--------------------------------------------------- ----------- Elemental v1.08b Change Log ----------- ---------------------------------------------------
We are on the process of putting up v1.08 of Elemental: War of Magic.
Here’s a change log over v1.07:
+ LOD optimizations across improvements and tile designs + Continued memory optimization + AI handles its sovereign more intelligently + AI more effective at going after targets of opportunity + AI sovereign is more careful about going into enemy territory + AI has new APIs for determining whether there are targets of opportunity in the area + Balance pass on resource distribution + Base tech cost changed from 4 to 5 + Merchants/Money Changers now require 1 food to construct + Study/Archivist now require 1 gildar per turn to maintain + Gildar deposit now seeded near starting location + Tracker talent cost changed from 15 to 10 + Organized talent cost changed from 10 to 20 + Combat Rating calculation altered in an attempt to be a more accurate gauge of lethalness + Fewer resources spawned per 1000 tiles. + Fewer minor factions spawned. + Added scalars to attack and defence for units who are in home territory or foreign territory, modifiable in ElementalDefs.xml + Territory scalars now work as Empire v Fallen (e.g. Kingdom guy on Fallen territory gets penalty, etc). + Updated formula for gildar given when killing a given unit + Child essence is no longer modified by spawn rating, but is instead a value between 50% and 100% of the more powerful parent's essence. + Updated TerrainTypes.xml to make Forests and Swamps take 2 moves + Changing the “IncreaseMorale” modifier attribute to “AdjustMorale. It’s more clear for the modders. -Revamp of the way offensive spells hit/miss and deal their damage +HIT/MISS is deteremined by an attacker roll (minDamage – maxDamage) and by the defender roll (0-DEF) +Values can now be specified as a MinValue and a MaxValue rather than just a Value (support for constant value spells is still supported) +If a MinValue and a MaxValue is specified, the Value is defined by a rand roll between the two numbers based on the modifiers internal rand roll. +Updated descriptions for all core spellbook spells to show bonus damage from INT and bonus damage from shards in the spell description. +The SpellbookWnd has been updated to properly display the damage range if there is one, and the constant damage if there isn’t one. +All core spells that were using stats to calculate the value but didn’t have a ValueOwner specified have been fixed. +The elemental shards unit stats now default to 0 instead of 1. The calculations in the existing spells have been redone to reflect this. + Fixed BURNING BLADE spell to appropriately increase attack. + Fixed SHIELD OF FIRE spell to appropriately increase defense. + Fixed CRUSH SPIRIT spell to appropriately decrease morale. + Fixed BRAVERY spell to appropriately increase morale. + Fixed DRAIN LIFE spell to appropriately transfer HP from target to caster. + Changed the display code for the main UI bar to round attack and defense rather than truncate. + Hooked up the CTRL+ARROW and SHIFT-ARROW camera rotation and movement hotkeys to tactical. + Added save game descriptions + Fixed bug where dialogs from triggers in the campaign (like moving beyond where you should build a city) would pop up many times when a unit moved into that tile. + Fixed AI bug where it was doing deficit spending and creating units still + Removed the max spell points entry from the affected stats in the level up wnd, since it isn't affected by any unit stats anymore + Fixed bug where non-aggression pact wasn't being checked for when left-clicking on a unit in attack mode + Fixed modifier in Refined_Economics_Amarian_MP to modify A_Gold player ability instead of A_Wealth (which doesn't exist) + Fixed golem animation pack (commented out an animation that was missing and causing t-poses) + Fixed crash when making a mountain in map editor + Fixed trading your spouse (if she was a recruited NPC) in the regular unit trade + Perceived value stuff gets hidden when arranging marriages, instead of showing whatever was selected last + Entries for kids when arranging marriages now use a male and female icon to denote boy and girl, instead of the words in parentheses after the name + Fixed "..." from string overflowing for the divider title when trading or arranging a marriage + Fixed the divider title not ever changing from "And" once the arrange marriage screen was shown + Fixed display of tooltip text and color text on Customize Faction window + Tweaked SetToolTip to calculate the necessary size of the window more accurately, to fix bug where tooltips were sometimes being truncated + Fixed bug where clicking a new destination while the unit was moving would cause the unit to get a free move + You can no longer set a units destination while it is moving + Fixed Refined Housing and Refined Economics techs (and their fallen equivalents) so that they correctly provide the bonus they say they do + When a unit inside a city or an army is selected and asked to cast a spell, that is the unit that is used for spellcasting now, instead of having it just fail (in a city) or try to cast the spell from the leader of the army + Fixed bug where summoning a unit while in a city would cause that unit to be summoned in an army with you within that city (causing weird behavior), now just stations the unit in the city with you + Fixed bug where raise land spell would not work on all land category terrain types, like swamp or rugged terrain. Now, if a land tile is not hills, it raises that land to hills, instead of checking for only some terrain types + Fixed a bug where, in the faction editor, you could select ability bonus options for free by selecting and deselecting them, and