As we move towards release many of the assets in the beta make their exit. We shall miss them (well, maybe not).
The finished quests start to get put into place, the finalized notable locations begin to be inserted and the unreleased spell books and special abilities start to get implemented.
The beta program has largely been about testing out systems and mechanics. Some mechanics, like the per city level building limiter, didn’t survive. Others, like influence based resource control, replaced them.
Memory Problems
The area we need the most help on right now has to do with out of memory issues. This is something we’re very concerned about because it’s not easily repeatable (but very easy for those who run into it). So we’ll be asking users who run out of memory to get us their debug.err and their saved games so we can look at it. It could be as simple as some building in the game taking up some crazy amount. It shouldn’t be hard to track down something that eats up over 100 megabytes per turn (or so you’d think anyway).
The other area we’d like to hear from you are all your ideas, suggestions and wish lists. We want to make sure Elemental is something really special on day 1 as well as set the game on the path to evolving over time.
New Quests
One of the types of quests that I’m enjoying are the ones where you have to collect various items and bring them back to someone to get them made into a special item. I’m looking at adding the ability to trade these items between players so if the AI players have found Midnight Stones (for instance) and you need one more to get the boots of eternal dodging then you can trade with them for that midnight stone (and vice versa if they need something the AI can come to you and try to trade for it).
Special Abilities
Here’s a sampling of some of the special abilities we’re putting in:
Poison Shot Tangled Web Vengeance Sanctuary Deadly Bite Immunity Blink Rain of Stone Flame Strike Maul Sprint Savage Strike Confusion Drowning Strike Crushing Blow Dominate Hurricance Backstab Tremor Searing Attack Agonizing Fear
But if you have your own special abilities you’d like to see, go ahead and post them and explain what they do. Keep in mind, the more convoluted they are, the less likely they are to go in (e.g. Moonlit Dance – if full moon, target unit has a chance of doing a special dance that causes adjacent units to mimic dance draining them of their will to live if they have an intelligence less than 8 but greater than 4).
Anyway, we’re pleased with how the game is turning out. The only thing we’re sweating right now really is the out of memory issue.
Mana Fury - point of mana Unit is below maximum, Int is raised by 1. (i.e. at 2/16 you have +14 int)
Revelation - Unit is able to see all equipment and abilities of enemy units.
Essence Flare - Unit converts HP into Mana at a Int/5 ratio
Destabilization - makes Target Defenses 0 for Con/10 turns.
Triage - Reduces all Damage taken by all of your unit by Essence/10
I saw this post at work and I was going to write a post with my ideas but a lot of them have been covered by others. I'd just like to say that I'd like special abilities to work as "kits" that you can apply during unit creation. Each unit would probably only get one of these ability kits and certain kits would only be available to certain factions in order to make the factions more diverse. Kits could also be upgraded through research. For example, level one ice arrows could have a 25% chance to freeze the target for one turn. Level two ice arrows would provide an additional 10% chance to freeze for two turns.
Ability kits are a nice idea.
Wow, you missed all the fun ! If it's about exploring for free stuff I mean lots of games out there about that. I don't give a damn about that so, good thing they are gone tbh
And I hope that asking for special abilities less than a month before release doesn't mean the combat will get imbalanced as hell? ... I mean I can also copy 500 spells from other games like half of the ones above did but why ...
Nemesis/X-bane: Unit gets bonus damage against the specified unit type. IE, after driving the giant spiders into the pass for the third time, the 1st Freeland Archers gain the trait Spiderbane, or Nemesis (Spider).
Unstoppable Charge: Unit can move X squares, damaging any units in its path and knocking them aside.
Blood Frenzy: Killing an enemy unit grants this unit enhanced accuracy/damage for 2 rounds. Making another kill within that time limit has a cumulative effect both to duration and magnitude of bonus.
Feint: This unit can opt to make an attack that will do no damage. On a successful hit, the target's defense drops to 0 (or some arbitrary percentage hard-capped at a maximum negative modifier) for the remainder of the round (or for the next round as well). This represents the target committing its attention and defenses toward the feinting unit.
Don't be like that. No idea is really new. In fact if I looked hard enough I could prolly find your post verbatim on a much older board for another game.
The point of throwing these ideas out is to give them more fuel for the fire. The bigger the flame the better the game.
Please add some sorting options to the spellbook (or have you already?). For example by: spellbook, level, type, duration, etc.
