Greetings!
Yesterday we released Elemental: Fallen Enchantress BETA 5-C. This build is our first pass at balance and UI enhancement.
Next week we will have a BETA 5-D which will focus almost exclusively on bug fixing and balancing as well as some new AI counter-strategies so those of you who have posted your game play strategies online (foolish humans! <g>). We are reaching the home stretch. We will also have a Beta 5-E. After that, we'll see where things stand.
Many of you have been in the beta for a very...very long time. I can't imagine the challenge it is to evaluate the game from the perspective of a typical PC gamer. But we're going to ask you, once again, to try to do just that:
Please go to: https://www.elementalgame.com/journals and vote on your impressions of the game in your hands.
We are very excited to see what players think.
These past two years have been wonderful. The community we have built together has been amazing and on behalf of the Stardock team, we really have enjoyed listening to your ideas, impressions and suggestions.
Like all Stardock games, 1.0 isn't the end of our journey. Even as I type, Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion v1.1 nears completion. Ideas and code snippets for FE expansions and successors float around. And there's some exciting things we hope to announce in the coming months.
We look forward to your opinions:
https://www.elementalgame.com/journals
Good game but balance is still way off.
Magic is still random and weak (non magic champs does more dmg, tank way better, are more reliable and has 0 downtime). Hero/champ EXP gain is still way too much, I can't believe you didn't reduced this. Some champions has ridiculously powerful weapons (with no lvl requirements) upon getting them, you essentially win the game (like Sulla's Mace).
Troops are still useless, nice effort in 9.81 but really, they're only needed if someone declared war on you and that has actually good troops (only lategame... at which point your sovereign can solo groups of Ashwake dragons...). They are still pointless in the crucial early-mid game stage as you just need to recruit champions and constantly farm EXP and they'll become more powerful than any troop army you could possible field. And so about 1/3 of the tech tree is useless as there are plenty of good armor/weapon drops for your numerous champions. There's little needed from from teching and it's (still) too slow anyways.
Cities are too difficult to settle, to defend and then they produce everything too slow and cannot do anything meaningful for your sov/champions anyways. Mana is only really needed if some of your champs got into the inferior Path of the Mage. Gildar is only useful in the beginning (buying potions) and is then totally useless; it's STILL possible to run your empire with 0 tax and still have positive income FOREVER.
In 9.81 you made RPG aspects slower (only the initial early game), but you didn't really nerf them. Champions still blaze through the levels and while the rare, gamebreaking drops are rarer now, there are still powerful weapons with no requirements that let you plow through the midgame uncontested. Meanwhile, cities are still barely useful and troops with all their associated techs are rendered pointless.
Before playing this beta version I fired up WoM again out of curiosity, so I could compare the gameplay between the two. My thought was to play several dozen turns of each. What actually happened was I played a few dozen turns of WoM, and then played FE for HOURS without even realizing it. It's unreal how addicting FE is compared to WoM, and I think it comes through in the polish of the game mechanics. You guys have done a very good job focusing the game!
That said there are some lingering issues that I would say are worth a delay if they cannot be resolved in this beta phase.
- UI Pass
It seems like this is already a priority for you guys, but it's really important that all the relevant information is displayed for each UI element. For instance anything that can be affected by a level up (city or character) should be displayed in the visible stats so you can see how it will change (like spell resistance).
- Game Balance
It seems like pacing complaints might be a result of balancing issues. For instance late/end game getting slow might be able to be fixed this way. How you do it is the tricky part and may necessitate changing or adding systems (or just making some systems scale better). I would say definitely postpone the launch if this is not solved.
Unobtainium Unicorn (My dream for this game, or really any game I play ever)
- Magic System
I'm waiting for a game to blow my mind with a truly unique and deep magic system with elements of research, risk vs. reward (backfires, using too much power), insane interactivity with other systems (multiple emergent uses for single spells), more interactive interfacing than just click button cast spell.
I think that's just me being coo-coo for magic systems though. . . But it has been multiple decades since anyone has played around with magic system concepts. . .
Anyways, keep up the good work!
Frogboy:
The game is very good already. Its very stable and has many excellent features. I like it a lot.
There is one area, however, that needs attention: In beta 5 it takes too long to build each regular army unit - especially early on. This has three negative effects:
1. It forces us to use the hero units for everything.
2. It takes up too much time in the build que that is needed for buildings.
3. It slows the early pace of the game.
A reduction in the time/cost of building regular units would be a great boost to early game fun level.
I appreciate all of Stardock's hard work on this game. This is going to be a classic that will be played for a long time.
Please consider this request.
