Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2393

Dangerous amounts of fun

Greetings!

Oh how I love this part of the beta.

First off, you guys are doing a wonderful job getting us great feedback. There have been several crashes that even our internal QA team hadn’t found yet. The net effect of the public beta team is that it effectively adds engineering hours available to us because we’re able to find and eliminate bugs quicker than we had originally projected.

Jesse and I were debugging through the ridiculously slow movement issue when you have an army. A N^2 number of calls were being made to update the army list creation which of course is just crazy.

A rather nasty crash that was occurring very regularly was found and eliminated today as well and a hard to find but nasty memory leak was found.

Balance, Polish, Game Play

We’ve gotten so much good feedback in the past week you guys that by the time the game comes out, it’ll seem like a very different (and much better) game than it would have otherwise been.

Let me outline some of the crucial things you guys have helped us consider and re-evaluate:

Pacing Pacing Pacing. This is always a tough thing but it just takes too long to do cool stuff. We’re going to eliminate the requirement to build a special building in order to train units. This was a holdover from Galactic Civilizations (it required a shipyard) and Sins of a Solar Empire (shipyard) that really has no purpose in Elemental other than act as a needless speed bump.
Acquiring resources. Similarly, forcing a player to snake out to build a resource (OR be forced to spam cities) in order to make use of various resources IS NOT FUN. Instead, players will be able to simply select a resource and choose build if the resource is in their territory. This not only “gets things moving” but also makes your area of influence matter more (since bigger cities generate a LOT more of it).
Custom Factions. This is something that I think people will like a lot more in practice than they will like on paper. Simply put, we want to let people do a lot more customization on RACE creation and faction creation than can realistically be done in the setup of a game. We’d like to see race creation and subsequently, faction creation to be something much more involved and interesting than it currently is. As a result, we’re moving it to the Workshop area (modding aera). Thus, you won’t have to create factions in the middle of setting up your game but rather can create them at your own pace outside the game and then use them as you see fit. This also allows us to make the race creation a lot more custom and less cosmetic (i.e. we can have Elves and Orcs and other templates in the modding that players can then create their own custom technology trees for and their own custom tiles for, etc.).
MAGIC. A lot of our time is being focused on streamling the magic system and making things more fun and interesting here. Basically we want to make sure players can do a lot of magic stuff early on that’s fun and interesting.
Tactical Battles. You guys haven’t gotten to see this part yet but you will this week. Let me set expectations here: Our tactical battles are very much like Master of Magic except that units have morale and there are terrain bonuses. So if you don’t like Master of Magic, you probably won’t like Elemental’s tactical battles (then again, if you don’t like MoM you probably won’t like Elemental in general).
UI UI UI. Too many clicks. As outdated concepts start to go away, we can massively clean up the UI and start making better use of the empire tree and other systems in place to let the game be the focus.

Anyway, I hope some of you are enjoying the beta process as much as we like having you part of it. If you’ve never been part of a real beta program before, this has probably been quite a trip so far. You guys are truly part of our team.

Have a good weekend!

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Yay! Empire tree love! Among everything else! Sounds good. I'm not sure getting rid of barracks is really necessary, but don't have a strong opinion one way or the other. Would still like to see specialized military buildings that can turn some cities in military powerhouses, so to speak, rather than every city being able to do the same stuff militarily.

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What about AI ?

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2393

Quoting Annatar11,

reply 1

We'll have that. But you shouldn't need to build a command post to build basic units. Enforcers, Guardians, Catapults, etc. require specialized buildings.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2393

Quoting Batlord,

reply 2

What about AI ?

I don't think anyone considers AI to be an important factor. The beta community has has been pretty clear that they don't think the AI needs to be even in the game...

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Quoting ,

quoting post

Acquiring resources. Similarly, forcing a player to snake out to build a resource (OR be forced to spam cities) in order to make use of various resources IS NOT FUN. Instead, players will be able to simply select a resource and choose build if the resource is in their territory. This not only “gets things moving” but also makes your area of influence matter more (since bigger cities generate a LOT more of it).

