I've kept a close eye on this thread here: Epic Battles and it's become Very Obvious that a whole lot of people were expecting to be able to have the types of large Grand Scale battles that are in the picture on the side of the box. The picture many of us drooled over when we first saw it. The same picture that was my desktop picture for 6 months. This picture (which I'm pretty sure Stardock is sick of seeing by now lol).
I would like to put forth a Official Request from the Player Base of Elemental to Make The Game Look Like This, with these kinds of Epic Numbers. It doesn't have to be in Real Time. It doesn't have to be in We-Go. What it does have to do is have Epic Numbers...Without Us Modding Them In.
You've got the tools and talent to make this happen. Us modders can't do it easily because it causes issues with units appearing in groups, but you guys at Stardock have the animation tools to fix that.
When people see Elemental in the store and pick it up and think about buying it, they no doubt took notice of this picture. In fact I'm Sure there are some people out there who had no clue what Elemental was until they saw it in the store and saw this picture and decided to buy it. After getting it home and playing it and realizing these numbers couldn't easily happen, more then a few people were let down. This post is to represent All those people and all of us who have been here from the start two years ago who wanted and expected a game of Epic Scale and Proportions.
I figure if enough people all get together and request/demand that Stardock live up to this picture then maybe they'll re-balance the numbers to make this possible. Food, Gildar, Housing, and a few other resources will need to be adjusted. The animations will need to be adjusted. But with a whole team of super smart programmers and animators it really shouldn't be a big deal to get done especially since these kinds of numbers were possible at least at one point with an internal build of the game.
If you bought Elemental and you'd like to see these kinds of numbers in battle. Please sign/reply to this thread and say so. If the community really wants this, which I'm sure most of them do, please say so now as now is the right time to do it while other mechanics get revamped. I'm sure all those people who bought Elemental based on this picture would greatly support this change, as would I.
Thank You and thank Stardock for making such an awesome and epic game that we can all enjoy for many years to come.
To those who weren't here through-out the beta process, there was a time when things were planned this way, which is where the above screen shot came from. This was from the continuous turn system that was set up but got cut. We don't NEED Continuous Turns to Achieve these kinds of Epic Numbers. It CAN be done within a Turn Based Environment with some creative animation techniques to make the units look like they're fighting between turns. I'd really, Really, like to see Stardock live up to this, and so I think those of us who want this should make this Official Request so that Stardock can truly see how many of us want this. The Beta Testers never even got to see this system in action. We were told it was changed from continuous turns to better fit the "feel" they wanted, but that doesn't explain why the unit counts had to be cut down so drastically. 12 guys in a unit does Not Feel Epic in my book.
If you Don't Want to sign the request, but would rather debate it, then please reply in the other thread going about Epic Battles here: Epic Battles
If you DO want to see them live up to these numbers. Please Say So here. No one will get mad at you for voicing your opinion or asking that they live up to this picture that so many people bought Elemental based on. Again, if you Don't want to see this, please keep your replies in the other thread. Thank you.
~ Raven X and the Elemental Community
This post is a reply from page 10, but I thought it should be added to the original, because here is the proof some people might want to see who weren't here for the whole beta process, who didn't hear the devs go on and on about the Inspiration for the Game. This is what was in the hearts and minds of All Of Us when we were all getting excited about Elemental:
Here is the proof, Frogboy had Total War and Lord of The Rings Epic Scale Battles IN MIND when dreaming up what Elemental would be:
Post By FROGBOY: Elemental: scale of power , https://forums.elementalgame.com/343449
Here's a Quote from Frogboy from that post:
"If you like the Total War series, you can imagine some of what we have in mind except here you can get that Lord of the Rings battle feeling where certain units just make mince meat out of whole squads of enemy units."
There are others back in old Dev Journals too. Now, NO ONE can deny that Frogboy had Total War Type, Epic Scaled Battles, IN MIND when PLANNING Elemental: War Of Magic. For all you new people who wanted to see quotes, there it is. I can dig up more old quotes too. So, if Frogboy is Now Saying that ONLY MoM was his inspiration, well, something is fishy in Denmark...
