If you’ve had a chance to play Beta 2, please take a second to go vote.
There's still months of work ahead of us but we're looking to see if we're on the right track.
Thanks!
https://www.elementalgame.com/journals
Fair. I am having crash issues and apologies for not uploading them. I am also having clicking issues where i have to click things so many times for them to actually register I'm clicking it. I will try to start sending the crash reports.
I have a 4 core Intel CPU and .85/.86 does close to 100% on core 1, almost nothing on cores 2 and 3, some varying activity on core 4. Doesn't behave the way I thought a multi-threaded game would.
My first .85 game is on a large map at challenging difficulty, 7 opponents. Been playing this single map non-stop since .85 released. I started off on a large peninsula by myself that only allowed me to build 2 cities. Lots of desert area near my start. Was far behind when I captured city number 3 on the other side of the choke point.
Taking AI cities has been way too easy. AI is quite active on the map, founded lots of cities but has a number of flaws. For example, it leaving loot all over the map and being very poor at defense. AI also wastes large amounts of money and time putting useless buildings in all of its cities, adventurer's guild and command post.
Keep improving the AI, fix interface issues and you could end-up surpassing MOM. For example, newly built units always getting ejected on the wrong side of a city is real irritating for the player. Also seems to cause major problems for the AI. Would be better to only eject if the city is full.
Game of Thrones only has Men. You don't need Orcs, Elves, Dwarves and Goblins for the factions to be considered "different". They just need more features that make them effectively different.
And calling the factions all Men with different facial features and such could be said of pretty much all fantasy universes. What's the difference between an Elf and a man or a Dwarf and a man or even an Orc and a man.
It's the mechanics that make them different. And more can be done there (and more can always be done). Unfortunately, we live in an age where people expect 3D models for everything. Let me have 32x32 sprites like MOM and I can give you a gazillion "different" races.
I rated it good (comparing to beta 1). You guys are on the right track. Hoping for beta 3 the ui is better and not so chunky. BRAD! Add shift clicking to units (shift+ 2 clicks I can select more units quicker!)
Tactical is improving, new maps are great. Some tile bonuses and line of sight stuff would be even funner...
I would like to see ordinary units gain some special attacks or defenses or just a better critical hit function either as a reward for a great victory or after a certain experience level is reached. These could be faction or kingdom/empire specific and would make tactical more interesting if the spearmen in front of you suddenly set their spears for your approaching cavalry...
Also, ordinary units should earn an XP every turn they exist aside from what they earn from battles. And with the new tweaked hero XP and leveling system, you could go that path for heroes as well and that would make a governor type strategy playable.
I missed an opportunity to choose my upgrade on my second city of the game i started on 0.86 because of pop-ups. The flavor text for opponents is ok, but maybe there could be a way to have it pop up only on "more boring" turns then ones where the player has to make a lot of choices...
Pathfinding for units coming out of cities and getting onto roads is still a bit rough...
0.86 is a great leap in the right direction, playing the heck out of it this weekend. The level ups are much more critical now that the xp is more precious, makes me think hard about what to choose. I LOVE IT!
Thanks for listening, SD!
p.s. Thanks for making venom sacs equippable, would love to see other monster parts be usable for offensive/defensive purposes. Or can the live beast be subdued and tamed? Or enraged into a rampage across a rivals lands? That would be a great way to rid yourself of that pesky outpost that sprung up to the south of you...
Game of Thrones has Men and Others. And dwarves for that matter
I think most of us would like to see the various factions become a little more distinctive in terms of game mechanics. But I recall we didn't really hit the high water mark of race differentiation until the third expansion of Gal Civ 2. This is definitely a weak point of the game right now, IMO, but the priority has to be getting a rock solid core gameplay experience. If the former has to take a back seat to the latter, so be it. From a superficial standpoint, I think most people recognize that radical departures graphically between all the factions would represent a huge amount of work ($$) that is not realistic at this point.
However, on the point of graphics, don't be afraid to rock the 2D on things like Leader/faction portraits and diplo screens. You can convey much more personality and distinctiveness with a nicely painted 2d picture for a fraction of the time/effort/cost of new models, skins, animations, etc. The game has a storybook aesthetic. There's no reason not to take advantage of that with some lavish paintings. A good 2d painting is visually more appealing than a rough 3d model that is meant to be viewed at small size. Think of the evocative faction portraits in Fall from Heaven.