Very, very nice. I never liked having to grow the actual city to physically reach and occupy the resource. It made for ugly cities, and wasn't realistic (how often were farms and mines inside medieval city walls?). I'd given up hoping that it would change and had just accepted it, but you just made my day.

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sounds good frogger,

but the memory leak that I am experiencing in .806 is mildly frustrating,

as is the huge number of quests that are repeated ( I have had the draginol end game quest show up over 20 times in my current game inspite of the ~250 turn out of memory problem),

and another little issue is on the end of the horse quest the horse dialog pops up twice,

also the competing civs just do NOT upgrade the outposts, so are held back and have a MAJOR disadvantage even to a basic turtle player like myself,

and the command post should go the same way as the basic garden went.

harpo

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Maybe we should get starting spells based off Wisdom or Intelligence that we can choose from our spellbooks.

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kyogre12

Join Date 07/2008

+100

Wow, everything sounds awesome!

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i like what is see here, but one problem i have is that TO much is happening to fast. i am not sure if this is something that will get fixed in the post beta cleanup, but i think you get magic WAY to fast. i have almost all the spells within the first hundred or so turns. to me this makes magic feel cheap and not special. i understand that i can get volcano very quickly but can't use it unless i have the shards, but it still makes me feel like volcano isn't much of an achievement. i want to be able to play and it take ALOT of my resources to be able to get a spell like this, like its some kind of monumental achievement.

oh and i really don't care for the special unit buildings. i think these are unnecessary. i think that instead of a single unit being built out of having a certain building, i think that building should give you traits you can add to the units you create. for instance i don't like having dungeon master units, these are units that are out of my control to make. they are just there. i want to be able to assign traits to units, much like the scout, or messenger kit. then call them what i want and make them look like what i want.

in short i want improvements that unlock traits i can put on units, instead of units that are made for me.

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Thank you for the update Frogboy. Reading over the suggestions other people have made over the course of the week made me think how important it is to always present the player with substantive decisions within the game. Should I build this outpost? When should I build it? Will I have enough time to complete it before my enemy reaches my city? These questions (and more) should always be in the mind of the player. Each unit, each building, each MECHANIC should always have a purpose. I like how you looked over the barracks and decided that it simply wasn't needed. This is exactly what I am talking about and you did an excellent job weeding it out. At no point, for example, should it not matter whether I build something now or 5 turns from now. The player needs to know the consequences of his actions. How and when he acts upon them is what will separate a bad player from a good player.

I suggest that you constantly try to bring about points within the game that allow a player to make these kinds of decisions and reward/penalize them based on the consequences. This is what will truly make this game fun.

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Quoting ,

quoting post

Snip...

Let me outline some of the crucial things you guys have helped us consider and re-evaluate:

Pacing Pacing Pacing. This is always a tough thing but it just takes too long to do cool stuff. We’re going to eliminate the requirement to build a special building in order to train units. This was a holdover from Galactic Civilizations (it required a shipyard) and Sins of a Solar Empire (shipyard) that really has no purpose in Elemental other than act as a needless speed bump.

Custom Factions. This is something that I think people will like a lot more in practice than they will like on paper. Simply put, we want to let people do a lot more customization on RACE creation and faction creation than can realistically be done in the setup of a game. We’d like to see race creation and subsequently, faction creation to be something much more involved and interesting than it currently is. As a result, we’re moving it to the Workshop area (modding aera). Thus, you won’t have to create factions in the middle of setting up your game but rather can create them at your own pace outside the game and then use them as you see fit. This also allows us to make the race creation a lot more custom and less cosmetic (i.e. we can have Elves and Orcs and other templates in the modding that players can then create their own custom technology trees for and their own custom tiles for, etc.).

MAGIC. A lot of our time is being focused on streamling the magic system and making things more fun and interesting here. Basically we want to make sure players can do a lot of magic stuff early on that’s fun and interesting.

Tactical Battles. You guys haven’t gotten to see this part yet but you will this week. Let me set expectations here: Our tactical battles are very much like Master of Magic except that units have morale and there are terrain bonuses. So if you don’t like Master of Magic, you probably won’t like Elemental’s tactical battles (then again, if you don’t like MoM you probably won’t like Elemental in general).

