One of Sid Meier’s rules of game design boils down to “Prototype, prototype, prototype”.
Forgive me for any unintentional hubris but as far as I’m aware, Elemental is the first commercial PC game that opened that phase of development to the public.
Just this week all kinds of changes have been made to the engine. So let’s talk about that.
First, for those of you not in the game industry, the thing to remember is that 80% of a game’s development time is spent on engine and assets. The remaining 20% is the actual “game”. That’s why we have the luxury to monkey around with different game mechanic ideas.
Star Emperor
15 years ago IBM came to me (I was in college) and wanted a “Galactic Civilizations” game but different for something called the IBM Family Funpak. I said “Oh…oh yea, I have a game called…Star Imp..er…I mean Star..Lor- er Star Empir…er Star Emperor. Yea, Star Emperor.”
IBM agreed to pay a pile of money for this game and over a weekend I took my GalCiv for OS/2 code, changed the game mechanics to Star Emperor and voila. A million licneses sold to IBM.
GalCiv was basically Civilization in Space. Star Emperor was basically Warlords in space. IBM was happy. Gamers liked it. And I decided I’d do this Stardock thing full time. It totally beat out doing “Truth in Lending” programs for Ford Credit.
Cool stuff in Elemental
Quickie concept of updated Diplomacy interaction
For Elemental, of course, we have more than a weekend to whip up our game mechanics. But that’s half the fun. We get to play around with all kinds of different idea. Best of all, thanks to this Internet thing, we can get input from others.
So here’s stuff from this week:
Now, for those of you NOT in the beta, fear not. You’re not missing out on anything fun. These prototype betas are explicitly designed to be awful so that we can try out lots of different ideas cheaply. This is going to continue on through the entire prototype phase of the beta (which is beta 1 AND beta 2).
For those of you in the beta, you’re hopefully starting to notice what makes our games a bit different in how they’re developed. We use our software tech like DesktopX and other goodies that allow us to make massive, easy changes to our game mechanics. This way, we can radically change things based on player feedback.
We can re-do an entire screen in less than 15 minutes (for instance). If there’s anyone in the industry reading this, please feel free to run through the normal way a screen gets changed so that readers can see the contrast.
What wouldn't make sense is so to have a Fire Kit for your swords that makes them flaming, adding a bonus to damage (of type Arcane), as well as a Ice Kit that makes you weapons iced, for ssame bonus to damage (of Arcane type). THere should be something more to that. Like maybe the Fire Kit costing more but doing more extra damage, or the more logical thing: FIre Kit and Ice Kit have different effects. That they do the same type of damage or not is in the end irrelevant. If the only difference between them were to be that one does fire damage while the other ice damage, that simply sucks. At least in comparison of having them with different effects.
Damage types or not, I'd be surprised of a Fire Elemental not being inmune to fire damage/effects. Hmmm That said, that would also mean that I cannot develop spells to alter my Fire Elementals (like using my skill with Fire Magic to empower the Elemental with some enchantment type spells... unless we start talking of "surrendering resistances" which we know it's a no no). Thinking about that, somehow it doesn't make much sense not to be able to manipulate an Elemental of one type using magic of the same element. If your Sovereign is not powerfull enough that's fine, but if he is really powerfull, he should be able to do so. *sigh* Go off-topic, go!
I don't understand this "kit system" at all. Why won't have have [mass] enchancement spells instead?..or wait, we won't have kits at all now..I guess? [..since elemental dmg types won't be used in the vanilla game]
Either way, I am not worried anymore, since according to Boogie, we will be able to mod in completely new dmg types, resistances and immunities as well. You can read about it in this topic: https://forums.elementalgame.com/371367
I understand your frustration, but please don't let the crowd of negative Nancies stop you from doing as you please. I like reading these.
Fireball and Iceball are just examples to show the gameplay problems a single "magical" defense can raise.
If fireball does 10 +1D4 magical damage and Iceball does 10 +1D4 magical damage, so there's no need for those two spells. And moreover there's only one way to protect against them.
