(Originally started this on Lord Xia's thread regarding game improvements, but it became so long it seemed impolite to dump it on his thread. I will add that I am absolutely sure that someone has said this all before, most likely when the game first came out; but once I heard the first big patch had come in, I thought I would try out the game, and apparently it has frustrated me enough that I just need to say it somewhere.)
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For me it just boils down to the fact that the world of the game feels empty, and devoid of variety. This runs through every aspect of the game, from the world maps themselves through the champions and spellbooks. Playing Elemental feels like playing a tech demo of the tools someone might one day use to make a game, with some placeholder content thrown in for good measure. There are dozens of dozens of individual mechanical and aesthetic problems -- some of them totally fundamental -- but none of these individual problems appears to be the result of anything remotely inspired or ambitious. And they all pale in comparison to the overwhelming emptiness. I find it hard to believe that someone who actually likes 4x games, or fantasy games, designed Elemental: it feels more like it was cobbled together by bored interns with zero interest in the genre beyond its most superficial conventions, who had to meet some minimum quota and had absolutely no inclination to go beyond it. I don't mean to crash the thread, or crap on the game (I am sure it's already been done), but I've spent the last week playing the game and it just feels like a wasteland, and I just cannot get my head around how this is supposed to be, like, a game that somebody had fun making.
The empty feeling really has its apotheosis in the totally, mind-bogglingly backwards way that exploration in the game is designed vis-a-vis resources, treasure chests, and quests -- where, as far as I can tell, you research techs in order to randomly spawn treasure chests, resources, and adventures only in territory you already control, and therefore have already explored. This creates the completely disheartening mid-game circumstance where you are exploring a brand new continent, previously untouched by civilization and it is completely, utterly empty of adventure, treasure, or (in most cases) even useful resources. You send your brave champions, armed to the teeth, through screen after screen of empty desert -- and meanwhile your Sovereign teleports around your homeland picking up eight million magically-appearing treasure chests that you just never noticed before. And it just gets more soul-crushing when you contemplate that if you had just held off researching that Adventuring tech for long enough to completely colonize the brand new continent, then suddenly it would have turned out to be full of awesome stuff after all. Like, the only way to get something like the experience I expect is to counter-intuitively metagame: the later you do the research about where to find the awesome treasure, the more treasure you somehow find. (And then of course there's the inversely counter-intuitive implementation for the resource-revealing tech: no matter how many continents you control, you will only ever locate one new orchard, and one field of bees.)
It just breaks my head (and heart) to imagine that somebody who has actually played, say, Masters of Magic, could have come up with this design, and then tested the results, and thought 'man, THIS IS AWESOME. This is the best way to implement exploration in a fantasy setting! I love this gameplay!' I just can't get over the contrast between starting up a new game of Elemental and starting up a new game of Masters of Magic (particularly if you begin in the magic/dark dimension, whose name I forget.) In the latter, you begin practically surrounded by mundane and magic resources, terrain variations, caves, huts, magical nexuses, portals to another world -- many of which would easily destroy your starting army if you weren't careful, and some of which you would end up defeating near the end of a week-long game; meanwhile, in the former, you begin surrounded by one farm and one completely non-threatening magic shard, precisely two inns every single time, and a whole lot of barren tiles.
I mean honestly, what is the point of gating the fantasy content in a fantasy gameworld? Of forcing players to grind out tech research just so they can actually notice that this is actually a fantasy world? Are we trying to protect players from actual risk/reward analysis? It only takes one time clicking 'OK' after the message 'You see a Great Wyrm hanging around the nature node' to understand that some quests need to be put off for later. And how exciting is it to reveal the Crazy Evil Wizard's Tower only after the game has made absolutely sure that you will have no trouble defeating the Crazy Evil Wizard who lives there? I don't feel much achievement teleporting my overwhelmingly-armoured Sovereign around, smashing in tiny armies of spiders guarding +30 metal -- but if I could somehow figure out a way to do that in the fifteenth turn of the game, I'm guessing I'd be pretty impressed with myself.
