Hey Everyone,
I noticed, we have loads of suggestions scattered throughout the forums here which is naturally awesome to see, but perhaps it may be time to condense what people have been saying into one awesome thread just for the simple ease of the developers monitoring it, so I'll go ahead and start with my simple ones, but feel free to re-post what you've said if somehow lost itself in the many posts of these forums. Maybe, hopefully down the line, if this thread gets real popular it can be stickied for even easier location finding, but that would be up to the moderators.
Anyhow, here are mine, after a good couple of days of solid gaming with elemental.
The Interface and Shopkeeper Window:
While I defiantly think it has come a long way since the videos I saw in Beta, and what is available now, it still needs some minor work. Now a lot of people can go more in-depth in what they would like to see, but to me the Action and Trade Windows need some massive clean up. For one, the trade window itself, you just have to do to many clicks, I have to click trade on every single item, etc... Now, with little accessories we can easily drag and drop it to the other champions on their little portrait from the vitals screen, but that won't help us for the equipment screen, as we actually need to use that trade window. So my suggestion, rather simple, make it so that you can select multiple items to trade to your companions, or maybe even a simple double click or drag and drop of all items too. In terms of Shopkeepers, please let us able to select multiple items, then purchase them, it's again, as Brad stated in the past, just too many clicks there to get what you want.
Caravans and the Cosmetic feel to it:
I love the concept of Caravans, it's a nice way, as people have stated, to substitute it for workers in a normal CIV genre type environment, but I totally feel a lot more can be done with that concept. For one, the Caravans should give more bonuses then just food, as that's all I seem to be noticing (If someone notices something else please let us know), and most importantly it should probably be based on what the city has been developing, so if one city has a Mine and precious Metals, perhaps the Caravan should give that bonuses instead to the city it's trading too. Even though I'm very happy that all resources are global, it would bring those specialized cities we all love to do really out in the forefront.
Secondly, I love the awesome cosmetic touches to your actual cities, where you see little NPCs running around their daily lives, it really gives some life to the city and I totally feel that can be something applied to the actual caravan routes. Right now, all we get is a little trade guy, and the Caravan itself, it's rather dull and lame. (Also I hope the Roads actually change into real roads, I'm assuming they do, as screen shots I've seen have indicated that, but figured I'd mention that)
Finally, this requires more testing, but it seems at least for me, caravans are very prone to attacks by creatures, either let us build something to protect the caravans, or make us able to join troops to the actual route, sort of like a protector of the route, or patrols we should say of the route, so we don't happen to lose the caravan because we were out questing or exploring.
Dynasties and Marriages:
There's a nice thread someone posted here about this https://forums.elementalgame.com/392884, so there's no use in re-hashing what was said, as a lot of those ideas are very good, however, the one thing I will add, there should be a way for you to train or educate your siblings, what if you want to mold one of your sons or daughters into being a governor type person? or maybe you want them to learn more magic, or maybe want your son to be the next Achilles. Right now, it's just a bit to random how your sons or daughters can turn out, it can be amazingly overpowered as some people have posted, or at times very dull. (Don't get me wrong, I like that, but still I'd just like a bit more control over this, as quite frankly, he/she is my son/daughter in the game, hehe)
City Levels:
Great concept, as it will give each city a unique identity, but I feel we need to add more to this. For one, right now the Random spawned Guardian Units are useless (At least from my play experience), so get rid of that. Instead, just make it match our resources, we already have the Gildar, Tech, and Arcane knowledge ready, so all we would need to do add is a Material/Metal/Crystal production, and Food Production, which again leads back to whole specialization you can do with certain cities.
Well, that's all I can think of for the moment, and naturally many people have already posted excellent suggestions, so if you feel like re-posting it here to keep it condensed, feel free to do so, or if this is just going to be just another thread that will eventually get lost in the pages of posts, then so be it as well, but figured I might as well get the thread started if people prefer to keep it organized like this.
thanks,
Good idea to consolidate suggestions. About the shop keeper windows, I completely agree, this is one of the most annoying things about the UI right now. I want to be able to go into the shop, see what all my champions have equipped, buy stuff for all of them, equip them there, and then sell the old stuff I no longer need. Right now to accomplish this you need to go in and out of the shop and the equipment screen of each of your champions about a zillion times.
Here my suggestions. I think this game is fun and decent out of the box (barring those stability issues some people are having), but there's still a lot of work to do before it's a great game and a classic of the genre. I'm still pretty optimistic and think it'll get there eventually. I can certainly see all the potential this new engine has to take us there.