Here's another one where Frogboy Specifically says "huge army" and "vast armies" in the same paragraph!!!
Post By FROGBOY: Design elements of Elemental discussed , https://forums.elementalgame.com/329219
Here's a List of Quotes from Frogboy from that post, some of which are mechanics that either changed, or were simply left out completely from the game we have now, like where he talks about having Walls in cities be a Big Part of tactical battles:
Quote:I understand if some stuff is being kept internal, but here are the things I'm wondering about: 1. Are there non-military victory conditions? 2. Does the game include a campaign? If so do you think the story of the campaign will attract gamers? 3. How are you addressing the steamroller issue of TBS games (ie: spending the first half of the game building a massive army and the last half rolling it over all opponents as a repeatable strategy to every game)?1. Yes. Most of the victory conditions are non-military. Some of the previews may cover this so I won't say anything until after the previews hit. 2. Yes. I think the story is compelling but I'm highly biased. 3. The mechanics in Elemental are a bit different than the typical 4X game because even in terms of warfare, there are very different paths. For instance, Player A may have a huge army ready to steamroll but Player B may have an incredibly powerful sovereign who can wipe out vast armies and Player C may have built up an incredible well of mana that can be used to decimate vast swaths of the world and all three of these things could come together at once based on which path players take and of course all 3 could lose to Player D who wins through the quest victory condition if they're not careful.Quote:Can we build walls? Us turtelers need to know. Yes. One of the key game mechanics of Elemental is how cities are built. In Elemental, when a city grows, it gains a new tile which can be placed where the player wants it to go (as long as it's adjacent to an existing tile). So cities are a multi-tile affair in the game. Now, how you choose to build up your city heavily determines how defensible or productive, or rich it is. Cities are only conquered when the keep tile is taken which could be in the utter center of the city or could be at the end of a peninsula.Quote:What are the objectives for the creation part? how many aspects will be able to be manipulated? will it be part of the game or you have to work on that on a separated editor (one of the many things I loved from MoM was the ability to forge items that were mine, created by me as part of my campaign and war effort). There will be pre-made maps and randomly generated maps in which players can insert a large number of variables in deciding what kind of world they want. Quote:I guess it will have random maps, what is the target for sizes? From tiny to ridiculously large. We are also making a 64-bit native edition to support even larger worlds. Quote:What type of feedback are you looking for the beta process? Everything. The beta process starts about 9 months before release so that beta testers can seriously mold the game. On a personal note, for me the beta process is the whole point of making the game as that's what helped get me into game development in the first place. I was one of those Usenet guys on comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic hanging out talking about games and picked up Teach yourself C in 21 days to start writing (this is obviously a long time ago now). So hanging out with other gamers to tweak and add to the game is the best part. Quote:Any extra payment for the MMO part? what is the general idea of this? No. It's not really an MMO part as much as Impulse hosting the game on the cloud to make it much easier for people to interact with their "world" with their friends. Quote:Brad - will there be any way to quick-resolve combat? Playing out tactical combat is fun when the sides are at all matched, but it's just a drag on my patience when you're going to steamroll the other side or whatever. And sometimes you just want to get combat over with because you're focusing on the bigger picture or a "technology win" or something.
Totally. There's instant-resolve (i.e. two armies meet, one dies), there's auto-resolve where the game zooms in and shows a tactical battle but it's all handled by the AI (ala GalCiv II fleet battles) and then there's full tactical battles where both sides play. One thing I should mention about the tactical battles that isn't clear in the screenshots is that they're continuous turns. They're not like HOMM. The player tells where they want their units and uses the space bar to pause the action to give new directions. That way, we can get much more interesting battles.Quote:What's your combat system going to be built around? Master of Magic-style tactical combat, or Civilization-style randomized abstraction? Or will both be options?It's tactical but it can be made to play like Civ if you have instant-resolve enabled. I will likely play with auto-resolve as I'm not a huge fan of playing out tactical battles but I enjoy seeing the carnage. If anyone has ever seen Fellowship of the Ring where Sauron is whacking out tons of elves and men around, that's the look we're going for. Though, in Elemental, the creatures are much more powerful than a lone Maiar up against a bunch of punks. Dragons in Elemental are incredibly powerful and each of the channelers are equivalent (by late game) to Valar. Enough Tolkien geedkom. Quote:The few available screenshots look great. Hopefully we'll get a look at the spells soon. The spells are going to be intentionally de-balancing in late game. I.e. by late game, you'll be able to do Populous level damage to the world. A lot of the reason we had to create a new engine was because we needed one where the world could be truly wrecked.Quote:By doing that, you can then open the way to have extremely large maps in which players are viable for a long period of time with different paths to victory.