In terms of gameplay, there are already marked differences that aren't being fully utilized and exposed to the player. Namely, the base stats of each race. Even though it's not very clear to players, the leader's stats reflect the base statistics of that races units, as far as I understand. That means in theory some of the factions are going to excel at different troop types.
The problem here is, we dont have a full range of traditional fantasy battle units , at least in the trained unit sector. So while some races are designed to produce superior melee warriors, and others have the stats for superior rogues or archers, the races with the high INT/Low Physical stats are designed to produce superior...what? It feels like there should be "mage" units, that dont have the versatility or power of a champion, casting only one type of spell...elemental bolt, heal, rez, etc. The game doesn't have that as far as I know, but it's been a long time since Ive really delved far into the trained units aspect, so I could be mistaken.
Something to consider.
I voted good. I think you're definitely on the right track, despite my vote not improving. It's gone from the low end of good to the middle to upper end of good right now for me. I've actually held off on buying Crusader Kings II because of this game, which should say something.
Right now, I think this game would get an 8/10 review score from most places. I think you're approaching AoW:SM-level, but with a working AI.
There are still things that look barebones, and AI/balance/pacing still need work.
I haven't had crashes in beta 2 .86.
Moved from fair to good with this patch for me. Felt hero unit balance was much improved, love the lowered tech costs and the AI was a bit more frisky.
Could improve off top of my head--
a) Faction unit variation - some more fantastic units and more distinctive traits approaches like Fall from Heaven.
AI seems to make pioneers in its combat stacks(ones sieging my cities). At least umbar was doing this one game.
c) Clearer idea about where to found cities, Better/clear toggle for food/production. Maybe a summary to survey the land totals to give someone an idea of how the land will provide for a city.
d) Make pioneers a little more expensive. Seemed to have alot of them spammed around.
Honestly, if it weren't for the Bugs I'd say 0.85 is good enough for launch. (good enough to be a decent game)
The bugs are a bit glaring and serious however ... so it certainly won't be a walk in the park to tackle them all.
Best places to improve:
UI, UI, and UI.
When selecting a pioneer .... highlight the tiles that are applicable for City placement.
Allow the terrain overhead to show up when you mouse over settle .. EVEN WHEN PIONEER IS INSIDE A CITY. It can be very frustrating for it to not show up just because the Pioneer isn't 'in the right spot yet'.
I wandered with my pioneer across the wilds below my start until I realized that for some reason none of it was buildable. Seemed like a lot more than 8 tiles to me, but meh.
After an auto-spell, sometimes the 'pass turn' doesn't show up. So I have to "autobattle" for half a turn and then pause it to go back to manual.
the Scrap Metal Golems ... yea ... some of them spawned in the water.
The Obsidian Golem that spawned specifically for the Shield quest. Didn't give a midnight stone. I did however have another stone from a regular Obsidian golem, and that one worked.
As for Balance ... there doesn't seem to be a good way to grow vertically. Not a lot of building choices early on, so only option is Military + Pioneers.
I don't like how I have to choose between a Market and a Garden, but with all the other food per grain bonuses I guess its not a big deal.
I personally feel that City Upgrade buildings should be a choice between Production, Science, Mana, or Administration (Growth, -unrest, -maintenance).
I think all things gold specific should be buildable by anyone.
Either that or more +Growth buildings, and earlier on. So you can choose between building units or advancing your city. (instead of choosing between building units and doing nothing)
Only my opinion, of course, but I think that's wildly optimistic. The technical issues alone would torpedo any review scores. Even if it worked perfectly, it's just not firing on all cylinders yet. But the engine is turning over, unlike WoM (again, IMO).
I dont mean to be negative. Im very optimistic about the game. But it's important to be sober about this and not repeat past mistakes. The stakes are high. Consider that Crusader Kings 2 is hovering near 8/10 on meta-critic right now, and I think that's probably one of the greatest strategy games ever made.
I voted good, but am STILL getting lockups and crashes, but a bit more frequently that .77( had a SIX hour game without problems on a random small mapin .77) but in .87 I only got four hours in before a freezeup of the game (the debug.err entries suggest unable to swap back frame with primary frame in a intel 4 series graphics laptop ie a leveno g530) at turn 230 after I had killed umber (it was stupid enough to declare war on me and not send any attack force at me for twenty turns so I then went for a walk and took each town I found until I had killed the sov during which I had 20-30 battles, they lost all, my usual method was to move toward them, then cast haste on me, then move toward them again, and start killing when in contact till I had won the battle, but in about 5 of the battles they had been able to get the first move and had cast wither on me, and they then got approx 2 turns free against me, but they STILL lost.
harpo
We do have mage units (as of 0.85) in the form of Ice Staffs and Fire Staffs with ranged Ice and Fire attacks.