This way you can more easily see what new spells you get when you collect a new book, I'd really like to be able to see what extra goodies I get when I find or I'm given that new book, you could maybe use bookmarks at the top of the book to take you to a specific group.
This way you could still sort by stage (probably a better name) so you can still see what you've learned, are learning and not learned (again probably a better description can be thought off).
Wishlist.
That the game utilizes an organic satellite community growth method. So that way, as your city grows, it naturally gets supported by larger and larger communities that do not live directly in your community center but support it.
You know like the real world. But that hasn't ever been replicated at all in fantasy games, because of the unusual suspension of disbelief that there is gigantic vast distances between cities. (Wrong.. cities grow as more people come to them, but then support communities develop to feed that community and then house those new communities. Pretty much as has been through the last 6,000 years of human history.)
And I'm quoting myself here.
Now.. my idea in this case. With some basic general ideas, to make kingdom level play a LOT more fun.
When you found a village, because that's what we do at step 1. We then grow that village into a small town. And from there, we grow it into a large sized town, then to a city, and finally a metropolis.
One thing you can do... to make city leveling more organic, and bear a semblance of reality, even if it is fantastic reality, but reality. Is to after choosing the bonus you get for your town going up a level.
More people should come into your kingdom. And they do that by building a village nearby. A village that you don't build anything in. It just has a static baseline, houses, etcetera. But now is part of your kingdom. (And also helps project your kingdom borders organically as well.) The distance away should be something like 4 squares give or whatever feels right in testing.
Without a lot of fluff here.. this is what I'm talking about.. all bullet point like.
Each time your city levels, you get to build upon your community and thus the kingdom.
Those numbers are purely arbitrary. But they give the idea that not only as your city grows, people come to live under your Kingdom/Empire banner, for protection and out of some loyalty. Those new villages and small towns, can be mechanically designed to act as bonuses to the baseline, offering more people coming from your villages when building troops, and what not. You can station troops in them, and will have a reason to defend them as well. They could contribute gold, or food, or research ... whatever seems like it will make the gameplay deeper, with more going on.
And then there is the other side of it.. you still go off and build new cities yourself as normal with Pioneers. And they eventually attract people, and when it's all said and done. It will feel much more fantastic, yet realistic. People will feel like these things matter. Hell those villages, could even have little name tags, or simply be nameless. They could help extend the borders, but also like the ideas of forts, allow troops to be stationed in safe areas. And we'll also have reasons to want to build troops to defend our kingdom against the wild monsters out there.
And they could also act as natural caravan points for road construction. And the 10 square minimum for city construction would still stand, based upon the actual growing city.. the one's that can grow into Stage 4 or 5's. Yet still have villages that maybe grow closer together over time. With a sense of real roads. As once a new community is placed after your city levels up, it builds a road to this new village. Thus a new spiral of roads are built as well.
And another bonus to them is that they create the illusion of larger growth but without requiring more micromanagement. The key to them is placement. Once that is done, they act as part of your city, but you don't build anything in them. So that way, your creating a sense of depth, without the extra complication.
This also has the other added benefit of avoiding the need to spam cities. Because you'll have a larger area, and the five or so real cities you build will really span a good chunk of the map. But also feel.. real. Fantastic, but real. Without the fatigue of dealing with late stage city development, that many people despair.
It's a sleight of hand on one side. But then it also presents strategic possibilities. Including a realistic source of gold and some foods from those villages. Flowing to the city so that way they could be captured. Denying the primary city the benefit of that village.
I think that makes the case. And from testing, the recent phases of the beta, and seeing the current fluidity of the city situation, still being radically altered. I think this could present a new and organic feel. And Not something seen in any other game, so it'll be a new experience, that may set the trend, for 4X build style games.
But that's just my major Wishlist idea.
No idea is really new. In fact if I looked hard enough I could prolly find your post verbatim on a much older board for another game.The point of throwing these ideas out is to give them more fuel for the fire. The bigger the flame the better the game.
I would beg to differ, my idea on satellite community growth is actually a new idea, and hasn't been replicated in any other game that I know of. This would be the first of it's kind if it were to happen here.
But I do agree, that more ideas are a good thing. And there are many they can explore now!
Actually you should definitely try 'Dawn of discovery'. You very much do satellite and specialized cities for production/food :}.
The AI opponents trading must be closely balanced or it will be GalCiv all over again, where every AI has every tech and bobble the world has to offer = not fun. The concept is acceptable, but the devil is always in the execution.