If anyone wants to play catch-up and read the rest of the Dev Journals that talk about the inspiration behind the game, behind the Original Vision, you can find them here:
https://forums.elementalgame.com/forum/513/page/7
Notice how many times Frogboy uses LotR as a direct example of both scale and feeling for the envisioned world of Elemental. He uses it in reference to the Scale Of Battles. He uses it in reference to the Power of Sovereigns. He uses for a lot of things because it is what is commonly known to a lot of fantasy lovers.
That's the very last page in the Dev Journal History. Hopefully some of this information, quoted Straight From The Source, will clear things up for those who may be questioning what the original vision was and what the vision is now. How many things here simply aren't even a part of the game now? A lot that I can see, but, this thread isn't about any of those. This Thread is about the game living up to it's EPIC INTENTIONS. This is about Follow Through. This is about a Vast Part of the Elemental Community wanting the vision to be maintained and lived up to because we want Elemental to be Successful. We want Elemental to be the VERY BEST Fantasy Strategy War Game on the market and some of us will not rest until either that happens, or we're cold, dead, and buried.
In closing, here's a mock-up screen shot I did just now. This took about 5 minutes in PhotoshopCS4. Please don't get crazy over the details. This picture isn't meant to be super detailed, it's just meant to show how the game should feel. The feeling of truly epic armies clashing for control of a ruined world. I only did one army, not two, but I could do a mock-up of two massive armies fighting if I wanted to, but I think the point is served none the less. I didn't spend a lot of time cleaning it up or smoothing over where I patched in clear land that was covered by rocks or cactuses that I just copy and paster terrain over. It's just meant to show the feeling of what it would be like to command a Real Army that's the size of what a Powerful Sovereign of a mighty civilization truly deserves.
From now on I'll only be replying to civil posts in a civil manner. I'm not going to defend my wording of the post any longer as I've stated what I meant more than enough times. I'm sorry if anyone took offense to my wording, but if you're one of the people who did, then this thread wasn't for you anyway, as it was only meant to Count The Numbers of those of us who want the game to live up to it's original vision and potential as much as possible.
I urge those who still want to see this to Please Keep Posting and let your voices be heard. Keep the memory of what the game was supposed to be alive in your mind and hearts and keep the ideas alive in the minds and hearts of Frogboy and the Team who have poured their blood, sweat, and tears into this game right along side of us who have been here with them. We've all invested a lot of time and energy and expectations into this game, and this game is a work of art. Lets strive to make it live up to it's potential and keep your voices being heard. Thank you one and all.
This request completely breaks the lore of the game. In a desolate world, ravaged by cataclysmic event in which most of the land and its inhabitants died, huge armies start popping up like mushrooms on a rainy day.
Besides, I really don't get all the Total War-numbers love. The pausable combat was (and still is) a mess to deal with, and is absolutely no fun. It may have been realistic, but due to the large numbers, tactics were largely relegated to general warfare concepts of maintaining higher ground and not shooting engaged troops, and units could be only attacked either from the front, or from the back.
Introducing these kinds of numbers into Elemental is neither going to be fun, nor epic - the reason being that you either enable individual troop selection, thus breaking the unit coherency and combat in general completely, or you allow for large blocks of troops, breaking the unit organization part of the tech tree, breaking the tactical combat maps, because troops won't fit into one tile, breaking the economic model and the AI of the game, because such high numbers have to be supported financially and in gameplay mechanics.
