Elemental: The Master List

ScottTykoski

Join Date 03/2001

+132

Elemental: The Master List

The Latest, Greatest Pile of Player/Reviewer/Internal Feedback

Well, here it is - our list of feedback as compiled from several review sites, this forum, other forums, and our own Q/A team. There are a few more sites I need to pick apart, but in general I feel this covers many of the egregious issues (but feel free to note anything we’ve overlooked...we want to be as thorough as possible).

The ‘Major Issues’ are the ones you’ll be seeing fixed ASAP. Ideas/suggestions will be re-prioritized and completed as proper solutions are determined.

- Major List (Crashes/Stability/Etc.) -

Late game Slowdown!!!!
1. Tweaking LODs on tile designs so they fade out better
2. Any code tweaks that improve this
3. P:\Ken\Elemental Testing\Aug28\AutoSave.EleSav
  1. late auto-play game from Ken, 30k turns in
4. Slowdown between turns
5. Feedback
  1. “my only real gripe (other than the balance tweaks, and improvements to the tech tree and magic system *grins*) is with the "end game" slow.... churn....... of............. death..................... “
  2. “the game just become VERY slow. I have good computer, I do not think it should slow down like that. More over, it seems that it just hits some kind of barrier, like in 20 turns around turn 150 it converts from OK to run game, to nearly impossible to run.”
  3. “Is anyone else's games slowing down by the time they get to turn 100? This is on small maps and without fail after awhile, there's a slight delay to everything I'm doing. Unless I zoom to cloth map mode I basically have a half second lag to every command I attempt which is super annoying.”
Memory Leaks
1. On Win7-64 machines with ATI Cards...
  1. “Now that the game has bitten me, I am getting the 'out of memory' error on my very beefy new home rig. It's Win7-64 and an ATI card. This needs to be fixed.”
  2. “I started getting the 'out of memory' error after about 300 turns.This is the ATI+Win7 thing, right? ”
Alt+Tab Crashes
City Details List
1. Paul gave his dxpacks to me for this screen, so I can look at hooking it up when I’m done with the data.zip app (charles)
XML Fixes
Console App for making Data.zip
MP Specific spellbook
1. No Tactical Spells
2. Low, High level strategic counterparts to former tactical spells
MP Specific ADVENTURE trees
1. kingdom renamed “Exploration”
2. empire renamed “Exploitation”
3. add quest related techs removed and stitched up
Magic Calculations / More Exciting magic system/ Mana Regen
1. build do min-max damage, not 0-max (Bruno), DONE NO CHECKED IN.
2. feedback
  1. “The schools are not sufficiently distinct from each other. Mana regen is too slow for pure casters. The damage done by magic scales poorly against more advanced squads.”
  2. “the spells are boring beyond belief although I did like the spells that you could cast on your cities. However, the tactical spells are all the same with a few minor differences between them.”
  3. “Mana regeneration 1 mana / turn makes tactical magic system pretty much useless later in the game. Most of my battles are might focused because of mana regeneration limits. I expect to use at least one tac magic per battle, yet the current mana regeneration system makes it impossible. I believe I was able to use tac magic effectively in about 1 battle out of 90 battle fought due to this limit.”
Late game Stuck Turn-buttons
1. Some are reported to be fixed by disabling auto-explore
2. others are thought to be caused by auto-resolve battles not playing properly
3. Feedback
  1. “Finally had a gamebreaking bug actually - Dunno what happened, the game isn't locked up or anything, but if I try to advance to the next turn nothing happens, reloaded the game a few times, looks like I'll have to see what my autosaves look like.”
If the user places a building with a ‘x per city’ limit, they will be able to keep placing them if you dont click off or reselect another improvement (Anthony)
1. “When building just about anything, I find that the cursor 90% of the time will not reset, and I can build a second copy of it (doesn't matter if it's a Faction wonder, Royal wonder, whatever) in the same city.” (http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=73945&page=26)
Gold from treaties isn’t properly given to the player
1. https://forums.elementalgame.com/393881
AI Improvements
1. Protecting its Sovereign / No Suicide Attacks
  1. “So I head up to his next city...it falls quickly...enemy king was inside and has been ejected on one side....he's in my territory. Attack again and he dies....War ends, much larger empire collapses...they really need to make sure the AI protects its kings if this is going to be magic bullet way to win a war you shouldn't be able to”
  2. “My current game is going well so far, although three empires fell to my sword by sending their sovereign into my territory without a strong army at their back. Silly AI.”
2. Ships?
  1. “I've heard player's mention that there's also no tactical battle yet for boats either, but this doesn't seem to be an issue since I have never, ever seen an A.I. ship -- it would make me think twice about carrying my doom stacks if I did.”
3. Using Magic More
  1. “ I hope Brad teaches it what to do with magic sometime. It ain't gonna make me gnash my teeth helplessly if it doesn't take advantage of the game mechanics...Just one spell immune bone ogre would have beaten me fair and square. Just one! My troops were so terrible even a deflected, hasted unit or two wouldn't have saved the day. They had three of the buggers!”
4. City Building
  1. “...I saw one [AI city] made up entirely of 13 houses. It's food production was completely in the negative and they had the little fish sign over it. There was no reason why it should have had that many houses and absolutely NOTHING else.”
Sound Cutting Out in Late-Game
1. “I have still sound issues and graphic issues as well. After about 2~3 hours playing, all the music completed phase out.”
2. Sound cuts out then crash (https://forums.elementalgame.com/394320)