then spinning the race spinner, caused by deselection not updating the faction config correctly + Fixed units that finished training on the same turn as an autosave not being there when the autosave was loaded + Fixed players not being able to select their city level up bonuses or tech breakthroughs on loading an autosave if they were earned that turn, by having the local player mark themselves as needing to get user input for these things instead of unhiding the windows to allow the choice right away during CWorld::EndTurn, and not letting the user choose until after the next turn starts and the autosave has been made. If one of thses autosaves is loaded, the local player will be allowed to choose their tech breakthroughs and city bonuses once the map is unhidden. This keeps us from having to delay an autosave and the start of the next turn by waiting for the user to choose their bonuses, instead making that choice part of the start turn logic after the autosave has been made and saving the mark saying the player will get to choose at the start of the next turn. + Fixed treaty turn counts not matching if an autosave was loaded + Based on confusion in the forums, removed ability to automatically unlock a spell in the learning queue if it makes it to the front of the queue when the player has enough research to buy it, so that users rearranging their spell learning queue don't have their spell points silently taken away while shuffling spells around, if they didn't intend to learn that spell next + Now it always takes at least one turn to learn any spell + Fixed bug where tile highlights in tactical battle would disappear after an ALT+TAB + Fixed bug where trees would not look correct in all cases after loading a gamesave. + Fixed an issue that was allowing counter attacks against units with abilities of type DoesNotProvokeCounterattacks. +Fixed an issue that was causing modifiers applied in tactical battles to persist after the battle. - This fixes the bug that causes XP and Gildar rewards after battles to be negatively skewed if the enemy unit combat rating was lowered due to debuffs. +Fixed an issue with skipping turns in tactical battles that would cause a stuck turn if done when the unit being skipped was in motion. - Pressing spacebar now sets a tactical units moves to zero AND cancels their destination.
For those who want to play v1.08 in multiplayer mode, you will need to set Impulse to show Pre-release versions:
We designated multiplayer as “beta” because we disabled playing against AI until next week. I had written a lot of AI code this week that is in the single player version but had not been adequately tested for MP. We didn’t want to give players the impression that was considered the feature set in multiplayer as being all that’s coming.
Next week we anticipate releasing v1.09 which will continue to address issues that were not found in the initial release, improve computer AI further and provide it and other new MP features. After that, we will begin focusing on v1.1 which will be the first post-release update that is designed specifically to extending game play.
Anyone who has performance or technical (stability) problems with this build please make sure you you let us know. At this stage, the technical issues that were present at launch should be fully addressed. If this isn’t the case for you, let us know as much as you can about your system as we will personalize our efforts as much as possible.
We are anxious to move forward to begin our traditional policy of extending the game to suit the desires of the gaming community.
Other notes:
Version 1.08 is now available
Known issues:
Friday update:
****** * Gameplay / Balance * + New Sovereign Ability: Wealthy +1 gildar per turn + New Sovereign Ability: Green Thumb +2 food per turn + Organized Sovereign Ability removed + Shop Costs moved to be a formula (unless specified in the XML) + Research costs increased + More balancing of initial resource seeding + Fertile land availability increased + Long Bows now cost 40 gildar to construct + Default shop values on weapons and armor removed from XML (you can overrride the formula still) + Teleport/Blink mana cost increased from 5 to 15. + Eliminated criminal adventurers (caused confusion amongst players) + Pioneer Kit Gold cost reduced from 10 to 5, Materials cost increased from 1 to 10. + Organized ability added to general special abilities + Late game monster respawning reduced. + Increased movement speed of units in tactical battles+ Lots of spell damage tweaks.
****** * Bug Fixes * + Added logic to stop spells from dealing max damage every time. + Restored old terrain/tile movement costs until that can be better addressed. + Adjusted the combat speed from 2 to 3 for the base male/female sov units. + Fixed bug where Karavox, Magnar, and Verga sovs only had 1.0 for combat speed. + Fixed bug that made it not load any maps except mp maps + Fixed bug resetting default map size to tiny + Fixed bug where rapidly clicking the fortify action for a unit twice or more would cause the game to hang + Fixed bug where, after unhiding the game lobby wnd once, human players would get assigned team 1 when joining a custom game, instead of an unused team ID + Fixed crash when restarting new campaign after you load a saved campaign game + Fixed bug where Cancel button would not show up on mutliplayer Join Game with Password screen + Fixed an error where old saves with old data had logic conflicts with new code that made spells miss.
I was wondering this as well, guess we'll find out soon enough.
+ Unit movement upon loading a saved game no longer reduced to base move.
+ Unit movement upon leaving city no longer reduced to base move.
+ Royalty champion trait now actually increases prestige in cities the unit is stationed.
