[Suggestion/Gameplay] Stats, Character Design and Items

Or: What's Wrong With The System?

from Elemental Forums

Stats

Now, one of the main troubles I see with stats is that they are very, very, VERY dull at this point in time. You grab dexterity for that extra 10% bonus to your defence, strength for that extra 10% bonus to your attack, constitution for that extra +whatever to your health. They're really yawn worthy in design, a purely linear evolution that only effects a single thing in the entire game.

My concept is to, instead, rewrite the current system to make stats effect a greater bit of sovereign design, instead of the currently simplistic character creation.

An idea on how stats should work:

Out of Combat / World Map / In Cities:-

  • Strength - Should allow you to equip heavier items. I'll get to this later in the items section. I'm not sure what else strength CAN do. Maybe have certain "skill checks" in quests, and one of them is strength if you select a certain option?
  • Intelligence - Bonus to research in any city the character is currently in, (perhaps in percentage?) gives a larger mana pool, increases effect of spells and (possibly) increases essence.
  • Charisma - Gives the player the ability to recruit characters (including armies) cheaper, as well as allowing them to recruit more champions and field a larger army. I'd suggest a champion per three charisma, and maybe ten troops per charisma. Maybe have certain champions require a certain charisma. Diplomacy should also be granted a bonus from this. Gets rid of the concept of charisma being a "dump stat". Again, I'll add in the concept of "skill checks" in quests.
  • Dexterity - What CAN this do outside combat? Maybe stop characters from tripping over any rocks left laying about? I really don't know. Possibly increase movement speed out of combat by a small amount?
  • Willpower - Affects regen of mana (like it is now), aids in diplomatic battles (it is a battle of wills, after all), increases resistance to any mind altering effects that may be in game and decreases enemy's chance to resist your spells. This is probably as underloved as dexterity is. Any ideas?
  • Constitution - First off, before anything else, let me DEFINITELY say this should effect essence. Constitution is your life force, binding it to essence in some way ( I don't really know how ) would make a lot of sense, as well as harming warrior types who are capable of, at the moment, just spending essence willy nilly as an useless resource because using it doesn't harm them like it harms mages. Okay, now that's over with, I'd suggest constitution effects health, poison resistance, equippable items and movement outside of combat (possibly altered by dexterity). At the moment, constitution is another dump stat. You put points in it where they don't have anywhere else to go. If it was to boost essence, movement, equippable items and health, then you'd have a far greater incentive to put stats in it. Oh, and I'd suggest renaming it Endurance, if it's going to effect movement speed too.

In Combat:-

  • Strength - Bonus to damage based off weapon used. More on that later.
  • Intelligence - Spell damage increased from intelligence.
  • Charisma - A morale system would be nice, but we'll have to see when we get tactical battles. Amount of units a character can lead into a battle, maybe? If a morale system is in, maybe have it effect the morale of the troops as a finite resource? Say, 10 troops is the max a charisma of 1 can lead effectively, and over that they begin to doubt their leader?
  • Dexterity - Movement speed in combat, accuracy (ie chance of hitting) of attacks (don't make it overly necessary, just useful enough to enjoy having), increases damage done by "piercing" weapons in addition to strength. Possible chance to "dodge" attacks, reduced by armour?
  • Willpower - Effects the "energy / fatigue" of the unit. A new concept that means that massively powerful units can EVENTUALLY be overran by a massive army. Imagine you've got a dragon against a horde of spearmen. Without fatigue, it'll probably beat them no matter what. With, it'll eventually run out of juice and either have to flee (possibly with a chance to die) or attack and be backed up by others. Effects chance of resisting spells and increases the mental fortitude of the character.
  • Constitution / possibly Endurance - Effects the "energy / fatigue" of the unit, as seen above. Should also effect health.

That's pretty much it for stats. Maybe they're not fully fleshed out (including the maths, I'd need to know a min and a max in terms of stats for that) but you get the concept.

As an addendum to the above, stat growth should never, ever be linear. You'll get super specialised (ie. in one stat) champions that dominate that specific field and are useless in the rest. This might not sound like a terrible thing to everyone else, but it truly annoys me when the best method for growing a character is to just give them one stat. Stat cost should either increase (might not work with the current system) or bonuses should decrease (ie. going from 1 intelligence to 2 increases it more than 10 to 11, and not just in terms of percentage either). This might not be the method Stardock wants to go down, and that's perfectly reasonable, but I think it'd work the best in any system you could think of.

