantment
+1 Morale bonus
---------------------------
13 total attack
Even with 30 stats a game can be accessible if they work logically. In a good system only hardened players would need to know exact stats for things, while the average player would natively know how a minotaur would fight, or the effect that would be had from equipping someone with two shields and no weapon. If things make sense more stats only serve to help make units behave as we believe they would. With few stats, things don't function how we think they would. We get battles outcomes that don't make sense because we didnt account for small things that might not apply in all cases, but clearly would have in this one ("Why did my Demon lose to X? That makes no sense because..."). Having more stats lets us prepare for unforseen situations by describing the unit as much as possible.
So in short, more stats actually makes units seem more intuitive,
Yea, stats and attributes can be interchanged, I meant stats and traits, but my meaning was understood so I guess thats whats important. Sorry for the mix up reguardless.
I'm not entirely sure what this has to do with the discussion about having more stats vs traits. Breaking down a stat and showing its modifiers isn't really anything I'm opposed to, and doesn't really add a stat so to speak.
What you say is true, but I still don't agree that we need more stats. Even Morale which is a stat I'd like to see added isnt necessary. Consider Magic: The Gathering, that game has 3 stats, attack, defense, and cost. The game has an incredible variety of different creatures you can use and playstyles, all with only 3 stats total. What makes those creatures different and gives the game its diversity? Traits, such as Flight, Protection vs a specific color of magic, Trample, etc. Traits can be just as intuitive and just as logical.
Traits are just as descriptive, and because a unit either has or does not have a trait, it doesn't bog down the UI as much. A unit that doesn't fly won't have the trait "Non-Flyer" it simple won't have "Flight" where as a stat, like strength, or willpower, will always need to be displayed so that a player can make intelligent decisions.
How did Demon Lose to X? X had the Demonslayer trait. Why are my men running from that dragon? It has a fear ability, plus its a dragon. Using your previous example this is how your attack bonus would break down with traits:
Base Attack: 12 Equipment: Awesome sword +5 Long Spear +3Traits: Dual Wielding -6 (two weapons at once) Oversized Weapon -4 (larger weapon being wielded 1-handed) Berserker +2 (Frenzy enchantment bonus to attack, trait also decreases def) Courage +1 (Morale Bonus) --------------------------- total attack 13
When you scroll over that unit, you see its 13 att, 6 def, 30 hp, 2 speed and Traits (4). The (#) showing the number of traits the unit has, and mousing over Traits will display a list of which ones and what they do. Mouse over the different stats and it displays the modifiers and where they come from. Its all there, I can easily understand what the unit is capable of at a glance and can quickly access more information if I need to.
In the end we're attempting to accomplish the same goal, to make sure the Elementals tactical combat is as fun and interesting as it can be. Obviously I personally prefer, the fewer stats + a variety of traits approach to accomplish this. In the end it provides an elegent solution by giving the player all the information they need, while not overwhelming him with alot of irrelevent data all the time. Thats my opinion anyways.
I'm not entirely sure what this has to do with the discussion about having more stats vs traits. Breaking down a stat and showing its modifiers isn't really anything I'm opposed to, and doesn't really add a stat so to speak.[/quote]
I did that to illustrate two things.
1. That is how the screen would look, but it would also show secondary stats like number of attacks. Mousing over defense would also have the armor stat and some sort of agility/dodge. These would be totally seperate stats that would be combined to produce some basic defense stat so that the less hardcore would still get an idea of how they can take a hit.
2. It shows how even though there are many factors that go into a simple stat like attack, it doesn't have to appear complex at all to the user.
Even in MTG there is creature type, color(s), and many traits unique to just one or two cards. The limited stats make for a lot of paragraph long expanations on some of them.
One example of something I feel will repeatadly be a problem is the difference between dodging as defense, vs blocking, vs armor. No amount of wooden clubs are going to beat a stone golem to death even if wielded by some sort of club master that always hits. What if a paralyzed that stone golem and had everyone whack on it. Reducing it's defense based on the fact it can't move would probably be overpowered if the spell was mainly meant to stop normal humans and such from moving. Having varying levels of armor and dodging traits seems like a bad idea.
AoW:SM had a fairly similar number of stats to what you and the devs are discussing and it resulted in many heroes having trait lists that you had to scroll through to see them all.
Something like a faery would be something like (2 attack, 12 defense, X health, Y movement, Z mana/essence/whatever, Traits: Magical being, flying, spellcaster, teleport, invisiblity, no armor, Agile attack, earth affinity, magical resistance, ranged attack (6), small size.