As to ability ideas minor elemental resistance, one per elemental type 20-40% resistance to that damage type.
Major elemental resistance 60-80% resistance.
Elemental immunity 100% resistance less other modifications, to one elemental type (fire, electricity, etc.)
Metal immunity as above but only to metal weapons.
Darvroth
I would love to see the item shop interface get some attention, it would be cool if, for example, when you mouse over an item in the shop, a pop up window would show how your stats are going to change if you equip that item and possibly show what the equipment would look like on the hero. currently its a bit clumsy to equip multiple heroes
Hope its on your to-do list
game is coming together nicely and im especially happy with the performance tuning that has been done, i finally getting good framerates!
Dont know if im following 100% but there was a game called Kohan which i really enjoyed playing (fantasy RTS) that you had to build more cities and pick how you wanted to build their resources so your overall pool (gold wood metal magic ect) could support your army. i recommend the 2-D sprite one, not the 3-D one.
I may have to give it a shot, as I've not played it before.
More of what I meant by organic community growth was that as your city gets bigger, new communities form around it. (Though I would like to see more specialized options than what's currently available for a city when it levels up.)
I have a couple suggestions, though the abundance is already pretty high.
Heart's Fire - Cast a tactical spell from hitpoints instead of essence and ensure max damage, might qualify as more of a spell you'd prepare as an enchantment pre-battle...
Mob/Pack Mentality - Units gain increased attack in parties, and in groups of individuals of 3+
Fanaticism - Never panics, 1.5x normal morale bonus, can't retreat
Ritualist - Can combine Essence rating at 1/1 ratio with another unit to cast spells, with exponentially diminishing returns per extra ritualist added
Tranquil Fury (Yep, right out of tvtropes) - Champions only; When army is at half strength and unit is at (>50%) hp, (Constitution)% chance of +4 str, dex, and +1 combat speed, and immunity to morale
Cut and Run - Disarmed, but receives +1 combat speed (in addition to speed gained for losing equipment [which is not replaced at battle's end], for the sake of retreating
Can an option at game creation be turned on so we can choose if we want goodie huts?
One idea I'd like to propse, borrowing from AoW series
allow gain of special abilities at random as a choice for level up.
What about cursed items or items that only benefit one faction and curse the other? Thatd be kind of cool. What about various acts that please gods at random that create random world effects in the game?
the randomly spawned guardian units need to be more buff :/
1. Stealth - allow units to sneak up on an enemy.
2. Steal/Pickpocket - allow a unit steal items/gold from a unit vs. preforming an attack.
3. Beast Master - ability to capture & train creatures vs. just killing them.
4. Raise Dead - Create a skeleton from dead units on the tactical map.
5. Transmutation - Ability to convert one resource into another (iron to food, gold to crystals, etc.).
Just a couple of ideas ->
Auras -> heat/chill/etc -> Periodic damage [Ex.:5fire dmg/turn] if an unit stands near the creature.
Disease Cloud -> Breath attack, which does X damage/turn in a small area & spreads disease amongst the other units. Diseased units will take X dmg / turn and it also weakens them. [- to their dmg]
Paralyze -> I don't think that I must explain this one.
Teleport -> The ability to teleport on the battlefield.
Stone Gaze [ranged] / Petrify [touch] -> Turns the target to stone.
Ethereal -> Non-magic attacks hit only X% of the time.
i like your idea about satellite communities Gorstagg. it just seems weird to have my territory covered in mines, farms, temples, and libraries. and not have small clusters of population running them. would be cool if, as a city level up bonus, you could build a small village attached to an outlying resource.
Healer. Improves healing rates of units in the same tile.
Diseased. Reduces healing rates of units in the same tile.
Plaguebearer. Any unit attacked in combat has a chance of becoming plagued, losing attack and defense and taking 1 damage per turn.
Acrobat. Gains extra dodge bonus.
How about:
Beta tester- Cause unit to stop doing anything but play Beta 4, and pull their hair out waiting for release
My wishlist relates to the AI for computer allies:
-I would like having preferential trading terms with computer allies, such as being able to trade for that midnight stone more easily from an ally versus a neutral party (even if this is as simple as neutral party wants 200 gold, ally only wants 150 gold).
-A more complicated addition would be having your computer ally help you in attacking the same opponent with coordinated attacks on their kingdom, and possibly even allowing tactical battles where the AI joins your army to fight an enemy at the outset.
Game is looking/playing great!
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