I've been concerned about this for months. In fact, it caused me to sit out the beta and delay my preorder until last week. And after playing for most of yesterday evening and getting deep into one sandbox game, I realized I was right to be concerned.
The game lacks an epic feel. Most of the game feels like me and a small adventuring party running around conquering other empires. (How 4-6 guys could take over an entire empire is beyond me, but it's pretty routine in Elemental.) The armies are simply too small to give the game much of a grand strategy feel. I know the culprit: tactical battles. But I don't know why the presentation has to emphasize the idea that I have a few soldiers, fewer adventurers, and a couple of hundred peasants in my "grand fantasy empire."
An infamous early screenshot showed a dragon dealing with what looks like hundreds of armored soldiers. I have seen nothing like that in Elemental (but I knew not to really). Battles are between a few units on each side. In the early game, it's my channeler casting chain lightning and killing 4 spiders (or whatever) over and over. The few troops walking around with her feel like bodyguards or traveling companions, not an army.
The game never feels like I'm ruling an empire. There aren't enough cities. It feels like a small band of people gathering together for protection; a scenario not unlike the classic "DnD party finds a refugee camp and does quests to help" adventure.
I'm not sure how to fix this. You could change the graphical presentation to make soldiers look more like units than individuals (something that sort of happens later in the game, which only emphasizes the small scale of the early game). It could be more clear than 1 pop unit in a city isn't just 1 person. Heroes could be scaled back to where they aren't slaughtering what might be considered a squad or regiment of troops.
This is my major disappointment with Elemental. I just don't feel like I'm playing a grand strategy game. I feel more like I'm coordinating a couple of small adventuring groups around a tiny country with a few villages here and there where I can recruit other party members.
It really eliminates immersion.
I'm generally pretty quiet around forums. But this game is currently working just fine and the Day-0 patch addresses some issues, but 99.99% companies would just at this point not care and maybe release a new patch within the next few months or even longer to address problems. But as of the, I guess, "Day -1" patch. It helped the game run a lot smoother and better. Meanwhile, the team has been busting it's ass off getting everything ready after the street date was broken. After the Demigod incident, at least, this time there were more prepared.
Right now, this is a fully functioning game. However, due to PCs having how many varies different configurations, you are going to have problems. This isn't a game for a console. You have many variables that you can't account for.
Trying to say the game "not complete" is just a bold faced lie. It's currently more complete then most games on the market. I have games that I'm still waiting for the bugs to get worked out and who knows if it ever will for some of them. However, the Stardock team and Brad have bent-over backwards to try to make people happy and then they have to read this crap.
Just my two cents.
I agree the scale of the armies feels small, but I don't mind because that fits in with the fiction of restoring a devastated civilization to a ruined world (I assume the population was decimated as well).
This. Couldn't have worded it better myself.
I agree Vryllyn its why I like SD (apart from their games ofc ) they along with Valve I personally feel are some of the only really supportive developers around who are willing to really work to improve their games post-release without expecting extra fees or a continued income of some kind. They also seem to listen to user suggestions which is a rarity in itself!
Uh, Last i checked you could build massive armies if you so chose to do so, but if you rahter play with only 6 men thats up to you.
I'm still working on a strategy, but i'm really liking swarms of unarmored peasants with a good weapon with a few archers and a group of heavily armored troops.
yeah i would say that the game was delivered finished. i played for about an hour and i had no problems and loved it. you are obviously wanting an absolutely perfect game, hey guess what, its not possible. nobody is going to agree on everything. you can look at it 2 ways. either you have 9 out of 10 things right and accept that and have fun, or you can have 1 out of 10 things wrong and obsess over it and let it destroy your enjoyment. that's the problem with most people, they will avoid all that's good and gravitate to the one bad thing. you would enjoy things more if you didn't have such a pessimistic attitude.
The OP is right... they totally lied with the "1000's of units!" line and then this is what we get...
This isn't epic. This feels incredibly dull. Wishing I hadn't bought it TBH...
We consider the game, as released, finished. You don't agree. I am offering you a solution.
If I buy a pair of shoes in the shoe store and don't like them, I don't go back to the shoe store and start loudly proclaiming to everyone in ear shot how I don't like it.
