1.09w Changelog » Forum Post by DerekPaxton

@Derek

I think he means that a lot of the tech descriptions in those categories basically say little more than "This tech, when researched, does stuff that might or might not be beneficial to you." Flavor is always a good thing, but a bit of specific functionality would be nice too, especially for techs that don't have any "Unlocks: [insert new structures or items here]" results to the side, which is a large proportion of the techs from those trees.

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Just wanted to add on monsters, I've played probably 8 games over the last 4 patches, and I've yet to see anything stronger than T1 monsters. In this most recent version, I've got 100+ point bandit armies out on the maps, most of it is revealed, it's 224x224, and there are almost no monsters left. I've not seen anything harder than Bandit, Wolf and Spider in 500 or more turns. Now, I'm not researching adventuring, but there are level 4 sites on the map already. If someone has researched to Level 4, should I not be seeing something at least higher than basic monsters? Even a young ogre.

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Quoting Derek Paxton,

reply 24

Can you give me an example of what you mean?

Many of the informational texts in general are rather ambiguous. Its not until we've used them in multiple games that you actual come to understand what the research does. Adventure/exploration techs are the main/worst offenders. This is what hes referring to i think.

To answer his question from what i know it would probably fall into polish polish polish.. or 1.2+ from what i've gathered.

Feel free to correct me if i'm wrong about either point.

"7. Fixed a bug that caused a mismatch in saving/loading city data. Could cause games to crash when loading."

Hope that was the bug I ran into that killed my last test game

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Quoting ,

quoting post

*** 1.09w is scheduled for release on 12/13/2010 ***

Changes:

5. Fixed a bug that was keeping dynasty kids from starting as channelers.

YAY

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I don't understand the adventure track either. Am I researching to have the possibility of running into a more powerful champion to hire? I can't tell the difference. Or is it making new goodie huts or quest, shit I can't tell. Am I getting new resources, or just making them spawn somewhere? Sometimes I research something only to have it spawn outside my range and then my enemy gets it, I really enjoy spending my energy researching that shit. Or in the diplomacy track with the monster ones, same deal.

Also, when I upgrade to Villas, my houses disappear completely and I have to build villas all over again, know how long that takes? I don't becauseI haven't gotten them rebuilt yet. Also, where the houses use to be, I can't build anything there now, so I got these ugly dirt spots in my town. Also, can't buy Large armor with a kingdom. What if I have grandchildren with Trogg blood? Or I use a Trogg Sov with my Human Kingdom? No f'ing armor is what. Fix that please.

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Quoting Fistalis,

reply 28

Quoting Derek Paxton, reply 24

Can you give me an example of what you mean?
Many of the informational texts in general are rather ambiguous. Its not until we've used them in multiple games that you actual come to understand what the research does. Adventure/exploration techs are the main/worst offenders. This is what hes referring to i think.

To answer his question from what i know it would probably fall into polish polish polish.. or 1.2+ from what i've gathered.

Feel free to correct me if i'm wrong about either point.

"7. Fixed a bug that caused a mismatch in saving/loading city data. Could cause games to crash when loading."

Hope that was the bug I ran into that killed my last test game

A lot of the Technology tree seems to be half done. What I mean is that some techs have Flavor Text + Functional Text like pretty much every Civic and Warfare tech. While most of the adventure tree does vague stuff you need to play multiple playthroughs and closely follow forum to even grasp with little if any Functional Text outside of recent additions such as enables Lost Libraries.

Also in Custom Faction I've heard mention that Brave does 5% health, and Death Worship is clearly stated as 10%. Why do these two cost the same amount of points and why does one have no useful description. Things like "raises health" are a real PITA when other things tell you exactly what they do. In addition, it seems to me from my own experience with strictly Kingdom atm that many of the tech civ skills you can add in custom faction are specific to Kingdom/Empire. Correct me if I am wrong on that, but if they are faction specific then why can you select them whether or not you have picked Kingdom or Empire as your faction option.

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Werewindlefr

Join Date 03/2007

+28

Quoting Lord Xia,

reply 30

Sometimes I research something only to have it spawn outside my range and then my enemy gets it, I really enjoy spending my energy researching that shit. Or in the diplomacy track with the monster ones, same deal.