Comments / criticism / opinions / ideas of your own? Needs more input.

Character Design

Character design is, again, rather disappointing. I like the sovereign appearance customisation, that's quite a bit of fun to miss around with, but creation and further design is rather dull. This might all be addressed in Beta 3A (or whenever we're getting sovereign skill trees), but you never know, so here're my two pence.

The points I'd like to address is the original "profession" of the sovereign (and what it should effect), the role of stats in creation and design and the bonuses and negatives.

In the current build professions do very little except add a minor bonus, and those bonuses vary vastly in terms of effect and usefulness. If the skill trees are effected by the sovereign's original profession then that's fine, but if they're not they need a massive overhaul. One of the best suggestions I've seen is that sovereigns gain experience / essence from actions associated with their profession. The more mines a miner builds, the more essence and experience he gains (exponentially increasing, of course, x^n, where n is the number of mines that player has built and still has control of). A warrior gains a bonus to experience gained from combat, a warlord gains experience / essence from the number of wins his troops gain, a bard gains it from how prestigious his cities are, a royal gains it from how many people he has control over etc etc. You should probably give sovereigns an innate xp per turn, too, and just applies these things as a bonus to it.

I think that deserves it's own thing, actually. Definitely give sovereigns xp per turn, no matter what. Really, this is uber important. Sovereigns should get experience per turn.

Anyhow, the bonuses and negatives should be effected by statistics. If I have an intelligence of 15, I don't believe I should be able to take the negative "Stupid", and similarly if I have an intelligence of 5 I don't think I should be able to take Organised or Brilliant. Not only doesn't it make any sense, but it also allows for hyper specialised builds that don't lose anything from their choices. Organised should require an intelligence of 10 or 12 maybe, to force players to make tradeoffs in order to take the especially useful bonuses. (And, no, those 10 points don't really count, considering I can get 15 from lowering my sovereign's intelligence to 5.)

I think that's pretty much all I have on character design. Comments / criticism / opinions / ideas of your own? :p

Items

Items need a major reworking. The entire system is just buggered. There's a single statistic for attack and defence, and it doesn't even take into account dexterity as an offensive statistic. Also, most (ie. almost all) weapons become useless when you unlock one higher up the tech tree. I don't believe, personally, that's how it should work.

Weapons

I think I'll address weapons first. Let's assume that weapons have two "statistics" in the real world, piercing ability and slashing / smashing (completely different, but similar enough to group together) ability. It'd be possible to break it up into slashing, piercing and smashing, but if we're going in that direction we might as well go for slashing, smashing, chopping, piercing, hacking etc.

Piercing weapons are mainly used to damage internal organs or cause major bleeding, whilst slashing / smashing weapons are used to break bones or cut off limbs. Piercing is more of a "critical hit" weapon system (ie. double to quadruple damage on certain rolls, multiple rolls used when a character gets a critical hit?), whilst slashing / smashing are more direct HP damage.

Weapons such as rapiers, daggers, arrows are piercing weapons whilst axes, battle hammers, bastard swords are slashing / smashing weapons. Short/longswords are capable of doing either (although piercing to a lesser degree), and weapons such as morning stars and flails do both.

Each weapon is effected by a combination of skill (dexterity) and strength (strength). The effects these have on user's attacks vary considerably between weapons. Skill mainly effects piercing weapons (rapiers, daggers, bows), whilst strength mainly effects smashing / slashing weapons (axes, battle hammers, bastard swords). However, this wouldn't work the same as the current multiplier system, as that just annoys me personally.

To see where I'm going with this, we have to use a few examples.

A dagger is a piercing weapon which is mainly effect by skill. It gains a minor (+1% damage per strength, maybe?) bonus from strength, but it's major bonus comes from the skill of the user (+2% chance of a critical hit per dexterity point and maybe additional damage on critical hits). In contrast, a battle hammer is a smashing weapon which is mainly effected by strength. It gains a minor or no bonus from dexterity (possibly no chance at all of a critical hit?) whilst it gains a major bonus from strength (+5% damage per strength). An axe would be similar to the battle axe, but would gain a lesser bonus from strength (+3% damage per strength) whilst gaining a small bonus from skill (+0.5% chance of a critical hit per dexterity point).

