Based on a lot of the posts I read, I think some people have an overestimation of my involvement in FE.
On the one hand, I am definitely spending a lot more time on Fallen Enchantress than I ever got to with WOM. But on the other, I'm not that involved on the design part. I give lots of suggestions and ideas but it's Derek's call.
The biggest design problem with WOM is that it started out, in my mind, as MOM2 and then morphed into trying to be all things to all people and ended up not being very good at anything. As you read the suggestions in this forum, you can see how quickly the game would be destroyed if we tried to implement even a fraction of the suggestions. And yet, if I were the lead designer, I would probably have tried to have a bunch of the ideas implemented because I'm not a game designer, I'm a game player and I love most of the suggestions I read. But being a game designer means making choices and explicitly deciding not being all things to all people.
My focus on FE is on the code. I don't override Derek on design and he doesn't override me on development requirements.
So here's a quick update on the coding parts:
1. We've made great strides on improving the memory foot print. This won't mean anything for 80% of you but for people running Windows XP, it's a big deal.
2. The strategic AI is significantly better in our internal build now. It will surrender now if its situation is hopeless.
3. The tactical AI is starting to get some love. I'm awaiting an API that will let the AI look at upcoming spells (like fireballs) that are in the queue so it can counter spell it.
4. There's been a lot of gameplay changes that I won't go into but I think people will be pleased with.
5. The stability should be substantially better. Keep crash reports coming in. It's amazing how different systems will expose different flaws in the code.
6. Performance, especially late game, is massssiiiiivvveeelly better. Night and day. One badly written function that gets called a lot can do real harm.
7. The next beta, Beta 1B (so still beta 1 series) is expected to be out a week from tomorrow. But we may delay it if necessary depending on how the team is feeling about stability, visuals, and balance.
8. The FE specific art is now being integrated (the terrain was still from WOM in Beta 1, beta 1B will have a somewhat different look).
9. I am hoping that beta 1B will reach release level quality in terms of stability, performance, and memory usage. It'll be a big deal (and something that absolutely should be reported) if it crashes on anyone.
10. Game within a game is still a pain in the rear.
11. Sound system got a lot of coding love this week.
12. While multiplayer won't be in FE 1.0, we've been making the internals much more effective for handling it in a possible future update (i.e. more event driven stuff). MP support is high on our list of things we want after release.
13. Garbage collection has been moved into its own thread so that it doesn't interfere with the smoothness of the game.
14. Modding will likely be officially sanctions starting with beta 2.
15. Lots of music and sound stuff going in.
Personally I'm not suggesting to jetison the tech tree, but I am certainly suggesting to change/remove all the things that make little sense. Maybe that's too much work anyways. I can understand that. Pity. Twofold pity, since some of the issues we're fanta-debating now have been under heavy fire since WoM, like the worldwide_lairs_unlocking_technologies that feel weird to a lot of people. We might be a minority, but how comes that when a mechanic truly makes sense (see for instance how lairs are handled in MoM) nobody complains about it?
Well, feedback has been given to exhaustion, we'll see at release how it will unfold. I remain grateful for your work, and confident that the most glaring issues will be eventually fixed by modders.
If the suggestion involves getting rid of some basic game feature like technology trees or mana then yes, you're wasting your time.
I do not think this is what he means. It just seems rather obvious to me that making suggestions that are just totally game breaking are not going to be taken seriously. I dont think the job of a Beta tester is the try to replace the designer.
My feeling here is that your best bet to have a positive influence on game development as a beta tester is to report bugs, crashes and make suggestions that are short, precise and intelligent ways of improving whats already in.
No they shouldn't.
There are entire weeks where you can't play the game 20 turns without crashing because some major element is being worked on. The game can't be kept in a consumer friendly state all the time.
Right now, we're in the process of integrating the FE-specific artwork. That's a multi-week process that can't be interrupted to make a public build. I've got lots of AI code that is definitely not ready to be used by users because crashes the game or ends up making turns take 10X longer because it's doing too much analysis.
A good beta program is designed for the developers to gather very specific data to improve the game.
*raises eyebrow*
With zero developer feedback or direction, how exactly are we supposed to know what is a total waste of our time to write up and discuss?
The forums are now covered with rehashed threads reposting the same complaints over and over, and increasingly elaborate suggestions and designs for systems big and small, as there has been little to no back and forth between the FE team and the entire beta community.
If the implication is 'just report bugs and crashes, don't waste your breath on features', that's cool, but it would be nice to know one way or another.