- Minor List -

A pioneer on a boat can build a city in the water
1. “I loaded a transport with a pioneer, noticed that the pioneer could still build a settlement so I did. On water. Couldn't make any improvements, but I could make units.”
Upgrade paths for Minor cities
1. 3 levels, or the full 5 levels of upgrade options?
2. Crystal Mining Settlement
3. Ore Mining Settlement
4. Arcane Settlement
5. Technological Settlement
Teleoprt Spell Confusion/Bugs
1. Can’t use the teleport spell if the leader isn’t casting it
  1. “I cast the spell to give another leader spell casting ability.That worked, he got 6 mana. He is in my killer stack with the sovereign. I made him active and tried to cast teleport, because the whole purpose was to save all the sovereign's mana for combat that I was always using to teleport. He spent the 5 mana, but the stack didn't move.....”
2. Only your territory can be targeted, even though it says “Friendly”
  1. “...it still says 'friendly' in the description. It doesn't go to territories with non-aggression agreements, so I can't figure out what the difference is.”
Random Crashing, apparently from Caravans
1. “But I think there's a pattern now. Seems like every time a caravan gets killed and has already established a road, that the new caravan (under some bizarre bug, I assume) is so fast it gets to the trade target instantly once I dispatch it, and that somehow crashes the game.”
BASIC, SHORT, TUTORIAL
1. “There is a reasonably long learning curve involved here. However, it is far less than the curve for a "comparable" game like Civilization.”
Stacking of Items (Scott)
1. can no longer quipe INFINITE # of items - handled both in the CChampion level (see Equip Accessory) and in the UI
  1. “ There is no limit on the numbers of magical things you can equip on a hero so you can (for instance) put on scores of things that let you take more actions in combat which really distorts things.”
  2. “My hero units can wear infinite numbers of amulets, rings, and other packs... In time, my one hero unit wiped out everything in the map. (the hero wears 100s of amulets and 100s or rings)”
2. probably want to discuss the proper ‘slot’ system that we want to eventually use (2 rings, 1 pack, etc, etc) for but now this beats the ‘no limit’ system in 1.06
  1. “...no i don't need d2/wows lame equipment pane. A better UI and definitely 2 rings/1 ammy are musts, but frankly, the whole hack/slash/action genre has been using that same weak UI forever now”
Difficult to determine if a tile is a ‘Beach’ when docking a ship
1. Should have icons/some way to identify beaches on tactical map
2. “I discovered that there are places that look like beaches but which aren't considered beaches. ...seems they show up where two different types of terrain come together.”
3. “...my plan to load a pioneer on a ship and then go found a city along the coast doesn't seem to be working, [I can’t dock and unload the Pioneer] even when there is a slope available.”
Opponents Placed in order of first available Starting Position
1. The problem with is this that, in general, map makers will place starting positions in relative proximity (1, then 2 nearby, then 3 near that, etc) expanding outwards.
  1. “so for every map does the player start in the middle? it seems like im always in the middle blocking off all the countries from each other so nothing ever happens”
2. We need to COMPLETELY RANDOMIZE the starting placement of these races.
Misc
1. “I built a transport boat, had it leave the city... into a land tile. It was stuck forever.”
2. “I built a city a tile or two away from the water. I could only build stuff on the 4 squares between the city and the water, no matter how large the influence was.”
  1. This may be the “cannot place a building x tiles from another city”...perhaps not being notified properly?
3. ”The first summon that the "evil" tech tree gets (names are escaping me ATM) has a move that hits the entire field for 10 damage - it's way OP but I'm not complaining. The first couple of times I used that ability, however, the entire screen got covered in stretched-out particle-effect-looking artifacts.”

- Bugs -

Stacking with an Enemy unit instead of Attacking Them
1. “Any reason I would get an attack icon and then stack with the bandit instead of killing him like I need to?...Went away when I rebooted and reloaded....”
AI will not accept a treaty, even though they say it’s cool
1. “How do you get trade treaties to work? No matter what I do, he says the treaty is not acceptable...Istart off purposing the trade and its not balanced. I add gold until the "sounds good, I accept" button lights up. Then when I click it, he says he can not accept. I have even added over 2x the gold needed to make it acceptable. People have said they get this to work. What am I missing?”
2. “If you don't hit "ok" on the gold popup then even if you see the gold on the menu with the trade treaty it doesn't seem to apply it.” <-- I thought this was alright behavior, if you don’t click OK the deal cancels and reverts to what it was before, should it not do that? (from Sarah)
Resoln “Death Worsiping” Ability not working, or not displayed properly?
1. “ I still don't know what the death worship does for the Empire of Resoln. It says it gives a 10 HP bonus, but to who or what does it give it to.”
Twitchy Mouse
1. https://forums.elementalgame.com/392527
2. “The game has odd mouse and hotkey problems and reminds me of the Disciples 3 release in that manner.”
3. “Yeah, the mouse gets all wonky and only wants to move barely one unit portrait over.” (talking about the city context ‘stationed units’ medallion list)
City Build List Listing Buildings Incorrectly?
1. “I have yet to divine why some cities are allowed to build some improvements and not others. That is especially frustrating when, for instance, I have specialized the cities by building them near map resources like lost temples, only to find out that even when they reach level 4 or 5, I cannot access the temples in those cities, but can in cities with no arcane labs even yet built!”
Unit Designs remain available from Game-Within-A-Game
1. “Another bug, I presume, is that when you start a new game you seem to still have access to some of your unit designs from the previous game(s). I could train Kingdom peasants while controlling an Empire sovereign/race. Plus I think it even showed the option for party without me having researched it, though I didn't have the resources to try if that worked.”
Build City Camera Weirdness
1. “...the camera bug is the one that happens if you have city zoom view off, where you click somewhere and it just pops your building somewhere else. I think the connecting resources to your city is by design, because if they are connected they are counted as 'part' of the city and roamer NPCs can't demolish them.”