Also, when I upgrade to Villas, my houses disappear completely and I have to build villas all over again, know how long that takes? I don't becauseI haven't gotten them rebuilt yet. Also, where the houses use to be, I can't build anything there now, so I got these ugly dirt spots in my town. Also, can't buy Large armor with a kingdom. What if I have grandchildren with Trogg blood? Or I use a Trogg Sov with my Human Kingdom? No f'ing armor is what. Fix that please.

Yes, there's still a lot to change. Elemental has come a long way, but there's still a lot to do to have the game meet decent quality standards: the monster spawning issue, whether it's working as intended or not, is a big issue: no monsters starting mid-game wastes a lot of the fun that could be had with this game. Diplomacy is dysfunctional and leads to unwinable games (if you make an alliance, you can't win by conquest anymore). The resources spawning techs either have to stop spawning resources (only making them available), or has to at LEAST stop helping the enemy. Magic still needs some changes (spellcasting limits, casting time, etc), balance is still a bit (some would say a lot) all over the place (some things are currently pointless, too, and will require a lot of changes to make it less irrelevant... like the armor-parts system. Why would you use only partial armors ?)

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Quoting Werewindlefr,

reply 32

Why would you use only partial armors ?)

I can think of a few reasons. Right now armor is very overpowered. However in a world where a single guy with decent armor can't wipe the floor with a thousand guys with spears you may want to build more than one unit. Once you start building more than one of those units you realize that the material and iron cost is starting to stack up. You then maybe start building units without that fancy helmet, now your units are cheaper and also not bald to add some style. You might also decide you want your army more mobile and instead of leather greaves you give them traveling boost. You can start to see where this goes.

Now lets imagine that in the future be it from God or from Mod, different parts of body armor added other bonuses outside of just defence. There may be more reason to mix and match now. To start out maybe some armor can be better against piercing weapons, while other armor may be superior against magical attacks.

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Here, a first post by a new forum member. First thanks for all the great work done in the last 2 months: the game is getting some shape.

About the monster spawning: maybe it is a good idea to let the level of monster spawning be a function of the advancement of the more successful Factions instead of all?

So, something like the average adventure tree advancement of the 50% most advanced Civs, rounded up. Maybe in a 2p game: minimum 2. Sounds like an easy tweak to me and makes the game harder, I guess.

BTW: Personally, I think the game would gain a lot by completely revamping the adventure tree and let most resources be available from the start and let monsters spawn naturally. I think this adds to both strategic value as to immersion, and leads to more moments of surprise. However, I realise this is probably not something that can be done quickly. This, together with a production capacity algorithm for cities are in my opinion the most urgent tweaks to the core mechanics of the game after 1.09v.

Now I am writing my first post I can't stop. Therefore the following bug report:

-If you load a map in the editor (thanks for fixing this in 1.09v), leave the editor, back, and click something the game always crashes for me.

Furthermore, before the demo is going to be released I think it is best to:

-Add an option to edit a sovereign

-Add an option to clear the biography of the sovereign, and some copy/paste possibilities when editing it.

-Explain (in-game) what all traits do exactly

-Make sure every race/character has the same "cost" or at least as many skill points as a custom one.

-Fix the bug that if you have a long biography and/or a long list of traits your Hiergamenon overview is screwed up.

-Update the description of several techs

-Fix the bugged history graph for mana production

-Give an overview of the traits of the all the factions on the Kingdom screen (less urgent)

-Show the traits next to the characters in the dynasty tree

-Fix an exploit in which you can move very far using the arrow keys on your numlock control panel.

Apart from the latter these all are minor details, but all are spotted very soon, and by fixing them, I think, a first impression of a way more polished game is created.

-Thanks!

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Werewindlefr

Join Date 03/2007

+28

I can think of a few reasons. Right now armor is very overpowered. However in a world where a single guy with decent armor can't wipe the floor with a thousand guys with spears you may want to build more than one unit. Once you start building more than one of those units you realize that the material and iron cost is starting to stack up

But see, my issue is that there is not reason to use a partial heavy plate instead of a light plate. I think this whole feature adds little to the game as it is. Although I could TOTALLY see a system that would make it really useful, for now, it's more cosmetic.