It would be nice if they each had an equip-able spell or two though
Yes, but do the races base stats improve the performance of those weapons, or is only a matter of the weapon? I don't know how it works with those staves. Some races have high strength base stats, so they produce superior melee warriors. If the fire staffs are modified by the races unique base stats (high INT makes them more powerful), then that race would produce superior versions of that unit, providing another valid point of differentiation for the high INT factions.
True, intelligence should affect the attack of Staves, and I don't think it does at the moment.
(or rather spell power should, which goes up with level)
makes more experienced mages better than experienced archers (where right now archers seem always the better choice than mages)
Funnily, Game of Thrones (the pc game) suffered from a similar problem - how do you translate the difference visually? The factions in E:wom are not easily visually distinguishable. Look at any empire city vs any other empire city. They're the same. Look at a Umber archer vs a Magnar archer. One might have slightly red face, but their armor and weapon is the same. Easy fantasy tropes = easy differentiation. VISUALLY speaking, I would say that there are two factions in FE, not ten. Those two are Kingdom and Empire. But I will also say that those ten actual factions do not play the same. They just look it.
It's a half-decent game now. Might get a 65-70 on metacritic.
What's done in the next few releases will determine whether it stays at 65-70, or gets an 80-85.
I don't think I want FE to get a 90+. It's then too mainstream, and I probably won't like it. Many people reviewing these games are not players or enjoyers of strategy games. But it should get an 80-85 if it irons out the bugs and imbalances, and gains that "special" touch no one can describe. It doesn't have that touch yet, but I don't think it's impossible to gain it in the next few months.
Really well-done sprite work and animation I still think is preferable to 3d graphics. The problem is- it's expensive, especially time-wise.
The only American game place that does it high quality right now is Reverge (Skullgirls). It's hard to find folks trained to do it.
I went form 'fair' to 'good'. The 0.77 was a nice game to play. But I found myself playing a game and feeling that WoM good spot feeling. I played on challenging and faced Umber and Gilden. I boosted the music up and was swept away by the beautifull music. I started going around with my sovereign (Procipone) and found two champions to help me out. one of my champions went to an inn and got a request for helping an noble daughter, sadly my champion was not strong enought to fend the bear of right next tot the inn, so I rejected. It would have been nice if I could wait a few seasons before accepting like with the dragon-summoner. I found that the shadow warg was a little overpowerd, it is fastly more powerfull then the Ice-Elemental that I could cast many many turns later. My two champions also went about and killing evil monsters. I liked that I could make pioneers early so I could capture some nice resources with outposts. Gilden was sadly killed of by a monster in the middle of the game. Quickly after that I met Umber, which settled next to a shrill-lord lair. It was a good spot, but I didn't take it because of the fear of this shrill-lord. It realy bugs me that it didn't attackt this settlement for the rest of the game (100+ turns). This, while my settlement near the border of a wildland was attacked by a roaming stone-elemental. I really don't get the monster AI... But wel, Umber declared war on me because I didn't have a standing army. He came at me with hoards of peons within 2 seasons! I liked that. Sadly those peons where in groups of 3, so I decimated them with my sovereign (10 batches of peons). I was wonderd why Umber had such a large but useless army. He had better cities and spots, but because he didn't train more then peons in batches of 3, he was decimated. This was a game in 0.85.
I really liked the exploration of the world, the music added that extra feeling. What saddend me was that the whole magic three is useless if you haven't got any crystals. With the military tech three you have leather armour that makes it usefull even though you have no metal at your disposal. Maybe you could make units which use mana as an attack source. I like the new caravan system, it works a lot more natural. The new death penalties also are a nice addition, I had to laught a little when I saw 'fear of death'. I do have a problem of not seeing the sovereigns in the character selection menu. I just want to say: I like the music, I like the game!
To answer on your question froggy boy, you guys are on the right track! Make me vote excelent!
It's still a bad game BUT with more specialization of the different factions and differences in playing style demanded by having to choose different paths in the technology tree to win and much more attention getting paid to the tactical maps (differences in playing fields, cover, bonuses for elevation differences, AI using tactics that are apropriate for the different kinds of tactical maps, special tactical maps for different quests) then it can become a great game. 0.86 is better than 0.77 so starcock is on the right path. The AI obviously have to become about 400 times better than it is now. Why not hire an extra AI programmer? Is Froggy good enough on his own?