You get 3 magical resistance and you are as resistant against fire as Ice. Which would be a bad idea if you want Earth, fire, water and Wind Elementals.
I miswrite my last sentence : If there is only one magical resistance, then a single stat will be enough to protect against fireball or iceball or airball (and yeas, those are stupid examples, but just for the demonstration purpose). You can make fireball and iceball different if you "attach" different effects with them : a fireball could ignate and an iceball would slow the target. But with only one magical resistance stat, you can protect your troops against all of them (bad effects) at once ! And that is a bad thing, because a fire elemenal that is immune to fire would also be immune to slowing or damage from ice because there's only one stat used to protect against magical damage.
Well, for one I don't consider myself a hardcore gamer or negative nancie. I don't think my last one or two posts were neither immature or threatening either. Though I know I was ranting, regardless, I just felt the direction of the game was heading down wasn't great. [Personal Opinion]
As other posters have argued, having these damage types, mundane and magical "Arcane", might not be enough to differentiate how spells work and how some creatures work. As Frogboy's major inspiration is Master of Magic, in MoM the spirits or whatever they are called have "Corporeal" as one of their abilities. Meaning, physical weapons do only half their damage against this spiritual creature. The same applies to Elementals and how it will both look stupid and lacking if you cast a fireball at an Ice Elemental for it to only receive the same damage if you threw it at anything else. In the end they are resistances and that can't be ignored. Certainly if I'm fighting against a Death Dragon in E:WOM, any physical weapon or magic that is enchanted with death won't do a damn thing to it, hell, should even heal it as an effect lol.
As someone described earlier, tagging as in Dominions or whatever it is called should be the way to go in terms of providing these logical resistances for units.
I do agree with you Frogboy in that having to reequip your entire army to another resistance is going to be boring, but I think looking at it that way is very narrow-minded. Who's to say in the final product, making your entire army almost-immune to one resistance type is an incredible gamble and one nigh-impossible to reverse because you are in a large-scale war whereas you can't be pulling armies from defenses and offensives? Also, as someone mentioned, why would everyone be compelled instantenously to reequip their armies to another resistance type because they ran up against something different. My point being, I'm not necessarily advocating millions of resistance mechanics, but as Vieuxchat mentioned, having one resistance type for everything just isn't feasible.
Since you played Dragon Age: Origins, you know there is resistances in the game as well as different damage types like acid and frost. Their damage types always add up, but so do resistances, in very small porportions. Truth is, in Dragon Age: Origins, enchanted weapons give you a minor boost but nothing major that really influences the battle, lest someone has their resistance lowered in something.
I think this argument is also being exaggerated quite a bit, but some of us such as me I conclude feel having just one magical resistance and lack of damage types will destroy any organized rock-paper-scissors formula. Thus, the game will be really simple and straightforward unless we add these tags for certain creatures and what's been discussed. Although as someone said, I guess your not looking for fundamental discussion but fine-tuning. Regardless, I will end up playing it and still contributing because I know I will enjoy it for its other features in a grand scale.
Bottom line for me is I guess I just can't handle the sausage factory. I don't like to be told to hold comments on certain game elements until we are in the beat to see those elements, and then get Dec Journals like this that say "we are yanking this because it is unfun". And then when there are a VOCAL FEW (myself included) that say essentially that sucks and here is why (because now we won't be able to make X, Y, and Z strategic choices) we basically get told that we are just a bunch of noobs that don't understand and these type of Dev Journals are no longer going to happen.
Don't deprive the other loyal fans from your Dev Journals due to a few bad apples that didn't realize we were supposed to tailor our responces rather than giving our honest gut reactions. And like several other people since you have posted, if you had taken the time to explain how fire vs. ice vs air would still offer meaningful strategic choices then you probably would not get the strong negative reaction. You can blame that on people reading too much in to the post, or you can say maybe I didn't explain very well andd maybe I should address the concerns by showing how they are not valid concerns because.... Or you can just shut down the Dev Journals and say the fan base is not worth the trouble.