To see weapons within the exact same category, have a look at crossbows and longbows. Crossbows are useful for hordes of untrained peasants (Go Empires!), as they have a high base piercing damage (20 damage or something like that, wow!) and a fairly large range but gain absolutely no bonus from strength and only a minor accuracy bonus from dexterity. In contrast, longbows have a far lower base damage (5 damage, sad face), but gain a massive range or damage bonus from strength (+5% damage per point, +0.5 squares in tactical combat per point) as they're capable of pulling the string back farther and a large accuracy bonus from dexterity.

That's pretty much it. This is the part I've spent the least attention to, and probably deserves the most attention in game. A damage system like this is one of the major things the game is missing.

Armour

Armour, like weapons, currently has a single statistic. In my opinion, this isn't right. Along with any elemental / magical damage you gents are planning, there really should be more than one statistic, otherwise it just doesn't make much sense.

As an example, take chainmail and platemail armour. Chainmail protects a great deal from slashing / smashing damage (maybe not smashing as much, but it certainly helps more than flesh and can withstand more than platemail armour can) whilst being fairly weak against piercing. Chainmail is therefore more useful against hordes of swordsmen than it is against arrows, whilst restricting movement less than platemail. Platemail protects nicely against slashing / smashing (only slightly higher / lower, depending on whether or not you want to simulate platemail crumpling under the weight of a blow which can cause damage / restrict breathing), whilst being extremely protective against piercing damage. It does, however, restrict movement a LOT, meaning wearers are very, very slow in combat.

If you want to fit leather armour etc into this, they should be capable of good movement (faster than chainmail or platemail) whilst still offering minor protection (against archers mainly). More back lines / fast movement sort of gear.

I can't think of any other ideas for armour, but I think you all get the jist of it.

Comments / criticism / opinions / ideas of your own?

Final Word

I really am enjoying the beta (even if the heat problems are annoying :p) and hope to see it evolve and be ready for release. I also really want some criticism / comments on my ideas, no matter how harsh they may seem. If it's a lack of maths though, screw you guys, I'm too lazy to invent an entire system without any context to really slot it into, since the entire beta is evolving so fast. :p

Comments / criticism / opinions / ideas of your own? xD

1,478 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Strength - Should allow you to equip heavier items. I'll get to this later in the items section. I'm not sure what else strength CAN do. Maybe have certain "skill checks" in quests, and one of them is strength if you select a certain option? 
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Remember that the Sovereign is not the only unit with stats. Trying to keep track of what 30 champions can wear and what they can't by their strength scores is not going to be fun.

Intelligence - Bonus to research in any city the character is currently in, (perhaps in percentage?) gives a larger mana pool, increases effect of spells and (possibly) increases essence.
End of quote

I don't see what the Intelligence score has to do with researching in city. There are already "scholar" type champions that generate extra research points. Besides, a single stat shouldn't be the determining factor of "Do I keep my guy in the city or not". Also, spell damage is based on Int already.

Willpower - Affects regen of mana (like it is now), aids in diplomatic battles (it is a battle of wills, after all), increases resistance to any mind altering effects that may be in game and decreases enemy's chance to resist your spells. This is probably as underloved as dexterity is. Any ideas?
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Diplomacy is done by the factions, not by the Sovereigns really. And, again considering Champions, are you going to have to find the character with the best Willpower to "talk to" other factions constantly?

Constitution - First off, before anything else, let me DEFINITELY say this should effect essence. Constitution is your life force, binding it to essence in some way ( I don't really know how ) would make a lot of sense, as well as harming warrior types who are capable of, at the moment, just spending essence willy nilly as an useless resource because using it doesn't harm them like it harms mages.
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Constitution is physical fitness, having absolutely nothing to do with essence. While it's true that Essence is useless for Warrior-types, wouldn't it make more sense to make it beneficial for them to encourage careful use, rather than penalize them for use?

Strength - Bonus to damage based off weapon used. More on that later.

Intelligence - Spell damage increased from intelligence.

Charisma - A morale system would be nice, but we'll have to see when we get tactical battles. Amount of units a character can lead into a battle, maybe? If a morale system is in, maybe have it effect the morale of the troops as a finite resource? Say, 10 troops is the max a charisma of 1 can lead effectively, and over that they begin to doubt their leader?