Play the sleeper hit, Dominions III: The Awakening, Illwinter Game Design's 2006 fantasy strategy wargame. The AI is atrocious so the game should really be played multiplayer, and the graphics and interface are definitely not the game's strong side though they are serviceable, but if you are looking for a unique and very deep and varied magic system in a fantasy strategy game with a rock solid focus on strategy and a steep learning curve, that's the game to play. There's a reason it won strong positive reviews in mainstream reviews despite being a game that would mostly appeal to hardcore strategy gamers, for whom graphics and user friendliness are acceptable casualties in the pursuit of strategy, and that reason was exactly that nobody else did fantasy wargaming and magic as well at the time. And none have matched it since then, alas.
Its pretty good so far, but it still doesnt hold a candle to master of magic or dominions when it comes to magic. For one even the first war of magic had better spell options when it came to changing the world map. i.e Kurgan's volcano, flood, create mountain, destroy land. wich were all take out of FE.
Next there are no epic global spells, no way to protect cities from enemy curses, no way to counter global enchantments and lets face it the summons are rather pathetic also.
So when it comes to magic this game is lacking and I wish you guys would spend as much time working on the magic system as you spent on city customization and polishing, because frankly this genre is all about Magic and war.
I voted excellent. If you're able to iron out the bugs, really put some effort into the UI, and adapt the AI to handling the final version of the game it's going to be amazing.
In the recent preview Rock Paper Shotgun did the reviewer said " The game feels less than the sum of its parts" as if individually each part of the game was great, but they don't quite work well together. Unfortunately, I'm forced to agree.
Have to agree as well.
I'd currently say the game is "fair". I'd hope for it to be "good" by release". But excellent? Most likely not until an expansion or two.
my vote was good, partly due to the lack of sufficiently fine-grained vote options eg range of 0(horrible) to 9 (perfect) would have scored a 7 or 8, and partly due to my being able to stop playing to get sleep after only 9 hours of play. i remember playing the first civ for 12 hours straight then falling asleep on the keyboard, then having to get up and go to work after only 2 hours of sleep.
until I get the 'can not stop playing till I collapse', I can not rate the game any higher.
harpo
Now onto my second game 0.982 and I have to say this game is coming up in leaps and bounds in terms of it being FUN
Screw balance and UI issues and all the other picky things people are whining about - the game is really fun to play. The new items the better heroes (not just your sovereign) the monsters are more interesting in their behaviour. I can see that there are still a number of things to do but all in all I say this is good. I would like to vote very good - but is isn't an option and it is not quite "excellent" yet - almost
Yes, all those Wildlings in large bands is great. Sent my sov's army packing for home after a slim victory early game.
Haven't voted yet, wanted to finish one game first, but I can say right now it is a blast.
I especially love the music. The main menu theme has long been a favorite, but I like it all.
Really bad performance, its a serious issue. It needs be greatly improved before going live.
Agree completely. This has long been on my wish list. A good mod idea...
Just want to say I'm really impressed with how far the game has come. I look forward to the continuing improvements I'm sure I'll see from your excellent post-release support - which is one of the reasons Stardock is my favorite gaming company. Thanks for making the game!
The world feels so much more dangerous. Playing insane world difficulty with expert faction AI (also playing HF's mod as FrostGiants). Sov has been offered cheese with his whine 3x. The first hero I hired is crying to his mama about multiple wounds. Turn 56. After EWOM and previous FE builds, I'm getting a complex and may need therapy. Brad/Derek - I'm QQin'. Good job!
Just on my first play of 5C now.
I just alt-tabbed out to look for some help about this questing issue I seem to have had with the last 3 builds.
At the moment this "Stone Ring" says "requires Heroes to go on strong quests." Well, I have heroes tech. My sovereign is level 7, the champion I picked up is level 6 too. Yet it acts as though I don't have heroes tech! I'm using both an (OLD) custom sovereign and (OLD)kingdom based on Gildar.
Other than this BIG issue, I've encountered no other bugs or issues but Ive only gone for a little wander. Founded 3 new cities. (obsolete )
Any ideas? I've considered downloading the full game again. I've got the original beta with all the patches.
I'm holding off voting until I've had more time with it but there's no way I'd say it's worse than Good.
edit: Even with erogs journals I can't even go on medium quests!! I'll send a savegame if need be.
edit2+: BUG- moved guys into a town and their poisoned(?) particle effect stayed on their original tile. Happens every time leaving a lot of effects.
BUG - bottled fire requires mana
SUGGESTION: Id like to see more classes and stuff in custom hero screen.
edit3: Seems to be an issue with my sovereigns from old patches who appear to be naked with no perks or... heads... I deleted them, but I cant find a way to delete my custom kingdoms from in game. Going to play with a normal sov. and see if i can find the stone ring that needed Heroes and the hut that needed... Exploration.
