The why of fun is a pretty tough thing to nail down. It's very hard to say why you're having fun (or not). What is much easier, then, is to say whether or not you are having fun. And I'm not really having a lot of fun with FE right now. But I had to play the Warlock: Master of the Arcane demo to realize this.
I had a lot of fun discovering what kind of game FE was at first. I was dazzled at every turn by the complexity of its systems and the amount of stuff there was to discover. But a few games in that's slowed down. I'm now starting new games, playing a little, then getting really frustrated or bored and abandoning the game. I thought the 0.9xx series should make things better because it introduced a lot of variety, but if anything it's worse now. I had no idea why that was until I played the Warlock: Master of the Arcane demo, and I think I have a good idea now.
In Warlock, every turn seemed to have a tough, interesting choice in it. Building stuff in cities is a rare opportunity, there's always a few things you feel you HAVE to have, and when you do make a call it's 2-3 rounds and bam the building's there and you feel its impact. Something about the game changed. Spells are super expensive to use but when you do, they have a really big impact that you can feel as well. It's rare that you cast something, but when you do, the game changed.
In Fallen Enchantress, I'm always doing something, but I'm never sure if it's a good idea, if I need to do it, what the effect was, etc. In a word, the game's mechanically muddy. There's a whole lot of buildings I can make from a city, and clearly one is going to be better than another, but I don't really know what I need. I usually have another money, but even if I don't it's not clear what big game-changing thing I could do with money. The best use I discovered is to Rush stuff, but again: stuff doesn't feel impactful. I slowly fall behind the AI, but it's not clear why. Many turns I skip waiting for armies to heal up or units to be built and it just feels dumb: I'm not doing anything, but it's not clear what I could be doing.
And yes of course the UI being very very frustrating doesn't help (and I do appreciate the irony of comparing a game to a Paradox game and saying that basically the Paradox game has the better UI. That's like saying a Michael Bay film has the better plot. Unfortunately it's true.) I wonder if it would help Derek and the devs if we catalogued our misgivings about the UX? Let me try a quick best of list:
* Cities happily idle without warning you.
* Moving multiple units out of a city is retardedly hard.
* Exclamation marks over things you can build improvements on are super inconsistent (sometimes they're there, sometimes they're not)
* Rounds just auto-end with no confirmation
* Map is really hard to read, with lots of "peculiarities" (like monster lairs that extend way beyond the tile they're on, but you can't click on them beyond the actual tile they're meant to be on)
* Adding buildings to a city's queue is really confusing (you have to double click the building, click and place, or click and build. Often I'd click out of the city not having placed the building)
I'm sure there's more, but that's the first ones that come to my mind.
So, TL;DR: while Fallen Enchantress has a lot of decisions for you to make, it's never at all clear what the best decision is, the impact of your decisions is either massively delayed or not detectable at all, and it often feels like there are no viable options on a given round. Everything feels muddy and slow.
This is a good post, OP, and I think deserves more specific elaboration (besides just UI stuff).
Having played the legit beta of Warlock for the last month, I can honestly say it is a far less ambitious game than FE in many respects, and good fun. It's much further along the curve to completion because it's due out in a couple of days, while FE is due out in the fall. For all the mid-beta issues one would naturally expect with FE at this point, I actually find it more compulsively interesting than Warlock, but I prefer more complex strategy titles.
Let me get this right, you just played warlock and you found it fun, that's great news. But didn't you have fun when you first played FE too? It sounded liked you did. What's letting you down seems to be it's missing some replayability, not that there's some huge design thing that you are trying to blame in on. That's where all the faction differentiation that they are working on now comes in.
Or put it another way, what's to say that a few weeks from now you won't feel the same way about Warlock that you are feeling now to FE? It's called boredom, it happens when you play something too much. That's why you have multiple games to play.
To be honest, I don't get these kind of threads, trying to compare one game to another. It's like with EWOM and CIV5, and then you find out that everyone got both regardless. Go figure.