- Ideas / Suggestions -

Random Events
1. “These are needed. World-cracking, terrain deforming, and devastating random events that make the turns more than just waiting for your troops to finish so you can send off a third army to the front, down to as mundane as...you get a new fertile tile. Random Events are a staple [in 4x], not because they are "cool,"...but because they give some rather jarring aspects to the game that players need to react to...”
2. “We definitely need random events (it's shocking that it's not in here already)! ”
Battle Improvements
1. Damage Calculations
  1. “A lot of games use 1DN rolls, they are quick, easy to implement, and WRONG.” (https://forums.elementalgame.com/392880)
2. Attack and Resistance types (blunt, piercing, fire, lighting, etc)
  1. need to be properly listed in the UI
3. AI
  1. “The tactical AI also doesn't work well and just seems to pick one target and ignore all else while beating a path to it.”
4. Formations
  1. “... the initial formation cannot be changed by the user (or perhaps I was just never smart enough to discover how)... The ability to start a battle with your archers at the rear, melee forward and hero where you need him would be a very nice improvement to the game.”
5. vs. AutoResolve
  1. “And yeah, the auto resolve sucks big time. I've actually lost archers in scenarios where only a couple of slow enemies were involved.”
6. Overall Feedback
  1. “Tactical combat is too simplistic. It needs more decisionmaking. Different damage types (and defenses against each), zones of control, attacks of opportunity, etc. Right now, it's just 'ranged guys in back, infantry up front and rumble'”
  2. “ wish there was a way to speed up animations during tactical battles. Autoresolving is not an option, since that almost always results in some unit taking damage. Clicking through battle after battle watching my longbowmen mow down enemies gets old. Is there a way to speed up animations?”
Champions
1. Leveling
  1. “I really liked how Heroes level up in games like AoW or King's Bounty. I like being able to choose new abilities to further customize them as they level up, not just adding a stat point here and there.”
2. Overall Feedback
  1. “....Champions are really, basically totally uninteresting. It costs too much gold to kit them out so that they can actually battle against anything (and even then, they will still be in huge trouble against any sort of mid/late-game monster). No decisions in upgrading, except whether to make them mages or warrior. The only point in the game when they are really useful is in the start to explore. Meh.”
  2. “This is one of the reasons why NPC warriors just aren't that useful. If you get a NPC adventurer up to level 7, no matter how well armed and armored he is, or where you've put his points on level up, he is just not going to compare well to some stack of 12 regular units with their stats all added together.” (discussing the strength of unit groups)
More Uniqueness to the Factions
1. people like varied text, saw folks comparing Procipinee’s attitude towards the fallen in comparison to Relias
  1. “I don't get the complaint that the factions aren't "memorable". They each seem to have their own quirks to me. Procipinee opens every first contact with an Empire with something equivalent to "I will f***ing end you!", and seems to be the most likely one out of the Kingdoms to go to war. Her text alone seems to infer that she's one crazy zealot toward's wiping the Empires out. Though she's as friendly as she could be toward's other Kingdoms.” (http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=73945&page=29)
2. ask for unique buildings, tech, units, spells, etc.
  1. “I'd like this more if the kingdoms weren't all so samey”
  2. “One thing that I think they should have taken from Alpha Centauri is the way that the voice overs for the various techs and wonders really fleshed out the factions. Right now it feels like the world isn't exactly generic fatasy but not really fleshed out either.”
  3. “Also, I still can't believe that every goddamn unit you can produce (that I've seen, at least) is a fucking human with a different outfit. GC2 had a bunch of different chassis' (is that the right plural form?), games like Alpha Centauri had plenty of different base templates to build from...but this seems to just have "human" to build from.”
  4. “Well... if you research the right upgrades, you can unlock the ability to create darkling and ogre and spider units and stuff? But you can't modify them. That's all I got. I do hope more crazy races are in the works.”
  5. “Some basic simple visual differences between different faction towns would just be nice. "Tarthans" I think are the most distinctive faction but their towns don't seem very "Tarthan", and neither do much of their game mechanics.”
UI Improvements
1. City Building
  1. “it is often hard to figure out why you cannot do something, such as construct a building. The lacking element does appear in red font -- but *all* the material requirements appear in a (very slightly darker) red font.”
  2. need to show the Queue and the city resources at the same time
2. Diplomacy
  1. “Is there a way to see how many turns there are left in a non-agression treaty?”
3. Unit Design
  1. “The costs/effect of various pieces of equipment are all over the map--so much so that it's actually kind of a chore to design anything, because you have to spend all sort of time trying to determine if there is a cheaper and more efficient way to build a unit with exactly the same stats. Very often, there is.”
4. Tooltips / HUD
