Excellent idea for a thread. I actually had a thread like this in mind but I was going to cross-post it here and in the Elemental General section. I read one of the Devs say they are compiling a list themselves of things to work on in order of importance. The way they decide what to work on first goes by How Many Posts they see on a particular subject on the forums here and on other forums around the Internet. If they see 20 posts on "We Want Multiplayer" and only 10 posts on "Dragons are OP!!!" they are going to fix the Multiplayer first. Compiling all our wants and desires as far as patches and fixes go into one list is good, but, by doing it this way they overlook a problem the community wants fixed before something else gets fixed simply because there are more posts about the less important issue. In that sense, compiling our desired fixes in one place "could" be a bad idea because they won't have multiple threads to count. Either way, it's definitely a good idea that we make a list. I have quite a long list written down of tweaks and fixes, so I'll list a few here.
1. Making Factions Play Differently / Uniqueness:
I really don't know HOW this was overlooked and not implemented. Those new forum members who have only been here since launch wouldn't know it, but the Beta Testers and the SD Team had MANY MANY talks about what could be done to make all the factions play in a unique way while still keeping them balanced against one another. Frogboy and the Team stated Multiple Times that this was a primary goal, and even though the factions may look similar, having them Really be Different in terms of Game-Play Style was very important to them internally.
I can really only think of two reasons why this wasn't done as was planned. These two reasons being Lack of Time to implement, or to Keep the Balance Simple. Up until the last few months everyone (including the guys in house) thought they were going to have another 6 months to work on this. With that 6 months gone and release being moved up to make this years window a lot of things that were originally planned and in the works had to be put on the back burner so that they could concentrate on making release with as stable a version as possible. I know for a FACT there's no way this was overlooked intentionally so I blame this solely on them not having enough time to get it added and properly balanced in time before launch. I don't think they would not do it simply to keep balance "simple" as that would point to them being lazy and we all know for a FACT they Are Not lazy. The crazy amount of hours they put in before release should be proof enough of that.
While this is something the community as a whole wants eagerly and was planned from inception, I can all but guarantee this is something we'll see added in a Free content update in the next few months. Seeing as now the team has time to really play with this, if the community has suggestions and input about this putting it out there NOW is exactly the right time for it and not just in the Ideas section. This, as well as other major talks on content addition and balancing, should be double posted in the General section of the forums to maximize visibility.
2. Using Buildings, Land Objects, and City Walls in Tactical Combat:
This too was something the Beta Community and the SD Team discussed at Length here on the forums. This was brought up as being Very Important almost every time the topic of Tactical Combat was brought up. This is a feature of Age of Wonders and it's expansions, as well as many other more traditional strategy games such as the Total War series.
Right now Sieging settlements in Elemental seems very bland and anti-climactic. We have Siege Equipment such as catapults, but no real use for them other than taking on large creatures such as Dragons, or dealing heavy damage to a group of units. Catapults move very slowly though as they should, and aren't really viable for taking along in an army that's going to fight other armies and do quests. They are a Siege Engine but without a proper use for them they seem pretty useless IMO.
I think this too is something we'll be seeing with a Free content expansion. Still how-ever I recommend that if the community has thoughts and ideas about this they need to be Very Vocal in Multiple Threads about it. The more individual threads they see on this matter, the higher up the "priority list" this will go.
3. Magical Items, Item Creation, Skills and Abilities:
Magical Item creation was a key feature in MoM and something that has also been planned for Elemental from the start. Again Time Constraints led to this not being ready in time for launch. Stardock has already stated a Item Creator is in the works and pending with a content update, so we don't have anything to worry about here. There are also already assets in game that allow custom creation of items through modding and modders have already begun work on packs of these for the game.
There are many skills and abilities in game right now that don't work entirely as functioned. Modders are working hard to correct this and to add new skills and abilities as well, but ideally we'll be seeing a balance fix from SD officially in an upcoming patch.
4. Spells and Magic in General:
Many of the spells in the game simply don't seem "Magical" enough. Needed are more interesting and meaningful World Enchantments that are faction specific, alignment specific, and even quest specific that can only be gained through quests that may or may not appear randomly in your game. Combat and Strategic spells need to be added with varied effects, buffs, de-buffs, and varying damage types. Frogboy has already stated that the Magic system would be getting a "Overhaul" with a upcoming update but the community should also spread it's ideas here as well. Frogboy mentioned something about "Mana Pools" which I don't think I like the sound of because it would take away from the "Uniqueness" of particular champions. If all your champions are drawing from the same mana source then this means they would have the same power levels and hence one champion wouldn't be better or worse then another when it came to who had the large mana casting ability. I think this actually takes away from the strategic depth and in fact doesn't add to it. This of course Can Be Avoided if other factors of the champions are still kept separate. If one champion has a higher intelligence than another then his/her spells should do more damage than another champion who has less intelligence.
Either way, the SD Team has a lot in store here in as far as long term plans. The Beta Testers submitted a MASSIVE LIST of spell ideas so Stardock doesn't have any excuses as to a "lack of creative ideas" being the reason why spells aren't very varied or meaningful.
These are just a few of the things that need to be tweaked and adjusted. Notice I didn't list any Bug Fixes or General Balance passes here. Why? Because those should be kept as a separate entity from content design and implementation. Though we'll get bug fixes at the same time we receive new content, mixing posts on the forums that suggest new content and bug fixes can lessen the chance of the new content ideas being counted separately as the bug fixes take priority from a developer standpoint.
