Basically, the game ain't great as it is. It's fun enough, but some of the mechanics are so laughably poor it's hard to remain positive in the face of such a epic fail on the part of Stardock.
This fail has been admitted by Brad and the reviews and sales (not to mention the layoffs on the back of that) speak for themselves.
The good news? Stardock bought themselves a SHITLOAD of goodwill with Gal Civ and Sins, and also a hell of a lot of fan loyalty. This loyalty isn't misplaced, I'm not a raging fanboy or a fire and brimstone doomsayer. I'm simply a fan who's been impressed by Stardock and it's people in the past but can still take a game on it's own merits.
I might be way off when I say this, but it seems Elemental suffered more than it flourished with Brad taking a big role in the development process. His love for the game is obvious, and his commitment was clear (for those who've been following Elemental you'll know this to be true) but what he gave in love he lost in objectivity. A game isn't great because you THINK it's great, and you can't just make bad choices because YOU like it that way.
Basically Stardock it seemed completely ignored the lessons the past masters of the genre have taught, and tried to build it all from scratch. Sadly, an epic fail.
So coming to the faults and solutions :-
1. The Magic System - In it's current state, it is truly pointless. There isn't any variation within the different spheres, and all spells are basically direct damage.
SOLUTION - Elemental Dev Team go play Age of Wonders 2 and Age of Wonders : Shadow Magic. Learn what it is to have a dynamic and exciting magic system, one that actually has buffs/debuffs that matter and more varierty (overland spells / tactical spells / summons / buffs / strategic).
2. Combat - As is, it's walk a big unit over to a lesser unit and press 1 button until dead. The only variation in battlefield is basically the colour of the ground. There are no fortifications (this ties into the Magic system as there are no spells for destroying fortifications either) and nothing that makes siegeing a city remotely hard.
SOLUTION - Again, learn from AoW2 and AoW : SM. The battlefields there are varied and make use of tactical things such as LoS and fortifications.
3. Unit/Research/Race Tech - The current situation is basically every unit (aside from creature allies which are one of the games good points) is a peasant with different equipment a different name. There are 10 races, and aside from skin colour and design, there might as well only be 2. We have 10 races and 2 tech trees, a lot of the technology being fantastically redundant. The units as well are in need of an overhaul. in AoW if I play Orcs I raid with Warg Riders and Warlords and Shamen, all with their own look and feel. IF I play Elves I get Archers and Centaurs and Trees, etc, etc.
SOLUTION - Learn from your own creations as well as the epic MOO and HOMM games. Gal Civ 2's tech trees were awesome...both varied and race specific. As far as units goes, if you want the game to have longevity you need to make it varied. Each race should have it's own look and feel, not just the homogenised 5 + 5 that we have at the moment.
What Elemental does well is the Quests and the Sovereign. That imo is the best part about the game, it needs some tweaking but it's good, and fresh. The style of the game is beautiful as well, can't fault the art guys.
In short, this game would have been a bigger hit if you just remade AoW2 with the arty painterly graphics and new engine. Fact. That isn't what we (the fans!) wanted, and it isn't what we expected, we expected an improvement if anything, but in all fairness it would have been a bigger success if thats the way it was done. And more importantly, it would have been more fun.
I'm sure over time Elemental will grow and become a better game, but I can't see it replacing any of the past masters as my (and many others, I'm sure) "go to" 4X fantasy game unless some DRASTIC changes are made
Clearly a troll who doesn't understand the way conversation and debate works. You lay down the insults, but then try and tell me I should take my own advice not to insult you?
Go look up the word "hypocrisy". Tool.
Ahhh, and that's that. Let's get back to the subject matter if we can, Lord Troll-dimbulb or whatever his name is has, for me at least, been /ignored.
i disagree/agree with some of the posts. some things to make the game great...
1) Fix the bugs. youre going to make people mad/turn them off when the game crashes. even mild things like 'my cool looking air shrine doesnt look so cool anymore' will upset people
2) Magic: frogboy's post for 'labor day notes' soudns promisng- basically (as I understand it) shrines will somehwat = nodes in MOM. Hopefully essence will still count as 'spell points' and be improved by shrines. Hopefully shrines will still improve magic of that type (cool feature). finally, i hope casters are still made the same way. to IMPROVE it, i would say take spells from master of magic- AoW is good, but MoM has a better variation of spells.