  1. Better, more informative tooltips when rolling over resources in the top bar. List the cities producing the +X resources per turn, if applicable.
  2. HUD listing what’s being built/trained...status bar to reflect it, turns to complete
  3. Empiretree: rollovers on the little squares to display the unit/building it’s affilated with
Cheesing the System
1. Demolishing housing after leveling up
  1. “...is there any downside to destroying all your houses once you have reached city level 5? I've not done it, but since cities only need houses to level up, I don't think it would be a problem. Obviously, this would likely be considered a bug, but I'm still curious if it's possible.”
  2. “you will need something like 10 houses to get your cities up to 1250 in population (max level), but once they hit level 5 you will have capacity for 2000 pops, but since there is no point in having a high population beyond going up in levels, you might as well start demolishing all those houses to make space for some more interesting buildings”
2. more
Dynasty System
1. Numeric Kids Ages
  1. “Right now, my 25 year old sovereign has a 21 year old son. Amazing!”
  2. “I think they should just change the numerical age to a descriptor, like "child"; "youth"; "young adult" etc, if that's what they are after.”
2. Children Stats
  1. “The dynasty thing is just... weird. Had a son grow up... he had 236 mana, regenerated 8 a turn, but had 6 INT and 1 Combat Point.”
Strength of Grouping Types gets Out-Of-Control
1. “Squads get *very* powerful. I don't think a champion-centric strategy is viable after the first half of a game.”
2. “A company needs to be handled in combat calculations as 12 individuals where each individual gets some sort of bonus for being part of a larger team. Treating it as a single mega-unit is both counter-intuitive and has a nasty impact on the rest of the game.”
3. “Beyond re-designing the way mob bonuses work, combat desperately needs to separate the to-hit & to-damage mechanics. But if we're in the armchair designer corner, I have a couple of pages worth of things I'd like to see included, like rules for what units can actually target, how unit morale and army morale are handled, and many, many other things. Basically, I'd like some proper wargame mechanics instead of the "simpler & more broken than Disciples 3" mess we have now.”
4. Lots of Damage Calculation Feedback here...http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=60936&page=13
Item Shop
1. UI Improvements
  1. Need to be able to see what equipment the selected guy has / change in stats with the selected shop item
  2. “Do I really have to remember what items I have equipped when I go shopping? Really?? Because I can't.”
2. Item Costs
  1. “Item costs are all over the map and need a balance pass.”
Overall Balance
1. Traits
  1. “The trait (talent?) "Organized" lets your Sov's army travel the same speed as your Sov. That is amazingly good from the start, but it gets ridiculous towards the end. Give your Sov a mount and a few magic items and, boom!, the whole army gets 7 moves. Traverses a medium map in a few turns.”
2. Archers
  1. “bows need to be nerfed....[I play with] squads of bows, long or short, and a single hero. (Add an elemental or two if you need it.) Works a little bit too well.”
  2. “People who are saying Archers are too effective must have never seen catapults. THOSE are severely overpowered. Archers, however, seem to rarely kill anything.”
3. Combat Calculations (Glass Cannons)
  1. “On first glance it looks reasonable: attacker generates damage between 1 and their attack value, defender reduces that by 1 to their defense value, and the defender takes the difference (if any) as damage. The problem is it is not unusual to get units with attack and/or defense in the 100s *but* it is almost impossible to get units (especially heroes) with that many hit points. That means if your super duper level 20 fighter with 100 attack and 100 defense runs into something like a troll the troll can kill them with one blow OR do no damage whatsoever.”
4. Resource/GH Placement
  1. “....half the time your starting location does not have ready access to a gold mine. This is such a crippling strategic drawback that when it occurs you would be better off immediately starting over”
  2. “Resource distribution seems off. There's far more materials than one will ever need, since the game puts heavy leaning on the necessity of gold. There needs to be more of a favoring for other resources to make it worthwhile for you to plant a city next to that Old Grove and get those extra materials.” (https://forums.elementalgame.com/394334)
  3. “I see posts about maps being devoid of resources, and others about there being so many its too crowded (I have had both experiences in different patch versions).”
  4. “There's definitely some weirdness with a lot of the things that spawn on the map. I had one game where my early adventuring and picking up the junk on the map led to me finding 3 sand golem flutes or whatever they're called within the first 5 turns. I pretty much just killed every civilization I encountered without issue Most of my other games though, I never find even a single one.”
  5. “And yes I'm about to start a new game and construct my cities like bananas so I can actually have cities that produce resources. I bitch out of love.”
  6. “I've gotten around this by typically building my cities in a crescent shape. Or bananatowns if you prefer. The only time I've had to include a resource has been when one of the discovery techs plopped one too close to a city, or I've accidentally linked a resource through the camera bug.”