What I think need to be priorities:
1) AI AI AI. I like that there are diplomatic and peaceful options, but the AI needs to put SOME pressure on the player, especially those supposedly evil empires? Right now in every game I've played the AI has basically left me alone until I'm ready to conquer them or win through one of the other paths.
2) Tech trees. There need to be a lot more techs, like 5x more would be good. The trees all feel very light and unbalanced. By the time I've gotten 4-5 good cities set up, have built up a decent army and am ready to go on the warpath (i.e. it feels like mid-game) I've already researched most of the technologies I need. Some of this is pacing too, techs should maybe cost a bit more to research to drag things out more, or tone down the bonus those libraries give + their multipliers. But I'd much prefer to just have more techs and more meaningful tech choices. Need to give players more reasons to specialize rather than just jumping from one tree to the next since you run out of techs so quickly.
3) Champions all feel bland and undifferentiated. Special abilities as part of leveling them are the key to solving this I think. My assasin character can level in first strike and poison abilities, my mage gets a mana regen ability, my fighter gets an army morale boost ability or a cleave ability etc etc. Room for some of these abilities to be unlocked by techs to tie the two together better. Also there need to be equipment restrictions and more reasons to equip different heroes different ways. Right now I'm equiping everyone in the most expensive armor and sword and shield as soon as I can afford it (including my channelers, outfitting Procipinee in full plate with a shield and broadsword is pretty ludicrous but I have no better options).
Basically they need to think about classes of heroes like an rpg rather than generic stat based leveling. Stats should level automatically based on class, equipment should be restricted by class (no mages in plate mail thanks!) and the choice the player should get to make on leveling should be which abilities they get, which is much more interesting.
4) Cities. This is actually I think the most solid part of the game right now, but there needs to be more reasons to specialize cities rather than just building every building in most cases. Also better differentiation between empire and kingdom cities as well as solving the issues when you conquer a city of the other type and then get to build all the generic buildings twice (i.e you end up with both the empire and kingdom version of the building if you want). Also balance resources better along with all their multiplier buildings, I am rarely struggling for food or gold once my first few cities are settled unless I get a really bad start location and am boxed in.
5) Magic. I think there need to be less spells, there are far too many right now. The issue is that the vast majority don't feel like they are worth casting, especially since it's going to take many turns for spent mana to regen. The only spells I really find worth using are a few direct damage, the occasional summon, and teleport. They need to make each and every spell more interesting and actually worth casting. Needs to be lots more linking in this area to the tech tree, currently it's only 3 techs to unlock all the spells in the game. More interesting choices needed.
6) More differentiation between all the different factions. They all basically play the same currently. They need to have distinct abilities, advantages and weaknesses, units and buildings, as well as their own unique spellbooks.
There's a whole forum for suggestions, perhaps this post should go there.
I just posted a version of this separately (although it doesn't seem to have appeared in the forums as far as I can tell). Wanted to add it to your consolidated thread.
Adventure Technology
As I understand it, both from reading the forums and a fair bit of gameplay, the difficulty of map locations and random mobs scales with your adventure research level (if I’m wrong about that, some of what follows won’t make much sense). This has led me to adopt the strategy of delaying researc of adventure techs (except for a few early doses to find new resources) until the mid to late game when I have sufficient war tech to destroy anything that pops up. Here’s one thought for reforming the system a bit (developers, do with it as you will).
Rather than linking mob-level and location level with research, those could advance as turns pass. That would change the incentive for researching the adventure techs and make them more relevant earlier on. Once higher level locations start appearing, it will make sense to research the questing line to get access. At the same time, decoupling mobs and locations from research will eliminate the disincentive to research adventure during the early game and make an adventure-focused strategy more viable.
It also strikes me that a nice tweak would be to have new locations spring up only outside the zone of influence of each civilization. Even better, it could be much more likely for new locations to spring up in unexplored areas. This would create an incentive to explore (apart from searching for new city sites) and also be a good counterpoint to early expansion. The faster you expand, the further you will have to go to find higher level locations that won't appear until later in the game. As it is, I spend a fair amount of time with miscellaneous champions wondering around my cities to pick up all of the new locations. This feels like work to me, and also strikes me as a bit odd – where did all of those treasure chests come from that suddenly appear around my cities? I don’t have the same problem with the appearance of resources. It makes sense to me that as you develop technology, you would come to recognize the value of resources that previously you had ignored.
I got thinking about this because my optimal strategy has involved a fair bit of staying close to home – except when I go to war with neighbors. I’d like to see bigger rewards for exploration.
This has the makings of a great game, and I’m already enjoying myself. Thanks stardock.
I like a lot of your ideas for adventure tech. The only thing I disagree with is having locations spawn outside of your influence, because depending on how you set up the game (e.g. lots of AIs, cramped for space) the whole world is under someone's influence pretty quickly. At most this could be a toggle in game set-up for those who want the option.