I apologize for the negativity in my posts in this thread. I honestly tried to express that I still havea lot of faith in you guys and still have high hopes for this game. I do feel like if there is ever a choice between listening to the ahrdcore or listening to the casual player that the tendency is to listen to the casual player because honestly they represent a lot more sales. Or so I keep hearing. I don't know that anyone has actually had the guts to put out a hardcore game, every beta I have been involved with, the designers have without exception caved to the casual player because Marketing tells them it means more sales in the long run.
I've actually come around to agreeing this move is probably the right thing to do - I understand and agree with the arguments that it would suck to have to re-equip your entire army every fight/ I was looking at it more from a GalCiv2 perspective - you don't re-equip your ships with different defences between every fight, right? It is more the ability at the design phase to create an army that is strong vs the types of armies you expect to face. It's a strategic choice. If you choose wrong and build a highly fire resistant army and end up fighting the ice creatures of doom, well oopsie, you made a bad choice, you didn't get enough intel. And it seems that kind of strategy is gone. Am I wrong?
Well I have to say I'll miss Frogboy's posts. As a doctor I've enjoyed the little glimpses into how games are made. I don't understand too much of it though, so I generally keep my comments to general ideas. In the end, if there is a fireball shooting across the screen, I don't care how you program it.
I do empathize with your frustrations with people on the internet. In general, people suck on the internet. The lack of body language and the anonymity lead to widley misinterpreted and overly emotional arguements.
I understand the complexity problem with excessive susceptibility to damage types. If you made unique damage too powerful without a blocking protection, the battle quickly become one sided affairs. And you pointed out its not fun to re-equip the entire army to deal with each unique damage. It sounds like we already have 3 likely tactical problems (melee, ranged, and magic) and that adding 6 more subtypes of magic to counter is the same as complicated and relevant as factoring in which body parts got hit.
I am a big fan of the KISS principle. Lots of computer and board games mistake the idea that simply adding more moving parts makes a game fun. The most successful games have just enough complexity to make it interesting without dragging out the turns. Lots of people like the idea of detailed games, but I rarely see anyone pulling out those types of boardgames because taking an hour per turn is just boring. Check out the top rated games at Boardgamegeek.com, there are no super detailed wargames in the top 50. Most people don't want to have to worry about the armor thickness and angle of their tank or account for every bullet fired.
http://boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame
I'll be happy to critique the combat system when I actually see it in action.
Ren
I've been watching Elemental development from a distance so far (too busy with work). When I saw these "sausage factory" posts showing up, it worried me. Design by committee never works. It just produces a mess. I'd rather see something that's the vision of a handful of people or a single person. That's true of movies, it's true of TV shows, and it's true of software. From my own experience managing a software product, customers will always say "yes" when asked if they want this feature or that.
I'm glad to see Stardock is willing to take a stand and say "not in our game."
With computer you can do a lot more than in a boardgame (and I love boardgames ! All types, from wargames to family games). Combat mission was really good thanks to that : you don't need to learn a lot of mechanism, but the comp handles all the simulations. You give orders, and for the next 60 seconds the comp calculates what ever happens and show it to you. then you can give new orders. For the player it's easy to play, but you get a complexity near as high a reality.
More info there : Combat Mission - Afrika Corps
Firtst thought: Another person asking that the developer jounrlas going. This one seemed unusual in stumbling onto a deeply held gameplay convention. At least from what I've seen the other journals seemed ot go more effectively (the research and inheritance ones, for example, seemed to go pretty well.) For future thoughts and discussions on the actual spell system, the quest system, diplomacy, inheritance/family trees, etc., I would not expect the threads ot go as sour as the damage type ones have gone. It might be a good idea to repeat some of this post (about the mana systems, map, and story), somewhere else, or at least start more posts about these things at the next point they are updated, so that we have a chance to write more on those without the damage types eating up everything.
This sort of thing seems to happen a lot with MMO's when I read MMO based forums and blogs (where people go nuts when a particular gameplay element is changed from what they are used to), and it was somewhat surprising here.