But most importantly, as stated in the beginning - this completely breaks the lore of the game, and would turn into a generic "turn-based civ-total war fantasy-esque bland game where lore and setting does not matter at all".
I want to expand on a comment I made earlier.
How are you planning on paying for these 1000s of troops. Frankly, I have to disband some of my troops as is because the economy I have going will not support that big of an army. In order to get that many troops you will have to revamp the economic system of the game drastically. If you do that, than I think you are changing the direction of the entire concept of the game. Rebuilding a civilization in the after math of the Cataclysm. Armies that size should be available, but it would have to be a large map with dozens of cities, and would have to be very late in the game to keep the concept of the game intact. If you are playing just a medium sized map, an army of 1000 should be almost impossible to afford. If you are hoping for late game, large map armies that size than I am for it. But no way should you have an army of even a couple hundred 100 turns into the game.
PS.
As to the picture, I do think Stardock should change the Dragon Breathe to an area effect.
Edit*****Starcruzr-----my thoughts exactly*****
The big problem I have with the concept of "epic" in the game as-is now is that you're going to end up creating "superman" squads that are auto-game winners. I won't go into more detail since I spent quite a bit on this topic two posts back (don't know the post number).. it was reply #243 by the way.
If you can create a 50 man squad that doesn't become a "nuke" in this game, I'd be all ears. And going along with this, making the AI competent enough to use it & counter human's using it against it is more important than adding this new unit. The games AI is already a "walk over", I don't want to become a "steam roll-over".
So, 400 soldiers are epic, but 288 are not?
Please.
I agree somewhat RavenX. I like the idea of more troops and a better tactical system but right now there are so many other problems with the game that this should sit on the back burner until all the other issues are cleared up.
The city building has to be changed to a system more focused on empire building and not city building.Get rid of city spamming, building caps, lvls, and population caps. Instead of lvls have the ability to build either one type of building so we can get a bonus to certain things (gildar, research, arcane) but only one of each type my be built and have the ability if you have the resources have a small city have all needed buildings to specialize in a certain area. Needs to be fleshed out but it would be better than city spamming or city sprawl. Have a city when it has a pop of 1 use one space and when it reaches pop2 have it use 4 spaces or something. All cities will look different and have different buildings without a pop cap or tile limit.
Magic system needs a complete overhaul to make is much more important and fun to play with.Should be one of the most important aspects of the game but depending on how you play can be not needed. A person who makes vast armies to conquer enemy civilizations.
Researching techs needs to be fleshed out and you should have the ability to forgo some research trees and still win other than by only questing and such.
Have a bigger penalty for a sovereign dying (they should be much harder to kill) like in MOM where they have to cast a spell to come back or have the people perform rituals to bring the ruler back. (should only happen a few times before he permanently dies)
There are many many more things that have to be changed first but we should have an option of how many units to display onscreen for people with slower systems. Maybe an option that would show 3 spearmen in a unit if we want or just one spearmen that is bigger on screen.
I think the game should be over. But I also think they should be much harder to kill. More magic, and more powerful magic should be first.
I don't understand all the fuss about this... Someone who really wants to have epic battles will mod this one day. And that's it...
The number of men that cna actually attack the enemy would be lower than 50.You're seeing all square formations and you can't have all 50 in that formation attack a unit at the same time.
Something like this.
Your unit of 4 elite cavalrymen could still whittle down a stack of 50 peasants because not all peasants could attack at the same time and with not so extreme disparaty in numbers, the stronger but smaller units would have a chance.That also works towards "special" units like dragons not becoming obsolete once "batallion" is researched.
PS: I don't see what's so official about this request.I would like to officially note that I'm against huge member counts in units. It just makes scaling and balance an even bigger mess than it is now.
Well, I dont think that RavenX want it at the top priority, he and I (and the other that vote yes)want it somehow along the devellopment. I never saw that he want it in priority, just that it will be in the feature. Personnaly, like I said earlier, it's not something that I will cry over if it's not implement. I dont own the game yet but I saw enough to say that i'll love the game even if the game remain in that state. BUT, I think it could be cool to have an option for larger scale battle . Peace everyone.
