Elemental Beta 3 Walkthru » Forum Post by Frogboy

i like changes to magic system, looks promising and solving various problems reported in past beta

im looking forward to try it asap

also its very cool to have units(and champions) with special abilities, i loved very much that kind of things in kings bounty and if its going to be similar im very happy

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Heh, just mentioned this in one of my forum posts! sweet!

"Units can escape from battle. However, each unit that leaves the battlefield causes a morale hit to those remaining."

Thank you Frogboy, cannot (but unfortunately have to) wait to get hands in on this and "The Hiergamenon"

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Looking forward to trying the changes. I especially like the flexibility of the race/faction/ideology component. I think that will be a great replayability factor for me.

Excited to see the changes in the Magic system. You didn't mention any UI changes for this specific build, but I assume there will be some improvements there as well?

As a junkie for anything random, I would love to see your original random map generator, and even to develop it more if possible. Hope we get a chance to see it sometime. Although I think the seed maps with random "stuff" is a great idea.

Thanks for the update.

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Rock on!

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exciting

looking forward to release...

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Thanks Mr. Frogboy.

twitch twitch

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Some big changes coming, So we can look a tthe whole pice at least for a brief, cant wait to it

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You should have it up at 8:30 am eastern time on Thursday. That way i can play it as soon as i am home from work.

Also looking forward to the new magic systems and fallen!!

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Fantastic i'm ready to start !!!!

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Like I've said in the past, Frogboy is a worse tease than my girlfriend.

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Amazing! The tactical battle system that you described is precisely what I was hoping for! Thank you!

Just some questions, if you don't mind:

Will battlefields conform to the terrain type that the battle is initiated? Such as, mountains have huge "chasms" that prevent unit movement across some tiles?

Will some unit types have different active-type abilities available to them during the tactical combat phase? Obvious ones might include spell-casting, stealth, cleave attacks, etc.

And finally (a little unrelated to the tactical combat side, admittedly), will there be other caster units that have essence "pools" that can cast enchantments on other units? Or will there be a general "pool" of essence used by all casters that is capable of being drawn upon by different types of caster units? Or, will only the sovereign unit be able to cast spells?

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3 minutes sounds about right for tactical battles. If they lasted longer, people wouldn't use them in multiplayer.

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Very good news !

But ... attack speed = action points ? How a sword with 2 AP could let my unit move 2 times ? With better gear you could move faster ? Isn't it totally counterintuitive ?

So a caster with a sword that has 2 AP would be able to cast more spells than bare-handed ?

Are we really going to see all casters with really fast weapons ? Wearing heavy armor will reduce attack speed. Ok, that's logic (not real but logic. In reality it's the training with the armor that would be important). So we won't see casters with heavy armors. But weapons should be like armor : never giving bonuses but only maluses.

Or just cut the AP in three categories : moving, casting, attacking. A weapon would add AP in attacking but not in moving or casting. Boots of speed would add AP to movement but not to attacks.

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This came from Beta 2-B (last Thursday). So yesterday we re-did the magic system and it now works as follows:

Spells do not cost Essence. Only mana.

Your mana max is equal to your essence.

Initial essence = to unit’s intelligence.

Is Essence ever going to be used to benefit a physical damage dealer? You used to make the example of Sauron in the beginning of The Fellowship when comparing to a Sovereign with Essence, but that wasn't Magic. That was just him picking up a mace and killing a hundred guys with one swing. Right now if I choose to specialize my Sovereign in Physical Damage dealing (Strength/Dexterity/Constitution), I gain a very negligible benefit from Essence.

If you choose tactical battles, the game zooms in and effectively loads a special map based on the terrain (so that we can put extra goodies on there)

Will modders be able to create more tactical battle maps?

Tactical battles are designed to be quite short. Our goal is to have them default to being over in less than 3 minutes. However, we hope (though no promises by release) to make a scaling option so that these can be extended or shortened at player request.

Obviously you guys have been working on it for a while and are better judges, but a 2-3 minute battle seems less than tactical. As long as there's enough opportunity for beneficial unit control (meaning, not just charge the enemy head on), it should be good.

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edit: nevermind

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Holy. Smokes.

WOW! Simply cannot wait for each successive build, and, therefore, the actualy release! Well done!

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So far, everything is certainly sounding good. And as much as I was hoping for Tactical battles in this beta. If it's a matter of fixing them so that they all rock. Well that's fine.

As an aside, I think it would be neat to have some dungeon's be "Tactical Battle Maps" for groups to explore. With them conceivably having connected "Levels" With the ability for the player to spend several "Turns" in the dungeon, exploring each "Tactical Battle Map" they represent.

I think that would be seriously bad ass. And really give that dungeon crawl type experience.

But all the rest sounds good. And I'm looking to have the tech's all turned on. As it should feel much more like a real game. And really happy about the random maps. I was getting increasingly turned off by their lack of variable.

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As an aside, I'm still reserving my opinion on the length of a tactical battle. Without having a real context with actual experience on this front, as you've not released it. I don't know what feels right yet. (Though depending on the size of battles, I would hope that some did indeed last longer.)

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Interesting on the traits. I like that.

However, will there be any incentivization for Wisdom?

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Wow tons of stuff COOL! Maybe just maybe I think August release might work out with each build getting so damn beefy!

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#1 Random Maps are in. Yes. Finally, we have finally made available the random maps. The random maps in Elemental use seed maps that we craft ourselves and then randomize them up. [Originally our random maps were created fractally and while this may work well in a traditional strategy game, it does not work so well in a game like Elemental because of the vital need for choke points and “fantasy” stylings we had in mind. So we worked on the randomized map generation until we got something we liked except that each map took approximately 5 minutes to generate. It’s something we’ll probably release in the future still.]

So, will you allow us to mod our own map generators?

I mean, fractal maps are pitiful if you want chokepoints or mountain ranges. Look at the Erebus mapscript in Civ IV /FfH2 for an example of a great random map perfectly suited to a fantasy game. There's no reason why a map can't be generated fast and be good.

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I like this new magic system a lot. However, is it possible to leave the option, at least for modders, of making certain spells cost Essence? I like the idea of certain spells requiring commitment, rather than mere involvement.

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im most excited for the custom sovereign and custom Empire/Kingdom. really develop a stragety

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Nice! Btw the trogs are looking like the uruks from Peter Jackson's movie....somewhat at least.

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Quoting ,

quoting post

It only costs essence if you need to revive the land from the OPPOSITE ideology’s magic source (LIFE vs. DEATH). So barren land doesn’t need essence to build a town on anymore. But if you’re a Kingdom you can’t just waltz into Imperial terraformed land and pop down a city without paying for it.

I'm assuming there's no cost if I take one of their cities? If I do that, do I have to demolish and convert it to my type of buildings?

#7 The Magic System has been completely redone
This came from Beta 2-B (last Thursday). So yesterday we re-did the magic system and it now works as follows:

Spells do not cost Essence. Only mana. Your mana max is equal to your essence. Initial essence = to unit’s intelligence. Many spells will be considered Enchantments. There is no upkeep on enchantments. Instead, players will be able to maintain N enchantments where N is based on the caster’s essence. Enchantments do not stack (bug in beta 2a was thatenchantments stacked).

If you raise your intelligence later, does essence go with it? Or is it still a seperate stat? Also as someone else mentioned, what does wisdom do now that mana regen is seperate?

Another important spell: Dispel Magic. This gets rid of enemy enchantments but has a significant chance of failing (based on intelligence of the caster).

Should it also be based on the intelligence of the target? ie: a high intelligence Sovereign's enchants are harder to dispel?

Quite a lot of changes, it looks interesting!

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