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Yeah its really basic atm

Honestly I wouldn't mind if the armor race had a few more parts to slow it down a bit, it gives you a huge edge really fast if you focus on it. Maybe add scale and chain mail. The current system is a huge improvement over the previous lvl 1 weapon to lvl 1 armor, to lvl 2 weapons, etc though. I just hope that we don't have to wait for an expansion for weapons/armor selection to be more of a choice than the obvious "just go with the highest atk/def stat", many weapons are fairly pointless outside of cosmetic reasons. Not that I don't appreciate the free expansions.

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Alstein

Join Date 07/2004

+55

I agree, but some of this balance stuff can wait for a 1.2, along with the known issues (which do need to be fixed after 1.1)

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Quoting Derek Paxton,

reply 10

Quoting Werewindlefr, reply 8Is a fix to the "roaming monsters not spawning mid-game" in the work ?

And is the ability to cancel treaties something that will be added post-1.1, or is it still something that can slip under the lockdown ?
We don't know the cause of that. We haven't been able to reproduce here (it isn't simply that monsters don't spawn in the late game). We did have a player here that encountered the same thing (so I know you aren't crazy) but when we reloaded his save to check it out monsters spawned just fine.

Attached a save (in a thread for that issue, not here) if you have a late game with plenty of open areas and no monsters. It can be misleading sometimes because monsters don't spawn just when 1 player heads up the Adventure tree. The amount 1 player increases the spawn numbers depends on how many players are in the game (so the more players the less any one player can move the spawn counter). So in a 4 players game if 1 player unlocks all 10 creatures spawning techs he can only raise the spawn level to 2.5 (out of 10). Which is fairly minor stuff.

I've seen this as well in 1.09v, I wonder if as the number of troops, roaming characters (AI & player) increase, the number of monster that spawn decreases?

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JUst curious on the cards, any idea if this will be easily fixable for 1.1 or is it going to be a bug for awhile? I know its not game killing, but I do like updating my cards as my champions change gear.

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@Derek

Have you considered using a public bug tracker of some sort? With the frequent patch updates it feels a bit pointless to report bugs, and I suspect many bug reports don't keep up with the releases and report stuff that has already been fixed. I've noticed a number of small bugs, but is it worth my while to document/test them? I don't mind helping out with the work if I know it's doing some good

regards,

Tobias

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An OOM crash. Zip didn't create properly, but both debug.err and the .dmp file were created successfully.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8710134/Elemental1_09w-2010-12-14T14-49-12-197.exe (7-zip self-extracting archive)

A bug which has existed for a very long time - if you have more than 2 Strategic Map Moves, and you save and then reload, you only have 2 instead of the greater amount. So if you and Janusk have Travelling Boots and 3/3 Movement, then you save and reload, both will only have 2/3 rather than 3/3. I don't think it gives you 2 if you had less than 2, but if you have more than 2 it always gets reset to 2 (or doesn't save as any more than 2 perhaps) upon reloading a save game. Can you fix this bug? See W10-2 and W10-3 in this 7-zip self-extracting archive:

Reduce to 2 Movement Bug

Best regards,
Steven.

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The only way to make adding more armor be worse would be to have massive penalties on the armor that outweighed the advantages, at which point everyone would just mass produce naked guys. The reason for this is simple.

If you and your opponent have 10 combat rating to spend, and you put it into 10 guys, and he puts it into one, he will win every single time. Its the reason behind focus fire as well. The horde starts losing units and its power starts dropping, but damage confers no loss of ability or power on the single unit.

Yes, you saved cash in the short term by making cheap units, but they will all get slaughtered by expensive units, so in the long term, you lost out big. The only reason to make units with less than max armor/weaponry is if your actually short on metal/materiels, and if your so short on them that you have to skimp to get by, the other player is gonna shwack you anyway.

If armor and weapons actually had roles this would be different, but right now, with only 2 stats that matter, boosting them as high as possible is the best option in every situation. Now, if things like hit and run worked, and armor slowed you down, then light armor would be useful, but because of the way tac battles work, hit and run doesn't happen. Armor needs some kind of differentiation, rather than 'this one is worth 2 points and this other one is 3 points.'

Edit: Or if you could upgrade/change the gear of units you have already produced. That would also be useful.

