1.09q Changelog

First!

what does that make Derek?

OP

phew was afraid you were making him out to be some sort of zero

0st?

Or is he base on which we place our inane integers?

Good to know the updates are getting done fast.

Yeah! Thank you Derek.

Just want to mention the unkillable mob bug that a few people have reported as well, best description is the following post:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/401490

It stopped one of my games personally when one of these units was defending a capital city.

The impression I get is that the unit has spell immunity cast on it, which would explain why it resists all spells, but at the same time it is making the unit 'resist' (instead of dodge or block) all physical attacks as well.  Just a guess

On a more serious note here are some bugs that have really impacted my games.

There is a bug that prevents monsters from spawning midgame.

https://forums.elementalgame.com/401372

Bug with Magnar that causes the map to fill with advanced quests

https://forums.elementalgame.com/401371

Will the AI improvements be in this build?

Mounted melee animation is much better, and mounted archer animation has improved, but there still seems to be a second or so delay after completion to being able to click.

Thanks.

PS. Oh and more quests please

You know that there is at least one mod with more quests, right?  The specific one I'm thinking of is still a 'beta' mod though...

I'd send donuts to Derek and the guys/gals as a thank you for making this game more fun, but they'd go stale before they arrived in the mail... so I'll just say thanks (again) guys!

What about the bug where my kids don't get magic because their mother doesn't have it. So now I have to "give" it to them.

Looking good. Could you also add to the known issues that any updates we make to our heroes info cards are not getting saved properly. They will change and then so many turns later they will reset.

Nice job buffing the walls for city defense by reducing the city level requirements. This should make the early game zerg offense much more challenging (assuming the AI takes advantage of the walls). Thanks!

you guys are making me cry.  1.0.9q is going to be sweet! 

It's a good start, although I hope that you guys are looking at the big picture to see if the rest of the values (weapon damage, spell damage, hit points) works well with those values.

Great job guys.  Looking better and better.

I have still noticed a couple of issues with tactical combat (though cannot say how to reliably reproduce, sorry):

1. Still see occasions where units will attack, show no damage number (or "hit" sounds) yet the unit takes damage.
2. Unit says dodge or block, but still takes damage
3. Damage received is different from the damage shown on the screen.

These are a lot better in 1.09p, but still see from time to time.

Also, I started a brand new game as Pariden and when I got Jansk he was a Researcher and not a Merchant.  I thought that was kinda neat and maybe related to the faction that I chose.  However, several turns in (cannot recall specifically because I had him on Auto Explore) I noticed that he was now a Merchant and no longer a Researcher.

In both of these situations I had started new games after updating to the 1.09p patch, not loading a prior saved game that was started on a prior patch level.

yeah EWoM has always had problems on loading saved games since Day 1.  1.0.9p still has those problems.  i would have thought that protecting the integrity of the saved game was Game Development 101, but maybe it's not...maybe it's hard.

Uh.. it's been changed to "slightly". Seriously, I don't get it. With the major changes made to the game, how can values which were already completely inconsistent still make any sense and be relevant ?

I mean, it's not like I'm the only one thinking this. And it's not like it's not obvious: if you rethink your system as deeply as you did, if your probability curve has been changed, you need to forget about *all* the current values and restart from scratch. I mean, there never *were* good values to begin with ! At some point, you guys need to sit at the table and design this stuff from the ground up with a clear idea of the scales involved in mind and how previous game tackled that issue. AoW 1 and 2, MoM, Battle for Wesnoth. Civilization. Hell, FfH2, that I've heard some people in the dev' team know a little bit , which I still play regularly !

I come off as a bit aggressive on this issue, but for several people here (and on other forums), this is a critical issue and a deal-breaker. To use an example similar to the one I've used in another post, if you switch from D&D D20's system to Chaosium's d100 without changing the value of the modifiers and roll difficulties, then nothing will make sense. And right now, this is kind of what's happening with Elemental.

What people like me are expecting isn't a slight change to armor values*, it's a total reassessment of every piece of equipment, based on a guideline of what the scale should be and what are the expected effects. And before changing any piece of equipment, you need to have this scale decided somewhere.

I remember Frogboy saying that going for quality and quantity should both be options that work to some extent. Well, as it is, and even with small changes to armor values, this will *not* happen.  

I have high hopes for this game, but I think it's important to get those fundamentals right. Some people might not care, but some others do. It's not about perfect balance. It's about not having numbers all over the place which don't fit a big picture.

*I mean, seriously, they're not a "bit" broken, they're totally off. Almost everything in this game is because there's no scale. Look at Civ IV and V: technological advance never made units suddenly vastly superior to others. They provide a significant advantage, but nowhere near the levels Elemental reaches.

  You may be reading a lot into "slightly".

  Most of the game values have been fundamentally changed.  It's one of the reason my first dev journal is about changing the base stats, and why we went after balance next.  Its a lot of numbers, its a lot of moving pieces.  We have been through every defense value.  Its not perfect, but its better.

  But we don't do ourselves any service by swinging blindly from one extreme to the other.  We went through it once, we will continue to adjust as balance requires, but expect us to be more conservative.  Lower, playtest, lower again if needed.  Get the bugs out of the way so we can see how things really work.  But consistent progress toward a specific goal, not restarting or redesign when balance issues are encountered.

Then, as long as it's just one step in a series of many, I'm satisfied. I hope you understand my concerns, though. And yes, I understand the need to proceed slowly (the last bow nerf made them useless for obvious reasons), but I will most likely say that a lot of changes are still needed after that . 

  Im surprised to hear that about bows.  I played a big archer heavy game after making the change (though I admit I'm only one guy and one experience, what we need for balance is a lot of good feedback so we arent reacting to a single game anomally).  But for my part I found bows to be incredible in the current combat system (because archers can make multiple attacks per round, and a lot before melee guys get into range).  They will be even better with lowered defense.

  Anyone else think bows are useless now?

Hey Derek, Any chance to get an acknowledgment on the intro/cut sceen sound bug? the one where if you go into options and turn the sound down, it doesn't effect the volume of the intro and cut scenes, and if you disable the sound fully, they still play at a loud volume.

I've been hilting my head against a brick wall hear since the original beta 0.90 serries. I did get once response after many requests for acknowledged on this bug which was we read and log all bug reports, which if it was happening the lists where getting thrown out each night by the cleaners.(and the cloath one that you have added to this fix list, thanks mate) 

What kind of guys did you fight against ? Because those light-plated soldiers Resoln throws at me are totally immune to bows. And that's just light plate :/.