Major improvements for Elemental

Ok, I'll start by saying I really love this game and could spend hours or even an entire day playing it, but i was pritty amazed by the limited work on customization and uniqueness.

Soveriegn

Picking your race has no advantage (anywhere), how bout making this option more involved by giving each race some type of characterizing features. For example, The book says Wraiths are physically weaker than the other Empire races but are more given to magic, so their racial features would be increased wisdom by 2 allowing them to have a min of 7 and a max of 17, and decreased strength by 2 (min 3 max 13 )  or decreased strength and dexterity by 1 (min 4 max 14 ). Presently, I see no reason for the descritions of the races to say who is strongest, who is weakest, and who is most given to magic.

Selecting talents needs to be more tactical, when i think about talents i think about, "Oh this is what im good at". presently, you can chose like 5 talents with out bad ones if u play your cards right. The player should pick one or two talents, then if he wants more he has to chose a weakness. Also there needs to be more talents E.X. Evocative-drecreased mana cost of summoning, Sword Master- increased speed by 10% of dex and attack by 50% of str when equiped with a sword. E.X weakness, Clumsy- randomly decrease speed, Handicapped- decreased move.

Equipment and appearance need more options, im sure there will be more in latter patches, but i think that the equipment and clothes for a soveriegn should not be the same for everyone else. soveriegns should have stronger and better looking equipment than heros and units.

Adding Abilities for the soveriegn would add uniqueness as well i suvivibility for the soveriegn. the player should be able to choose between a wide range of abilities (that differ from those of heros), this would also allow players who want their soveriegn to be more rouge, archer, or warrior like to focus away from magic and more towards their skills and still hold the basic concept of being a channeler because a warrior soveriegn would seem like an arcane warrior or battle mage, swinging a hammer with one hand and casting a fireball with the other. An archer would be an arcane archer, firing a barrage(fires multiple arrows in an area) of fire imbued arrows that explode upon inpact.  while a theif would (assuming a backstab ability and a teleporting spell is in the works) teleport behind a unit and backstab (ignore 75% of a unit's defense when attacking from behind) then slip away by turning invisibile >8).

Leveling for soveriegns and heros should be better as well. Because right now, not much to it, just pick a stat, instead one stat should be randomly increased and the player gets to choose a stat, and every few levels the soveriegn and hero should choose a new ability and/or talent, and if the soveriegn falls in battle, the player should also choose a weakness ( I support Lord Xia's idea for the capture of a hero)

Heroes

Heroes of empires races would be nice. (with racial attributes from above)

Better equipment should be availible for heroes too, but niether better nor the same as the soveriegn's.

Units

One thing i want to say about the parties thing because a lot of people seem to not like it. 1st the game's concept of putting units together is that they are tought to act as one, and I for one like it, and i think it is more or less like real life because in a squad, every man counts. E.x, (i know movies arn't real life but they're the closest ex i got.) In the movie 300, the group of spartains gathered around and put up their shields to form a shell - compared to the game each man has a shield so the might of each man with a shield is combined - now this shell wasn't unstoppable but it allowed the spartains to survive another day with limited causualties like what the developers of this game were thinking. Another ex the movie Red Cliffs, an army of soldiers lifted their shields, positioned them selves around the target, moved in, and stabbed the man to death with spears - compared to the game every man in the gruop is able to diliver an attack so the total amount of damage the group can deal is combined (assuming every one does the same damage) - I think this concept is great because it allows for an accurate production of armies and i see no problem with that, even if they become really powerful (thats the point of combining into an army units any way) its like getting 4 men who can all lift 300 lbs to lift an object 1200 lbs, so the combined stregnth of the men is 1200lbs..........