You've spent several posts (including one that was hidden) proclaiming how we haven't lived up to the Gamers Bill of Rights because you don't think the game out of the box is "done". Fine, we get it, you don't think it's done. So get a refund then and move on.
We wish you hadn't more than you wish you hadn't.
End - I am offering you a full refund. I don't want you to feel like you got ripped off or something.
We had thousands of units in the early betas. We could train legions (1000+ units at once). It wasn't fun. At the end of the day, that is what guides us, making it fun.
If someone else wants to mod in legions or what have you they can. But we decided it was more enjoyable to keep the numbers smaller and more manageable so that every unit counted.
Wait a minute. I don't remember having a post hidden, but doesn't that go against my "right" to "demand" a finished game as according to your bill of rights? It literally says:
Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.
I know it says that you, the developer, do not have to *listen*, but wouldn't hiding posts would be against this amendment?
Out of curiosity, how would having 10x the units with everything else the exact same, make a big difference in a positive way?
I understand the complaint..i just don't see with the current gameplay setup how having 100's of units is so much worse then 1000's.
I also like the small armies, I don't want to fight total war type battles. Large battles would get very old, very fast with the tactical combat system in Elemental. The main issue is city/town defense, walls should be a early tech to stop a small group from attacking a city. Defenses should grow along with the size of your city/town and you should need specific techs, like siege equipment to attack walled defenses.
Again, this seems like a case of new gamers versus old gamers. The style of play in Elemental is akin to the classic computer games -- HoMM, MoM, etc. It was only with the exponential increase in computing power did developers realize that they could placate the "masses" by having hundreds of units on screen at once. Yes, the increase in CPU power does allow for increased creative expression by developers. Games like Medieval II featured "massive battles" without insulting the intelligence of the gamer. But games today are not like games in the past because they overly rely upon graphics and multimedia. As Frogboy stated, the budget for SC2's cut scenes probably was larger than the budget for Elemental, as a whole.
Elemental comes out of a gameplay heritage that is NOT like today's mainstream, watered-down gaming. Just admit it. Gaming today is mainstream. A vast majority of games are purposely created with the lowest common denominator in mind because that equals better sales, which is necessary to placate shareholders. It's a different market than in the 80s and 90s when computer gaming was a bit more niche.
Any smart consumer that is concerned about the state of the product they are purchasing should do research before hand. To put it another way, people are not powerless consumers. Read reviews. Wait a week after release. Wait until the price drops. Wait for a demo. Learn to see the positives in a product rather than focus on the negatives.
Or go and play halo or CoD like everyone else.
You've been given the option to return the game because YOU FEEL that the game is not in a finished state. I would also like to point out that most others that have posted (in this and other threads) completely disagree with your assessment. But you are entitled to your opinion. You stated that opinion.
All you are doing now is being argumentative for no real reason. If I were you, I'd take the offer and be on my merry way. Otherwise, your lurking and borderline trolling is doing nothing more than making you look more and more like a total douchebag.
The screenshot of thousands of units on screen was taken when tactical battle was real time, very early in beta. It was an early game concept, that with everything else they wanted to accomplish, didn't feel like it fit. So essentially what you are demanding was an incomplete game just for the sake of it looking a certain way.
This shit is why a lot of developers who don't make cookie cutter games (like Valve edit: As in Valve doesn't make cookie cutter games.), don't say much of anything about their games before and after launch, because some vocal minority will always use some stuff they said over a year ago, or some similar and minor gripe, against them.
A finished game evolves from its original concepts into what concepts survived the test of 'fun'. This is why many concepts that seem cool on paper just don't work out and ultimately get removed from a game by the time it is released.
By the way, he has listened to you. There's a difference between a right to demand a finished game, and relentlessly posting the same stuff on the forums. He said he's sorry you don't feel the game is finished, and if you feel that way that he'd happily give you a refund. I think he's listened to your demands quite enough, and has also explained why he feels differently. What else can you expect from the CEO of a company?