+ Miner champion trait now actually increases the metal production in cities the unit is stationed.
+ Assassin champion trait now actually doubles the initial damage of the unit on first attack.
+ Influential trait now actually increases influence.
+ Watchtower building was fixed to actually provide a sight increase to cities.
+ Brave actually works now.
+ You are no longer able to completely bypass the requirement to have "Fortifications" researched to raze a city.
+ Cities will no longer "Forget" caravan status allowing for a city with 6 + caravans produced.
+ Shards now actually work to increase spell power.
+ Band of Fortitude now actually increases health by 2.
+ Great Warrior and Sentinel trait now provide the combat speed bonus.
+ Resources information panels fixed to show the truth instead of complete nonsense. (Ventari mines, pumpkins, enriched land)
+ Uneducated weakness now applies penalty correctly.
+ Superstitious weakness now applies penalty correctly.
+ Royalty is no longer a 0 point pick in custom faction creation.
+ Civilized given a function as settlement cost is zero.
+ Availability of equipment explained on items such as Boots of Traveler, and other items not usable by gender/race restrictions.
I guess my view on where the dev team should be focusing their attention is EXTREMELY different from where the focus actually is...
WHENS IT GETTING PATCHED its way past evening Eastern time 745
Hm.. not sure what happened Kumu. we could have all sworn they were going to listen to you, I mean, why wouldn't they listen to you? Really.
Looks like lots of changes, still, gonna wait on 1.1
This is why I come to these forums. I call it wife aggro when playing other games.
Epic post
/facepalm
You can't grab 20% of the changelog and deduce where their focus was. Without tracking the time spent on each particular item on that changelog you can't make that determination as to where the focus was.
The flaw in your approach is that the total amount of time spent on the 19 items you picked out may have only been 2 hours while there could be another entry on the changelog list that required 30 hours.
EDIT: I'm a dumbass... these aren't from the changelog but from the Bugfix Mod. Sorry.
[quote name="Frogboy"] At this stage, the technical issues that were present at launch should be fully addressed. [/quote]
I guess in-game bugs, like Pariden's traits and Organized Sovereign's movement points at exiting a city or loading a saved game aren't considered technical issues?
You guys are absolutely right, the fact that your child starts at level one with a percentage of your CURRENT max essence means that they would probably be better than you when they get to the point that you're at. D'oh!
those werent from the changelog. he was stating that those things have not been fixed. i sincerely agree with him that they should be. they are all obvious bugs.
This looks awesome, good work.
THE PATCH IS UP! AND READY FOR UPDATE
Thanks stardock for the hard work! A lot of improvements!
So you're right. I stand corrected.
There is a chance that some of those have been corrected and just aren't listed. We won't know until the patch is released. After all changelogs are never a 100% accurate representation of what's been changed.
None of the things I posted were in the change log. That was the whole point of my post. Would I have been in charge of things, that's where my focus would have been. Fixing the extremely large amount of direct bugs.
1.0x versions normally focus on 1. Eliminating crashes and other general stability fixes. 2. Coding missing aspects. 3. Squashing bugs.
1.x versions are where you would normally see things like game mechanics changes and balance.
That's not to say they are mutually exclusive, quite the contrary, but in the posted change log, there are very few bug fixes compared to the extremely large list...
I really could care less if changing the market to require 1 food took 1 minute or 1 week. I would have kept such a change on the backburner compared to say: Fixing it so that you can't simply press "X" to raze a city without the tech that gives said ability...
And of course, despite Arborrelli's insulting post, I don't expect that I am anything at all to demand such a thing. I however CAN and WILL state my opinion that I believe their focus is extremely off base.
I really shouldn't have even posted. I broke my golden rule. Do not talk to the forums. Too many G.I.F.T.'ed around to have a meaningful conversation. I should stick to bug reports.
ETA on 1.1? Most of the things I'm waiting for are not listed in this changelog. I'm sure it was a lot of work guys, I'm not trying to knock it, but I've burned out on caring why it's taking so long to get a working/polished game. My enthusiasm (and the likelihood of recommendations to friends) is sharply declining.
Bugfixes are a good thing, but there's a long road to hoe before I'm moved to even start a new game. I'll try to get interested sometime in the next week though, with fingers crossed.
Meanwhile, Planescape:Torment evidently has a massive collection of user patches and mods, so I've loaded up that old chestnut. To paraphrase Ravel, what can change the nature of a game?
Too true unfortunately. If I were you, I'd make a list of requests for version 1.09
They actually read those.
that was a great game. maybe too great. i remember my ex girlfriend gettting mad at me and breaking it...
Woohoo! It's out! *Goes to play*
But remember some things are harrder than they look to fix, or a quick fix can break other things.
I think the Devs will get to them, but not all the stuff is going to get fixed in one patch, and I would guess some of the stuff changed goes hand in hand to more down the road.
