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.
This is what I thought they were going for:
This is what they delivered?
That's another thing they need to do in later patches... add more tactical combat battlegrounds. Everything is a swamp or rocks. Either way its super gray and beige. Those colors are only reserved for console shooters!
I actually like how this feels. It feels more "Alpha Centauri" like and less "Civilization". I spend alot of time focusing on my sovereign and champions and like the personalized feel of the progression of them. Anyway, I went into this game knowing next to nothing, so I dont have any real big disappointments. Once things are stabilized to where the game doesnt crash as often, I'll be even happier. Knowing Stardocks dedication to their games, I'm not too worried.
You obviously have not been paying much attention over the past year. And you obviously are not taking into consideration what will be presented to us by both Stardock and the community over the next two years.
We've been handed a pretty damn solid TBS game engine with a pretty damn solid game attached to it. It's only the tip of the iceberg. Elemental is to the TBS game as NWN1 was to the CRPG. And if you don't know what I am referring to, take a look at http://nwvault.ign.com to see everthing that can be done with NWN1 (and NWN2 for that matter) almost a decade after its release. You could not play all of the additional high quality content, in its entirety, in your lifetime.
Substitute the words "Village" and "Town" for "City", and "Party" (or perhaps at the largest "Regiment") for "Army". Dispense with "Kingdom" or "Empire" and consider yourself on a level with a feudal noble. Then you'll be using language more suited to the scale of Elemental. This may be part of the problem with expectations... the language of the game is still 'epic' even when the gameplay has clearly been given a more intimate scale.
Presumably, a mod can quickly provide visual relief for those who would like a unit to be a number of people instead of a single person, which should give a more 'epic' feel to battles.
But if your problem is that, economically, it just doesn't add up, then that's a more significant change. Personally, I'm one of those people who can't enjoy movies if they're inconsistent within their own logic. This particular aspect to Elemental is potentially the same sort of issue for me. As jscott991 has pointed out, small populations, such as those in Elemental, can't support a diversity of industry. For starters, the number of agricultural 'tiles' should outnumber the urban tiles by 3:1 to be even remotely plausible.
Of course, if you suspend your disbelief, and set aside your expectations of grand scale (i.e. play the game for what it is), the gameplay can still be enthralling. Solar Jetman remains one of my favorite games to this day.
Let's talk in real terms, even if your city has 1000 people in it you have to think about this: How many of those people are senior citizens, both male and female? Let's say 150-200 of them are. How many are mothers, and children? Lets say another 150-200 of them are. You are already at 300-400 people who are unable to fight. Than you would require a pretty large number of workers and such to maintain the city, that is another 150-200. Than you probably don't want too many women off fighting since in a world such as these, fertile females would be in great demand and losing one of them would be far worse than losing a man. Let's say that is 100 or so. You now have 550-700 population who are unable to fight, that leaves you with a possible 200-300 eligible to fight. I am just estimating here but you need to realize the reality of this. Not to mention all the resources, time and training, etc that would be required to field an army. 1000 people for a civilization is also a very low number. Even when you go back in history to the days of Rome, Rome had a population of around 1 million in just the city of Rome alone. It is very easy to get an army of 200 or so men with a pop of 1000-2000 so I don't think that is at all unreasonable. That is 10% of your population.
On another note, I think it will be possible to mod changes in to affect unit sizes and such, I am gonna try to find the variables myself now.
>We've been handed a pretty damn solid TBS game engine with a pretty damn solid game attached to it.
Is that before or after this big zero-day patch? Because my copy, as it stands, can't make it through a full game.
What was number two on Stardock's Gamer's Bill of Rights again? Oh yeah:
2. Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.
I have to say though that I wish combat in Elemental was like the first picture.
"Finished" is a matter of interpretation.
I agree that it's open to interpretation, but this is what Brad Wardell had to say about right number two, though:
"We're going to release things that are done, even if we have to delay it. We're going to not put in obnoxious copy protection. We will support the game after release. We have this set of principles, and there will be a logo on the game that gamers can trust means the game is done, and will be supported." http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20027
"We're going to release things that are done, even if we have to delay it. We're going to not put in obnoxious copy protection. We will support the game after release. We have this set of principles, and there will be a logo on the game that gamers can trust means the game is done, and will be supported."
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20027
Shouldn't that have applied here? Why didn't they delay release until the 0-day patch was ready? Wardell also says that patching is "bull":
Wardell went on to map out some of his thinking on individual items in the bill, explaining: "On the console, you don't release as many buggy games, because of the pain of patching on consoles, but on the PC, we've gotten to the point where we just say, 'Eh, we'll just patch it.' That's bull. It's wrecking our industry."