You guys really seem to have your ducks in a row in this one. New art is going to liven up the beta for me to play another 100 games.
[Edit] The message I am receiving is to report the problem but not the solution. That is a good strategy.
Personally speaking, I'm not real interested in listening to people who think we should jetison the tech tree or not have mana in the game or whatever. I'm glad our community is welcoming enough that people feel comfortable posting these ideas. But it's not as if something like that is going to even be considered.
Hmmm... to what extends does this hold? Can we make suggestion that extend or modify the current mechanics, to some extent? Is a suggestion about flanking, or bonuses based on terrain features in tactical battles, or zone of control, useless? Is a suggestion about mutually exclusive buildings, or a small expansion to the grain/material mechanics (using specialists for instance, like there were in earlier FE screenshots), useless? Is a suggestion to change the way XP is split between heroes and troops, to make heroes paths more distinctive/exclusive, or to make outposts more flavorful, or to give a use to different group size of pioneers, useless?
All the examples I give are gameplay feedback, but not necessarily balance. However, while they change the way the game plays quite a lot, they don't fundamentally change how things works and don't require to rewrite mechanics completely, just to tweak them. Do suggestions of this scope have a chance of being considered if interesting/relevant, or are they systematically discarded?
Guys, developers are going to get peeved if you try to micromanage the development. They have to bite their tongue a lot because you're customers. Being a Stardock customer, I know what I would want: I just want to know that I am being heard. A "no, we're not going to do that" is more palatable for me than no answer at all--at least, so long as I'm comfortable that they understand exactly what I'm asking. At times I think developers are reluctant to say "no" to customers because first...you're customers...and second if they waste their time arguing, that's even less time to spend implementing other customer solutions--which is what you originally wanted anyway.
My suggestion is just, customers: don't try to micromanage the development. Stardock: just let customers know they are being heard, that's all. Doesn't mean you have to actually do what they're saying. They just want to know you heard them, that's all.
I guess if a user doesn't recognize the difference between requesting we remove a basic game mechanic such as eliminating the technology tree versus a suggestion that exists within the scope of the game then they are probably better off withholding that kind of feedback.
To me, and I would hope most people, the difference seems obvious. But I understand that it may not be obvious to others. We aren't putting out the beta to get game design help. But game play feedback is very welcome and appreciated.
This has always been really obvious to me. No way is Stardock going to completly redesign the entire game from the ground up at this point. FE simply doesn't need that kind of work. This is why I always only suggest changes that either could be added through xml or could be added fairly easily without upending the entire game. A lot can be done through balance changes, tweaks, and the addition of small new features or mechanics. WoM was broken and could only be balanced so far, but FE's problems are 99% balance. No matter how wonderful you think your complete redo of Elemental would be Stardock can't justify completly changing the game every patch to check it out. It would take years.
I have no doubt Stardock listens to the community, but if you really want to a feature change you have to keep your idea simple and isolated from other parts of the game. Once again you can easily completely change a game through small improvements or just a few balance changes. Part of what makes a community idea good is that it would be simple to implement. For instance one idea I keep pushing for is to allow improvements to boost the caravan gold multiplier in both cities connected by the caravan. A small easy to implement change but I feel it would greatly boost the depth of trading. Work with the system not againist it.
I agree on the following: 1. Speaking from a professional point of view as a software developer, the latest Beta should NOT, EVER, be the latest build. Bad! Very bad!2. Its just that some people come up with ideas that suggest re-doing half the game and they look at their idea and say "oh but that should be easy to implement", having no clue of how the software is built. I once got a request for adding a database field to 3 of our forms... a trivial task right? Normally, it is... but these 3 forms were special. It took me an hour of hard talking to make sure this request was not granted a day before a particular patch should go live... adding those fields would take 2 days, and offered no room for a stability test of one of the forms ( a so called query-form to query people from the database, one of our most-oft-used forms).You have no clue how their software functions on the back-end, do not ever assume it is easy3. Brad should provide me with more cookies.4. Deviation from the design can lead to unwanted results.That one is a perfect example. This, how silly it might seem, is what you can get with regular software development. Imagine the swing after a horde of beta testers offered suggestions in every phase and the design team tried to do redesign the swing every single time.
Yep, that is a good suggestion. I.e. that would be a good text book example of the kind of feedback that is practical.
And Derek also has to put up with internal suggestions/requests.
For example, I suggested recently making it so that trained units, when defeated, returned to their origin city to be reconstituted rather than being to be retrained from scratch so that they could keep being upgraded and enhanced and gain experience -- sort of turn them into trained champion groups. And that the number of units you could maintain would be based on your Civilization's Logistic system (ala Fleet supply in Sins). But Derek pointed out that this would have drastic effects across the board that could take a long time to iron out.