I really don't get it, because even with everything on the table there's still not a lot of there there: even if you started a game with every resource revealed, there's really not very many resources and they really don't have many effects. So why hide them? Why make your game seem even less full of life than it actually is?
tl;dr:
* the game world feels empty and without variety, which is the opposite of what a fantasy 4x should feel like. fantasy worlds should be overflowing with craziness and danger, not carefully managed and devoid of magic.
* tech gateways for goodie huts/quests are counterproductive and tedious.
* play more master of magic. steal shamelessly.
* Kael, man, this game feels like the emotional and aesthetic inverse of Fall From Heaven in every respect. What have you got yourself into?
I totally agree that adventure tech should reveal, not spawn, resources
I think you are right, and I think, Brad sawthe game needed a lot of work to make it feel more alive, interesting and fantastic. So that is why he went and hired Kael, Jon, Toby, and others.
Someday they will listen to the endless complaints about adventure techs I'm sure
At least we can raze something without having to research deep into a tech tree finally...
You've nailed two of the major problems with E:WOM that make the game not interesting to play, even if the AI and other gameplay elements were great. Looking at this weeks press release, it looks like a major part of Fallen Enchantress will be making the world more interesting. Don't know about the adventure techs, I can only hope they fix that hated mechanism.
I doubt these things will be fixed for E:WOM, I'm guessing it will mainly get AI updates and bug fixes from now on. I might be wrong about this, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Worse yet: resource-spawning techs can still spawn resources in your opponent's territory. Happens a lot with recruitable monster resources, actually. That's right, you can shoot yourself in the foot by discovering a tech.
I wonder if a change to this system is in the work. For the reasons you mentioned, this system simply doesn't work as it is and needs to be changed before new content/gameplay concepts are added into the game.
A small comment though: the fact that it's void of life is a good thing: it's a post apocalyptic world. It's more that... it should feel less bland. The world itself needs a lot of work to actually conciliate sightseeing and features with the post-apocalyptic feeling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP9--c-VAK8&feature=related
That's how I feel about adventure techs right now. Things popping up and whatnot, and not being excited about it. If they were in from the beginning the quantity of stupid irritating huts of worthlessness would need to be reduced. Actually those stupid chests and whatnot need to be reduced now! If I'm in the mood for an adventurous romp through huts with cool mobs, I don't want to have to stumble through eleventy billion utterly worthless goodie huts. Seriously why are they even there! And you have to clean them all up, or you get popups everywhere.
Not good popups though. Not like gir.
Agree with most of this. I haven't played for over a month because it's just not fun as it sits today, in comparison to MoM. IMHO.
I can't recommend the game to others as it is today--it just doesn't have any depth. To add depth, in addition to your list above, it needs:
--a sense of wonder (that spell is so cool I'll stay up for 3 hours till I can get it, that race can do X which I want so I MUST conquer them, etc.)
--a sense of fear (ooh, here comes the flying cow from the catapult on top of the castle, RUN AWAY)
--a sense of exploration to find unique situations and places (brainstorm: magic storms; teleportation squares; traps; ambushes; wizard duels challenges; thousands of quests so you don't encounter the same ones very often; MAGICAL items with charges; humor "you've been transformed into a sheep, learn to like grass";
--a reason to win for the GAMER (when you capture a town you get to control that race and their abilities and have their units)
--a sense of variety (flying creatures; invisible creatures; tunneling creatures; illusion creatures)
One last comment: a lot of these ideas have been posted across many threads, and don't get answered even as "yes, no, or maybe". Hmm...I wonder if they're so busy making the mechanical game & engine work and then balancing that the heart and soul of the game still hasn't been significantly re-done.
I think it will take a lot more than rebalancing to make this game what it was hyped to be; it needs a serious re-thinking. I do agree that a great UI is required for this game to be good. Perhaps the phrase "a good UI, a game with heart and soul and depth, and filled with magic, rather than filled with combat and a little magic thrown in".
I have been a vocal supporter of that point of view these past few months: if this game is to be good someday, the basics need to change because they will damage anything that will be built upon these. No matter how many great ideas are implemented into the game later on, if the core mechanics don't work, nothing will. I'm glad to see other people feel the same.