OK, I didn't realize you wanted real-time Total War combat, RavenX. I though you just wanted a bigger tac combat field and cooler animations.
I don't want Elemental: Total War of Magic. It seems that most of us don't want that. You idea is idiotic, and I'm pretty offended that you had the gall to speak for the "Official Player Community." It makes you sound arrogant and pretentious.
Pay attention and educate yourself before trolling and flaming. Raven has contributed far more to Elemental than most others, which is why he appears in the credits of the game. He has earned the right to voice his opinion loudly and proudly.
You merely want to bring it to personal attacks... What a tool.
/signed
All Raven is asking for is what the box advertises. Epic battles and epic looking battles. Big rigs can handle all the animations. Little rigs can toggle them off. Simple solution.
Amazing that so many people are flaming the game for feeling so unpolished and incomplete, and when a suggestion is offered that goes a long way to adding to that polish, so many people just want to flame that, too.
I love the game, there are some features that I hope are added. It seems that Stardock is quite open to suggestions. This is my first Stardock game, but so far I am pretty impressed with their response. I do think adding large armies could take away from the concept of the game so I would want large armies added with some discretion. People with modding skills, like Raven clearly has could easily alter the game to fit their mold.
Wow. A lot of long and emotional posts in the last couple pages of this thread since I last looked at it. I feel compelled to address some of the points raised.
Firstly, I am going to stay away from the word "epic" because, like it or not, there is a legitimate semantics issue in the use of that word. The battle between Gandalf and the Balrog in LOTR most definitely qualifies as an "epic battle" and involves only 2 individuals. The word is far too vague so let's stick to the specifics of what you are asking for: large-scale, army-scale battles involving hundreds of individuals on the screen at once, organized into a dozen or so units or squads or divisions or whatever you want to call them to keep the micro manageable.
Secondly, the most commonly cited reason for why some of you are asking for this has to do with what was promised or originally envisioned during the pre-beta process a year or two ago, with the specific example of the (admittedly cool looking) artist rendering (or perhaps its even an alpha screenshot, I have no idea) of a few hundred units fighting that dragon.
I have no reason to doubt that this may have been the original vision for the battles in this game. I was not participating in the process two years ago. RavenX has pulled up old pre-beta quotes from Frogboy and I have no reason to doubt their authenticity. I can certainly understand why some of you have this expectation for larger-scale battles based on what was said in early development, early images released, etc.
I don't think it should be controversial to say that things change during the development process. Ideas that they really wanted to implement may have been technically too difficult, impossible to balance, or not have had enough time to implement, or a host of other reasons. Clearly Stardock had some considerable problems leading up to launch. I think even they are no longer reluctant to admit that at this point. Certainly Frogboy has been open about it. At some point during this process a decision was made, for whatever reason, to go with a company-based scale for everything, from the battles to town populations, and all the math underlying it has been balanced (such as the current balance is) for that scale. That's the situation we have today.
All that being said, one of the sillier claims I've seen made in this thread is to take your disappointment with the smaller scale to the extreme of calling it false advertising. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe no where on the box does it say that the image with the dragon is a screenshot or represents actual gameplay. Marketing people come up with cool visuals to sell products all the time, there is nothing unusual in this. Just about every sports car advertisement ever has images of happy car owners surrounded by hot blondes in skimpy red dresses, but no one thinks that if they buy the car they're going to get the girl, or that it's false advertising if they still are single after blowing all that dough on their new Porsche.
So let's stick to the core issue here and try to avoid hyperbole: some people feel that large-scale battles were promised, would make the game more compelling, are disappointed things got scaled-down and want to advocate for the devs to scale things up again. Fair enough. I have no problem with people petitioning or advocating for this change.
The core counter-argument coming from some of us, which I have not seen RavenX or others really try to address, is from those of us worried that scaling up to an army-scale at this point in the game development would not actually improve the gameplay, and could well make the gameplay even worse. This is a serious and legitimate concern and I don't think it should be dismissed out of hand.