3) vary tech tree more. vary racial abilities (ie give trogs hp/strength bonus, wraiths spell bonus, pariden research, etc). THEN, allow us to use conquered pops like Age of wonders (and ability to migrate in/out). varied command of different races would be key. I LIKE the lack of elves/dwarves/orcs though. feels different from norm, and could be awesome.
4) tactical battles: decrease glass cannons, give a '6 unit troop' 6 individual dice rolls (as above). right now units have poor surviveabliilty, makes the game less fun. leveling up units/heroes IS lots of fun, surviveability allows that. add special abilities with different weapons, OR level up with different weapons (veteren spearmen can have 'first strike', green recruits dont know how to use the spears well yet). Add flanking, more differentiation between foot troops/cavalry beyond 'they move faster).
5) quests/heroes: awesome. now make static dungeons, and level ups with new abilities, not just stats. make equipment for heroes droppable.
6) city building: very fun. please add city walls in combat (like in master of magic/age of wonders) not just a stat bonus
7) AI: as above
8) dynasties: if an faction has kids, if someone is 'first in line for the throne' and the soveriegn dies, LET the heir take over. if that air is married to your daughter/son, let YOU take over. le
9) minor factions: as in labor day notes, make them able to build one city and units, but not pioneers. maybe consider making them slower to research/build. continue to give them their own special 'shops', as well as families to marry into.
i actually enjoy the game. a lot. I love the soul of the game (the lack of bunch of races, more rare magic). I was in the beta, but coming into the game NOW i would have been disappointed. these changes would go a long way.
Well, I think OP has pointed out game weaknesses quite accurately, at least as I can see them. I don't agree that Elemental should a remake of AOW2 but magic system really lacks. In the game called elemental there is actually no elemental damage. You can't do any fire damage, ice damage, poison damage and such. There are no resistances to these types of damage either. A fire giant or fire elemental can take just as much damage as any other unit in game from a spells like fireball. It would really help if this is changed when they do magic overhaul and add damage types and resistances/weaknesses to these types. This would also help unit/race variety as some races could be more 'tuned' to a certain element.
Also, as someone mentioned Dominions 3. Spellbooks could have a 'combo' effect. Say you have a fire and water spellbooks. There could be spells that, in such case, became available for research. Like Acid blast (with acid type of damage) or acid rain and such. It would open a limitless possibilities for modders. Also, IF it's possible and devs really add damage types, it would be great if that could be moddable as well (for example to add a special damage type to new kinds of spells). There is lots of potential here. ATM i really feel like magic is marginalized in a game where it should shape the world.
I also agree with race diversity. MoM had much more diversity with races then elemental. Having special units that can be trained by each race, special race bonuses (clearly visible when designing/selecting them, mind you), special race buildings, and race specific resistances to magic/damage types (if those really get added to game) would really help to diversify races more.
I played MoM and the original AoW. Both are great, but I liked the MoM magic system much better. In MoM, the magic research tree is as diverse and game impacting as the technology tree in the Civilization series. That mechanic has worked so well that it is odd that nothing like it has been released (for anything other than Civ sequels) since.
Elemental seems to have the foundations for a system like this. We may not see it in this version, but I think we will see it in a sequel. When we do, Elemental will be far greater as it has so many other great innovations (in addition to the updated graphics). I love the family tree addition. It's something very unique to Elemental, and so much could be done with it. The editor is another huge addition.
I never tried AoW 2 or the expansions, though. I'd check Shadow Magic out if it didn't cost $120 on Amazon. Wow. Even the used copies are $60! Sounds like that one needs to be republished.
Actually, an AoW Trilogy (all three games) is supposed to be coming out on Steam soon. Don't know if it will be available on any other download sites.
I completly agree with this. Units should be more than guys with X or Y equipment. You should be able to give them certain skills too, or even the weapons themselves should give units different capabilities, not just different damage. Same goes for armor.