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Quoting Cerevox,

reply 42

If you and your opponent have 10 combat rating to spend, and you put it into 10 guys, and he puts it into one, he will win every single time. Its the reason behind focus fire as well. The horde starts losing units and its power starts dropping, but damage confers no loss of ability or power on the single unit.

Yes, you saved cash in the short term by making cheap units, but they will all get slaughtered by expensive units, so in the long term, you lost out big. The only reason to make units with less than max armor/weaponry is if your actually short on metal/materiels, and if your so short on them that you have to skimp to get by, the other player is gonna shwack you anyway.

If armor and weapons actually had roles this would be different, but right now, with only 2 stats that matter, boosting them as high as possible is the best option in every situation. Now, if things like hit and run worked, and armor slowed you down, then light armor would be useful, but because of the way tac battles work, hit and run doesn't happen. Armor needs some kind of differentiation, rather than 'this one is worth 2 points and this other one is 3 points.

If the tactical battles would have tactical elements like flanking, reduced attack when wounded and attack of opportunities many small units would have an advantage.

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joasoze

Join Date 02/2006

+39

A patch a day, makes the bugs go away!

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Quoting Ratatosk7,

reply 36

Yeah its really basic atm

Honestly I wouldn't mind if the armor race had a few more parts to slow it down a bit, it gives you a huge edge really fast if you focus on it. Maybe add scale and chain mail. The current system is a huge improvement over the previous lvl 1 weapon to lvl 1 armor, to lvl 2 weapons, etc though. I just hope that we don't have to wait for an expansion for weapons/armor selection to be more of a choice than the obvious "just go with the highest atk/def stat", many weapons are fairly pointless outside of cosmetic reasons. Not that I don't appreciate the free expansions.

Their is a way to slow it down, its called "EPIC" pacing on the options screen

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Quoting Wizard1200,

reply 43

If the tactical battles would have tactical elements like flanking, reduced attack when wounded and attack of opportunities many small units would have an advantage.

you do - it will take 10 attacks to kill 10 units, by which time the last one will have had the chance to hit 9 times, plus 8 for the previous one etc.

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Werewindlefr

Join Date 03/2007

+28

Quoting Cerevox,

reply 42

If you and your opponent have 10 combat rating to spend, and you put it into 10 guys, and he puts it into one, he will win every single time. Its the reason behind focus fire as well. The horde starts losing units and its power starts dropping, but damage confers no loss of ability or power on the single unit.

Which is why late-game stuff is currently way too cost-efficient. But you're wrong about one thing: 1 dude will actually lose every single time, because the calculation isn't straightforward with 6 stats entering play (troop number, hit points, attack, defense, dodge and accuracy), and the turn+counterattack system skews your analysis a bit. As in: you can make glass cannons and counterattack-munching peasants.

But yeah, quality vs quantity, in Elemental, isn't something that can be achieved with the current state of things.

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is it just me or are there barley any knowledge temples, (whatever u call them i always forget but the tech resource temple place thingy) i barley ever see them anymore, ive maybe seen 1or2 out of like 5-10 games , this has bee over maybe the past 5 beta releases. just wondering if i got shit luck or its some bug, or a balance thing to make your cities more valuable. and yah do eleminated players remove from the overall calculation of monster spawning?

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OH yah Btw a big bug is that quest that gives your that fancy armor thats like 15 protection that says oh its to big to wear, you cant wear it initially but if u trade it to any other champion, he can tehn wear it, also if you trade it back to your main toon he can then wear it also, its one of the fairly early quests maybe around lvl3 dungeions ruins etc. just figured id add that incase no one noticed it. the armors just supposedt o be a item to sell for gold i belive.

Also in teh adventure techs, could we maybe add a description as to what notablle location thing it adds to weathers its the quests on , notable location one, or whatever the 3rd one is, i think tehres 3 right, but i get 2 techs with the same exact description and im always at a guess to wich one it improves my level on.

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Not sure were to post crash logs but u just need the debug file, in rar or zip format right , well i had no crashes untill i loaded my game at turn 199 , loading saved games seems to be the biggest crash issue that ive had latelye, other then the loads games been running great overall, ill try and post up some bugs today for u guys.

heres the link

http://www.filefactory.com/file/b4afh37/n/debug.rar

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