Lists for these creatures start getting pretty long. Not every unit is going to have all these crazy traits, but everyone is going to have varying abilities to dodge, hit, do damage, and take damage, so I really think that everyone needs seperate attack/damage, and dodge/armor so we don't have to repeat those specific traits on the many units that would need them.
yea, attack/damage vs dodge/armor would be nice.
I agree with Tourresh.
especially considering the fact that these are traits which would probably be helpful for a majority of units.
I think for a min requirement for attributes need to be speed, attack, defense, life, elemental damages, and elemental resistances. But adding more in is a big plus in my book. I understand right now its early in the beta. But as time goes on adding more would be good. You could easly setup more for moding too. Cause oh I know im going to be downloading lots of them.
Really good post, I completely agree with NTJedi. The examples with the mind flayer, succubus etc are pertinent and good: there is no way you can easily create such units in the game if there are only 4 stats. Adding more stats doesn't need to make the game too complex. Is creating a character in classical RPG D&D too complex? Rather the opposite, and that includes strength, dexterity, constitution, int, wisd, charisma ... The developers always said Elemental should be like doing your own D&D campaign on the computer in a strategy format. Well, cutting down on all the stats, damage types etc won't make it.
My advice would be to stay much closer to D&D and only cut to streamline where really necessary. Because if you don't include things such as charisma or willpower (in some form), it will be very difficult to create all the fantasy creatures, spells, characters or concepts based or linked to such attributes (like the mindflayer or succubus). So you won't be able to redo your campaign in Elemental and will long back to the old days of real RPGs ... I would hate playing the official game with player-created content included only to realise that the mindflayer in the game is just the same as a strong human warrior except someone put a name and maybe some ugly graphics on it. We need some depths for the units otherwise the die hard fans are the first ones to be dissapointed. And it shouldn't be too late as it is only in the early beta still, so no need to panic yet, I hope.
Yes, it's too complex for a strategy game.
There's already a "DnD strategy version", it's called Birthright and units had only 5 stats (attack, defense, movement, morale, and hits). Most "strategic systems" for DnD (Birthright, Fields of Blood, Empire,...) cut a looot of detail from normal DnD (no idea about the really old ones like Chainmail and others...).
Read the data-driven post in the developer journals, it will be possible for users to mod those things.
"It's possible to mod it" is not a very convincing argument for what should or should not be in the game. But it's better than nothing of course.
A very worthy idea - in fact, the most straightforward and usable one so far - it streamlines without compromising diversity. Very DotA-like. The only problem is the magic. Your system doesn't take into account units capable of spell-casting. A simple INT attribute would fix the problem by allowing control over the power, level and number of spells learnt.
Guess i was right, it's not in.
I called it right. Galciv mechanics..
I don't believe that's what SD is up to. Why would they even bother with tactical combat, if there are no things like in MoM: attack, ranged attack/defense/hp/to hit/resistance, speed,. plus nearly 50 abilities, like fire damge, throwing of axes, first strike, illusionary attacks, stone gazing, and counters to those things plus many spells that add even more attributes/immunities? and was MoM complicated? not at all! It was completely intuitive (of course the right mouse button (tool tips) helped, as did a perfect manual).
Tactical combat in Elemetal won't be something like chess.. at least I hope so.
They said somewhere that combat was inspired by Ufo: Apocalypse. If that is the case, we could even see tactical combat like when aliens attacked a base! That would be fun, and also it would be an explication, why it's intended that there are not too many cities throughout the game. And why those cities are built how they are.
Before there is no confirmation, that those four stats in beta2 are all there is, I won't believe it. Call me optimistic, but I hoped too long for 1 real heir to MoM's throne, to give these hopes up, only because we can only see the most important of maybe a plethora of stats in a BETA version, where it was clearly stated, that combat as intended, isn't in yet,
Combat does seem overly simplistic. I was hoping for something at least on Age of Empire 3's level, with ranged/melee damage, different types of armor, etc. While it IS a strategy game, and too much complexity in this area would take the focus off the overall strategic elements of the game, a little more complexity would seem only logical.
Just wait for Beta3. Damage types, spells etc. will be enabled in that build.
I'm curious how people find combat overly simplistic when we haven't seen it yet?
The auto-resolve we see at the moment is a place-holder system (or partial system maybe) until they enable the actual battle mechanics. There is a reason why "battle" isn't one of the things on Frogboy's feedback list for this iteration of Beta...
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