Its not like the game is totally broken or anything. I've been playing fine for the past hour and having a ton of fun. Half the people with crashes need to go through and update windows, get the latest video card drivers, and get a utility to check/repair your registry like System Mechanic. Defrag after the patch too. Not saying the game isn't crashig due to bugs too, but there are many people who have posted that they are playing fine and not significantly crashing. Problem with pc games is there is a million different hardware setups that people have and game experience differs on each.
Exactly. The game is playable out of the box with no major game-breaking bugs. That counts as "finished" in my book. And we're already seeing the promised post-release support with an epic "Day 0" patch that's apparently 5 versions ahead of the gold build (gold is 1.00, the Day 0 patch is 1.05).
Profligate - if you're dissatisfied, feel free to return the game.
Love it!
To be fair to the guy I am sure he is aware of that and he is allowed to express being disappointed because of what you yourselves presented to us of what the game would include and the reality of the current product. Don't get me wrong I personally am enjoying it and have been a supporter of you and your team for a long time, but comments like that are pretty dismissive of something that should surely be discussed as it is obviously an issue with some of the players.
Really? https://forums.elementalgame.com/391741
Actually. This game was always marketed in the very beginning when i preordered it last year as guess what. Post Apocolyptic. No one thinks that theirs going to be 'EPIC' empires after that.
even 100 years isn't enough to have a large population..And if you have 1-2 guys with sticks you must not be very good.
My last game i had to fight at least 100 men just to get to the enemy city and i had a good 20 men with me.
It all depends on how you think of things. In reality a 100 men is quite a force. Particularly because most people will be sick and hurt. What all of the critics forget is that this disaster Destroyed nearly everything...Most of the refuge's that reach your camps will indeed NOT be tough. You may Ask why well the reason is three fold. Psycological Trama. 100 years have gone by everyone is the child of someone from before...they've had to live in a rough tough existance and suffered greatly its not easy to motivate these kind of people to go out and fight when they don't have to.
If i was an Immortal Sovereign that everyone thinks is nearly god like and i destroy your professional soldiers...I don't think they'll rise up a 'Militia' to stop me it just doesn't happen because most people would rather continue living their life then die for someone else.
There isn't much of a sense of nationalism or pride in these people because their not in mass groups nor are they attatched to any particular doctrine their just refuges coming to take advantage of the food and shelter provided. Untill later in game and you truly have an empire for the most part it'll be tough to motivate them to fight back. Granted i think there should be somewhat larger sizes in late game yes.
I think after a Long time has passed *40-100 years* you should have an entirely new generation of tough and strong children that grew up idolizing the Sovereign and being thankful for all he/she provides them But until then the 'Army' will be small. Besides if you think of what happens after a disaster most people have to farm craft contribute. only afew can afford to be professional soldiers.
Now Granted i will say that i do want larger armies later on but to be honest thats not all that interesting to me its the idea of rebuilding not destroying that is key to the whole story and plot. Granted in an Expansion i'd love to see them balance out in tactical battle larger unit sizes or make it optional ingame. But you have mods to do this for you. and granted if there's an 'Epic' mod i will try it out i might enjoy it. But until then please stop being critical of the game. If your Critical of it then Mod it Your Self rather then complaining. The tools are out there for you.
Once again Sorry for my Grammar and i hope this resolves this issue.
I get that's the easy answer. But I'm trying to square what you said about your Gamer's Bill of Rights with what hit the store shelves today.
Michigan personality at its best.
Reading comprehension. He is not stating that "patching is bull." He is stating that using patching as an excuse or an out is not a good reason to release a product unfinished. Elemental is not unfinished. It just has immense potential for growth and advancement. I would warrant a guess that even those at Stardock are not even aware of what the engine and modding is fully capable of. That is the beauty of creativity; you can always thing of new and inventive ways to use the tools you have been provided.
Agreed. The fact that its expensive to outfit a single guy with a club or a simple wooden spear or a single set of leather armor is just....
It doesn't me that much if the gameplay is good, but definitely this is not epic grand strategy.
Its really unchangeable at this point though, its integral to the game design.
I have Win7 64-bit on both my desktop and laptop. Elemental runs just fine on both.
Everyone who bought the game today is waiting around for a patch that's "the real game." I think situations like that are exactly was Wardell was condemning in that quote.
I don't agree I think a graphical change only of just multiplying what would previously have been one unit into multiples would have no effect on the actual mechanics and at most would only serve to decrease graphical performance on some machines. If it was really an issue I would imagine an option could be added to the video menu much like in Total War games. That's what I think anyway but then I'm an optimistic dreamer
Then it's obvious that you have not been paying attention for the last couple of weeks, particularly when it went gold. The Day 0 patch was a planned event. I have never seen the type of communication and community integration that Stardock practices from any other computer game company. You should be thrilled. Instead, you're just stomping your feet in the corner.
You want to make Stardock the bad guy. But their reputation is stellar and is well above your frail attempts at tarnishing. I think I will put my faith in them, rather than some invisible forum "personality" that seems to have an agenda.
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