It's like watching typical Linux desktop Distro development. For instance, for more than a decade, developers and OEMs have struggling with proper ALSA support. Just when we finally got a stable, nearly fully supported audio system for Linux, BOOM! Suddenly Pulseaudio comes out nowhere because apparently someone needs some features that 99.5% of people won't use ever, making the whole investment on Linux audio moot. The best thing is that the features which are actually so badly needed for people (like, as a just average computer person, I have no knowledge and unwilling to re-compile Kernel or install specific distro just for low-latency support for productive work or just listening to high-quality music.) are ignored to oblivion.
And very surprisingly, despite being developed by a company very familiar with Windows development, LH follows the above example.
1. Reinventing the wheel.... by breaking it further.
By no means the whole RPG system in FE is perfect. There are some glare flaws here and there, but it has still far better than 'improved' Legendary Heroes's RPG system. Yes, RNG element is indeed double-edged sword, and I am pretty sure some people still prefer randomized traits over pre-defined paths. From my personal opinion, it is actually a step in right direction, but this is very subjective matter. At best we can say it is 'tweaked', but no way we can claim the current LH system as 'improved'.
The problem is with very short release time, those 'tweaked' features are hardly complete. An example would be removal of encumbrance. Instead of further refine the current system, Stardock decides to remove it entirely and made heroes and troops depended on specific traits. By doing so, a lot of hero items and balance features are completely out of whack.
Sure, these can be fixed later, but my point is that Stardock did not have to do this in the first place. Like, instead of making pre-defined paths and introducing yet another large amount of hard-coded features that making the game further un-moddable as if current state is not enough to troll modders, they could slightly tweak current RNG system and enhance encumbrance system.
Really, those two are probably only needed for the whole hero/RPG system from FE. Other than it needed more contents, the system itself was the most completed feature in FE. There are far more broken things that absolutely need to be fixed, yet Stardock chooses the most finished element and decides to re-invent. And of course, with shorter period it is just mess and half-finished. I mean like outdated XP split system. Please let D&D rules die already and move on to more modern system... like the one FE kinda has.
I am so shocked that somehow LH turned out to be far less completed game than FE, despite further man-power and assets have been poured.
2. Ignored crucial aspects..... get ignored, AGAIN.
There are issues that are as old as WOM days, only to be never fixed and properly ignored, while new problems keep coming out, only to be (again) not fixed. One of the biggest problem is that AI never plays with same rule as player. Yes, no way AI can handle quests as human players do, but that's not my point. There are things AI simply ignores while players cannot ignore, such as....
Treaties and pretty much the whole diplomacy as whole.
Resources and research bonuses (probably byproduct of diplomacy issue)
Glitches caused by the game engine (infamous city raze issue.)
No, I don't expect AI to be good in the first place. With current technologies, AI sucks and will be bad for my lifetime. What I want is that AIs should follow the same rules that applied upon players. Currently it does not happen at all. Today I see the resource stat of AIs again.... and AGAIN I see negative resources such as -245 metal and -100 mana. Why a human player cannot have negative resources when AI can. Either a human player should have access to go negative resource or AIs should not allow to have go negative resources. There are more issues such as broken modding and never-fulfilled promises on illusive python conversation, and dry 4X elements as well.
3. Some get actually improved/fixed/added. But do they outweigh negative points?
Sure, we got a new campaign. While it is really nothing more than a custom game with pre-defined positions and quests, but I do see some efforts are done on the campaign. I also see there are some new quests a.k.a random events to sauce the game with new items, which I like. But there are just too few to say LH is better than FE. If Stardock did not waste effort and money on reinventing hero parts, and instead focused on adding more quests, more items and more new monsters, LH would had been actually worthwhile to buy it.
4. The problems of Elemental... From least problematic to the most severe issue that making the game not-worthwhile.
Currently, I say LH worth probably 20 bucks or less IF a buyer is a first buyer for Elemental series. For those who bought FE already, even upgrade price is not really worth it.... if the prices go below 5 bucks, do consider picking it up for added contents alone. FE is still the most wise/best choice and it is definitely worth for current price (30 bucks) Those who have not picked up EF yet, you guys should pick up FE already. FE is far better than WoM and definitely better than LH despite having less contents.
Now, in order to make LH to be worth for 40 bucks, and making following expansions/DLC/new games Stardock worth to consider buying, following things should happen, to the least important to the most important.
(6) There needs to be the whole balance overhaul. Thanks to unnecessary tweaks, the game balance is just... destroyed. Someone needs to pick the pieces and put it together to match the quality of FE.
Why this is no.6 : Balance is also a subjective matter, and can be fixed/tweaked to good extent, even with bare-minimum modding capability the game has.