Armor should be more varried, limited,and wider ranged, units should be allowed to have one pack, one magic charm, an armor set, and weapon, presently the player can equip any number of pacts, charms, and other miscellaneous items they want (except for the campaign O.o). The armour basically defines the units, and i find equiping only the best armor and a mount quite boring. Armor should fit the type of unit  you want, ex for a rouge type units you would most likely give him lets say a tough leather armor set, this set would privide the rouge with mobility, + 1.5 speed and a solid defense of lets say 13 with out the helm. Now this will not help him if the unit he wishes to attack has an attack of 20, so what now? well it turns out that because of the armor's mobility he has an increased chance to dodge attacks, so he isnt completely out of luck. heavy armor like plate armor gets high defense but less speed and no mount, and med armor like chain-mail gets good armor, no speed penalty or bonus save for a mount, and light armor  gets low defense, increased speed, mount, and chance to avoid attacks (for equiping normal armor).

Weapons needs more varitity as well and more of them. Units should have a chance to hit, and some weapons should modify that. (this usually depends on dexterity)(some one else said some thing about range and intitiative beeing added to weapons and i agree) Ranged weapons are nothing presently. Bows should differ in attack, range (this would depend on the unit's sight) and speed. Ex. a  light crossbows would have a range of 2 less than the unit's sight but max 4, an attack of 7 speed - .5; while a light bow would have a range = to the the sight of the unit but max 8, attack 5 and a speed of .25 l  Normal melee weapons should range like this - Daggers low damage, very high speed, very high critical chance and increased chance to ht,  One handed swords med damage, med speed to high speed, med to high critical chance. Two handed swords high damage, low to med speed, low to med critical, slightly lessens chance to hit. One handed axes med to high damage, med speed, med critical chance. Two handed axes high to very high damage, low speed, med critical chance, some reduction to hit chance. One handed hammers high damage, med speed, low critical chance. Two handed hammers very high attack, low speed, low critical chance, and slight to some reduction of hit chance. staffs low to med attack, med speed, low critical. one handed spear med attack, med speed, med to high critical chance, Two handed spears med to high attack, med to high speed, med to high critical chance. (for normal weapons)

Magic weapons and armor, soveriegn, and hero weapons and armor should all be created in specialized shops where the player will be able to choose between availible enchantments (non-spell upgrades) and spells that can be imbued into the armor at the cost of crystals.

Units should have racial attributes (above)

Leveling units should up one random stat and increase life and mana, parties should take longer to level

Training magic units was some thing i thought i could do when i 1st got the game but sadly i was mistaken. And i don't under stand why either, the story says that "all peoples made use of this sorcery"..... but after the destruction of the world, suddenly only a few people can (what made that happen?). And sions, whats up with them not able to use magic, i thought it said they had to be trained in magic, and if what they use is magic then im lost. I think players should train magic units like this: After claiming an elemental shard the soveriegn could cast a spell to transfer some of the power of the shard into selected units and or heroes, This would give the unit or hero 1 essence and the level one spell of the tranfered shard, once this is done, it can't be done agin, and from there, as the unit or hero increases level, they gain more mana and access to more spells, this happens much slower for units than heros. This idea keeps the basic concept of the channeler in mind because the unit or hero still needs the channeler to gain greater talent in the arcane arts, and it provides a better use for the shards and will make the play want to search and claim these shards.

Unit Abilities should be added too, these abilities however would be very much weaker than hero and soveriegn abilities, but enough to put the unit into a different class and call it something new, not saying they should be crappy, ex 1st Aid - heals 5 hp at the cost of 1 action point (lets call the unit a medic and say he has 5 action points that 25 hp a turn to heal a unit if the medic isnt killed) Bash - unit has a chance to prevent a counter attack

Moding

Unit creation this would be grate if players were able to make their own units, from how they want. PLayers could modify stats, create a new unit from scratch, and even create their own race, all with out having to use some type of extensive brain damaging modding tools. 8)

Item creation is the same idea as the unit creation except with items.

This game is great, but it needs a little more to be on the level of its competition ( just trying to lighten up all these negative feedbacks ) I think it will need more than new spells and units to excite players. But i have faith and good hopes that the developers will fix all major issues and silly concepts in the game, and make this game something to talk about (other than issues and bad ideas) 8D!!!!!!!