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Hi,
I just voted. I voted good previously, and now I voted fair. I'll explain why.
Obvious to me, the game has never been better than now, but at the same time I think there are still some balance issues and the general state of the game if near release worries me a bit. At the same time, I sometimes wonder if we are not too much demanding. But I will get FE for free, so maybe I'm not to critical because I think it is a nice gesture. If a friend would ask me the question : would I buy FE at release, I'm afraid I would say no And Stardock's goal is to make an awesome game and sell it to as many people as possible. So, I'm afraid I have to give my opinion even if it is unpleasant.
Ok, I'll try to point out why:
General feeling (MOST IMPORTANT)
I voted fair also on intuition because I don't get that 'one more turn' feeling. Worst, I'm not able to clearly point what the 'problem' is. I think what keeps me going in such games is at some point you always have some unit that becomes overpowered because you cared for her. Champion of course comes in mind (I always create mine), but it should be true for heroes as well. So far, while they are nice, they lack some personality IMHO. recruitable heroes should be very memorable.I want some really rare heroes, but it shouldn't be level based. MoM did that right, you could get all champions lvl1, but some of them were better than others (stats and feats). If you care for that rare lvl1 hero giving him best stuff, you would on the long term gain an advantage. Now, when I cross a lvl 9 hero, I don't even bother since I didn't want particularly to research Ereog's journal. And if I did, there's still the chance an enemy faction would kill him in the meanwhile
I remember posting on these forums about the relative scarcity of new heroes to recruit in late game and how making them immortal was not such a good choice for me Allow permanent death for faction-recruited heroes and make them just pop-up to hire at cities depending on prestige, even if there is a finite set, we would rename them anyways... A hero that cannot die : no one cares for him. Superman is less interesting than Spiderman. Game of Thrones characters are memorable because they can be killed, wounded at every point in the series. So that hero I have, I would care a lot more for him if I had a chance to lose him. This is maybe even more important than making them distinct from each other. Killing the other's faction über-hero would also be a goal, a memorable thing. It would also help balancing I think by preventing never-dying high-level heroes
For caring about 'normal' units, you made already everything possible since we can design them (thanks, one of the best features in the game like ships were in Galciv). So, I would bury them under buffing spells and make some elite units. But since heroes are too powerful, they just don't interest me, so I'm not interested in what's going to happen to them the next turn. So balance again, should be a major attention point.
Also, early in the game, I'm not too busy. Care that I don't ask for more quests (more tiles with something). It's just that all quests that are given and that I'm allowed to do, I know I can complete them : no thrill . Allow me to fail them. So I have to scout (an incentive to create units). So dungeons, quests should have random, unknown difficulty. I should only know after being once there. I should never be allowed to just send one champion to see without fearing him to encounter harm. Hence I would really want to improve and build that army to defeat that Killer dragon or horde of less powerful critters and if I do, please make it worthwile (right now, quests reward are a bit lacking IMHO). If I had to work to that powerful item or rare champion, if I fear I could lose them I will care for them and will be anxious about what's gonna happen to them on the next turn
Balance
Like Brad already said, heroes shouldn't be able to kill that much. Because early in the game, I don't even bother making units.
In general, I have a hard time to figure if and why a unit is better than an other. The Battle window is a great help of course, but I know that unit A is strong, B is weak but I don't know why. Is it because one does magic damage and the other not ?.
Bugs (not severe ones, just to say)
I played like 2-3 hours and I think I noticed those bugs:
- infection doesn't seem to work (or I don't understand it. I thought that if you cast it on a enemy, finally, bad spells on said unit should also affect its teammates).
- I casted the spell to kill an ally to gain a spell level, but it didn't seem to work (or I didn't understand it, but I read it carefully, maybe a translation problem, but maybe there should be some kind of feedback message that would say what has happened). Maybe that would be a good idea for every spell that just don't affect hit points, def, att, etc...
Well, maybe I'm right, maybe I'm stupid (wait, I sure am ), either way, some other people might not understand it as well. If the bugs are legit, there are probably a lot more since I didn't test the game for hours.
That's what I think at the moment, but I'm sure it will improve. Maybe is it only a matter of polishing things now and balancing the game, adding more artworks, creatures, summons, objects, weapons ? It's not a lack of feature. I would like to ask more, but let there be some space for expansions I could buy if I enjoy FE (magic items creation, dynasty : Yeah ).
I didn't want to sound harsh, tons of good stuff and it's still going in the right direction.
Cheers!