    1. Scott Says: I’ve heard of people making these ‘banana-cities’...what does this mean, how does it help with resource gathering?
5. Starting Placement
  1. “...perhaps it was an odd coincidence but in the 8-10 times I tested it I started every game in the dead center of the map surrounded by enemies (when I had four enemies). Never once was I on the side or a corner.”
Content
1. More Items
  1. “It is almost all for melee fighters with only 2 items for archers and *nothing* for spell casters.”
  2. “Yes, the higher end hammers completely demolish anything. I'm starting to feel that the unit design system is actually leading to somewhat stale gameplay because there are no real special abilities to speak of. Every new tier of gear you get is just flat out better than the previous tier. Once I unlock lord hammers and master plate, there's no longer any decision making.” (http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=73945&page=29)
Flesh out Advisor System (Janusk Improvements)
1. https://forums.elementalgame.com/394229
2. “...redefine the methods of Janusk-addition. Make the advisor a chargen choice (you could even associate a cost to it, so players could opt to not have an advisor if they so choose), and for those who opt to have one, increase his reputation considerably so that female sovereigns can't get married eons before male.”
Minor Factions / Neutral Cities
1. “On the note of Independent Factions, let's make them a little more useful, shall we? Right now they exist just to be conquered. They should have faction-specific items available....The imperative thing is that these are unique, including the faction-specific ones. Right now there's no unique flavor involved in these things, why buy from these entities when you can tech up the magic line and buy them from your own places? “ (https://forums.elementalgame.com/394334)
2. “Next to do for them, make it capable to recruit mercs from them.”
Random Loot
1. The Lorebook talks about items dropped by creatures...we need those in the game!!!!
  1. Wolf Pelt icon
  2. Skath Fin icon
  3. Drake Tooth icon
  4. Dragon Egg icon
2. TreasureDefs held and used by UnitTypes
3. Feedback
  1. “Getting gold from killing things is well and good, and the main way I fund my growing empire as well. However it would be nice if we got random drops now again.”
  2. “Something besides gold, Killed a creature that in its description that the scales from this creature were sought after to make armor... would be nice if they would drop some... even if it took 10 or so to have something made from... would be better.. .. ”
  3. “Make this true if I kill a sovereign who had hoarded night stones .. not my fault he came to raid stuff in my territory... ”
Item Forging
1. I would like to see the editor revamped as something that could work in-game for item creation, taking ingredients and making cool stuff (without having to be in the workshop).
2. Feedback
  1. “... adding a forging system would be a help, and I believe you are working on that for enchanting items and such?”
  2. “Item creation..... was looking forward to being able to enchant stuff... Sigh... ”
City Spam
1. At one time we had discussed a ‘Governing’ or ‘Administration’ ability that dictated the # of cities you could have, or total level of cities, or something...still a possibility?
2. Building Limits / Razing Options when Conquering
  1. “There must be also some kind of mechanism to prevent building so many cites. Even when you conquer new ones, you should be able to destroy city because it is too hard to maintain or something. Because maintaining 10+ cities is ugly.”
  2. “Oh, and you guys mentioned razing cities....how do I do that? I hate capturing all of these minor civ cities that can't grow past size 1.”
Summoning
1. Feedback
  1. “Summoning [should] be done in a city that have a Summoning Circle...Summoning Circle can be researched from the Magic Tech tree...Summoning Circle [should require] at least one Crystal to be 'linked' to a city (within the city area of influence)...Can only summon creatures related to a 'linked' Crystal”
Post-Victory
1. “Am I the only one who wishes you could keep playing after "winning?"”
2. “No hiscore-list or playback?!? I want to bask in my glory, dagnabbit!”
Notable Locations
1. “Elemental's system of having Notable Locations and NPC heroes materialize on the map when you research some completely abstract tech is just sort of weird and unthematic. Getting a new level in Notable Locations or Heroes is sort of like putting on the glasses from They Live. Suddenly, powerful heroes everywhere! Or, as in Tom's Figit post, skyscraper-sized haunted castles right next to your capital. And if you aren't on the leading edge of the research for these things, you end up exploring a map that is filled with cool things that you aren't allowed to interact with, which is just sort of frustrating.... If you want to walk in to an ancient ruin and take a stab at a Great Drake with a unit of spearmen, MoM is perfectly willing to let you try.”
2. “I agree with a lot of your points, but I have to disagree here. I really love the way Elemental handles the notable locations, I love that I reveal more as I delve deeper (Oooh, there's an unintentional pun) into the Adventure tree. It gives an advantage for pushing hard on that tree first at the expense of some of your others. Just a matter of preference, though, both systems certainly have their merits.”
3. More back and forth on the matter at...http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=60936&page=13