UI UI UI. Too many clicks. As outdated concepts start to go away, we can massively clean up the UI and start making better use of the empire tree and other systems in place to let the game be the focus. Anyway, I hope some of you are enjoying the beta process as much as we like having you part of it. If you’ve never been part of a real beta program before, this has probably been quite a trip so far. You guys are truly part of our team.
Have a good weekend!

Oh Thank you thank you, thank you!! It's like you watched some of my new videos today!

Having to pay for a barracks to build stuff, just felt artificial and way overpriced, and taking up precious space in the community. Thank you!!

Resource, this is something I really am incredibly happy to hear. Why? Because that's what it was like earlier, and it felt important to be able to utilize our territory to make those resources a part of us. (I would encourage the idea of possibly needing to station troops at that location, as others could in theory utilize it to deny a city those resources.)

Custom Factions... Oh yeah... this makes a lot of sense. Because people will want to make their elves, and orcs. And having it out in an area where we can customize a whole boat load of things.. makes a LOT of sense.

Magic.. yep, needs work and I'm seeing you guys are starting to do it. (Though having so many things require shards again is a bit off-putting. Shard magic should be exceptionally powerful, to represent that power, they hold.)

Tactical Battles: Well I have not ever been able to get a game of Master of Magic to work. So I've never had the pleasure or disgust of their tactical battles. But I'm not worried about them. I have faith that they are going to be a lot of fun either way.

And the UIUI UI UI UI.. I just accept that when it goes live in the real world.. we'll have a great streamlined UI.

Thanks again Stardock for all the hardwork!!

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would we consider some random factors?

like Elemental deities - God of wind / fire etc that if we able to please him he may provide goodies in that elemental area, or even can be call upon battle field. Then we shall have some players favor over some elements

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Quoting ,

quoting post

Similarly, forcing a player to snake out to build a resource (OR be forced to spam cities) in order to make use of various resources IS NOT FUN. Instead, players will be able to simply select a resource and choose build if the resource is in their territory. This not only “gets things moving” but also makes your area of influence matter more (since bigger cities generate a LOT more of it).

Wonderful! The snaking cities and frustration of being one tile too short has been by far the biggest annoyance I've had thus far...

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I like snaking! but I also like the external mining colonies.

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it does seem a little frantic at first, but now that i think about it. i kind of like it that way.

super excited about acquiring resources with in a cities territory, instead of right next to it. was just wondering, will there be people wandering back and forth between cities and resources? im the type to zoom in and say heh.. theres my people workin away...

also, i agree with stmorpheus about the special unit buildings. i still want to see them in the game, but if possible, give the player a bit more control over what traits/gear/looks those units have.

Sweet! cant wait to play with the custom race/faction err.. creator. man i could spend hours... it does seem the better choice to separate it from the process of setting up your game.

that said, this game is great already!!!... maybe in just easily amused.

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"I don't think anyone considers AI to be an important factor. The beta community has has been pretty clear that they don't think the AI needs to be even in the game..."

Frogboy,

I assume the above quote is humor since for this game a good AI is critical.

The six areas for change that you describe in your origianl e-mail all sound very good. The game is on the edge of being great - its just a question of these type of improvements that will make it.

One other thing that I have noticed that you might consider is the nature of the "treasures" that are found in the varioius dungeons, etc found around the map. So far they lack excitement. I'd like to see a "magic sword or armor with special abilities or occasionally a magic ring with a bit more than the small improvements the current rings bring. You would not want too much of the special treasures but just enough that people will say "OK, I'm going to do one more dungeon to see what I will find". Then we are hooked on the game.

Thanks for all your hard work.

Xaltotun

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Its been great to be in the beta! Aye, keep it coming!

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Quoting Frogboy,

reply 4

Quoting Batlord, reply 2What about AI ?
I don't think anyone considers AI to be an important factor. The beta community has has been pretty clear that they don't think the AI needs to be even in the game...

yes!!! no ai everyone play online!!