We all have our own ideas on what would make everything "better" in any given game. A good game designer has to keep a level head and consider the ramifications of every design decision.
@Barrynor
*lol* From what i read over the last month, this describes the development of WoM in some way.
And...c´mon nobody really believed things like complete overhaul of tactical battles or get rid of techtree (its an interesting discussion, but nothing more) or change the complete mana system is really an option? Its too obvious that something like thas wouldn´t happen...
I really appreciate the clear presence of a unified design vision that's present in FE and was missing from WoM. I'm glad that my ideas get read and am perfectly content if most or all of them are declared outside the design of the game.
Beta releases when they're ready for us to provide useful feedback and not before make good sense and are indicative of a design plan.
Many people posting in this thread seem to be having WoM beta PTSD flashbacks. This beta is clearly different than WoM. There's clearly a game here, with a plan and guiding vision. Sure, there are lots of little tweaks and balances to be made, but this time around I'm impatient for the next beta because FE is fun to play and I want to see how much better, richer and balanced it gets, not, like WoM, because I'm hoping the next beta will be a game I can actually stand to play long enough to give useful feedback.
So yes, communication with us when you can is great. I'm enthusiastic about what I've seen so far and am eager to hear more. However, you have my confidence with FE in a way you never really did with the WoM beta. Keep up the good work. I anticipate many good things to come.
I agree with this.
We players aren't supposed to know about development. I don't know anything about it. I can only play, state if I'm having fun or not, and, IF I'm capable of putting it into words, state WHY I feel one way or another about the game. Then the developers can, of course, do what they want with that feedback.
Now, NO ONE complained about traits for heroes for example. EVERYONE is happy about them. In this regard, the most that is getting asked throughout the forums is "more traits!!!" "More balance!!" If I was the developer, that would tell me that I nailed the basic idea of the traits, I'd just need to refine them a little. Which is where we stand at. On the other hand, there are areas in the game about which basically everyone is complaining right now: say, for one, city management. THAT should tell something too: that maybe, just MAYBE, there are deeper issues still with the game than just balance.
Should feedback remain itself within the limits of comfortable, pre-designed tracks, or should it dare to be "disruptive" when needed? Or should it be just feedback? I don't how I would fix the things that bug me right now. We might do a little brainstorming, but in the end, we've only been emphasizing what doesn't seem to work TO US. If the developers are otherwise convinced, then all is fine. We'll wait till release, and we'll see if their vision was right all along, or if some of the things that are bugging beta testers right now will end bugging reviewers and the audience at large too. I'm getting the game for free, I might as well sit down and wait for what is coming my way. Maybe I let myself once again get involved too much with the debate.
Having all troops being "miniChamps" doesn't sound doesn't sound so good. But something like that in very specific circumstances, one unit of the defeated army may survive to be reconstituted in the nearest city, doesn't sound too bad to me.
Has something been said about there being a limit to the number of Champions that you can control at the same time, that limit being able to be improved by research (instead of researching high level Champions) and all Champions being available from the very begining (different costs, obviously). With some "Champion recruitment" events a la MoM (increased chance by prestige and research thingy).
I like this idea.
I understand not removing entire mechanisms, but the post was just to the tone of "Don't make suggestions you're just wasting your breath unless they're balancing" as I read it. (Opinions differ.) I would just like to see more of the team communicating what they think of suggestions and such, because I haven't seen much of that. I understand that they are hard at work, but we are given the game for a reason. As someone said if a feature is going to bug the beta testers then it is going to bug the reviewers and just general audience. My opinion, though it matters nothing in the meta-game, is that you can't be in passionate love with your creation to the extent that you can't sever a finger to save the hand. (And possibly replace that finger with a prosthetic.) I write a lot and that is something that I have learned in my personal process. I can't love a character so much that after a once over of the piece I can't just take him/her out because they aren't working.
This does sound sensible.
Go into them!
Glad to hear that... this game is really good as is. We just need minor tweaking nothing major. Throw in a little more AI and UI improvement and balance and we're good to go. I was one of the biggest EWOM hater/complainers, but I'm converted now. EFE will be a terrific game.
I'm really glad the FE art is being readied to be rolled out. I think your artists do a splendid job. I love the art style of the Elemental series.
So what kind of art did we have before? Because alot of that stuff wasn't in WoM
This should be repeated often: People loved MOM except when they didn't.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