(I should admit that I am enjoying this somewhat, as the points made in the frogboy posts are the same as non-developer arguments against lots of damage types in earlier threads. That is, at least, if/until the mechanic changes again, than we can all go back to being somewhat grumpy. )
There is a part of me that, at the very least, is hoping ot see some reference in game to the "fireball kills fire elemental" example that's come up a lot here.
I am certainly curious to see more of the diplomacy, physical combat, and magic (aside from the damage types argument) systems mentioned in this post, depending on how fleshed out they are at the moment.
Not a good example, because we can expect developers to avoid having the same spell with different graphics. If we have damage types, but they do a holy spell that blesses your unit with +1 to attack, and a nature strength that gives your unit +1 attack also (not damage, but attack, so no resistances are involved), those aren't very good spells either...
Yes, exactly like there's one attribute to protect against a sword or an arrow, same idea.
It's not a bad thing, it's a simpler thing. Either way, resisting spells with several effects it's the same with one resistance or with several resistances: you either save against the whole spell, or save against every effect in a separated way.
An old post of mine
I would propose a few new stats and changes.
* = new stat category
Attack
Speed
Defense
Health
Magic Resistance*
Evasion*
Willpower*
I would break damage into two broad groups physical and magical. Every attack would be comprised of one or possibly both of these types. A unit could reduce physical damage with defense or evade it completely with evasion. Evasion would also apply to magic spells. Magic Resistance would reduce magical damage and Willpower would determine the strength of offensive spells. The system would still be very simple and straight forward but with a huge increase in depth. Personally I would still like a deeper damage system then just physical and magical.
I more or less still feel the same but I may have warmed to the two damage type system. I personally still think a few more damage types would be cool but that’s just me. Truth be told I’m rather happy to see the inclusion of magic resistance although I would still like an attribute to increase magical damage. As long as schools of magic have specific and unique effects that aren’t present in other magic schools I think the current system sounds pretty good.
Yes but that's still one type of damage.
In code, that's basically an armor that mitigates 50% mundane damage.
See, that's why we have to be careful on these journals is because non-coders read too much into this stuff.
MOM's combat system is very very straight forward -- even simpler than Elemental's (basically the same except Elemental has combat speed). Everything else is just a cosmetic -- which is good.
Frogboy, will the spells have "Effects"? I just want to know if there will be a difference between a "Fireball" that does 3 arcane damage, and a "Iceblast" that does 3 arcane damage. With different Tags and Effects for different spells then having only one damage type for them all is fine. We just want to know variety will mean something.
For example, a Fireball can have a burning effect that makes the target take damage for more then one round in combat, while a Iceblast can have a effect on the targets movement speed, while both still do 3 arcane damage.
Just out of curiosity Raven why do you think there is a possibility of there not being numerous effects for specific categories of spells? I mean Brad said there would only be two types of damage not there will be only two types of effects.
It's somewhat hard to understand. Will there be creatures with immunity/resistance to cold/fire/lightning/other, or spells of protection for squads? That's our concern.
I have difficulty understanding how it can be one type of damage if, say, a yeti can take 2-5 physical damage +only 1 cold damage from an ice- enchanted sword while a knight would take 2-5 physical + 3 cold damage, while both of them would take 2-5 +3 from a fire-enchanted sword (just an exemple).
As for the repeated pokes about "non-coders read too much", I must say it's the writer who should speak as to be understood, just as scientists or engineers don't speak the same between us or adressing a journalist for a mundane audience.
There are coders here (who can talk with BoogieBac and cariElf where all I read seems like Hebrew) but there are also simple gamers who just want to talk about how the game will work, how it relates to other games, to movies/books of fantasy. Don't be cryptic in telling how the game will work, perhaps use analogies (like "Do you want mage towers like in AoW2?"), and we'll give feedback. After all, that's why we are here: not for bitching, not for whining, but to tell what we'd like.
This. No one said so far we are only going to have damage spells or that a spell can't have several effects (ongoing damage, modify unit attributes, create or modify terrain, and a long list of other ideas).