Dexterity - Movement speed in combat, accuracy (ie chance of hitting) of attacks (don't make it overly necessary, just useful enough to enjoy having), increases damage done by "piercing" weapons in addition to strength. Possible chance to "dodge" attacks, reduced by armour?

Willpower - Effects the "energy / fatigue" of the unit. A new concept that means that massively powerful units can EVENTUALLY be overran by a massive army. Imagine you've got a dragon against a horde of spearmen. Without fatigue, it'll probably beat them no matter what. With, it'll eventually run out of juice and either have to flee (possibly with a chance to die) or attack and be backed up by others. Effects chance of resisting spells and increases the mental fortitude of the character.

Constitution / possibly Endurance - Effects the "energy / fatigue" of the unit, as seen above. Should also effect health.
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Too complicated. Remember that the game needs to be able to potentially simulate tons of auto-resolve battles between turns, and most of this complexity is harmful. There's a huge difference between simulating straight damage/defense rolls per unit per turn and adding dodge, % damage modifiers, fatigue, chance to hit, spell resist per unit per turn.

I think that deserves it's own thing, actually. Definitely give sovereigns xp per turn, no matter what. Really, this is uber important. Sovereigns should get experience per turn.
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Absolutely no reason to give Sovereigns exp per turn for doing nothing. If anything, allow some xp leak when Champions imbued by the Sovereign fight. Since imbuing Champions uses the Sovereign's essence, you can make a case that he could get a portion of xp those Champions gain when they fight.

I think I'll address weapons first. Let's assume that weapons have two "statistics" in the real world, piercing ability and slashing / smashing (completely different, but similar enough to group together) ability. It'd be possible to break it up into slashing, piercing and smashing, but if we're going in that direction we might as well go for slashing, smashing, chopping, piercing, hacking etc.
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There are already damage types for weapons (slashing, piercing, blunt, etc), they're just not in our build.

Armour, like weapons, currently has a single statistic. In my opinion, this isn't right. Along with any elemental / magical damage you gents are planning, there really should be more than one statistic, otherwise it just doesn't make much sense.
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Like weapons, armor protects vs different damage types, not in our build.

 

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Annatar11, reply 1
Remember that the Sovereign is not the only unit with stats. Trying to keep track of what 30 champions can wear and what they can't by their strength scores is not going to be fun.
End of Annatar11's quote

I don't see why this would be so difficult or complex. I think most people would like the semi-forced customisation.

Quoting Annatar11, reply 1
I don't see what the Intelligence score has to do with researching in city. There are already "scholar" type champions that generate extra research points. Besides, a single stat shouldn't be the determining factor of "Do I keep my guy in the city or not". Also, spell damage is based on Int already.
End of Annatar11's quote

Intelligence is... Intelligence. Intellect. Ability to think. It has a lot to do with research. You're probably right on the "should I leave this guy in a city" thing, though, as well as the scholar thing. Maybe a global bonus based off your sovereign? I suspect scholar champions will be forced to sit in cities no matter what.

The spell damage thing is too direct ( INT/2% extra damage), as well as not effecting different spells ( as far as we can tell ). It should increase the damage done by a less direct or decreasing effect. ( sqrt(INT*2)% extra damage, as an example, or -sqrt(INT*4) strength from a unit from a strength decreasing spell.

Quoting Annatar11, reply 1
Diplomacy is done by the factions, not by the Sovereigns really. And, again considering Champions, are you going to have to find the character with the best Willpower to "talk to" other factions constantly?
End of Annatar11's quote

Well, a combination of willpower and charisma. =p You might be right, but I would like to have dedicated diplomats to various factions.

Quoting Annatar11, reply 1
Constitution is physical fitness, having absolutely nothing to do with essence. While it's true that Essence is useless for Warrior-types, wouldn't it make more sense to make it beneficial for them to encourage careful use, rather than penalize them for use?
End of Annatar11's quote

Actually, constitution is the physical body of a person, not fitness. It's what makes them, hence why it makes sense for it to be combined with essence.

Essence isn't useless for warrior types, it's just a resource that doesn't need to be managed. You can spend it willy nilly without any harm being done, whilst a caster has to carefully manage it. It's a major step up over casters.