I don't think anyone arguing against this idea doesn't think the tactical battles need to be improved. I think virtually everyone agrees the current implementation is mediocre. The concern is that given the current tile-based, IGoYouGo system, scaling the battles up to hundreds of soldiers would simply magnify the current tediousness.
There are so many things that need work in this game, including the tactical battles. The basic mechanics are not very polished yet, the 1DN system is too variable, the tactical spells aren't very compelling and there are a lot of basic features missing, like initiative, a good block/parry/dodge system, a transparent damage type system with vulnerabilities and resists, special combat abiltiies for different kind of troops, balancing the math behind it all and so on.
My concerns is that a push for large-scale battles would be a big distraction from getting these fundamental issues addressed and would in no way guarantee better, more exciting, more compellling gameplay at the end of the process. I would be less skeptical about this request for large-scale battles if the fundamentals were working well at the current company-scale, but they are not.
Nor do I think all the people asking for this realize the magnitude of this change. To make this work, you're talking about re-scaling all the strategic elements outside the tactical battles as well, how many monsters spawn, how big towns can grow, how many resources get generated in the economy, and all the math underlying it all. It's radical surgery, you'd be throwing out everything we have now to take a risk that by re-jigging virutally every single number in the game to a larger-scale you'd end up with a better game at the end of the process. It may not work well at all with the current tile-based, IGoYouGo battle system, so that may need to be radically changed too, perhaps going back to a Continuous Turn system or some other fundamentally different approach, which would be a significant change and I imagine is a ton of work for the Devs to do.
I'd much rather focus on getting the game they currently have working well, have it be consistently fun and engaging, have it actually get to that "just one more turn" feeling, which for me is currently missing. Once we're at that point I might be more open to the idea of a major re-scaling of everything in the game. Regardless of what they do, the claim that large-scale battles would be "cooler" than what we have currently is just not compelling enough for me, what matters is the core gameplay, which needs to be solid, fun, exciting. I am not confident they can make that happen at an army-scale if they can't get it working at that level of quality at the company-scale.
So, having written this wall of text, I'll end by saying that I'm spending my time writing all of this because I really care about this game, just like those of you asking for a larger-scale do. I really want this to be a game that I want to keep playing many years into the future. And I'm concerned that a larger-scale would be taking the wrong approach and end up being a big waste of Stardock's limited resources.
And I feel the need to post it here, in this thread, because this is where this debate is happening, and I want to make sure my voice is also heard. I have no problem with people in this thread making their case for larger-scale battles, go for it! But I want to be here too to voice my concerns for Stardock's consideration. Given the bad launch, it seems to me Stardock needs all the constructive critcism from the community it can get.
Not that I want to argue or something, but how do bigger numbers add to the "polish"? That's just a game design decision that has nothing to do with "polish".
He may have earned the right to voice HIS opinion loudly and proudly, but that does not give him the right to proclaim his voice to be the voice of the community as well, and does not make his requests 'official' in any way.
To use your same logic, how does it not?
To answer your question, Raven has already explained much of this. I don't need to repeat everything he has said. It's what this entire thread is about.
IMO in an epic I want to start small and building something big. I personally like the squad combat and can abstract out the troop sizes. I don't necessarily want a ton of screen clutter. With that said there are easy ways of depicting high #'s... Abstract out that 1 archer = a squad of 8-10. A current squad has 4 images, abstract those to 32-40, then 64-80, then 96-120. 120x12 = 1440...good size force. Figure in the lore that these are starting settlements in a wasteland and those are pretty good size.
I've mentioned a strategic vs tactical battle in either this thread or another. Introduce functionality where multiple stacks can battle, as well as multiple sides.
Add the ability for a special commander type to control multiple stacks.
if multiple stacks hit another stack - the strategic map shows a "battle" icon.
Depending on stack count, the battle icon remains for a certain amount of time - allowing reinforcements to join. (i.e. if 1stack vs 1 stack, it drops immediately into tactical, if 2+ vs 1+ then it does not go into tactical immediately)
Once the tactical map appears, if multiple stacks the stacks are each a "unit" with stats/abilities made up of its components - they can then duke it out.