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I like what I see. One question though:

Quoting ,

quoting post

Will we be able to create sovereigns as well in the Workshop? If we can set up factions, but have to start a new game to make the sovereigns for each faction, it just becomes annoying back-and-forth, especially if you've got a whole load of factions and sovereigns planned like me.

Which also raises the question of how the game decides which sovereign is the leader of which faction. If I create five factions in the Workshop, and create five Sovereigns from game creation, and set myself up to fight against them, how does the game know that Blue Leader was designed to lead Blue Faction, and not Yellow Faction?

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I assume the above quote is humor since for this game a good AI is critical.

Sadly he is dead serious. You see, the reason why Frogboy really likes to make games is because he dislikes having to program AI and rather would have only games with multiplayer.

(Eh, wasn't today opposite day? Ups. )

Ah, finally.

And as mentioned above, the pacing of getting spells should imho be looked at pretty hard. The current system kinda feels too open and fast to me and doesn't really have any sense of accomplishing something when I get a new spell.

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Love all the planned changes, and looking forward to seeing them in - 3A is alraedy a heap better than 3 on the gameplay side, just from a couple of days work.

I'd also like to get the resources in territory piece working (though I also like snaking). Presumably these resources would be outside city walls, and enemies can burn the buildings down easily - perhaps for a bit of plunder?

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Quoting Stmorpheus,

reply 9

i think that instead of a single unit being built out of having a certain building, i think that building should give you traits you can add to the units you create. for instance i don't like having dungeon master units, these are units that are out of my control to make. they are just there. i want to be able to assign traits to units, much like the scout, or messenger kit. then call them what i want and make them look like what i want.

in short i want improvements that unlock traits i can put on units, instead of units that are made for me.

This is a really good idea I. Different buildings could give access to different kits. A Dungeoneering school could give a spelunking kit that allows access to deep ancient caves (and thus specialized quests) that are only accessible to those with the right tools. Another building such as an abbey could grant a 'learned' kit that gives a bonus to resisting magic by having the units study meditation and learn the basics of magic so they are aware how it works and theoretically be able to dodge or dig out their nightbane herb to protect against shadow magic or whatever. A knight kit might have slightly superior equipment ratings and a morale bonus since their superior training grants more confidence in their abilities.

You could keep some special units only available with a building mainly the 'monster' Empire ones.

I would also love to see something like Heron of Alexandria's repeating crossbow or the Chinese Cho-ko-no. A kit for these could be available to squads or larger groups showing that one soldier is equipped with the specialized weapon while the rest are equipped normally.

I guess I really like the ability to have better units rather than units that have better equipment. Well trained or elite units with decent gear should walk over green units in plate armor.

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Quoting Cauldyth,

reply 5

quoting post
Acquiring resources. Similarly, forcing a player to snake out to build a resource (OR be forced to spam cities) in order to make use of various resources IS NOT FUN. Instead, players will be able to simply select a resource and choose build if the resource is in their territory. This not only “gets things moving” but also makes your area of influence matter more (since bigger cities generate a LOT more of it).

Very, very nice. I never liked having to grow the actual city to physically reach and occupy the resource. It made for ugly cities, and wasn't realistic (how often were farms and mines inside medieval city walls?). I'd given up hoping that it would change and had just accepted it, but you just made my day.

Agreed!

@Froggie: I think that a well detailed, separate military screen [army management] is a must have. I know that it won't be implemented for v1.0, but please consider adding it later on. I've suggested it in this topic btw. It won't be easy to manage our military without a screen like this. [Especially if you've got hundreds or thousands of units...and lot of armies.]

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Quoting Frogboy,

reply 4

Quoting Batlord,
reply 2
What about AI ?

I don't think anyone considers AI to be an important factor. The beta community has has been pretty clear that they don't think the AI needs to be even in the game...

What do you mean? You're ditching the single-player part of the game?!

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right now pacing is huge.

Im finding that in able to afford even PARTIES of units, i have to build up to level 3-4 cities, and my armies do not seem to match that of my poplualation (when i have over a grand of people working for me, and I have like 15-20 soldiers total +5 champions....

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