I love the game as it is, but last night I encountered the same quest three times in a row from three huts it may just be a random thing but it was the same quest. I also have a question about the legend adveture tech I researched it last night but never found any powerfull heros to recruit the highest lvl ones that I found were lvl 2 heros with plus 20% to food, and plus 20% to mining dont get me wrong I got them but I expected to find warrior heros and higher lvl heros what does the legend adveture tech do?
Yeah, that was another rant alright. At least the thread title was accurate.
I have actully all in all just stopped playing the game after the last patch, never did fix any of the crash issues for me even thought i put in alot of tech support issues, so i just gave up worrying about it maybe someday it will be fixed, also for me the feeling of game is gone per wheng ame frsit came out magic felt powerfull, now it feels nerfed and point less, i dont even understand spell strutcor any more, I thought you researched books opened up spells, but no idea I chose no spell books at begging nad go to start game thing they will just unlock in game as i research them and i unlock spell books and I get like crape for spells, acrane level 10 and not a single worth while spell no chain lighting no mass china lighting no fireballs or missle stuff no nothing kol or worth while or devasting.
and i know that air spells do lighting so forth but i get nothing for unlocking the book not a single worth will spell making to me magic point less so i even just stop using it all to gethere in games i did start playing befor i quit the game.
the othere issue i have is world it does feel wired I dont know I wish it was bit more RPG ish, i also wish that I be hones the magic pool as it is sucks.
I thought it was way better when each lord of person got tehre own magic pool mana essesn and that they gained levels and you could allow them to have more or less and get specil stuff to incress it I also liked idea of action points which are now gone to me all stuff that made it itnresting is gone so I just stopped playing it its not longer the game i bought and that I enjoyed if i could get fixes that made game stable and revert game to game style it was befor all point less game patching game changes i would be happy agin.
Can someone translate midn8t's post for me? Especially the last two paragraphs? Thanks.
Shitty grammar sucks.
Sorry, no can do. My head hurts from that massive run-on sentence. A little punctuation would help - maybe just one or two commas? Not asking for anything fancy like semi-colons...
Totally agree with this, and with the OP. My feeling in this regard is that they took all the time so far in making the game stable (it still crashes and whatnot, but it's a lot more stable now than before), but forgot to make the game fun. So, obviously, this is something that should have been addressed in the beta. It wasn't, so let's not dwell on that. I was just about to post something similar, which was not nearly as calm, but I'll refrain for now. But what I'd like to say will probably sound hurtful or mean, but it's how I feel: Elemental:War of Magic feels like an indie game (and not in a good way). If feels like 1 person worked on this in his basement and is still continuing to make the game better, but slowly. But I know that Stardock has tons of people who are working on this and pouring their time and effort into this; I just wish it had translated into a game that is more fun and will keep me away from Master of Magic and Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic. For now though, there's no comparison between them. I'm sorry if this is out of line, but you guys at Stardock are the developers. You play games, you've probably played so many more than me. How can you say that Elemental ranks up there with the others?
I'm going to say something that I've said so many times before on different forums: Master of Magic wasn't a perfect game; it had bugs and crashes, the AI was suspect, the diplomacy, ugh. But the reason I can come back to it any day of the week (dosbox ftw) is that it was FUN. There were lots of spells I liked (spells I would go out of my way to research because they were so fun to use), units I liked (tons of units in the game were awesome, and so fun to use), and the sense of exploration was great (you didn't know what the island you were on held, it could be adamantium, gold, rivers for food, etc. [one more point: there was something significant on EVERY SINGLE TILE; think about that]). Also, the SCOPE of the game was insane. You could have the most powerful opponent, with crazy sky drakes and death knights (for example) and you still had a chance because your magic or heroes could bring you back in the game. Elemental? Not so much on any of these points. And the AI, while it might be so much better and smarter now, doesn't equate to more fun. And I'm hoping that the Dev's are going for the "fun" AI vs the "good" AI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJcuQQ1eWWI).
Again, HAVING BALANCE IN A GAME DOES NOT MEAN IT WILL BE FUN.