Tons of options, tons of flexibility and could be constrained as needed.
No, I Don't Want Real Time Combat in Elemental. I Love Turn Based Comabt and never had an issue with the game being changed from Continuous Turns to Turn Based. I didn't have a problem when plans for races and factions changed. I didn't have a problem with a whole lot of things, but this...this I have a problem with, as do a lot of others. But, from now, I'm done speaking for others. It's more trouble than it's worth. The posts I quote in the OP which I added after I went back and found them are Frogboy's posts. I really can't see all the negativity here when that's what the Dev Team planned from the start. They made that picture, not us.
Secondly, I was Speaking for the Community of People Who Wanted the larger scaled combat. Did you even read the rest of the replies, or the fact that it was FROGBOY who said what I quoted in the OP about Total War? Do you even KNOW the DEVELOPMENT HISTORY behind this game? Because I DO!!! And so do a whole bunch of other people who have been here for two years. I'm sick to death of defending this post to MORONS WHO CAN'T F'KING READ!!! Hey Dumbass, THIS WASN'T MY IDEA. Learn to f'king read and see where the Initial Design Concepts Came From, because you just told FROGBOY that HIS IDEA WAS IDIOTIC...NICE HUH!!! Way to go Lord Ebonstone!!!
As for the replies saying it will be modded in, you're right. The Dragonlance Team is modding in epic numbers as are a couple other mods. We've known how to mod this in from the start as back when Frogboy dropped the bomb on us all that unit counts were being cut we MADE SURE to ASK DIRECTLY to make sure it was moddable. But, that's not the point. The Point is that the game WAS envisioned with way more units. When talking about the economy supporting them, that would have to be changed as well, which it Did have much different values before. Are a bunch of you not reading Frogboy's posts I quoted?
He plainly says the plan was changed because it was too hard to balance...and that's Ok with everyone? Since when did it become ok not to do something because it was hard? Last I checked, when was it ok to put a picture on a box and then Not deliver on it? Last I knew that was called False Advertising here in the US. Also last I knew we didn't give up on something because it was hard to do. Fighting WW2 wasn't easy, it was hard, but we did it. Building the Empire State Building wasn't easy, it was hard, but it was done. How many other games have accomplished high unit counts? I can name a dozen just off the top of my head...
I'm just done with it, I really am. You all win. Have fun with the little pissant unit counts in a game that's about Empires and Kingdoms. I know if ever ran across a Empire with a 12 man army I wouldn't even have to fight a battle to win. I'd just point and laugh and those 12 men would die from shame that their Grand Empire couldn't field a bigger unit.
There are PLENTY of replies here all through-out this thread, and the other thread, where people want this. LOTS of people. It's a matter of making them live up to their own adds. There shouldn't be a mass quandary of people worrying about economics or how to manage it when it's managed the same way things are now, only with higher unit counts. No ones saying this needs to be done first, just that it needs to be done. I've posted in multiple other replies that there are other things that should be fixed first, like the OOM errors that STILL keep me from playing a game on a large map. Or the fact that half the skills and abilities aren't hooked up in the XML, or the fact that the game doesn't have Elemental resistances yet, or too many other things to count.
I've defended this game to a whole lot of people who all jumped on the "Hate Elemental bandwagon" when the game launched. I felt just as bad as Brad and the rest of Stardock when all this sh!t hit the fan. I defended the game to people I know in real life and to more people than I can count on other gaming websites. I've been a loyal Stardock supporter from the start. All I want is to see them live up to the picture that THEY put on the box.
I'm done...enjoy. Feel free to flame away and not read it because it's too long and your attention span is too short. I really don't care anymore because when the Dragonlance mod comes out, it'll blow this out of the water. The people I WAS Speaking For have spoken, and they continue to speak, and it was THEM and Myself that this post was for.
It changes the feel of the game, but "polish" in my book is more related to a tight game design, the flow of the game and the user interface, and sensually pleasing experience in the visual and sound department. Managing large numbers to me is cumbersome, hence it hardly counts as adding "polish" to the game. And it can be hardly considered a tight design, unless it is made to be controlled effortlessly.