That's a good point cwg009. I can't say I know much about programming, but maybe one way to address the issue of situations where sphere's of influence dominate the world is to have a certain number of new locations sprout up. The locations could be random but weighted in favor of distance from cities (or influence or whatever). That way if the world is entirely occupied you wouldn't lose out - and the locations would appear near the less-frequented edges of each realm.
Suggestions:
- option to disable camera arrow following
- option to speed up combat
- option to speed up world movement
- ability to see characters equipped inventory in a store so you can make direct gear comparisons
Stuff that I would like to see changed or added ( I know some of this has already been said...just agreeing with those people):
1. Shopkeeper window: If there was anyway to show what your character already has equipped and perhaps how much the new item will increase/decrease his stats, I think it would be very useful.
2. Quests: Perhaps this needs the biggest overhaul in my opinion. There needs to be some marker or way of going to the quest log under kingdom info that points where you need to go next. Right now I am on some destiny's something quest and I don't know if it is broken or what. I found the place I was supposed to go to and nothing happened. I also completed a quest where a dragon said he would join me after I returned a dragon egg. I did, the dragon said he was joining...and nothing. Is he (or more probably she) ever supposed to join? With the current system I don't know what quests are broken and which ones I need to uncover something more yet.
3. Spells: I think there needs to be a better variety of spells. Maybe look to MoM here. I feel that right now almost all of the elements offer the same spells for the most part with no difference other than type of damage. Give a greater variety to each spell book to help distinguish them more.
4. Troops: I would like to see a way to upgrade current troops or be able to equip new weapons or armor on them.
5. Experience: Maybe this exists and I haven't found it, but I would like to see how much you have and how much you need for the next level.
6. Combat: I think there needs to be a way to skip following the arrows and spells. Some of the animations are neat the first time you see them, but then they just tend to get annoying and slow things downs.
Ahh, forgot about that suggestion forum, should have posted it there indeed, however, the general forums do get more viewerships, so the thread could be noticed more.
However, Moderators, feel free to move this post there if you want to, as these are truly suggestions.
There's a Mod out, (check the elemental mod lists in the mod forums) that actually gives the Champions more abilities, and in fact, makes it so that some champions actually get an increase in their specialty if you park them in the city instead, which I find rather cool, so that could defiantly be a good basis to start, in terms of improving the champions.
Bolded those two, as I think they are important, 1.05 made an better improvement with this pan out-zoom out thing with the camera in the tactical battles, (which I hated) but I think all together that whole follow the arrow or spell just needs to be disabled. And Yes, a Equipment screen within the shop would be awesome.
Combat animation: When my squad of 4 attacks, I'd really like to see them charge forward and engage the enemy instead of sending a representative to poke.
I hope this thread takes off... the zillion "my personal nitpick" threads must be hard to keep track of. Here's the notes I've been taking over the past couple of days. Some are nitpicky, some I feel are a bigger deal. I'd like to point out I wouldn't bother posting these at all if I weren't enjoying the game and didn't genuinely expect it to improve.
A bigger and better indicator for a unit's remaining movement points would be a great help. It took me until about five minutes ago, playing from the prerelease many more hours than I am comfortable to admit, to finally notice the tiny number of moves left in the information panel. I recall a beta UI had an easy to see and read moves left counter.
Gal Civ 2 had the great Ctrl-A feature (I think that was the hotkey). When you pushed it, all units with queued up moves would take their turns, and you could then sort out whoever had remaining movement points. Please give us this in Elemental. Also please consider showing some sort of indicator on the Empire Tree at the left of the screen that tells us whether a unit has orders or not. Currently it only shows whether or not they have movement points remaining. I've found it easier to keep things straight if I simply NEVER assign a route that will last more than the current turn.
Sometimes, when building new buildings in cities, the screen will lurch to one side when you click to place a structure. The structure always winds up being built on the tile under the cursor after the lurch, instead of in the tile that I actually selected. This is very frustrating. If I care about building placement (and I often do), it means I have to cancel the construction, then close the build menu and re-open it because the structure disappeared as a build option after the first mis-click.
A button to cycle between cities from the city information view would be extremely helpful. Ditto for Champions. If it worked just like the diplomacy cycle, that would be great.
When using the Diplomacy cycle, it would be nice if the new faction was open to the same page as the old faction was. That would save LOTS of clicking when one is, for example, looking around to see who has daughters to marry or setting up a mass of Trade Treaties right after researching the tech.
Sometimes in the diplomacy screen nothing appears on the table when you click on a Treaty type. Usually you have to go back a level in dialogue and try again.
