This beta is making a good impression. Still I'd like to add some thoughts concerning game play and feeling of the game. With the feeling of the game I refer to coherence of the game with the main background story and of course what I expect of this game.
I only added ideas that I think are easy to program with features already in the game. However I could be wrong.
#1 - Availability of heroes
First of all for a game that starts centuries after a magical apocalypse the starting screen feels very crowded with all sorts of heroes wandering around. I usually have between two or three hardly ever on one my starting screen. Heroes should what they are - very rare and exceptional people. Heroes surviving in such a desolate and post apocalyptic land shouldn't be wandering around and say hello to each other every other turn.
Shouldn't they live in (magically) protected habitats and maybe taking care of other survivors. Thus being heroes. Such habitats could be:
- swamps (an old witch or her daughter),
- wizard towers (old wizards resp. their apprentices),
- caves with veteran survivors (warrior heroes),
- oases with arabian style heroes,
- old workshops with a weird inventor (surviving by using strange devices)
- etc.
Each hero could or better should have a related quest or a certain requirement like influence of a city, certain spell or technology, army size, moral alignment, etc. Only a small part of heroes should be nomads, with the ability to survive in the desolates of the land. Therefore it is your (more difficult) task to find and convince competent leaders to work for you.
#2 - Availability of resources
Many of the resources on the map are very easy to access. Just build a city nearby and research the necessary technology. That is good but maybe resources could have different tiers? Some could be resources which pioneers need to work on for a number of turns in order for them to be used. But not in a way of immediately enabling harvesting but in a way of uncovering (e.g. dig up an old well giving more food), restoring (e.g. an old statue/relic granting additional prestige) or discovering (e.g. an old fortress that reduces training time or increases defence) it. A third tier which might be too complicated to be integrated is to need "nomad heroes" (see my point #1) to find those resources first.
#3 - Traits for units
Currently it is possible to research technologies that increase for example movement range (advanced tracking) of units. Why not add technologies that make it possible to train units a certain way thus increasing their production time and adding certain traits. Those traits could be similar to traits heroes have.
Some ideas:
- Scouting gives additional movement range and sight but restricts armour to light leather or cloth
- Garrison units have decreased movement range but increased defence.
- Police units increase tax but have decreased defence and attack.
- Honour guard increased defence when in an army with a hero
- Head hunter’s bonus when fighting against certain npc’s
That’s it for my first post. If anything is not understandable please ask, my mother tongue is not English.
Via
Most NPCs are nothing special. They're just NPCs.
There are no "Heroes" (as a class) in Elemental. Click on them and you'll see what I mean.
I fully agree about the heroes. They should be special individuals and survivors who have made a home somewhere. These inventors and merchants running about the devastated landscape is silly. Some of them should be leaders of a small community. The lone wolves wandering about should be the minority. I could see the Sovereign being someone who would unite these scattered people under one banner, or saving a small community from a threat and gaining the loyalty of their leader that way. Quests would be far better than a one time payment to recruit them. The heroes should follow you willingly. That said, I can see the odd elite mercenary or assassin who would swear his allegiance to the highest bidder.
But if they have a name that means they are special and rise above the swordsmen and longbowmen. And you can equip them and get quite attached to them.
Well then let me substitute "heroes" with "Unit Type: Champion". I should have used more game relating terminology.
Nevertheless I would stick to the point that champions or normal npc's from my point of view are very much crowding the desolate land and basically saying hello to each other on a regular basis. This is not what I expected.
i agree the champions should not run around the map, or at least only bad ones.
good champions should have a terrain feature associated with them and a quest, for example if you want a good inventor champion you must seek out his hut and do a quest and only then you can recruit him. similar things should be done for other types of champions.
also the availability of those quests should be linked to your fame level (or is it called prestige i don't know).
Whats the problem with Champions doing what is natural? aka Explore the world for "resources". They could be exploring to see possible threats, trying to recover ancient pieces from the past that could help them (direct use or trading it for something else) and other similar stuff.
Staying home won't allow survivors to see incoming threats until it's too late, will prevent them to secure resources that could improve greatly their current situation... They need to be proactive and champions do have a role in that. Not that there wouldn't be champions which skills would be more appropiate for "urban" stuff but Indiana Jones wouldn't be Indiana JOnes if he were to stay all the time at his University.
I get your point but what you criticize is not what I meant. It's the representation of the champions. If they had their improvised habitats which represent a certain radius that they have explored and claimed I wouldn't complain. The problem however is that they keep wandering around in masses (exaggerated).
That’s exactly what I meant.
Considering what a dangerous place the wilderness seems to be with all the monsters and bandits and such, I too find it really strange that inventors, loremasters and merchants walk alone with no apparent purpose. A merchant should have a relatively famous shop set up somewhere in the wilderness. You can go to his shop and recruit him there, or if you have a prestigious enough city there's a small chance that he'll be visiting your city and offering his services. Same goes for wizards in their towers and loremasters in their studies. Occasionally for very short periods they could wander around an area really close to their home. Administrators could be found in some rickety mining operation perhaps.
Bands of adventurers a should be the only NPCs actually wandering around. Exactly *because* the inventors etc aren't heroes, they shouldn't wander around.
I agree and said before there are too many right now. To make an assumption that they are scouting, harvesting, or whatever is a stretch. It is about gameplay right now.
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