(5) The game needs more contents. For example, we need crapload of 'Epic' quests, some more 'Deadly' quests and a few 'Strong' quests. And a new item or two.
Why this is no.5 : Like balance issue, adding things aren't hard except asset parts. And the game already has a lot of contents.... only problem is the concentration of contents distributed is unbalanced.
(4) There are just so many bugs it is not even funny (almost as bad as Minecraft case). We need to fix the game before add any more stuffs.
Why this is no.4 : Fortunately, the game is definitely well-playable for most of people, and most of bugs are only recognizable only when players get used to the game and know the mechanics.
(3) AIs : No I don't mean making AIs smarter. What I want is AIs should follow the same rules as human player forced to follow. Otherwise a human player and AIs play different game. This completely breaks immersion of the game. Seriously no more negative resources, ridiculous diplomacy please.
Why this is no.3 : Other games aren't that better. Only problem is that Elemental's AIs are not playing same rules. Otherwise thanks to Brad's skill, other parts of AIs are quite decent.
(2) Modding : Seriously, there is a reason why almost all of old-timers and prominent modders stopped working on the game. DLCs and expansion packs in this age won't save your game and restore your company's reputation, but good modding support will.
Why this is no.2 : Modding alone can fix all above 4 problems by itself. If we can mod the AI and mod without bugs, hard-coded stuffs and inconsistencies, I would be modding the game right now instead of making this another whining post, and modding section would had been much more vivid. Still, I must admit even modding is not the most severe problem of this game... so here no.1 comes...
(1) Boring early game : My opinion on early game of ALL of Stardock's 4X games, with few reservations : unbelievably bad.
Just go play games like even... heck, Warlock : Master Of Arcane. The difference is so huge in this aspect that makes people wonder whether Stardock is intentionally trying to make a boring game.
Actually this early game issue has been kept improving (yes, WoM has much worse early game. Believe it or not), but still, the early game is like a chore which is supposed to be attract players to play the game more. Yes, quests really helped this issue, among with all of tweaks being done, but we still need MORE early game spells, MORE choices, and MORE interesting stuffs to explore about. Make base movement allowance to 3 from 2, and buff ALL professions, including even so-called overpowered BeastLord and Armorer. And all factions should be able to make more interesting units other than spearmen, militia, scout and pioneer.
Why this is no.1 : Despite it is also can be fixed by modding (wow, modding is indeed a magic wand, isn't it?) the issue has been so overdue yet so severe that needs immediate fixes before the interests in this game dies away.
Last thought before I finish this post : Stardock complains people whine too much compared to other forums. I choked myself when I first read such statement. This is the most stupid comment/claim I've ever heard from both the Internet and real life.
People whine at something because they like it and want something more, and willing to pay if the company delivers. If people decide the company won't do it and lost faith, they will simply walk away, not whine. I mean, why they have to waste their time when it is just not worth to do so? Like Demigod forum pretty much dead after 3 months of the release, and pitiful post counts on SupCom 2 related forums, people will stop whine and stop paying attention to the company. Do you see any forums still discussing about Dragon Age 2? No, you actually see more posts about Dragon Age Origin. If the amount of whining posts has declined in forums, it means that customers lost interests in your products, and they are probably not going to come back (and everyone probably knows getting a new customer is several times harder than retaining a current customer, right?)
I bought Elemental : Limited Edition and also bought FE on steam despite I did not have to. And I pretty much bought all of Stardock's games til this point. After how modding support went and incidents happened here and there, I am not sure if I buy any Stardock's games in future. Sure, I will be probably buy some more Elemental DLC/Expansions since I have already invested in Elemental, but no way I will buy any new games right away after all of these problems.
Yes, but some of that content can result from efforts of modders. If a concept works particularly well, it can be incorporated into future 'official' expansions or releases. I've seen this happen in a few games now (someone comes up with something new, designers love it, voila it's in the next release).
But my focus when making that statement was on increasing game options as a way to allow users to better customize their gaming experience, hence increasing their attachment to the game, getting their friends excited about buying the game, and purchasing expansions more often/readily.
My feelings exactly. At first it was ok to accept those removals because it was understood as a way to focus in a few things at a time and then improve from there. It was my understanding that once the few features that remained where balanced, old ones would return. But we continue to lose features and reshuffle existing ones. The game is simpler at each iteration, to the point that games from late 90s early 2000s now have more features.
I fully agree with this. There is a lot of talk about likes in the forums, yet we are forced to play in a particular way.
Before anyone says that this checkbox feast if overwhelming, I'd like to add tha this would be in an "advanced settings" screen so newcomer players would not be scared by it. Also, there could be several predefined settings. For example, "barren" would configure all those checkboxes for a world with very few resources, and "fertile" would combine the world with more resources.