I think playing with 1000 units would be tedious and unmanageable. I think people complaining should spend a little more time actually learning the game rather than complaining after 1 hour of play. From all the other posts around here it sounds like you can make a decent sized army.
Oh, good god. This is ridiculous.
Listen: Stardock considers the game finished. Just because it doesn't have what you wanted does not mean the game is unfinished.
Jesus, I can't believe I even have to say that. You're not happy with the product. The CEO himself offers you a full refund. But instead of being satisfied with an offer that NO OTHER DEV would ever make, you continue to whine.
WHY? Because you don't think the game is finished?
The only real complaint you have is that it doesn't have the legions that the early blurbs talked about. This has been explained. It's not because they couldn't fit it in, they didn't want to.
There is no reason for you to continue to post here. Your complaint has been addressed. Stand aside, take you refund and shut up about it.
BTW, Frogboy, any chance some of the crashes can be addressed?
I thing the unit sizes are fine, except in the early stages when you are training them in singles. It takes away from the epicness (original poster idea) of the game somewhat.
My other major concern might be addressed with day-0 chances though. You currently don't really need this so-called army that lots of people seem to yearn for. Hopefully the balance and tactical-battle changes will make fielding armies more important.
Agreed.
It's the bane of MMO developers. The community begs for updates, the developers try to share their vision of where they'd like to go with the game, stressing that it's in early development, and then when it doesn't happen there's always a vocal minority that refers back to those "promises" and won't let it go. Those people ruin it for the rest of us. I can't blame developers for not wanting to talk about possible features in games anymore.
Probably wants him to show up on a hovercraft and personally deliver a check for the difference.
Oh wait... now I'm thinking of something else.
Come on, Brad. Really?
Ok I've read further on and you have finally explained yourself, but on that post alone it seamed awful dismissive.
Folks we have to remember that not everyone who buys this game is someone who lurks the forums and knows all there is to know about this game. There are going to be people buying it from stores that have no clue about a 0-day patch etc. If there where screenshots showing the epics army's surrounding dragons, of course they are going to be upset if thats not the expirience they where walking into.
Last, the OP has a point about small parties of guys walking around conquering entire cities. Its not that they are a console fanboy; its a valid concern. Brad has mentioned the battles in lord of the rings and with that, you would think that the tactical battles are on the same kind of scale. Just because you want larger units does not make you an idiot. Lets not be fanboys and blindly defend something without looking at both sides.
The heroes dont need to be able to slaughter entire armys (but you did mention sauromon just mowing groups of enemies down, isnt this what you could go for?)
You just make the bonuses that these "generals" give to the armys the interesting part.
My post was not intended to imply the game was unfinished or that I was demanding a refund. And I don't think profligate was demanding a refund because of my complaint, which has now been lost in the "finished/unfinished" nonsense.
I'm surprised Frogboy came in and addressed that aspect, but criticism is usually drowned out by the flames of both sides.
I still think the game would "feel" better if it was made clear that each unit was not a single man and each pop in a city was not a single person. The economics and scale would make a lot more sense.
Of course, then a single adventurer couldn't just slaughter an entire army, but that's fine with me too.
The cost of items in the store is also strange. I can get a horse for "free" when building a unit (it costs just a horse), but it costs 100 gold to give my heroes and sovereign one. It is almost like two different games are going on and they don't mesh well: a Civ-type strategy game and a very old school (almost FF1 level) RPG. The concept of an empire and a single person doesn't mesh well. Combine this with all the epic-level terminology (emperors, kings, kingdoms, empires, etc.) and something feels off.
Frankly, this is the least immersive TBS strategy game I've played. That doesn't mean that it doesn't play well, or can't be a decent game, but it really limits its longterm appeal for me.
This is the last post I'll say on this subject. It's disappointing how this turned out because I was really hoping for a grand fantasy strategy game (GalCiv with magic) and it didn't quite happen.
The man is offered a refund by the CEO himself, and he still wants to complain. There's just no pleasing some people.
you see i think the game is finished, so therefore stardock has stood behind their gamers bill of rights with me. you disagree, which is your right. however, you have made your point, you have let all of us know that you don't like it. MOVE ON there is nothing else to talk about. you can't make your opinion fact.
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