AFter reading many of the reviews that are out about the game, I was curious how Stardock see's FE? If you were to give it a number from 1 to 10...10 being perfect and 1 being not, where is it? How would you rate it against GC and Sins? Granted they are different in many ways, but hey, they are still games! Others can chime in as well as Im curious how some of us long time players and testers think it is.
For myself, im in the about 8 range. I hope that isnt insulting, because im not trying to be. The game is so far from where WoM was that its incredible to me. I think in time my score could also go up as well as more things are implemented and such. So what does everyone think? What does Stardock think?? The challenge is on!!(No reward though, you just get to post!!)
I'm not very fond of giving a game a score in a decimal scale. Personal tastes and experiences can influence a lot, but now that everybody is opening their heart, I'll add my 2 cents.
IMO the game should go for more than an 8, because it is very ambitious and I've enjoyed a lot during grand part of each game, and the replayability is high enough to play many games with different styles and tactics.
I love the design of troops, the manage of cities, the way you can use or abuse of magic if you wish to, the leveling of heroes and cities, the feeling of a dangerous world, full of misteries and quests to be done...the early and midgame, were you start from nothing and from there you make yourself a place in the world, is just superb.
But I have to be realistic, and there are some points that interfere with the game as a whole (mostly have been stated before):
- Bugs and weird issues. Still there are many minor bugs that are little more than annoying once you get used, but there they are, and I think Devs should pay a bit more of attention to fix them. Each new patch fixes some, so in this aspect, the game promises real improvement. But still work to be done.
- Polish. Again, minor details that the player get used to, but when you find how are solved in other games, the overall impression is not so possitive. Minor details like how much movement is left/number of turns to arrive, the join/split armies system, the pops up that can't be minimized, the annoying scrolling between all cities to find the zzz each turn...things like that...You can get used to all of them, but the feeling is ...why I have to? Grrrr, ok....
- Diplomacy and the Late game. The game can be supported by monsters and wildlands in the early and mid game, giving a lot of fun with them. But in the late game, all different playstyles concur in the same point: no challenging monsters left, only AIs. The game in this part becomes very closed in options. Small maps you can try full conquest, but in larger maps that is not in mind. Master Quest and Spell Of Making are a good way to put a quick end to a previsible long boring end game. Alliance victory too. But my sensation is that diplomacy options are still very very limited, and cannot carry the weight of the late game, with hundreds of elite troops and powerfull champs.Options like open/close borders, trade cities, resource pacts and things like that could give a bit more of flavor to that final part of the game, and a excuse to keep going on the amount of turns left to completely conquer the map with the help of some allies...
- Minor stuff. The game provides a lot of features, but after >200 hours of playing, there is a point that you miss: more different monsters, quests, items. The ships, the World events, ...all of this stuff seems to be saying...just wait for a good expansion, and you will get tons of that.
So a game that has given me >200 hours of play, is well worthy for higher than a 8...should I give FE less than that because of the previous issues? How many games I've played lastly for so long? Apart from some addictive multiplayer games hehe...
Well, my final veredict is that I will keep that 8, because Stardock has demonstrated many times that they are caring their games, improving them and polishing them, with future patches and expansions like untill now, so when that time arrives, probably the score will be even higher.
Untill then, mods can help a lot, and that is what really keeps my final score balanced.
8.5 for me.
I really hope we get more spells.
sadly I fear the same
Sincerely~ Kongdej
Currently somewhere around 7 or so. I feel that the game does not deserve 8, because due to bad synergy of its parts, bland and uninteresting tactical combat and lore that feels like it was generated by a computer. Hell, even Dwarf Fortress RNG sometimes comes with better emergent stories than what I read in that book whose name I cannot spell properly. Howerver, I like the artistic style, the music, and a lot of effort obviously was invested that must be respected.