AND that's the real way to appeal to a wider audience, because you allow everybody to have their game instead of "streamlining" the game with common denominator options.
Exactly my feelings. I've also tried to mod the game myself (I have not given up, but waiting until a stable reléase, because I dislike redoing my job each week after the new version is released) and I got very frustrated because many things can't be done easily, then we have to resort to clever workaround which, as clever as they are, require a lot of extra work. And I still get surprised at how many basic things can't just be done.
I agree with you. I don't hate/dislike modding, but me, my brothers, and my friends pretty much never both with mods. Also, not one person I know has ever purchased a game because it was mod-able. I know I certainly don't speak for everybody, so please don't be offended, that's not my intent. I"m just trying to argue modding isn't a game breaker for many people.
Correct me if I am mistaken, but didn't the lead designer of the game start as a modder?
I am sorry but this post is utterly ridiculous. You are basically saying that you do not like the game, anything about it actually. You list all the features that were either taken out or never existed in it. They aren't going to happen, nor should they. The game is good as it is now. Also, you are complaining about the modding but probably know very little about it. You can actually do a lot of things with the code as it is. I admit that there are many things you can't do but there are also quite a lot of things you can do. Not all modders have left, I have been modding since EWOM was in alpha and am still doing it now. Others have left, true enough but not all.
I am not trying to insult, but it just seems like a whole lot of whining and unrealistic expectations in my opinion.
I'll try to be succinct here.
I have come to the realization that there were a lot of people who liked War of Magic. And I agree that the biggest hit against the original release of Elemental was that it was unstable at launch. There are a number of reasons why that happened which I won't go into here.
However, you have to judge each game on its own merits. War of Magic was a big game with a lot of moving parts. But a lot of those parts just didn't work well together. Fallen Enchantress was designed to be a much more focused and polished game and at that it succeeded.
IMO, Legendary Heroes is a natural progression in that trend. Would I have cut encumbrance? Probably not. But I'm the guy who made Galactic Civilizations which is fully of opaque game mechanics (like the approval rating in that game, holy cow is that insane).
But Soren made a good point and Derek (and I) agree with it. What is this game about? At its core? Is it a Sim or is it a strategy game? And it's a strategy game. It should focus on that solid core and then build out from that. Encumbrance was a sloppy, bad game mechanic.
Victory in an Elemental game is supposed to be about your civilization. How good of one did you create? It is not about the details of it. It's not about how clever you are in tactical battles. It's not about how precisely you design your units. Those things are modifiers. But they are not, in themselves, the game-enders. It is about your civilization.
Now, if you want to complain about something in LH, complain about the diplomacy system. That is the single biggest disappointment in the Elemental games IMO.
I'm pretty biased but I play a lot of games and I've been making them a long time. My internal review (you don't want to see it, it's brutal) of Fallen Enchantress projected a meta critic score of 78. Legendary Heroes is a better game than Fallen Enchantress. It shouldn't even be a close call. It's just plain better. And at $20 for FE buyers, it's a steal.
That doesn't mean that a lot of the criticism and feedback you see on the forum is wrong. Some of it is legitimate but a lot of it is from people who simply want a different game than what we're making.
If you liked Master of Magic or Civilization IV, you'll probably like Legendary Heroes. If you didn't, you probably won't like it. Those two games are in the same genre.
Warlock, Eador, HOMM, while being fantasy games, are not really in the same genre of strategy games. They're tactical-focused games. That means that people who like those games may not necessarily like Elemental games.
Indeed. Frogboy put it much better than I did. Also, I do agree about the Diplomacy. Frogboy, I hope you guys are planning on making it better? Or is that not happening?
The problem I see with diplomacy is not easily fixable. Otherwise it would have already been.
I've asked Soren to think of things we can do on it. Apparently, Civilization IV had some sort of diplomacy system.
Well, how much things cost in diplomacy shouldn't depend on faction power and the costs are way over the top. A faction with even just a little bit more of a power rating then me expects huge amounts of valuables to even enter into a treaty with me. Couldn't that be done better? Also, shouldn't you be able to choose whether or not to cancel a treaty? I think these two things will help a lot. Perhaps diplomacy could be dependent on how much or how little another faction likes you.
Then either the game should be called Legendary Civilizations,
or champions need many more civilization modifying spells.
I vote for the latter.
Honestly this was predictable. I struggle to think what was on the Game Design Doc, and the progress of the beta has been quite similar to how Coders make games at the George Mason Computer Design Program, where they would code and "tweak" hoping for something good to come out. "Balancing" is DIFFERENT then Game Design. One does not "Balance" a game to make it fun." You balance a game to, "Work as intended."
The intention is to REMOVE mechanics, not CHANGE them, so that what's left is a core, fundamental design, rather then a nebulous concept of Vestigial game mechanics that provide little good to the game.