Nobody has pointed out yet, that I've seen that it would be entirely possible to kill a fire elemental with a fireball. (A big enough fireball) The fireball could consume all the oxygen in the surrounding area snuffing out the elemental.
So what? You guys have missed the point. What about melee oriented magical damage? Sword of Fire, Sword of Ice etc. All of these weapons would do the SAME dmg type: arcane in the vanilla game...am I correct? Oh well...thankfully we can add new dmg type categories via modding, so "hardcore" or more serious strategy gamers can have their fun as well. MoM was a good game, but it was way too simple in regard to the tactical combat system.
LOL "more serious strategy gamers" get over yourself man.
Do you know yet what the format of the single player campaign will be?
For example, age of empires style, where you spend some time on one map, then move onto the next, or all on one big map, with important events taking place on the same worldmap?
Ok let’s have a little thought experiment shall we? Just because there is only two types of damage doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be a difference in a fire sword and an ice sword. For example the fire sword could burn targets doing +2 arcane damage for 3 turns where the ice sword could freeze targets lowering speed for five turns.
Now let’s look at a more complicated scenario using a fire elemental. Let’s say there is an effect known as elemental shield flame. The fire elemental has this effect it causes the arcane resistance of the creature to go up when attacked by fire based attacks. So if you attacked with a fire sword that did 10 physical damage plus 10 arcane damage the fire elemental would take reduced or no arcane damage from the fire sword.
If you wanted to get really fancy you could make elemental shield flame have a weakness to arcane damage out of the water school of magic. So if you attacked the fire elemental with an ice sword with the same stats as the previous fire sword its arcane resistance would drop thus causing it to take more then 10 points of arcane damage. Now if you throw in unique effects for fire, earth, air, water, life, death, and physical based attacks you can basically do anything you’ve ever seen in any video game with only two damage types.
This is the same as the fireball and iceball example.
I was thinking more in terms of diplomacy, unit quotes, etc. (Think of the "I can see that you are placing lots of ships around my planets. Perhaps this worked in you 'video games', but we know exactly what you are doing' type of humor referencing it.). I'm sure if some backstory is really needed, someone could come up with some reason to explain unexpected or unconventional vulnerabilities.
I'd also say that fire elementals are another example of spell diffrentiation through different effects rather than through damage types. Lots of people are asking about how we are supposed to strategize against fire elementals without cold damage (or such), while forgetting that fire elementals can have a lot of other properties to distinguish themselves from other magical creatures, and allow strategies against them. (Attack speed, AoE, damage return, fast movement, whatever the developers think sounds fire elementally. Assuming elementals are in here, though the same logic applies to other creatures.)
Am also curious about this.
OK this kind of reply just makes me think you're not getting it. This type of example is exactly what there will NOT be. You are saying OK there is only two damage types, arcane and physical but then you think you are going to differentiate based on what school the damage came out of, and that the mobs "arcane" resistance is going to change based on what school the attack came out of. This is even MORE complex than just having damage types and resistances for each element, it has the same end result but you have jsut used reverse Polish notation to get the same result. Based on Frogboy's post this is EXACTLY what he said was unfun and why they went away from damage and resistance types.
I agree with Frogboy that having to re-equip your armies jsut to be able to fight different enemies would be unfun. But what about combat spells to boose certain resistances (maybe even a certain spell to give a powerful unit brief immunity to certain types of damage.
Now of course, you could just have an immunity spell to all damage or all arcane damage, but wouldn't it have been cool to have a fire immunity, fire resistance (maybe of various levels), ice immunity and resistance, etc - you would have to pick and choose which spells to learn, lots of strategic decision making that could have a big effect on the game - my understanding is those type of decisions are gone. Doing some kind of ass backward calculation to say "oh the spell is of CATEGORY Fire so we are going to alter his arcane resistance - if indeed that is what they are doing (I don't think it is because I don't think they are complete retards).
No I have not done any GAME programming but I have over 15 years of professional coding experience for both the financial and healthcare industry, I do understand coding and have done a couple of VERY simple games for my own experience. In other words, I am no where near these guys, but I do have a pretty solid grasp of coding.
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