I just bought the game and played for a few hours. I must say: Wow!! I was really hesitating to whether I should by the game or not (had bought elemental:war of magic which was a real disapointment) but I thought I would give the series a second chance. And Im so glad I did. At looks really, really promising. To early to rank it, but if it continues to evolve, then its definately worth a score above 8.
sincerely
I give it a 7.9.
Once I get into a FE game I'm glued to my seat, forgetting to eat, ignoring sleep, ignoring cold, and some other biological functions don't get the attention they deserve either. So as a 4x game it is doing its job. Solid 7 right there. Plus I get to play a battlemage in plate armor that fires lighting bolts, or in this case thunderstorms around the battlefield. Awesome!! Oh that is so cheesy good fun I love it. And it is every bit as imbalanced as it should be. Archers on horseback... Hahhahah! And the lovely design and interesting themes and lore bring it right there next to an 8.
So close, but not quite.
-Diplomacy and Dynasties: I loved that from WoM. I miss it. Usually I specialized in diplomacy in WoM and kicked ass. Sequels should go forward, not backwards. I love making AIs fight one another. I don't know why but I do. I'd support the losing side such that it continued to eat away the winning side, while I'd sit back in peace and build up my cities, and then easily steamroll empires ravaged by war. That is true evil. And I was it's master!
-Adventuring: All the new adventuring content is great--most of it is very creative and engaging--except it seems disproportionately harder to win by adventuring than it does to win by conquest. It is way easier to take a city than to fight a dragon. Maybe I'm not fighting dragons well enough. I'm getting better with the right debuffs but attacking cities is still easier. Adventuring areas kick my butt while I cheese tactical combat in city fights with plate mail and thunderstorm spam. It is nice these zones are there, but they are impractical to use.
-Ships: I loved exploring with ships. We had it in WoM, we have it kind of in the campaign or scenario or whatever. I figure they will add it back in at some point. But there is water and there is also harbors and docks so why are there no ships?
-Flying units? Fantasy game... ehem... where's my flying units??
-Magic: It is not without potential but feels too weak. I played a game as Risoln and that was miserable. Magic is improved but I miss the big fire and frost elementals from WoM. It seems like most of diplomacy and adventuring went to the magic tree. Adventuring maybe, but all diplomacy should have gone to the civics tree. Then a heavy civics specialization would have been workable.
-UI: I guess it is better because everybody says it is better, maybe I forgot how bad it was in War of Magic, but when I have to exit 9 units from a city one at a time, it makes me wonder if Stardock ever plays the game. Rebinding hotkeys? And there is no longer keys that rotate the screen like there was in WoM, where I could handle all camera functions from the keyboard. Why is there so much going backwards in this game?
I get killed by the AI on the strategy parts of the game. Managing the finer details of city development... I just can't keep up. I'm sure I'd get better with practice, but the AI is kicking my ass now... strategically. What saves me is the tactical battles. There is so much good here but a lot that can be better. Waiting for 1.1 now.
Id give it an 7.5. Still not as good as some of the classics like AOW:SM or MOM but a few changes would alow it to surpass those games
Wow! We have some really harsh critics. Someone has played the game 200 hours and knocks it down because he's run out of new things. (Long ago, I read a game designer say his goal was to give 100 hours of quality game play.)
Another person gets totally immersed in the game, gives it a "'solid' 7 to start."
Many others knock it down because some other game did a particular aspect of the game better.
Look, some good points have been made; for example, SOLOSOL's post was brilliant and well written. It's some of the number ratings that puzzle me. I think an 8 shows a good game, but I think FE is better than that.
I'm a harsh critic, and I know it (since I can almost always find a problem in most games). 7.5 is not a bad score though, it just means there is room for improvement, I am on the contrary of opinion that most games have too soft and forgiving critics, I mean, 10 or 100 score means its the PERFECT game, and I will not need another for a long time.
No game I know of will get 10 as a score, since there are usually some aspect the designers completely forgot, or neglected, and to be honest, I think competition and the idea that gamemakers have to "spew out" new games and ignore some really cool features, or stop smoothing out rough edges is why there is no game at score 10.