When I was at Full Sail, I noticed that the programmers had "Story boards" across the wall with various kinds of concept arts, and the industry liason attempted to "impress" me with all of these pictures about how the students understood "making video games." And then I responded to him, "this reminds me of Arkham Horror, and this one reminds me of Magic the Gathering" and he looked at me blank.
When I was at FIEA, I was really impressed by them. An accredited grad school, which emphases specialization of skills, practical curriculum, and ethical integrity WHILE teaching Millies to be HUMBLE about their chances in the industry truly blew me away. Top tier talent right at my finger tips, can't wait to settle in the area. Yet when I asked them, "how do you design games?" he responded, "a producer pitches an idea and then people vote on it, and then they make game."
Great. One of the most advanced Game Design programs in America runs it operations like Occupy Wall Street....
Sorry, but what are you talking about Magic....
Perhaps the best I've ever seen. If Soren can't figure it out, it probably can't happen.
I vote for a diplomacy expansion. Please.
Good point. Seems like the focus of the game was not clear. Or at least not clear enough to pick a name.
Also, how long this "stripping to the basics" will continue? Will features continue to dissapear with each "expansión"?
yes. diplomacy expansion would be pretty sweet.
The point wasn't to question the naming convention for the game(s), but remind the devs that the key to unifying the RPG and strategy games is Magic.
Heroes should constantly be casting environment altering spells.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3ArdQVqLHsI <>MORE<
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this^ is the focus.
I would like to see more environment altering spells
I really was not going to reply this thread, but I feel I need to point out this diplomacy.
First of all, I don't think diplomacy is a big problem. It is a part of problem 3 (AI), but this is really the least problematic part. It's really a small problem.
You can trade resources, make treaties such as technology, economy, tribute, peace, bribe them to go war, etc. Only two things that are lacking on diplomacy part are unable to make an AI to have peace with someone else and vision share, but other than that, I really do not see any further improvements can be done from the way AIs are made in modern 4X games.
Looking at Civ 5 and other recent games, those AIs are really no better, and most of the case, worse than Elemental. Like compared to completely no-common-sense CIV 5 AI diplomacy (to be honest, Civ 4 wasn't that great until several expansions later, either), I can even say one of the strengths of Elemental series is well-made diplomacy.
The only thing that destroys well-made diplomacy is, as I already pointed out in my post several times, that AIs do not play with same rules as human players do. Don't let AIs disregard non-aggression pacts. Don't let AIs cheat on economy/technology treaties (if they indeed are), refine stuffs here and there..... DON DON! we are good to go.
Please, there is few reasons to improve diplomacy which is already above average compared to other 4X games or tactical games. I'd rather like 20 more Epic and Deadly quests besides awkward dragon eye gem quests (the game really lacks late-game-army quests for some weird reasons) or just couple of hard-coded features released/fixed so we can mod them out already.
This sounds almost like reinventing the wheel again, there are many other crucial issues still left. After they are fixed, then we may try improve diplomacy..... Personally, just bring back proper dynasty system would be more than enough.
See I'm the opposite. The beginning build up is the most fun for me. Laying the foundations of my civilization. Scouting out good areas for my pioneers. Clearing out monster lairs. The sense of adventure and exploration. Those to me, are more fun than the end game.
I'ts always great to read your own thoughts on FE and LH. Thanks! However I disagree with you on one point:
Your comparison to other games doesn't do justice to your own games. FE and LH feature (sovereigns and) heroes and empire building. MoM and Civ don't have sovs or heroes with personality. The other games you mention do not offer as much strategy as LH.
In other words, the Elemental games have enormous potential. Dismissing that potential in your post is a bit silly, dismissing it in your game design is a crime against all TBS lovers [e digicons]^_^[/e] Seriously, why are you trying to marginalize one of the main features of your game, instead of synergizing the two mechanics?
I wholeheartedly agree with almost everything the OP said.
Two things:
1. Diplomacy is the Achilles Heel of this game - GC2 was a masterpiece that may not be replicated in any game any time soon. In fact the AI in that game was a work of art.
2. DRUID HERO!
I agree. I do miss the Dynasty system & dual build / train system from the earlier games, and I wish they'd do *something* with all that water just sitting around, but in my opinion FH is much more *fun* than either of it's predecessors. But what do I know, I like playing Warlock too & apparently that game "suxors" as well.
Yes, it is. Any chance you can fix it? I know you have the ability because I own GalCiv 2. It just boggles my mind how a LH faction can go from neutral to hating my faction, to liking my faction within a 15 turn span, without actually communicating with me.
@Frogboy - some good posts there thanks.
We have been! And yes I agree.
Yes pls me too, i'd pay for if it... hell put it on kickstarter and i'd sign up tomorrow.
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