The Quest Journal should allow you to center on the next quest locations for those quests where it provides you a destination.
The option to Auto Resolve a combat in progress would be nice.
Being able to open up the Main Menu from the tactical combat menu would be great. I know you can't save games from it, but being able to Quit or Load a game would be very nice. Earlier today, just before I left I clicked for what was to be my last turn. A huge stack of mine got attacked by a huge enemy stack, and I couldn't quit the game. Not having time to play out the battle, I had to kill the program.
There should be an option to auto attempt a retreat. If my Pioneer gets ambushed by a bunch of spiders I want to retreat. Which is a very boring thing to do on the tactical map. Obviously the auto retreat would risk losing the unit when the enemy brings archers, spellcasters, or cavalry.
I would like an option to never have "auto designed" units appear. I want to start fresh every game, and having a zillion different types of "Observers" that I need to retire every single game is tiresome.
Every time there is a text box, there should be a way to instantly clear it. Whether it be to simply start typing, highlight and delete, or a clear button. Every time I want to name a child, it's del, del, del, del, etc. I feel bad for anyone who wants to edit their sovereign's biography!
Gal Civ 2 had a Ctrl-N feature. On Turn 1 you could hit it to reroll a new game with the same settings. This was a very nice thing to have.
There should be a way to designate which city a resource goes to if it's within both of their spheres. I had a gold resource in my capital, and it got transferred to a nearby city I conquered.
It takes FOREVER for children to grow up into Champtions. As in, I have never seen it happen, and I've played several games into the four or five hour mark, gotten to the bottom of one or two tech trees, conquered entire civilizations, explored the whole map.... and my kids are still only 13.
Could there be a Global AI difficulty button? It's nice to be able to tweak them individually, but if you want them all to play two notches higher then that's a LOT of clicking.
The tech descriptions don't indicate which ones increase your Location or Quest levels.
Please let us examine our cities before we select a Level Up option. Ideally we'd be able to look at them on the map, to see what resources they will be able to work in the future.
Defiantly,
A lot of nice suggestions there Foslex, I too hope this thread picks up, but I also do understand there is an entire suggestion forum and all.
Guess only time will tell in terms of what new features we'll eventually see in Elemental.
Suggestion for the direction of the game's expansions:
As i play this game, i have a feeling more and more that although the software is a game, its also like an RPG book with a ruleset, monster tables and various locales. Youre playing a game, but you also have "in your hands" the tools to make your own adventure and story. Sorta like getting a campain book boxed in with the toolset.
I dont know how others feel, but to me this is the game's strong point and i would like the devs to edge toward that by helping players with even more tools to nurture the modding community.
So instead of a new campain for the expansion in a year, more like:
- a load of new tiles (and tile parts/objects) to make world maps/tactical maps with, a monster expansion pack with tools for easily changing the size, stats and color palette of enemies so players can easily do stuff like "Greater Ice wolf", "brown wolf pup"and Unique boss mobs (or recruitable heroes) that you equip from head to toe (Ex: Undead skeleton sorcerer, with own loot table. Made from basic skeleton model sized up and blood red tinge, dressed up with custom clothes).
Another example is say a player wants to create a new school of magic like necromancy, using a mod crystal node, if there are enough tools available the player could touch up a bunch of creatures slightly and create undead forms of bears, spiders and wolves without too much work. One of the skills of necromancy would be a passive skill that lets him resurrect a % of mobs after each battle. Thats the sort of thing that could spring up if the tools available are good enough and easily lets people create content. I know you guys just released a toolset, not saying its news to you but im egging you on
- Tools to help players expand the spell book
Sorry if some of those tools exist already, these are first impressions.
- New tactical maps variables, traps even maybe, using whats on the tactical map to your advantage (top off my head, tar patch on floor and flaming arrow).
Im also thinking of larger tactical maps, with more tiles (if it doesnt require starting coding from scratch and not too much work).
Some way for us to link "rooms" say like you enter a cavern and it leads to a new world map (exactly like heroes of might and magic III did with underground, again if its not too much coding).
What im trying to say is id like the expansion and coming patches to have more of a boxed set expansion for a RPG bookgame feel than a strictly classic PC game expansion with a new campain, new factions and new monsters. Theres load of modding talent out there and they will probably take care of creating tons of content that makes the game worth replaying, the focus should be on facilitating this and giving tools that exponentially augments the amount of content possible i think.
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Ideas that could be modded or added:
- Make it easy for players to add multiple spell schools as a requirement for a spell. (EX: "Fire Tornado", Fire+air spell combo. Need to have learned fireball and some other air spell as a requirement)
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