As the core is changing in places the support must change as well.
Not to mention some changes occur that get missed in a change log. So lets see whats what before calling the Doom Sayers out please.
Lee
Awesome work Stardock & thank you! Your efforts to improve Elemental as well as keep the masses informed of your progress is very much appreciated!
Fixed trading your spouse (if she was a recruited NPC) in the regular unit trade
Just a couple years earlier and they would have had the rights to "wife swap"!
so whats the deal with the 1.08 update, followed by another update, 1.08b?
probably nothing, just another part to the patch, i guess?
You can still have Organized. You just can't have as much of everything else too. It's a powerful ability, there should be trade offs for taking it. Good strategy games are all about interesting choices like this.
Thank you very much for your continued work.
decreased amount of gold from killing monsters to the point that hunting them is no longer worth the time. great.
Appreciate the hardwork - will be tooling around with it after a function this evening.
Some of these changes, however, seem to me to be a simple 'quick change' - let's bend it in the other way and be done with it (without any deep consideration of balance).
notably:
+ Organized talent cost changed from 10 to 20
+ Updated TerrainTypes.xml to make Forests and Swamps take 2 moves
and to a lesser extent:
+ Merchants/Money Changers now require 1 food to construct + Study/Archivist now require 1 gildar per turn to maintain
As to the first pair - I agree that Organized trait is powerful. It's perhaps the most powerful trait there. But I don't think doubling it's cost is the right scale, particularly in light of how useless some of the traits are. This is further compounded by the update to movement costs. As far as I can tell from the changelog, every unit still moves 2 (or worse, 1) without regard for whether this makes any sense or not.
As a downstream effect, it means players will no longer care about purchasing +movement items from the store. This works well for the AI, because the AI doesn't use any items it finds and, as nearly as can be seen, does not purchase items (or even particularly bother to research them) from the store. but it should be about raising the Ai to the players, and not lowering the players to the AI.
What does this mean, in turn? Less exploration. Less expansion. Slower games. PC sovs will probably be used the explore and recruit less, since they are forced to choose between "moving slowly" or "be undefended - even an imp will reduce your movement to 2.0" (or "create custom sovereign that is in all other aspects extremely weak, just because he is organized"). And problematically, teleport will remain the fastest way to travel... but since mana regenerates at the mind bogglingly slow pace of 1 per turn (provided you are not forced to autoresolve with the sovereign - the autoresolve AI will ALWAYS use mana, without regard to what you are fighting, such as a pioneer, or a trade wagon, or the fact that you have a bow)... well, even ferrying troops witht he sovereign wont be happening much.
And problematically, the second pair will tend to suggest that outpost creation is less likely. It seems from the outset that Elemental was intended to be a game that takes many many many turns to play out. I say this due to the incredibly vast number of spells to be researched (i've yet to even encounter a spell to be learned from Moriah's journal) and technologies - and the rising costs to produce these. I also say this because a pioneer can take 6 turns to train, and a squad+ of troops 30-60 turns.
And all the while, food and maintenance costs restrict your ability to expand. Provided you aren't AI - they get by just fine with deficit spending. in 1.07 But at the least, before, if you found a shard, or a useful resource you needed, youc ould build an outpost there, a small settlement that wasn't ever likely to increase beyond level 2/3, and it'd probably take care of itself on the gildar front, and contribute some minor bit tot he research front. But now it seems that administration costs for players is going to skyrocket - restricting players ability to expand their control. And i've yet to see in the kingdom reports any AI late game with admin costs - even when i'm paying down 13-20 in admin costs in 1.07.
But if you fix deficit spending in 1.08 (according to the log).... then you just end up with fewer and far in between settlements, staring each other in the face because they can't pay the troops... who would take about 40 turns to make it from one place to the next anyway.
Lastly:
+ Child essence is no longer modified by spawn rating, but is instead a value between 50% and 100% of the more powerful parent's essence.
While I agree that my children with 700+ essence is a bit... farcical... I can't say I like this rule either. Children will never surpass their parents? it doesn't matter if both parents have essence? In short, Essence will simply always dilute?
To me that says - "you have even less of a reason to create a dynasty" (and if you really wanted to, you are probably best off waiting as long as you can). Because even if you marry off your kids, it's not like the other faction is now more receptive to trades and perceived value - it just moves the slider around, and that just doesn't really matter.
Oh yes, maybe the grandkid will align with me - hmmmm let's see, 2-degree chance that it will have, at most, the same amount of essence as one of the parents (determined at time of.... birth? maturity? Sovereigns don't have much essence at the beginning, but can easily have lots later on) and will subsequently decide to align with me instead of against me.
OR.... I keep my child who has a one degree chance of the same essence and automatically is aligned with me. And i don't have to wait even longer (for the grandkid to be conceived and then mature).
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