Game of thrones is not a game but a character driven story.We are not reading books here.
The reality is in a game humans and slightly grey humans are not suffice.I do not see these mechanics that make them different in the gameplay.Paxton did Fall from Heaven2 and I am suprised how bland the factions are in this game.
Wow, long thread.
I voted "Excellent" because for a beta, I really do think that it's excellent. Each release has been substantially improved over the last and the framework is there for a really great game. I might be a non-mainstream gamer so my opinion might not mean a huge amount, but it's got a really laid-back feel that belies a drawn-out desperate grind against the world - which I really dig.
That being said, there is still work to do particularly with balancing, and cleaning up random bugs.
On random bugs - it appears that a lot of these are a result of events not clearing and closing out of the system properly, such as getting double/triple rewards for completing quests (0.85), being able to sell items more than once (0.86), and the cloth map not updating sometimes (0.86).
Haven't played that much yet tho, honestly. No crashes in 0.86 yet. Submitted a debug.err via email earlier this morning for 0.85 crash - as I didn't realize that 0.86 was available so soon.
Having said all of that tho, it's an excellent beta, and I think that people would be a lot more excited about it and less critical if there wasn't a bad WOM taste in peoples' mouths. I liked WOM, but more as an idea of a game, rather than how the game actually was to play...
Cheers,
-tid242
Personnaly I voted Poor...
I am sorry, FE is far to be poor but let me explain why:
1. First of all, there is WAY too many crashes, the game is really unstable and at each action you do, you are afraid that the game will crash only to leave you with that beautiful screen : Elemental has stopped working
I don't think I succeeded to play any game yet and especially going far in the game without the game crashing except for the tutorial.
2. I really like the game, it's a huge improvement compared to WOM, but some buttons of the interface are not clear enough... There should be more options to see where you want to build your city by showing ressources. Additionally, building your city near or next to the sea doesn't seem to give you much advantage.
3. The tactical battle screen seems too small, units begins the fight too close from each other, so much that it doesn't give you much time to think personnaly or set a strategy that would slow down the opponent so you can kill him from affar
4. Still the tactical battles decor is sometimes preventing the unit to move through a path. I did a battle and there was a pond in the middle of me and the troll I was attacking and the tiles were clearly showing a path to the right and to the left of the pond... however, the path on the left was the only one availabe... And the troll never moved towards me even after 10 turns.
5. Ennemies starting next to you are too powerful and you die really quickly or worse, the computer still seems to die and beeing defeated by that kind of stuff early game when I thought by reading the news that this problem was fixed
6. In tactical battle, the ennemies start off screen, it happened to me 2 times in 10 battles (and I just got in the BETA so I didn't play very much yet) and you just can see or target them unless they move, which is a huge problem if they happen to not move like the troll I had.
7. I regret the dispearance of the spellbook in tactical battles, I don't really like that bunch of icons at the bottom, you are almost forced to hover the mouse above them to be sure of what kind of spell you are casting with that, if you have a lot of spells, will they all be there in a line ?
There are feature with city fights and earth magic and air/aquatic units that I would love to see implemented but I know what was said about it.
In the end, I am sorry for voting Poor but this game is so promising, the changes made are for most of them awesome (I love not to have to take care of building houses for example or the world is WAY cool and well done, coherent, etc.
I think FE can be an amazing game that will get a lot of success and I think poeple might finally think it's the dign successor of MOM with all the changes that have been made ! So I want to congratulate Stardock's team for how amazing they are and I hope FE will still be improved a lot. After all, as it was said, they still have month to go
Whoever's job it is to handle information for beta testers needs to make a post about tester objectives. Half the noobs in this forum aren't reporting their damn crashes. We also had no way of knowing that beta 2 would get crash reports from the windows solutions system. You do realize that EVERY WINDOWS USER CLICKS CANCEL BEFORE IT CAN SEND THE REPORT!
I really really really don't want a repeat of WoM's launch problems here.
I didn't vote (since I'm the lead coder of said game).
I think many of you would agree that bringing on Kael to design and lead Fallen Enchantress and bringing the Galactic Civilizations team back together to code it has made a major impact here.
That said, I'd say that game is still months from being ready for general availability:
That's just off the top of my head. So there's still much to do before release. But I'm glad to hear people are happy with how we're doing.
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