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Zaroter
Natathel
_PawelS_

Looking great. I hate to say this game does still feel like a beta, but your constant improvements and openness with the players is a sign of great things to come.

You betcher sweet bippy I'm still playing the game and waiting eagerly for every update.

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Quoting auboy105,

reply 52

Another desperate plead for Sovereign Death = Game Over Options! A solution for one of the biggest game gripes!!!

I just always hated it in any game (AOW, MOM, ) that when you killed the enemy leader a whole enemy empire suddenly vanishes!

Some sort of successor or heir takeover would be great!!!

This would be a balance to using, risking, and losing a powerful leader is that the successor or heir would be much weaker and would have to start the experience growth process all over again....

...which would make the kingdom weaker, struggling etc...but would not POOF make them disappear out of the game!!!

This would be a great option before starting game that would please everyone!

Option 1: Sovereign Death = Game Over

Option 2: Sovereign Death = Weak Successor or Heir Takes Over (This would also enhance the Dynasty system!)

Strongly second this point (if anyone hadn't noticed yet ).

For magic system, also add: rituals (spells taking several turns to cast) with world-changing effects. This was sort of promised way back in the beginning (War of Magic, you remember??).

I love the inclusion of random events. Just make them with personality and soul!

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Tactical battle suggestions:

1) Troop deployment: Players/AI places troops within their zones of control (sides of the field) before the start of battle. Neither side can see where the other is placing unless they have a special unit/magic to do so (such as a scout or something). This allows PCs/AI to take advantage of:

2) Map objects/special tiles: Either reinstate tactical map objects' special effects, or implement "special tiles" that can have objects on them, such as pieces of ruins, rocks, and shrubberies (NI!). Objects give not only defense bonuses but also hide units from the enemy, unless opponent has a unit that can see/detect hiding.

This would increase the strategy element.

3) Random tactical map generation based on types of tiles: If the battle takes place in the wasteland, then most tiles (say 80%) are waste, and of those, a small percentage is other stuff, such as ruins and rocks. An algorithm could roll a percentage chance of what kind of tile is adjacent to the base starting tile, and branch out from there. That way each map should have some interesting features that play a role in the battle.Ever played the board game Settlers of Catan? I am imagining a kind of random setup like that game board, but with a more logical layout based on what should be expected where the battle is taking place. I love the changes in elevation--keep expanding on this, too! Hiding behind hills in ambush and having a bonus to attack on the high ground is great.

4) Weather: Add magic and random weather events that affect visibility. This would open up a whole bunch of possibilities for tactical magic, as well. We need fog, blizzards, rain, and spells to counteract those. Certain weather can give bonuses/penalties to certain units (water elemental gets + in rain, etc.).

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Quoting arstal,

reply 24

I disagree with the concept that 2 rings/1 ammy is lame.

.

Yeah. How on earth is a rings/ammy limit more lame than having unlimited, cheap +2 attack , and +speed amulets? +Speed in particular because the AI loses any ability to predict/analyze your movements.

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Quoting goodgimp,

reply 40

Thanks for the informative post. If I may, here is my feedback:

- Why are you guys still reinventing the wheel for MP? Creating a MP spellbook (no tactical spells, but I thought Brad said you guys had reversed you position on including them in multiplayer?)? Changing tech trees? Guys, just get the base game to an awesome state, and that's what people are going to want to play in MP.

Yes, there's really no need to try to create something too complicated for the MP. Just give us options to turn stuff like tactical combat, quests, diplomacy etc. on or off, and otherwise keep it 1:1 to SP. It'll work fine, has done so in countless other games already

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Another for the list.

I want a setting for the world NPCs, that dictate their aggression, and overall danger level. I want to have to hide behind my stockade, fearing to go out, because there's scary things in the forests and hills.

And I want to see the NPC Heroes/Adventurers you can hire fight it out more, let the champions level off the monsters, or die trying. Let them come to your city with gold to spend, and buy items to equip them selves with.

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An Idea that was left out. Channelers/Kingdom/Empire leaders should start out single, and you the player should have the option/ability to marry another leader if certain conditions are met, such as a good relationship, decent power ect ect.

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Please please dont gimp MP. If you dont think something will work in it, just have it as an option to turn it off, while keeping default settings the same as for the singleplayer - Its counter intuitive to have different default options for MP compared to SP.

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For tactical combat: i don't see on the list the suggestion about an initiative system for moving units,

instead of the current system of moving all units on a side at a time.

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Quoting ,

quoting post

Alt+Tab Crashes

A data point. Windows 7, 64bit, ATI HD Radeon. I used to have the CTD after Alt-Tab even on 1.06, but after updating the Catalyst drivers to 10.8, the problem seems to have stopped.

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[quote]# MP Specific spellbook

1. No Tactical Spells
2. Low, High level strategic counterparts to former tactical spells

# MP Specific ADVENTURE trees

1. kingdom renamed “Exploration”
2. empire renamed “Exploitation”

Why? I certainly don't want this, and I think many may share my opinion on this. Multiplayer and skirmish should be the same.

I don't want the tactics and strategy from one to be worthless in the other.

In single player skirmish I'm playing a sandbox game against the CPU, in multiplayer it should be exactly the same but against a human opponent. Any changes or differences should be options we can change.

There doesn't need to be a special multiplayer mode, If you want throw one in, we won't complain about that, But if you keep stripping out or changing things between Skirmish and multiplayer you will get backlash every time because we want to play the same game against a human opponent not a different game.

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1. Allowing grouping of Hero units - require training in a city for some number of turns - would be a great add the RPG nature of the game. You could have a true party of adventurers.

2. Allowing regular single individuals to be grouped - require training for this upgrade - so that they would be useful later game.

3. Allowing groups of regular units to be retrained to upgrade theri weapon mix would be good as well.

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Quoting goodgimp,

reply 40

- Why are you guys still reinventing the wheel for MP? Creating a MP spellbook (no tactical spells, but I thought Brad said you guys had reversed you position on including them in multiplayer?)? Changing tech trees? Guys, just get the base game to an awesome state, and that's what people are going to want to play in MP.

