One of the things people like about our office is the hallway-long whiteboard wall that the games team uses for a variety of purposes. Right now there are several to-do lists for 1.1 and beyond, a rundown of sales for our various titles, and a HUGE ‘wish list’ of Elemental features/tweaks players and press have requested. In fact, we’ve switched from writing the suggestions down and now simply print out feedback lists and tape them to the wall.
My request today is in a similar vein, but with focus turned on the parts of Elemental that you LIKE. With Derek and Toby joining the team to be our ‘eyes in the sky’, various areas of the design are going to be heavily scrutinized, and I want to make sure we focus on the real problem areas and simply polish any features that you guys are already enjoying. I foresee several spots where the baby could easily be thrown out with the bathwater, and to combat this I’d like to print a healthy list of ‘what you like’.
So, if you could make a note of any feature/gameplay situation/etc that you truly enjoy, along with one suggestion on how to polish that up, we’d be most grateful!
And here’s a sassy, preemtive ‘zerbert’ emoticon for anyone that wants to post “I like nothing about the game redo it ALLLLL!1!!1!!”
Thanks! The floor is yours!
Looks like these comments about line up with what we're thinking internally...thanks for the feedback, guys!
Next week Derek will be joining us to solidify our direction from this point on, and with our overall confidence shaken pretty heavilly, I want to ensure 1.1 and beyond have the changes players WANT, not what we THINK they want, which may seem obvious but, again, our confidence wanes as of late. Shoddy, vapid, or broken updates will do little to repay the goodwill of the community, so we need to make sure each major update is a 'homerun', so to speak.
Anyways, the last thing we're looking for is a "make us feel better we're really trying" list, which, i assure you, was not the intention here.
1) Like many I like the graphic art, just not looking that nice when really zoom into detail, sugesst to reduce the zoom or polish it on the most detail level.
2) I like the variety of the talents / character attributes , just hope it could be better is less number are shown in the screen and replaced by symbols or bar for faster mind digestion as one of my UI concern.
3) I like the musics / sound. really good for the ears, Much can be improved in this area, for example in the selection screen, when user click a faction, we can play the faction specific short melody. or a Short Intro Animation (10 seconds) while loading based on players selected faction.
4)I like fact that there is only 10 factions / Races and no plan to add any new one to preserve uniqueness. Just feel we still can do much more on the uniqueness - Race specific weapons or equips, race specific monsters bonus talent, race specific building upgrade.
5) I like the cool orange dragon in the loading screen, I like the graphic animation for campaign, just hope there is enough voice over
6) I like city tile concept,beautiful! but maybe I am not smart enough yet, I selected a tile where there is no farm nearby and I cant build hut due to resource constraint, hope the Stardock will look after "dummies' player like me
7) Initially I was a bit down with 1.5 version but I think It is good in its own way that so much improvement is made because of it, thank you!
8) I also like 1.1 mana concept and spells / quests mass addition.
Elemental is the only game in town when it comes to fantasy TBS. There's nowhere to go but forward.
I am a big fan of the concept of having genealogy and a lineage in the game. It has the potential to add a longterm strategic elements and it was something I really enjoyed in Crusader Kings. I just wish it was more then just some extra units and a way to score some diplomatic points. I was hoping to see more of a Royal Court in some way. I would like to shape the next generation and it would be great to see my Kingdom passed on if I had a prepared heir ready when I died.
It is not everything I want, but I am still I am glad at least the basic element was included. And like everyone else -- the changing terrain is great and I also would like to see some more personality in those tiles. What sort of people do you rule? What kind of magic do you use? All of those would be great things to play with.
Not to go too OT, however I don't believe that Elemental broke the Gamers Bill of Rights at all.
The release was rocky, but Stardock have improved the game a lot since release, thus sticking to their Bill and any gamer who disagreed would have got a refund within 30 days.
That is definately a lot more than any other publisher of download games. Try getting a refund off Steam or Direct2Drive...... you download = tough luck buddy.
Well I really like the creatures that are aviable ove rthe diplomacy tree. They are a nice change to the rest of the human Units.
That brings me to what I maybe would wish in a long run an improvement, like more none human like races or geenrally the option to create more different kind of creatures.
Or maybe some race specific creatures aviable.
I like the tech trees, each one and each level gained is not overpowering and they should not be, but the Kingdom equipment trees needs some lovin, even if to make it progressive. Please do not leave it regressive as it is now regarding Maces -> warhammers.
I like the cities how when you build them they grow and you can see each building.
Just to add, I love the dynasty stuff too, I'd like to see it given more importance which I think will happen in 1.1
I also love the cloth map and the pewter minature look of the units on it.
I like the idea of champions but I think they need to be made more interesting and certainly the changes to their special abilities and how they work post 1.1 should do this (oh and more forsaken champions please).
Also I love who tech research is handled though I think the different fields need balancing a bit some seem to have been given a lot more love than others.
This is such an important direction and I really commend you on it.
Elemental is a game that is much bigger and better than the sum of its parts.
I love the graphics.