My two points of feedback are semi-related:
1) In response to players finding high-powered loot early in the game, is it possible to rank the "goodies" in the goodie huts based on the "level" or "difficulty" of the quest? That way, you don't get a +5 bastard sword of smiting from a spider nest?
2) In response to many quests being automatic successes (and the requests for the possibility of failure), how hard would it be to make some quests more text-based, choose-your-own-adventure style, ala the King Arthur the Roleplaying Wargame? Choose Your Own Adventures are quite fun, and you quickly become vested in wanting to succeed, but sure rue it when you lose!
I voted Poor for the reasons I posted in this thread: https://forums.stardock.com/423742
I haven't been able to play a game past 30 or 40 turns because of those problems.
I voted fair.
Since the original game came out, I've played as Lord Markin of the Ironeers. The game is much better than when Elemental was first released, but still broken and just not up to task. If you release it in the state of the current beta 3 you will be clobbered in the reviews like the original.
I have 4 outstanding tickets in the bug tracker. With 2 of the newest bugs being things I could a half hour into beta 3! Balance is also still broken.
Kraxis empire has a score in the 60s and I just got to the low 20s by paying the Tarth for non-agg pacts and trade teaties and the Altar for the same and an econ treaty. I've had Lord Markin running around killing everything and equipping random equipment he find. I have him suck the soul of the 'clumsy' fool who had been injured 1 to many times for me to find acceptable. He single handedly wipes out several large Kraxis armies in 1 turn. Then I can't advance the turn. Can't move Markin, can't press the next turn button even though it is lit up. Can't save and load to advance the turn. Nope, just broken.
I also voted Good. I could pretty much play an entire game of this, unlike the last build in which I couldn't. Damage scaling for melee heroes based on weapons seems to be off, though. They need something which allows them to hit harder based on their level to compensate for how they can't bunch up like units can.
Most of the bugs I've encountered had to do with the quests.
In the Rust Golem quest, in which I had to kill all the golems that spawned on the map, some of the golems spawn in the water or in the ocean or behind impassable uneditable terrain. I've fished out some from the water using the Raise Land spells, but that still isn't all of them. Maybe check the spawning code to make sure they don't appear in the ocean because I don't think that is working as intended.
There are also a couple of typos in the quest texts. The one I remember is from a test in which a demon asked me a riddle: "The maker sells it, the buyer uses it not, and the user not knows he is use it." That's a paraphrase, but the error is definitely in the 'user' third of the question.
Other factions are still not much of a threat. I'm marching in with my fireballs and levelling whole armies without even needing an army of my own. Only thing which has been a real pain to beat is the Dragonlord and his many Deadly Dragons.
This game is going through some serious polish. It's already really fun to play, and I'm hoping it gets better. I love the text adventures (what I loved from King Arthur too) and wish there could be more. Is the lack of dynasty an intended omission for FE?
I voted good for 0.912, but now need to vote Fail for 0.913. Is there some way to change my vote?
Various points
-Magnar's Raze city ability doesn't seem to work. If I take over an enemy city and raze it, half the pop does NOT get transferred to my capital.
-It should be possible to 'Single City' a game. There needs to be costs/benefits to spamming cities. I'd say dropping a city should require X Gildar and have a maintenance cost based on the distance to your capital and number of cities you have.
-It would be nice to change the color of your shards with a spell. Cersei can do it and it's crazy good.
-Death Magic and Life Magic needs to be better. Right now Earth Magic/Gilden rocks hard.
-Karavox's Silver Tongue doesn't seem to work, it stays grey on it even if I have influence/mana.
-There's an NPC with the Obession ability. It affects cities. But it can only be cast during tactical combat!!! Oops.
-Gilden's Iron Golems are crazy good. I mean like, they add a lot to the game. Every faction ought to have a 'special unit' like that.
-Going the route of 'mage king' is not really viable. Warriors are much stronger than mages in the early game because usually they don't rely on mana- when they die they don't lose combat effectiveness, and let's face it, when you're in the early game you don't have much mana to begin with. In later games you can recruit an NPC to do casting for you.
-"Spell Levels" ought to not be a trait you need to pick in level up, and they shouldn't be random. If you pick the path of the mage then you should get new spell levels automatically at certain levels.
-Monsters don't attack the AI. I saw a Forest Drake (Big one) activate and simply stand next to an Altair (red?) settlement for at least 4 turns, doing nothing. The creature literally moved next to the settlement, but it seemed like it couldn't attack.
-Enemy scouts seem able to explore the entire map, while my scouts die to the first monster that they see.
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