I started another game 2 days ago with the new AI patch, and I couldn't play more than say 30 turns of it. It was bland, repetitive, and not fun. I'm sorry, because I'm trying hard to like this game, and I've been trying for the past almost 5 months. I just can't get into it. The game needs a revamp on all accounts. It needs more fun and better research, combat, diplomacy, quests, structures (goodie huts, if you will), resource locations (totally bland world right now), but most of all MAGIC. There have to be those "wow" spells and technologies in this game, that crazy quest that took 10 turns to complete and gave you some awesome spell (not some midnight stone), and so far there are none. I totally agree with the OP here and and hoping beyond hope that the first expansion will deliver, but after seeing the ideas for it, I'm not holding my breath for this one.
Sorry, didn't mean to post this much, it just happens when I'm talking about this game for some reason. And if anyone is going to say "then gtfo" or something, we're here posting because we do want this game to turn out well, not to just rant.
I'd say the developers know about the dull world issue and are ramping up to fix it in the announced expansion. Kael, David and Jon have really only just got on board, it will be some time before we see in Elemental much of their work.
I've had the game since the beta and watched it develop. After release I vowed not to play it until the famed 1.1 patch, that turned into not playing until 1.11 (due to real life) and the change I have seen is really encouraging.
Post such as the OP are really good because the devs do seem to be taking it onboard and the game is becoming much better for it.
Yeah, this I agree with. I also think it'll take time to see their influence on the game (Kael's influence I guess is already bringing us quicker patches..? a good thing) but I hope they realize the situation: the game needs work, and not just bug fixes. I could stand for tons of bugs if the game was fun.
imho there needs to be more magic pew pew pew action ewom and its expansions. the magic section that is currently is in the tech trees need to be dumped completly into the arcane research section. that way you choose to either research spells or research magic books etc. (or remove the books from the research altogether and have them be learned from special locations throughout the land. again tho i dont think ther e shoudl be a magic in the tech research section. also i support the no adventure tree either. diplo and civ and warfare and stay tho in the tech but other two i say no.
Got the game on Christmas and played nothing else for a solid week (which also involved lots of modding). Now I can't even force myself back into it all - and I have tried, because I love the "game" (as an abstract concept of what it could be).
Good posts everyone. There are so many great ideas in the game, but it needs to go a long way to reach "fun".
The concept of having the game start off in a "post-apocalyptic" setting might have sounded good on paper, but Brad's somewhat un-inspired interpretation of that concept resulted in a uniformly brown, featureless wasteland. Looks good in a 1st person RPG like Fallout, but sucks in a 4X strategy game. Almost by definition the game is going to be ugly and uninteresting at the start, which surely is a bad design decision. You shouldn't make players have to endure a slow and dull start of a game just to get to the more interesting bits in the middle. The core mechanic was supposed to be "turning a barren world green through use of powerful magic", but again, this was a concept that sounds better than it actually plays. Contrast the ambience when playing the Civ games (at least before Civ 5), where at the start of every game there is a glorious sense of "here is my little settler at the beginning of time, about to explore a vast, beautiful but dangerous world".
Personally, I would have been a little more bold. Why does post-apocalyptic have to have a brown palette? Couldn't the apocalypse have released a whole bunch of bizarre flora and fauna? Perhaps some small pockets of green oases survived? The sense that civilisation is struggling to rebuild itself has to be emphasised.
You ended your first sentence with a preposition, your hyphen was completely unnecessary, your third setence was a fragment, and you misused your ellipsis.
The first sentence wasn't a formal construction, but "to do" is a verb, not a preposition. The spelling of "run-on sentence" appears to be a matter of dictionary choice, and to me the hyphen seems valid because the term is an adjective derived from forms like "your sentence runs on ungrammatically."
At least you know that ellipsis marks are a punctuation character in their own right, but you seem to have missed the longstanding tradition of using them in dialog format to denote a speaker who could have gone on but chose to trail off for some reason or another.
Ouch - harsh grammatical crowd here.
Although I am somewhat shocked that you felt the hypen was completely unnecessary. That was the single most important hyphen ever. And I mean ever.
That's the point. The OP's post was perfectly readable, despite mistakes.
Flippancy aside, there is actually no point that you've made that is apparent. I wasn't speaking about the OP. I was speaking about the last paragraph of midn8t's post. You can't be serious that it was perfectly readable - over 100 stream of consciousness words with no punctuation is not readable.
oh yeah. no... That post was crap. My eyes glossed over it and I had forgotten by the time I got to your post.
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