I voted good because I like the mechanics and different strategies. The environment is becoming more of a challenge too but needs to go further. However the AI is still far too weak to pose any challenge (without huge economic advantages). It's all too easy to gather some troops and go hunting the nearest AI and capture their cities rather than build your own. The AI sovereign is an easy kill as they are not well defended and don't try to avoid your stronger stack by ducking into their nearest garrison, once killed in the open you just need to roll up their towns and move onto the next AI. Rinse and repeat. Their is little need to defend your cities and if the AI does take one it easy to retake and you now know where those troops are that you have been hunting. So I'm looking forward to the next beta when I hope the AI gets beefed up without the need to resort to cheating.
The game is fun and addictive great job there Stardock, but at least on my laptop it crashes frequently (maybe every 8 turns or less). So I limited my vote to fair until the crash issues are resolved. Maybe it will never run reliably on a laptop with Vista.
With regard to play, biggest complaint is that Beta 5B was sooooo slowwww at the start. I'll download 5C and try that.
For UI it sure would be nice at a glance to tell if any units can still move. A dot or change in strength bar color or something.
Wow that's a lot of crashing. If your laptop meets the system requirements I strongly suggest making a dedicated thread and posting crash reports and saves.
You should really put in issues on the FE support forum, that type of crashing sounds very particular to your case.
https://forums.elementalgame.com/415301
A post about posting crashes and other bugs
Sincerely~ Kongdej
*climbs inside his asbestos power armor*
I just keep hoping to see a "Multiplayer" button so I can play some comp-stomps with my friends! Maybe some day...
*breathes hot lava-acid with laser beams all over goodgimp*
Me 2
This is one of the reasons I keep searching for fantasy 4x games. (And obviously needs to keep searching )
I'll buy you a beer for that. Well how about a pitcher!
Also agree with your sentiment, Murteas.
Re: Umber and Capitar. This would be SO easy to put in an update after the fact, or build an expansion/campaign around as well as telling their stories.
I voted conservatively as some main concerns still exist. Yes I think the project as a whole is going the right direction. But there's still some issues lingering or not addressed. Can it really be done by just tweaking? I don't vote for what I thought it would be, rather what it is now.
- Lessen impact of champs owning everytyhing from start and never letting up.
- "Summoner" type play get some love and not be a horrible pick at creation.
- The Attack / Defense thing, huge improvements have been made. May need something, but am positive this is fixable.
- Magic shard scaling. Really? Are you ever going to get more than a couple unless you play with huge map sizes or dense settings? Better scaling to this fact or give spells a boost based on the magic setting factor.
- Magic Books balance. Can you be a warlock and not pick fire/death? I guess you could, but would you be good at it? Summons are all over the place in terms of power and effectiveness.
- the quest map thing( faction pick heroic? wanderlust? ) can be super OP if a person wants to limit # of quests and having a faction with unlimited quests xp and rewards is bad in that regard. Maybe it needs a price adjustment based on what it spawns. *shrug* I see this as one factor why champs are so darn more powerful than anything else. There's no limit.
- last albeit nitpicky, but Hiergamanon could use a section on faction prestige and growth or at least explain the concepts somewhere. Also spell mastery and resist could use a section. Say how it affects spell casting. Say what is a base for say normal unit and a sovereign. I'm fine if you don't want to get into what it is for monsters. I would like to knoiw how much even a +1 or +3 change to these things could affect me. Ie, do I give the codex thingy to my sov or champion B? the resist thingy? Being equipped to make meaningful choices
- UI. Yes great strides have been made. Sorry if it feels like the horse has been beaten dead already. It is largely there. Just how much can we crack out before release? Still looking for essence in city level up screens. Also helpful would be stating how much grain and essence it has when choosing at the first level up (when city becomes level 2 ) I am seeing numbers for production and grain, this is good but not doing it for me alone. Even a simple number in parentheses before the actual production/food value would be enough for me.
Factoring in TA, yes FE will be just as awesome in it's own right.
My 2 gildar for now.
I haven't played the latest beta much but from what I've seen balance is still not fixed yet. It's good that champs are toned down now but there are many many imbalances between the spells, racial perks, and race perks that haven't even been touched as far as I can tell. There are so many and I don't feel inclined to list them right now as it will take me ages to do so. It probably needs it's own thread really.
This beta has a lot of nice polish to it, although personally I don't like the narrator - she reads too slow and distracts me from reading the text myself - is it possible to toggle her off?
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