And it doesn't even have to be ultra complicated skills. Even simple stuff like offhand throwing weapons for 1-time (per battle) use (ala roman legionaries and their pila), or shield bashes (push enemies one square) or bonuses for flanking. REALLY BASIC STUFF, seriously.
And please, even if this is just plainly visual, please make several soldiers from a party fight when attacking an enemy with similar numbers (say, if a party of 4 spearman attacks a group of 8 swordsman, the 4 spearmen would fight 4 of the swordsmen, not just 1 on 1 while the others watch). It's a huge turnoff to see giant squads of soldiers on both sides watching a duel between one guy from each sides like morons.
God please lock this thread.
Elemental doesn't need to copy magic systems from other, successful games. It needs to implement the core of what made those magic systems successful. So what is that, exactly?
I hear depth mentioned a lot, but in my opinion it boils down to one simple concept that Elemental is really missing:
Tough, important decisions that matter.
Depth seems to get confused with quantity. You might have the 'depth' of 10 different types of attacks that all have different graphics, flavors and damage amounts, but to me that doesn't really represent any tough decisions.
As a basic example of better depth, Elemental could have only two types of magic: fire and ice. Fire has offensive ranged spells and Ice has defensive melee spells, and if you pursue one you can't pursue the other. In my opinion, that adds a level of depth and represents a much more interesting choice than choosing between 10 different flavors of damage bolts.
That's just a simplified example. What I'm trying to say is that ideally, every decision that you make should have a real and immediate impact on the game. "What is the tough choice here? What is the impact?" Having the redesign team asks those types of questions about each facet of the game, large or small, as they go through it - that is how they fix Elemental.
Amazingly its another thread proclaiming useless comparisons to many games that got HORRIBLE reviews at launch, and took years as well of support to live up to their potential. Well on the bright side I guess Reynolds will sell a lot of aluminum foil helping you make your hats.
Age of Wonders, Age of Wonders 2, and AoWSM all received stellar reviews at launch. But Stardock, please, for the love of God shut this thread down.
How's about no? I, and the others who agree with many of the improvement suggestions, have the right to voice our opinions and suggestions as well. If you actually READ my initial post you will see that we don't just want an AoW/MMO clone, but a game that incorporates the good ideas and meshes them with Elementals own.
So instead of just calling for a lock, either contribute to the debate, or just look at another thread.
To add more than Magic, I suggest to do a rework on the fantasy world of EWoM itself to be..more magical, more fantastic.
As another poster on this thread mentions, the current Elemental world is a bit drab, kinda boring men roaming about the deserts. Yes it does capture the feel of a dying world but more colors & variety please.
Instead of the other games mentioned here, I'm suggesting about looking at some of the Magic: The Gathering worlds for inspiration? Many variety of human cultures, dying empires & dying worlds, lots of humanoid races, magical artifacts ranging from armageddon-bringing disk the size of a palm to gigantic colossi. Pretty 'magical' and 'fantastic', in short.
Yes, we can mod to bring whatever content...but a more magical & fantastic world out of the box would be fitting. Maybe an idea for the first expansion?
I am grateful that where I live the whole boxed AoW anthology (AoW, AoW 2 and AoW:SM) costs no more than 7 bucks and I could easily get it. The game's going to be digitally re-released according to the official site, unfortunately at Steam ...
Brad confirmed that it will be on Impulse too.
As soon as it becomes available on Impulse, I'm buying it.
You just pretty much put what I didn't know how to explain into words. That's one of the most important things that need to be fixed about this game: the sense of priority. Right now, it feels like whenever I get to pick which spells to learn, I can just mark all of them since I MAY or MAY NOT use them, and they don't take too long to research anyway (even when playing on Epic). Same thing with tecnologies.
Why?
Because saying the way to fix elemental is to clone a different game is ridiculous?
Is it? To "fix" Elemental they need to make improvements, new features. Features that already exist in old games and that have been thoroughly tested. Take these features and improve them and behold, one game to rule them all.
Reinventing the wheel however would be ridiculous.
Since originally they wanted to get the the license to do MOM 2... I think there is a basis for some people wanting features from MOM.
Now, be nice.
Regards,
V.
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