But judging by your reply, I am already close to being trollified, so I will say no more on this topic. I already wrote the reasons why I think large numbers in this game are a bad idea.
It also take away from the concept of the game. A small Kingdom struggling to rebuild itself after a world altering event isn't going to instantly become some Roman Empire with 1000 of troops on hand. In the context of the game mechanics, an army that size wouldn't even be able to be funded, unless they all work for free. He has not addressed this conceptual idea of the game. The world population isn't even the size of the battles that he is looking for. Turning Elemental into wave upon wave on endless troops is not the game I wanted. I want to develop my Kingdom/Empire in all aspects of it.
Besides, as I stated earlier. I want the armies to be secondary to the Sovereigns. Even in the title itself is says it is the "War of Magic" not the "War of the Biggest Armies". If on a large map and I am deep into the game and the idea of larger armies make sense in the context of the game than fine--lets do it. But if the idea behind the post is to have a large armies quickly and takes away from the idea of recovering from the cataclysm then I am opposed to the idea.
So, basically a 50-man squad would have the attack strength and defense of a 10 man squad, but would have the hit points of a 50 man squad, as guys from the rear take the place of dead guys in the front? So, a typical mace group would be Attack: 52 Defence: 24 HP; 1000. Based on one of my auto generated unit types. The actual game effect of this would be to create very long tactical battles as these units would take a long time to kill, but at least they're not a "superman" squad. Frankly, the only thing players would get out of this (in a turn based system) is tactical battles that take about 4x longer on manual, no problem if using auto resolve, which is probably what I'd be doing all the time if this unit were added becuase it would probably take 30 minutes to resolve one battle if there were 8 of these 50-man squads on each side.
It's not the "idea" of "epic" battles which is the problem here, it's implementing it practically in a turn-based system in such a way that:
1) The game doese'nt become more unbalanced than it currently is: i.e. the AI needs to adequately "cope" with the new units.
2) Avoiding the creation of 50-man "superman" squads that are basically game-breaking automatic-game winning "nukes" and which turn the game into nothing more than a tech race as to who can get this technology first and thus win the game.
3) Avoiding evolving tactical battles into long drawn-out boring affairs as we try to whittle units with 1000 hps down 1 hp at a time.
If you can avoid all three of the above in such a way as to "enrich" the game and add something kool and/or new in the process, then I'd be all for an epic battle addition. "Epic battles" translates to me as: larger battlefield area, more units per battle, and larger 50-man squads added as needed to support this epic addition.
But honestly, I don't see how it can be done (in all practicality) in the current turn-based system without: unbalancing the AI even more, transitioning the game into an unenjoyable "tech race" with teleporting super squads as the ultimate goal of every player, and lastly drawing-out tactical battles inordinately (time to resolve).
Hobbit, go read the Dev Journals I quoted from in the OP. Go read where the LEAD DESINGER talked about havoing Thousands of Men in the world HE CREATED, and then come back and tell us how it doesn't fit in the game HE designed.
1. Comparing a game to, saw, WWII is, well... Godwin's Law at work I guess. It being hard to balance means it would take more work than the entertainment value it might generate.
2. I hope your Dragonlance mod rocks.
RavenX, throwing a temper tantrum isn't helping anything, even though I sympathize and would be irritated too if I was getting flame-baited by a few people like Lord Ebonstone who clearly hasn't read the thread or carefully considerd the arguments.
There are others of us who are expressing concerns very civilly and I think thoughtfully. I still think you haven't adequately addressed the concerns of those of us who are worried this change would be detrimental to the quality of the gameplay.
I hear you when you say you're not arguing this needs to be the top priority for the devs and doesn't need to happen tomorrow, so perhaps this debate needs to be shelved for now. I think the devs got the point that there is a significant group of people who would enjoy seeing things scaled up. Perhaps this debate should only be continued once the game fundamentals are in better shape so that people have a chance to cool down. And so we can consider the options for improving the tactical battles once the current system is more balanced, polished and fun and we all have more experience with what that might look like.
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