My guess is because tactical combat in MP will be an option that you can turn on or off even once it's implemented. Currently when auto resolving your casters will use tactical spells and use up all of your 1 per turn mana. Which will lead you to not research any tactical spells to prevent that thus making 3/4 of the spellbook useless. So by replacing tactical buffs and nukes with strategic buffs and nukes in MP that has no tactical they bring back a lot of what would otherwise be missing from the game.

It's also a heck of a lot easier and faster to do that to help MP the way it works now than to get full on tactical MP working (and likely done by completely different people on the team)

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2. Memory Leaks
1. On Win7-64 machines with ATI Cards...

It's not just ATI cards (much like the dx error crash isn't confined to ATI's) as my gtx 260 win7 x64 has this as well, appearing ~turn 300 and almost instantly going from 'all's fine' to 'bad stutter' to 'OOM crash' in a matter of 5-10 seconds.

10. Late game Stuck Turn-buttons
1. Some are reported to be fixed by disabling auto-explore...

As was reported during beta, ships who have their movement blocked (doesn't require auto-explore, but merely selecting a destination multiple moves away) cause the 'next turn' button to remain greyed out, so the game can't proceed until the ship's movement is freed up. I'm assuming it'd be the same for a land unit whose movement is blocked.

So don't focus merely on the 'auto-explore' part but on the 'movement blocked' part, as that may be the operative factor -- ie -- if you disable auto-explore but then select a destination several moves distant and the unit's movement gets blocked this problem will likely still exist.

I'm guessing you'll need to perform a check to see if movement is blocked and if so, go to that unit so the player can resolve it (as if you instead ended that units turn the blocked movement problem would continue in subsequent turns).

So, after perusing your list, I'm wondering what you'll be doing in a few days after you folks get all these things done

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POW!

I am greeted with this...this is awesome. You guys are awesome.

I am really looking forward to this.

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Quoting Mortu,

reply 69

A comment on the item stacking:

I suggest 10 rings (10 fingers!)

2 bracelets

1 pack (2 with mount?)

3 amulets.

Or better yet, make the limits moddable

This, I like the idea of having a limit and I think this would be about right allowing for us to make some hard thought choices about what those ten rings etc will be.

I love the list btw. Shows you guys are really listening to the feedback being giving. My only addition atm to that list would be to ask if the unit creator could have similar options to the sov editor in how colours are chosen. Atm its fine if you want all your units to be wearing your faction colours but say I want to create an elite unit in a contrasting colour scheme I currently can't. So the ability to choose the main colour, trim and metal on the unit creator would be a huge plus in my enjoyment of the game and help me and hopefully others roleplay abit. Keep up the great work, if you implement that list then this will be a truely stunning game (hopefully one my future kids will play).

One last thing, please do not lose sight of the bigger picture. Yes ideas about individual parts of the game will end up shaping the greater whole but at the same time every facet of the game will have to mesh and gel with others so step back every now and then to think about how everything is balanceing out. Sometimes what are two great ideas in isolation make for a complete mess when together.

Hehe enough mumbling from me. Great game and I am glad I pre-ordered.

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Awesome stuff. I have a couple of suggestions: ability to hide the entire UI/HUD for clean screenshots/videos, and also when you take another pass at the UI as you've mentioned, perhaps make it more like the old UI -- the current one is nice and efficient but not very attractive. The old one is gorgeous. Same goes for tactical battles. To be clear, I mean consider making it look like the old one, but be more functional, effective, etc. like the current one. Thanks for listening.

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Re: Fleshing out the advisor system.

I suggest replacing Janusk with an unique advisor for each kingdom/empire, one who would come with some individual flavor text to give you a better feel of whatever group of yahoos you've sided with. I also agree with the "unable to marry the advisor" camp either via making the advisor the same gender as the sovereign or just "you can't" for whatever reason.

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This is all well and good but when is the next patch coming?

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Quoting Firbolg,

reply 89

Quoting goodgimp, reply 40
- Why are you guys still reinventing the wheel for MP? Creating a MP spellbook (no tactical spells, but I thought Brad said you guys had reversed you position on including them in multiplayer?)? Changing tech trees? Guys, just get the base game to an awesome state, and that's what people are going to want to play in MP.

My guess is because tactical combat in MP will be an option that you can turn on or off even once it's implemented. Currently when auto resolving your casters will use tactical spells and use up all of your 1 per turn mana. Which will lead you to not research any tactical spells to prevent that thus making 3/4 of the spellbook useless. So by replacing tactical buffs and nukes with strategic buffs and nukes in MP that has no tactical they bring back a lot of what would otherwise be missing from the game.

It's also a heck of a lot easier and faster to do that to help MP the way it works now than to get full on tactical MP working (and likely done by completely different people on the team)

Then we can have an option for Simple tactics or complex tactics that toggles the availability of those things.

I think the thing that is being missed here is that they(Stardock) is wanting to build a multiplayer experience that is completely different from the single player sandbox experience. People don't want that, "Why can I do this to the computer but not to you?" "Why is this functionality gone?" "Why am I playing a different game?"

Extra features for mulitplayer should be that - extra. Don't strip out functionality, If you think people won't like something in MP that works well in Skirmish then give us the option to take it out. Don't take it out for us, if you do that its existence in Skirmish is just rubbing salt into the wound.

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Quoting chautemoc,

reply 93

Reduced 44%Original 1282 x 769

Holly balls that looks so much better it's unbelievable. I mean that screenshot is a game seller!