Quoting Annatar11, reply 1
Too complicated. Remember that the game needs to be able to potentially simulate tons of auto-resolve battles between turns, and most of this complexity is harmful. There's a huge difference between simulating straight damage/defense rolls per unit per turn and adding dodge, % damage modifiers, fatigue, chance to hit, spell resist per unit per turn.
End of Annatar11's quote

Honestly, I doubt most people are going to autoresolve, considering how it usually (ie. in most games) gives the worst outcome (maybe not in Elemental, but autoresolve certainly sucks at the moment).

Even if they do, what's wrong with a little complexity? If I wanted simplicity, I'd play a board game. Units already have chance to hit, spell resist is going to be necessary, as are damage modifiers. Morale is apparently already going to be in, fatigue won't be a major overhaul (a similar system to that, but based off Constitution instead). Etc etc.

Quoting Annatar11, reply 1
Absolutely no reason to give Sovereigns exp per turn for doing nothing. If anything, allow some xp leak when Champions imbued by the Sovereign fight. Since imbuing Champions uses the Sovereign's essence, you can make a case that he could get a portion of xp those Champions gain when they fight.
End of Annatar11's quote

Let me take an example from Fall from Heaven. In that game, heroes always got xp per turn (a minor amount, but still constant), so they could grow away from constant warfare. If they didn't have xp per turn, they'd instead (ie. if all opponents within reach were exhausted) not be able to grow.

I mean, these guys are immortal magic users who are capable of putting their essence into the land in order to regrow it. I don't see any reason they shouldn't gain experience per turn. =p Just pretend they're training or something.

Quoting Annatar11, reply 1
There are already damage types for weapons (slashing, piercing, blunt, etc), they're just not in our build.
End of Annatar11's quote

Source?

Quoting Annatar11, reply 1
Like weapons, armor protects vs different damage types, not in our build.
End of Annatar11's quote

Again, source? And, damn you beta! Damn you to heck!

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I don't see why this would be so difficult or complex. I think most people would like the semi-forced customisation.
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I didn't say it would be difficult or complex, but that it wouldn't be fun trying to juggle a piece of armor between 30-some guys trying to figure out who can wear it and who can't.

Intelligence is... Intelligence. Intellect. Ability to think. It has a lot to do with research.
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Again, I didn't say it has nothing to do with research, I said it has nothing to do with research in a city (since it's done regardless of Sov being there by little people in the research buildings). If you want to connect Intelligence with Research, make the Sovereign talent that generates research points based off Int, so the higher the int the more it generates.

Essence isn't useless for warrior types, it's just a resource that doesn't need to be managed. You can spend it willy nilly without any harm being done, whilst a caster has to carefully manage it. It's a major step up over casters.
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It's useless in the sense that having in doesn't do anything for a warrior type. For a caster, having more means more mana. For a warrior, having more is.. nothing.

Honestly, I doubt most people are going to autoresolve, considering how it usually (ie. in most games) gives the worst outcome (maybe not in Elemental, but autoresolve certainly sucks at the moment).

Even if they do, what's wrong with a little complexity? If I wanted simplicity, I'd play a board game. Units already have chance to hit, spell resist is going to be necessary, as are damage modifiers. Morale is apparently already going to be in, fatigue won't be a major overhaul (a similar system to that, but based off Constitution instead). Etc etc.

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Thinking what most people are going to do is not really relevant to making an engine work. And people aren't the only consideration. If you're playing with 9 AI, they're going to autoresolve all the battles between each other. It has to be able to do it, the potential is always there. What's wrong with complexity is the vastly increased amount of calculations needed every time you throw something new in. Units don't already have a "chance to hit" (accuracy). The combat log displays a miss when the attack rolls lower than defense. This isn't what you proposed, though. Why is spell resist going to be necessary? It exists in some games sure, and there are Resist <Element> spells, so a global spell resist isn't necessary. Nor are damage modifiers. You haven't made a case for why they're necessary.

These things commonly exist in RPGs because you're dealing with very few characters at once so you need a lot of different "stuff" for them. Not so in Elemental, because you're dealing with a TBS game where you can have a few hundred units fighting.

Let me take an example from Fall from Heaven. In that game, heroes always got xp per turn (a minor amount, but still constant), so they could grow away from constant warfare. If they didn't have xp per turn, they'd instead (ie. if all opponents within reach were exhausted) not be able to grow.