Yeah Kalin, that bothered me too, but let me try to be more specific: when I started playing Fallen Enchantress, there was a lot of potential/promise and so many "oh god there's so much stuff" moments. In a way, and I know this is going to sound stupid, in a way I wasn't really having fun playing FE, I was anticipating fun.
Also Kalin, I'm not a huge fan of comparing games and I tried not to focus on that. The reason I brought up Warlock at all was because it made the issue of murkiness/muddiness clear for me (in that it had none of it). There's a very good chance I'll hate Warlock once I play it more (I'm definitely getting it), and I have no doubt that I'll keep playing FE when new versions come out.
More to the point: has anyone else felt this with Fallen Enchantress? Where your decisions either don't seem to be clearly laid out, don't seem to matter too much, or where feedback from taking decisions arrives very late?
There's still a good deal of murkiness in Warlock. Quests, even in the patched beta of a week before release, aren't associated with specific gods--though you're told that if you refuse a quest, a god (which?) will get angry with you; and that if you succeed, it's opposite will be angry with you. What gods? What do they stand for? They're supposed to have specific benefits, and hand out specific types of punishments to those who displease them. What are each? During the Twitch TV demo and Q&A, one of the Warlock development team admitted the feature wasn't fully in place, yet. It sounds great, but as of now, you just get a "god quest" without knowing anything else, and you do suffer from various gods' anger over time.
Will there be multiple conditions of victory possible? The developers have refused to answer this question for quite some time, even though people will find out in a few days. Even one of the moderators of the forum is displeased with the way this has been left deliberately unknown.
Will there be extra diplomatic conditions? Possibly, we're told. Possibly more quest types, too. What conditions? What quest types? No answers. Will there be actual tech trees to see how buildings chain up from beginning to end? Oh...maybe. And this kind of secrecy was a hallmark of the company's development in a couple of earlier titles, too.
My remarks aren't meant to invalidate your enjoyment of Warlock, and as I remarked above, it is fun to play. But then, these questions (and others) should be clear as day on a game coming out in 48 hours. I'd expect FE to still have a lot in the air; and it does. But while some things like city building are still bland, there are great areas of the game that are very distinctive. The factions are beginning to shape out, and the spellbooks are excellent. Champions are starting to differentiate, and combat is great. I'm not sure why the two games need to be compared as you've done with this thread, not when they're so unlike and also at very different points in their development cycles, but with due respect for your obvious knowledge of both titles, I think you're doing a bit of injustice by measuring FE's focus and slickness by the same qualioties in Warlock. Wait a few months, then check FE out for those.
I feel Elemental offers a variety of strategic choices and affords a great deal a replayability because of those potential choices.
Maybe being instantly gratified with swift and deliberate kicks to the temple are your cup of tea, and that's fine. Maybe I prefer subtle strategy which unfurls over an epic time scale, and that's fine too.
To each his (or her) own.
I understand your critics, and I agree with you, when you are criticising some aspect of FE.
But you really think Warlock to be a good game???
To be honest I waited for Warlock as well. But when I played the demo I was very disappointed. Its complexity is far from CivV, and after some gameplay you will find it boring. They made a very plane game. At the first few game can be interesting, but later . . .
You can turn this off in the options->Gameplay.
Anyone who buys Warlock after falling asleep at the demo, deserves a medal. It is so,so, been done a thousand times to death.
Yepp.
Considering the recent changes in factiondifferentiation and apparantly coming cityspecialisation, they (yes, i'm talking about you) seem to be aware of that problem and working on it, tho.
From what i saw of it, Warlock doesn't look innovative or really complex too me, but pretty and like fun nevertheless. However, i probably won't buy it... because i despise steam.
Imho, Warlock has good graphics and plays fun. It's a must-buy at 20 bucks for any 4x fantasy player. But I am personally going to be spending more of my time on FE, because 1) I'm a fanboy and 2) FE has mods and I am a modder.