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Quoting solidsmooky,

reply 95

This is all well and good but when is the next patch coming?

Weren't you whining about the devs not posting?

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Quoting chautemoc,

reply 93

Awesome stuff. I have a couple of suggestions: ability to hide the entire UI/HUD for clean screenshots/videos, and also when you take another pass at the UI as you've mentioned, perhaps make it more like the old UI -- the current one is nice and efficient but not very attractive. The old one is gorgeous. Same goes for tactical battles. To be clear, I mean consider making it look like the old one, but be more functional, effective, etc. like the current one. Thanks for listening.

Reduced 44%Original 1282 x 769

This UI looks a million times better

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Great list. However..I'd like to add my own ideas to the pile you already have. On my mind right now is primarily the marriage/children system. I think it would be a bit more interesting if you were able to "specialize" your children by schooling them in either warfare(special attacks, like Crushing Blow ), politics(granting royalty perhaps), or have them get other bonuses. Now granted that how good these benefits are should still be random and/or based off of the stats of the parents, or maybe a combination of both? Then we have the marriage system in of itself..I find it to be extremely limiting to only being able to marry off your children to other factions. While I enjoy the idea and I can certainly see the benefits of using such a method for political gain/stability..I believe you should be able to have your sons/daughters marry champions within your own faction.

Anyway, that's just my two gildar. I look forward to the future updates.

*Edit*

I just thought of another interesting scenario as well. What if your sovereign were to marry the daughter/son/grandchild of another faction? That would allow for a major diplomatic boost I believe, as has been done in our own past. Just a thought.

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Wintersong

Join Date 07/2006

+235

AI Improvements: Protecting its Sovereign / No Suicide Attacks

Kraxis with might of 466, me with 155. Send his Sovereign with an army of almost 600 CR to my frontier where I'm able to muster most of my army for a grand total of almost 850 CR and wait in my city. I have four leveled up channelers, Sov included. The theory said I would win unless Karavox was to one shot my channnelers during the first turn with area damage (max HP of them was 12). He didn't. I won without much trouble the battle (Blizzard, Blizzard, Blizzard, Blizzard, Blizzard... finish off with a well equipped squad). Bye bye Kraxis.

Stacking of Items (Scott)

Hands slots: between 4 and 8 rings. Only 1 type of each rings.
Neck slot: 1 amulet.
Arms slots: 2 armlets.
Ears slots: 2 earrings (they can come coupled [2] or individual [1]).
Waist slot: 1 belt.
Shoulders slot: 1 cape.
Chest slot: 1... piece of armour, shirt...
Feet slot: boots... hopefully, a complete pair.

It becomes a bit Tetris, but it's also interesting. (not holding breath for 3D earring though)

Build City Camera Weirdness

Annoying as hell.

Random Events

Diplo events, adventure events, war events... And they are easier to make than quests!!!

Battle Improvements: Formations

We need a tactics screen where you select the initial deploy of your army when a tactical battle happens. Maybe an option do that (too?) just before the battle begins.

Champions

Classes and/or skill trees. Period.

More Uniqueness to the Factions

From quotes and unique aesthetics (clothes, faces...) to (especially) gameplay. Much a la Gal Civ II Twilight of the Arnor.

Dynasty System

Maybe remarrying possible (harems for Raven). Number of kids random (minimum 2, max... 6?). Influence in the basic genetics of the kids (influence means to influence in the random generation, NOT to decide what we want) plus influence in the development of the kid towards his maturity (influence, not determination). Crests for the kids. Splitting parts of the Kingdom/Empire with them for whatever benefits it could give (less maintenance for example). Loyalty system based on Expectations: nothing fancy just that each gets some expectations based on Race, Faction and Alliegance of the parents (some randomness included) and if the Sov doesn't meet the expectations (a Good Sovereign choosing Evil things in the quests, for example... or a Good Sovereign doing Good things but the husband of his daughter being Evil), it can cause trouble, defections, splintering factions... Kids being able to create Noble Houses (with Champions, for example) that can be assigned to a city for bonuses (if more than one Noble House is in a city and their Expectations are different... trouble!!!)

Strength of Grouping Types gets Out-Of-Control

It's over 9000!!!!

Item Shop

Comparison with what I already have equipped, filters, tabs for different types of elements... Think of an RPG and you got it.

Minor Factions / Neutral Cities

If they stop being the equivalent of Gal Civ II minors, that would be awesome. I'm not asking for them to create more cities and all that but they just sit there and... well, wait to be conquered (because except for some trade, not much else can you do with them). Hell, you cannot even talk to them in the Diplo screen (I mean the menu where all your met factions appear).

Random Loot

Hahahaha WoW? More "drops" than just money and varied would be sweet. Including special items that cannot be obtained otherwise.

Item Forging

See "Stacking of items". Also weaving of items (for those wool mittens).

City Spam

Altough I'm fine with cities not costing money to fund, the only reason to control the spam is: food and boredom (cities just built for the extra gold, research... not because they actually offer anything special).

Summoning

Circles for the most powerful thingies, ok. For the most common/weak? No way!

Post-Victory

Highscore list adds a lot, really. Think what you did in Twilight of the Arnor. I loved it as I love it in any other game. Wouldn't mind an Elementalverse to from time to time upload a score of a non modded game... That said, I'm not sure that many people will play unmodded.

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