I mean, these guys are immortal magic users who are capable of putting their essence into the land in order to regrow it. I don't see any reason they shouldn't gain experience per turn. =p Just pretend they're training or something.
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What another game does is irrelevant if you don't make a case for why it should be like that in Elemental. "I don't see why they shouldn't" doesn't work. What reason is there that they should?

Source?
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https://forums.elementalgame.com/385858 reply #8

 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Annatar11, reply 3
I didn't say it would be difficult or complex, but that it wouldn't be fun trying to juggle a piece of armor between 30-some guys trying to figure out who can wear it and who can't.
End of Annatar11's quote

I'd, personally, probably enjoy it. Micromanagement of various heroes is something I've always enjoyed in games. I really don't know if other people would enjoy it or not.


Quoting Annatar11, reply 3
Again, I didn't say it has nothing to do with research, I said it has nothing to do with research in a city (since it's done regardless of Sov being there by little people in the research buildings). If you want to connect Intelligence with Research, make the Sovereign talent that generates research points based off Int, so the higher the int the more it generates.
End of Annatar11's quote

That's not such a bad idea. See, criticism is good. =p Especially since it ties in with the bonuses / negatives overhaul concept.


Quoting Annatar11, reply 3
It's useless in the sense that having in doesn't do anything for a warrior type. For a caster, having more means more mana. For a warrior, having more is.. nothing.
End of Annatar11's quote


Exactly. So a warrior can spend it however he likes, whereas a mage has to conserve it. Mages get punished for using it, warriors do not. I suspect that a warrior could put his magic essence into various mage type characters, therefore having more magic overall than a mage sovereign.


Quoting Annatar11, reply 3
Thinking what most people are going to do is not really relevant to making an engine work. And people aren't the only consideration. If you're playing with 9 AI, they're going to autoresolve all the battles between each other. It has to be able to do it, the potential is always there. What's wrong with complexity is the vastly increased amount of calculations needed every time you throw something new in. Units don't already have a "chance to hit" (accuracy). The combat log displays a miss when the attack rolls lower than defense. This isn't what you proposed, though. Why is spell resist going to be necessary? It exists in some games sure, and there are Resist <Element> spells, so a global spell resist isn't necessary. Nor are damage modifiers. You haven't made a case for why they're necessary.

These things commonly exist in RPGs because you're dealing with very few characters at once so you need a lot of different "stuff" for them. Not so in Elemental, because you're dealing with a TBS game where you can have a few hundred units fighting.
End of Annatar11's quote

I don't mind waiting a bit longer for turns to pan out if it means greater complexity in combat.

Attack "rolling lower than defence" isn't really the same as a miss, however. This is all going to have to be resolved when tactical combat comes out, but misses should be an innate part of the system simply because it is (in my opinion, at the least) important to differentiate between damage blocked and damage completely avoided. It seems all this is in, however, so this discussion is moot.

Spell resist is important simply because it's a nice way to defend against spells beyond the resist spells. Let's say you have a melee sovereign, and his melee defence is massive. However, he continually gets instakilled by magic sovereigns. Is that right to have?

Quoting Annatar11, reply 3
What another game does is irrelevant if you don't make a case for why it should be like that in Elemental. "I don't see why they shouldn't" doesn't work. What reason is there that they should?
End of Annatar11's quote


What reason is there that they shouldn't? You could have a non-combat sovereign who will never gain experience otherwise. Allowing him to train behind the lines allows him to grow instead of just wallowing in non-combat. There're a variety of reasons for, and none (that I can see) for not having it. Why not?


Quoting Annatar11, reply 3
https://forums.elementalgame.com/385858 reply #8
End of Annatar11's quote

Well, that's good, it has quite a few concepts I've mentioned in this thread. I don't like the autoresolve trouble, though.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Exactly. So a warrior can spend it however he likes, whereas a mage has to conserve it. Mages get punished for using it, warriors do not. I suspect that a warrior could put his magic essence into various mage type characters, therefore having more magic overall than a mage sovereign.
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I don't think of it as mages getting punished for using it. I think of it as Essence giving mages more mana, so they're encouraged to use it wisely. If you have Essence affect Con, then if a mage uses some he'll lose both mana and HP. Now, if Essence gave warriors *extra* hp and the less you have the lower the bonus, then that would be a different story. You'd just have to find a good way to differentiate between a "warrior" and "mage" that's not just whichever score is higher, because a difference of 1 point doesn't really make one a mage or a warrior.