I feel like you have not taken the time to try to learn what different city stats do or possibly that you dont have the patience to wait for their effects. But I also agree with you that this information should be much easier to find and be much more intuitive. Im guessing the finished game will have good tutorials and extensive tool tips. Also I think that you should wait for the city overhaul cycle that I think the devs will start working on soon.
Hey guys, we're getting a little off topic here. I'm not saying Warlock is better than FE. I'm saying there's something to the CORE PLAY of Warlock where at every turn, every step I feel like I'm making an important decision and I can immediately see if that decision was smart or not. I brought it up simply because it throws FE in contrast.
Yes, there are TONS of decisions in FE, but my problem is that they all seem very similar and the consequences of any single decision seem very very hard to pin down. Not only does it feel like every decision is a tiny adjustment in a super-complicated large machine, it also feels like the consequence of any give decision might manifest two hours from the decision, or might push one variable a tiny bit in a certain direction. It feels very unsatisfying. It's the opposite of what I felt in the Warlock demo: every decision felt monumental and I could immediately tell what impact it had.
Again, not saying one game's better than the other. They're both in beta and I've only played the demo of Warlock through to its time limit. I'm trying to focus on this one aspect: the *feeling* of decision-making and impact.
Ah, but there's the rub! I have maybe indeed not "taken the time to try to learn" this stuff, but why should I have to? An interesting strategy game shouldn't have to be like eating your greens, something you don't enjoy but do because you know it's good for you. I felt empowered and making interesting choices from minute one in that other game I'm getting tired of naming (because every time I do this thread is derailed into "omg do you really think that other game is better?", which I don't). It's absolutely cool to have complex mechanics in your game but you should still feel like any decision you make actually matters. I should know that I just made a good call or a bad call--the why of that can be as complex as you like, but I insist that the basic feedback of "you did X therefore now Y happens" should be immediate and strong.
This is something I've seen Derek aggressive dealing with, so I think as much as it's possible, it will be done.
To me, the real issues with FE are mostly balance/AI/variety at this point. The problem is those areas tend to be mutually competitive in terms of design.
Warlock has great pacing,personality and the 1upt system moves things along fast.Every turn you are building,fighting killing the mass variety of units.It is great fun and the combat is enjoyable.Pacing is the big difference between the games.
Having played both betas, I think there are some tidbits that can be pulled from Warlock to help FE. They are completely different games and debating which is better is personal preference and adds no value.
City differentiation is very sound in Warlock. FE still has to find its way. I think city upgrades are too reliant on technology and size constraints and buildings build too fast. Most my cities can build everything available. Having one building queue for units and buildings contributes to this issue. If you increase the cost of buildings, it will be too hard to make units unless they come from a different city. It just doesn't flow very well in FE.
The way units can be upgraded in Warlock made me realize that unit customization in FE is missing the mark. Maybe some of the buildings should provide unit upgrades rather than everything tied to the tech tree. I find that I rarely get new unit upgrades and it takes a long time to get them. Thus I rarely upgrade units or design new units. I thirst to create unique units game to game, but It feels like an uphill battle with the current implementation.
To me, these are the two major issues left with the game. Otherwise, I was really having fun with the challenge of the game.
I can agree with some of these issues, but keep in mind that FE is in beta, some of the issue your having will hopefully be address as the game gets closer to gold, but as for the pace of the game i see what you mean. I can only say that this may not be the game for you. the pace in FE is slow in places, not every turn something dynamic is going to happen, instead you often have a slight push toward your goal, but it effect many parts of the game. I happen to like this type of strategy but I can agree that it may not be for everyone.
You can however change some aspects of the game to make the pacing better, if you have not already try playing on a smaller map with lots of resouces, monster, etc, this might give you that I'm doing something every turn feeling.
I found Warlock very boring and slightly confusing, but I just played the demo. So for all I know, the game is good and has plenty of help, information, explanations, and story; while the demo does not.
"I slowly fall behind the AI, but it's not clear why. Many turns I skip waiting for armies to heal up or units to be built and it just feels dumb: I'm not doing anything, but it's not clear what I could be doing."