I like, in theory, the fact that you can advance your units from being just one person, to being a party or a company of soldiers.
I like the idea of how cities grow.
boogiebac, I would accept each patch working toward 'game of the decade' (must get/can not stop playing) quality.
in my view elemental does have the potential to do this for any non twitch(fast rts/fps) players.
harpo
speaking of cloth map... why is it at the "wrong" angle by default? (90 degree off i think, according to the alignment of the text labels).. i think the goodie huts/etc can be a bit more prominent on the cloth map
I, too, like how cities develop and are unique. One suggestion there comes from visiting old cities in Europe. As they grow, they expand beyond their present walls. It would be really cool if when a city levels up, it expands beyond its current walls, so eventually a large city would have multiple layers like growth rings on a tree.
I really like the unit create/customization. It's a bit like Moo/Moo2. It would be very cool if more options were added. Once weapons, armor, and items each have a unique property and rock, paper, scissors-like effects, it would be important to build troops of units to counter enemies' units. On top of this, if you had a whole string of skills that units could be trained in, you could create your own unique types of units. For example, you could build a phalanx with the skill to lock its shields together to form a shield wall (which would have a strategic use on the battlefield). There is so much great potential here!
Of course, the magic was a big draw to this game, and I have faith that it will continue to become more well-defined and unique.
The games unique character in its art, cloth map, terrain changing (love the comments above about unique terrain shifts for each faction) make this game shine. Keep polishing!
I agree with everything that has been mentioned above as far as positives.
There is no doubt in my mind this game will be a classic.
i personally love the unit creation. it was the big selling point for me. so i personally want:
1: unit equipment that gives special traits(first strike, set against charge, fire protection, slash protection, thrown etc). i like more generic stats, but giving a combination of stat +/- plus special traits would be excellent.
2: better tactical combat of course. it would suck have all those great equipment abilities and have no way to really use them.
3: the ability to create technology. say a magic set of armor, AND make that a UNIT armor that can be equipped by units in the unit designer. this way i can take my spells and mass produce these item. they would of course be very expensive, to out fit an entire army with a ring of regeneration would be cost prohibitive, but it would work great to make a few groups of honor guards that could use them.
I kind of agree with this I'd love to see an enchantment forge where you could design magical properties into armour or weapons at a mana cost to produce (post 1.1 as one of the advantages of 1.1 is that mana becomes a resource).
Magical research could unlock new options e.g. A Displacement enchantment added to armour that gives 10% dodge chance. A Life stealing effect for a sword etc. You should be able to combine these.
After all forging your own magical equipment is in keeping with the ring in lord of the ring obviously very powerful items should also have a mana up keep.
Customisability is a key selling point so lets extend it.
I would also like to see fallen tech that allows them to spend mana to imbue their troops with abilities like (claws, tough skins, extra size and strength, regeneration) Again powerful effects should cost mana up keep as well, after all the fallen themsleves are the result of life altering magical experiments. this would just be implemeted through the unit designer.
In fact give magical forging to Kingdoms and Magical mutation to the Empire to reflect their cultural difference and help deferentiate factions in practical terms.
Long time Stardock fan. Just want to say "You can do it".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ2HcRl4wSk
Stuff I like:
- Ressource grabbing and exploration is fun and feeds my powergamer gene.
- The growing "beautification" of the territory I control - seeing the world go from grey-brownish to lush and green is really amazing
- City evolutiion is fantastic - that is the feature that Elemental does much better than the current Civ games. I love to see all my "wonders" and special buildings, especially when my capital grows really large.
- The RPG aspect in general is nice, although it needs to be heavily retweaked. Some stats, like Charisma, are borderline useless. With a good economy, the recruiting cost benefits are negligé... um neglegible. Maybe add in a skill tree to further differentiate your heroes. I don't know about other people, but most times my hired heroes just end up wearing the toughest armor and best weapons and work as elite guards for the sov, which is a waste of talents. So why not give, say, a merchant master special abilities that improve upon his 1g/turn bonus? Maybe adding influence when parked in a city or some such? Same with Assassins. What makes an assassin special? Extra movement? Yeeeeeeeaaaaaah. When I think "assassin", I either think "Ezio Auditore da Firenze" and imagine a one man swiss army knife of death, or, being a bit more traditional, a guy who sneakily kills stuff. But in Elemental? No improved crit chance, no "backstab" flanking ability (btw, IS there any benefit in flanking people in Tac Battles?), no poisoning weapons...
- Unit creation. Too bad there's only human(oid) units to create. Apart from the critters, Elemental is rather light on "fantasy" races. Can we get more please? No need for your "typical" elves, but right now it's more or less the Star Trek approach to races, you just don't use the usual face ridges and go for slightly differing skin tones, which is a shame.
- Cloth map. Awesome.
- Music is nice, although more is always better.