What reason is there that they shouldn't? You could have a non-combat sovereign who will never gain experience otherwise. Allowing him to train behind the lines allows him to grow instead of just wallowing in non-combat. There're a variety of reasons for, and none (that I can see) for not having it. Why not?
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Reason why they shouldn't? Because leveling up allows you to increase fun things like essence, and will allow you to increase your max spell points for spell learning. Which means a Sovereign who hasn't done anything will be able to cast endgame spells and all that fun stuff without having done anything to earn it. If the sovereign has to fight for it, it's a much more reasonable scenario of "If you want to be all-powerful, go out there and fight until you get there".

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I agree with you Autarkhos that stats, character design and items are dull when looked at in an isolated way. And hope that they will be made slightly more interesting.

But a very colourful and detailed model in this area as you suggest, would out-balance the complexity of other parts of the game. 

And if all parts of the game were this detailed, it would be very challenging for the player to grasp, considering characters and unit stats is only a small part of the total picture. Not to mention how hard to make the AI player handle it.

I'm guessing the finished Elemental will still be fairly simple in the details of subsystems, but awesome as a total game.

 

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Annatar11, reply 5
I don't think of it as mages getting punished for using it. I think of it as Essence giving mages more mana, so they're encouraged to use it wisely. If you have Essence affect Con, then if a mage uses some he'll lose both mana and HP. Now, if Essence gave warriors *extra* hp and the less you have the lower the bonus, then that would be a different story. You'd just have to find a good way to differentiate between a "warrior" and "mage" that's not just whichever score is higher, because a difference of 1 point doesn't really make one a mage or a warrior.
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You're... Just doing exactly the same thing, but making it seem like a bonus instead of a negative. This is sort of like beta WoW, where Blizzard had the rested bonus increase your experience gain to 100% and spending too much time playing lowered it to 50%. Players complained, so Blizzard changed non-rested to 100% and rested to 200% without actually altering the values. (ie. 100% was 50% pre-change and 200% was 100% pre-change.)

Essence using life would also make mages considerably frailer, which is always a good change to me.

Quoting Annatar11, reply 5
Reason why they shouldn't? Because leveling up allows you to increase fun things like essence, and will allow you to increase your max spell points for spell learning. Which means a Sovereign who hasn't done anything will be able to cast endgame spells and all that fun stuff without having done anything to earn it. If the sovereign has to fight for it, it's a much more reasonable scenario of "If you want to be all-powerful, go out there and fight until you get there".
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So, you're randomly placed on a peninsula in a game. You're incapable of leaving, because an enemy sovereign has blocked you in. The only growth you have is in terms of troops, and that's really minor. A higher level sovereign would break through, but you can't level him up in this situation for whatever reasons. (No defeatable enemies etc.) In this situation, having your sovereign gain experience would be a major boon for the player trapped on the peninsula. If it's necessary, only have the sovereign gain experience per turn up to a certain point (250 experience total, or something), to allow early game growth without effecting late game development.

There's a bunch of other factors that limit all-powerful sovereigns, experience gain just allows the growth of stay-at-city or incapable sovereigns. It also allows slow growing sovereigns that're worthless in the early game but end up being pretty damn powerful towards the mid and late game. (As you can't risk them in combat, as they're terrible, but they're perfectly fine to leave at home to grow.) It adds a lot of strategy to the game for such a simple change.

Quoting Saeter, reply 6
I agree with you Autarkhos that stats, character design and items are dull when looked at in an isolated way. And hope that they will be made slightly more interesting.

But a very colourful and detailed model in this area as you suggest, would out-balance the complexity of other parts of the game. 

And if all parts of the game were this detailed, it would be very challenging for the player to grasp, considering characters and unit stats is only a small part of the total picture. Not to mention how hard to make the AI player handle it.

I'm guessing the finished Elemental will still be fairly simple in the details of subsystems, but awesome as a total game.
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We'll have to see when Beta 3 comes along. For the most complex strategy game I've ever seen (and probably one of the best) go check out Dominions 3. It's pretty damn crazy.