This is still my number one design issue of FE, and I have felt this way since WoM.
This bears repeating. For me it's that weird nagging feeling that you're not really sure what you're supposed to be doing. You end up saying to yourself "well, i guess i'll do this....?" and when you still win in the end you feel not that you have got it right, but that you have gotten away with doing it wrong. You could micro everything for a couple of turns or just spam ten turns to see what happens. Would it really matter? How would you even know if it did? The AI will declare wars on you and build up a facsimile of a civilization, but ultimately they seem to be waiting on you to actually do anything proactive. When you get round to it you can roll into their cities, and they'll put up a bit of a fight but there's a creepy truman-show kind of feeling that they're all just actors orbiting around the hero and making him look like a big man.
There are loads of "while-the-production-queue-is-empty" buildings that I basically never build. I'm not sure whether an inactive city is something that I should really by OK with. Doing the cost/benefit analysis requires knowing how much inactivity there will be or what i should aim for, and I've no idea. I seem to keep them busy almost all the time. Does the AI not? Is that why the AI sucks?
It seems like at no point in game design has anyone said "how long will a typical game be? how soon will people be founding their second city? how long until the real wars start breaking out? when is the midgame and late game? how tough are the soldiers by then? what level will the heroes be by then and how do they compare?" And i really think they should.
These are analogues to other 4x games that have build queue items like "trade goods" which if you build it, it never completes, but just turns your production into gold, or "housing" which turns your unused production into population.
In FE, the tax collector increases your gold production by 20% if you leave the build queue empty. Something like that might be useful when you need to support a large number of armies, and cannot do so on your base city income. If this is the case, you would turn 1/2 of your cities to pumping out units and the other 1/2 to tax (meaning you empty their queues and probably jack their taxes up, since you have no need for production), which would allow you to field more units at a time at the cost of the lost production and research. I like the idea, but I am not sure a 20% bump is worth it most of the time.
Is warlock a sandlot game or are you stuck with missions as in Elven Legacy (That game would have been bad ass if it was sandlot?)
It is only natual and heatlthy to compare like games. The game most compare this game to is MOM but others have been compared to. I think we want may of the features in those other game but made modern and better.
I do feel the way you do about FE. The replayablity is still lacking however the game still has a ways to go before release and each beta incarnation is better than the last (however my Tactical Battles now freeze up and I have to hit the auto resolve in the newest version. Very annoying.)
Currrently after trying the last two versions I was only able to play one or two game before the desire to play was gone and I went back to Shogun 2 (Just got it a month or so ago and it rocks) until the next patch comes out.
I will probably get Warlock because it does look interesting. But I will still play FE and test it until Release. It may turn out to be a fantastic game yet. It ain't over til the Fat lady sings.
And, from Keithburgun's thread:
"There are simply too many "tiny" choices that players get to make in Elemental. Once a decision gets beyond a certain threshold of impact, a better game design would simply streamline (remove) it. Don't make me make 10,000 "tiny" decisions in a playthrough of Elemental. A design that makes me make 1000 more significant ones is better."
I feel like these two quotes help to illustrate the tension stemming from ambiguity/inconsistancy surrounding the scale of the game. How much detail are the devs going for and how can this level of detail be made to be consistant throughout the game. You can design units, so why not cities (even though the former could be described as useful while the later merely the flush of creativity)? You can only travel a couple tiles every few months, but can 'teleport' through multi-tile cities in an instant. I can enchant the hammers of my people to imperceptively increase production, but there's nothing I can do to breed more than 0.8 of a horse every year. What's useful, what's not? There's inconsistancy.
It's like trying to find the right lightswitch when there's 5 seemingly-identical switches in a row in a booth around the corner.
^^ This is essential for effective design, be it a new office telephone system (did I put the other person on hold or hang up?) or the mechanics for a cutting-edge 4X Fantasy strategy game (How many units did I select to move out of my stack?).
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