Stuff that needs to be fixed:
- Tactical Battles. Boring. Clunky. Not. Fun. The only reason for me to ever enter a tac battle is to keep a wounded champion out of the fray and have my sov nuke everything to death. (Lightning Storm does that, often enough). Where are special terrain features apart from blocked tiles? Unit tactics? Flanking? Zones Of Control? Attacks Of Opportunity? A working morale system? Oh yes, one other thing: DUNGEONS! Or more generally - other battlefields than open-air locations, which again could provide so much more to the tac battle system. An underground cave, bisected by an uncrossable lava stream. Only way across is a narrow bridge, just wide enough for one unit. That's practically the Basic 101 on "how to design a thrilling encounter" from the old D6D Starter box set. And what do I get in Elemental? Boring, not fun tactical battles. Meh.
- More sounds would be awesome. Ambience. The healing of the world could be so much more powerful with cleverly used sounds, going from forlorn wind blowing over the arid wastes to rippling brooks, herd animals and whatnot if the land goes green (or grwoling earthquakes, the moaning of the dead and dying and the bubbling of LAVA when the evil guys take over!). Same goes for pretty much every aspect of the game. Tac battles could get much more impact by using more sounds. Beasts could get much more menacing by actually giving them sounds. Just fire up any Heroes Of Might And Magic game and see what I mean.
I love the open-ended fantasy narrative structure, and the potential to further expand and deepen it.
Everybody has pretty much covered my feelings, so I will just add that I really like the cloth map. But I would like to have the ability to write on it, such as naming a forest or a range of mountains. IIRC, this was mentioned in one of the early dev blogs but I guess it never made it into Elemental Vanilla.
The thing I love the most is the concept of resources.
They are rare enough to make a single resource a good reason to open war.
It fits the story of the game, it's interesting, it's original, and most of all - it adds to the re-playability since every game I can get different resources around me and change my game style and strategy accordingly.
Despite the fact it can and should be improved, I like the ability to design units.
Combined with the lack of resources, I can reach completely different designs each game, depending on what resources I have around me.
One other thing is the "human only" concept. This is something that relates to my "pen and paper" RPG gaming style.
Emphasizing cultural differences between the current factions is good enough and just because it's a fantasy world, it doesn't mean you have to stick elf and dwarf cliches in there.
I think it's a minor advantage, but it's worth mentioning considering how many requests I saw for LOTR races in the core game.
I also think there are many things in the game with great potential, but I can't really add them as advantages until their potential is tapped.
The long list includes the dynasty, quests and the city that is more than just a list of buildings.
* City building on global map. I'd love to have some 'wall' buildings or other cheap defensive stuff to fill gaps tho.
* Unit designer. Well, it sucks right now, but its good that its there as feature. Being able to 'design' minor races from diplomacy tree would be great. Plus it should consider local population composition. It does not make much sense to be able recruit humans from fallen city and vise versa.
* Terrain modification spells. They are buggy, but still good to have.
* Tree-based techs with categories as goals instead of actual techs.
* Dynasties. Needs succession and ability to marry children with champions. And bugfixes.
* Cloth map. Needs some sprites fixes to distinguish beaches and some other tiles like resources, huts and locations, tho. Usefulness should be above realism and style, IMHO.
Other than that, most of aspects are 'could be good, but not too good right now'.
I think these are interesting ideas, but I would consolidate them to simply say, that tactical units need Roles. As it is currently, the various summons actually fulfill roles in battle. Some like the VM are good at counterattacking, while others like the fire giant have a range of different attack spells, which have various tactical roles. It is why these units tend to be far more useful than the standard tactical unit. In general, the normal unit have two roles, which we will refer to as "Fighter" and "Ranger". These are fairly generic fighting roles which do not even begin to express the spectrum of possibilities of either role. I think it would be interesting if a player had to balance his dps fighters with his heavy armored tanks. While the current system does allow units to either put resources into creating some approximation of these roles, it does nothing to prevent players from simply making the third role of super awesome combination guy. Ultimately, it simply comes down to the more tactical roles the greater the tactical possibilities for different strategic approaches.
I like that I can point to Elemental's "everything and the kitchen sink" design strategy as a big no-no.
I dig unit degisn, but the options are too limited. You can't really add special moves to a unit, and the weapons and mounts are too basic. Ideas (some are from MoM, but hey, they did that very well):
* Mount + Shortbow = mounted archer, give +1 to hit because of extra high
* Mount + Spear = cavalry, +2 damage if they moved a square before attacking (i.e. charge)
* Spear = first strike against mounted units
*Sword and large shield = -1 to hit penalty for missiles (should be small and large shield)
Stuff like that will make it a lot more tactical already.
I dig being able to customize my heroes, but again, the options are too limited. Equipping them is very costfull and a pain. I want to be able to enchant items like good old MoM. Yes. But maybe I should try and get a hang of building an economy. Hehehe.
I like the color scheme stuff but I dont really have a clue as to how some colors work. Would be nice if you would have some basic models when using the faction creator to see what kinda colors you get when assigning color schemes, like in GalCiv.
I like the cloth map, especially on my laptop. My gaming rig... not bothered
Champions need more and more varied abilities.
I'll start a game with just one opponent now, large map, to check out some stuff. Wish I had more time to play! But man, as far as timesinks go this is a good game
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