I suppose I might be one that you listed as a critic. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the game and play quite a bit. The things I listed are just direction turns that take away from my game experience. Channelers are too common, champions are over powered immortals, and I miss some aspects of the dynasty system.
Agree that the critics in this post are harsh. Any game I can play for 200 hours gets a higher score than the perfect masterpiece that only lasts 15 min. Modern Warfare had an awesome 1st person campaign - for all of like 10 hrs since it was primarily multiplayer. I never replayed the single player version.
I haven't even played the campaign yet for FE, keep meaning to.. but one more turn, just one. or two. Damn, its past midnight. I'm replying right now at work and occasionally randomly think about starting a new game to try out a new strategy or mod.
That's a good game to me and gets a higher score. Yes it needs polish. Yes it probably has bugs, although I have been lucky enough not to care/notice for the most part (AI tech trading/speed of research.... even at higher levels).
A lot of these criticisms are purely subjective and I disagree outright with some of them, but then again the rating comes subjectively as well.
I'm at ~200 hrs, with many more concepts to try out. I look forward to each improvement.
I give it an 8.5, with an optimistic future 9.25.
The map pack dlc has ships.
I still play some games that got more than 1500 hours playing it (steam says), and I will not say they are masterworks, but they offer me what I'm looking for: entertainment. Probably, many people will say they are not even good games. But I don't get tired of playing them, not yet. And as juretrea said, some games may be considered masterworks, but they only offer some hours, then the game says, like a film: The end, that was all.
How do you score the skills of a game to keep you playing it again and again? What's the importance of that skill in the final score? Well, for me, it is one of the most important parameters. And the time passing with it is the only one that will decide it.
Once the diplomacy/AI offers more challenge/interest at the late game (I'm talking about some kind of scaling adapted to the player, not in raising the difficulty settings), then I will be able to say the 9. I know that is very difficult to reach, but if I'm loosing, AI should be softer, and if I'm wining, then harder. That is challenge. That is entertainment for me. I don't mind AI using cheats to offer that challenge, if it is necessary to compensate human mind. The challenge of a game lasting hours or even days can't be only decided by game settings at the begining. Some tweaking during the game is necessary. Faction power is not enough, if the AIs must answer/adapt to the player skills. If I easily win in normal, but I'm dogpiled and steamrolled in challenging, something is not going ok. And if then I try a power tactics (beastlord, questmaps) in challenging and then I easily win, what difficulty I'm I supposed to play in? Is it me who has to adapt to the difficulty of the game I choose? Well, of course in the essentials, but some scaling during the game will help to what I'm speaking about: entertainment.
Finally, just say that if a designer thinks that offering 100 hours of playing is his target, I'm almost sure that, when he arrives at home after work, he just turns on the TV and watches a movie.
I'm sorry if my opinion might sound harsh, but that's only my opinion.
You make a good point but my opinion stands. I mean AI Wars immersed me but there isn't anything really special about it. Nowadays "8's" are are commonly regarded as games you can recommend to anybody, not just core strategy fans, and "9's" are timeless games for the ages. Right now I can recommend FE to any strategy fan with a few apologies for problems here and there, most of which I listed. Probably addressing any one of my issues on the list would push FE to an 8.0--even if there is just a hotkey to exit all units from a city. It seems like an oversight such a thing isn't there. If magic's power were more in line with warfare's, and adventuring were more practical, that would push it to an easy 8.5. We would need a generally better game on the level of an expansion pack for FE to score in the 9's, in my opinion, but it is possible if Stardock keeps at it.
(Also, I want to be able to build ships like in WoM, not find them on the map. And once I set ships to explore I cannot make them stop if I want them to switch to transporting units--that was a problem in the campaign.)
There is: V
Click city, click "V" on keyboard - it vacates all units, been there forever.
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