Thought I'd resurrect the 1.09 scorecard for 1.10 as a way of isolating the various concepts in Elemental and seeing what people like or dislike.
Feel free to make your own. Just allocate 1000 points anyway you want in any category or subcategory you like then score the game out of those 1000 points.
I'm just going to use the same allocation from 1.09.
Feel free to copy the following and add or adapt your own scoring system.
Before I fill in the sheet I would rate version 1.10 around 80% now which is heaps more than 1.09 (which I think I rated around 55%). The nature of dividing it up will most likely produce a low overall score and I do want to point out that I am now really enjoying playing the game.
Version 1.10
Game World (46/90)
- Resource placement (15/20)
- Random generation (12/20)
- Environment Graphics (7/20)
- Ambient Sound (2/10)
- Start positions (5/10)
- Lore (5/10)
Comment: The start positions seem a little close to neighbours now. Ambient sounds are still very poor. In this version I'm finding the lore better than version 1.09.
Sovereigns (62/80)
- Perks and Penalties (25/30)
- Graphics (12/15)
- Voices sound effects (3/10)
- Balance (22/25)
Comment: 1.10 is an improvement over 1.09. I think this aspect of the game is good. Sound is the main problem.
Races (73/170)
- RPG immersion (10/25)
- Units (15/40)
- Graphics (15/30)
- Sound (5/15)
- Differences (15/40)
- Balance (13/20)
Comment: Massive improvement over 1.09 but still got a lot of room to make heaps heaps better. Races/factions/allegiances need a lot of love. There should be race-specific units for different factions. And they all need an injection of personality. Sound is incredibly poor and adds nothing to the flavour of each race. When The Sims came out they managed to communicate so much through the random noises of the Sim characters. Elemental needs something like that along with unique units.
Heroes (26/50)
- Perks (8/15)
- RPG (3/10)
- Graphics (8/10)
- Sound (2/5)
- Balance (5/10)
Comment: Not really any improvement over 1.09. The old game Jagged Alliance did so much with their characters yet in Elemental they have zero personality and are just a convenient way to deliver damage around the map. There is so much that can be done here with things like some heroes not liking other heroes and causing issues if in the same stack. Or certain heroes going beserk on the battle field and you lose control of them. etc etc etc.
Dynasties (13/30)
- RPG (10/25)
- Balance (3/5)
Comment: Seems a little more immersive than in 1.09 but not really an important area for me.
Tech Tree (39/80)
- Strategic choice (13/20)
- Unique racial trees (0/20)
- integration with game world (8/10)
- Balance (18/30)
Comment: I like what has been done with the tech trees in 1.10 but would like to see some race-specific items added. It would also be good to have a bit more random choices delivered like the way Advanced Archery only appears sometimes. As has been mentioned the Adventure and Diplomacy tech trees are very counter-intuitive and it is just pure guess-work as to what you will get out of these.
You know, thinking about it, I would prefer not to have a tech tree at all in this sort of game. I would prefer to simply have different buildings that can be built at different level cities that allow you to do certain things. Eg. An Archery Range can be constructed in level 3 cities which gives you the crude bow. If you build an Archery Trainer building you get short bows. At level 4 you can build a Master Archer and get longbows. And so on. This would make the game a lot more immersive with the world and give even more reason for city specialisation.
Spells (64/120)
- Differences between spell books (20/30)
- Unique racial books (0/30)
- Integration with game world (23/30)
- Balance (21/30)
Comment: I really like that the spells are now all in separate books and that you need to unlock them. I don't really like unlocking them via the tech tree though and think there should be a way of unlocking these via the magic tree or via quests. The spells themselves have improved a lot. I really have a problem with unlocking the levels, then unlocking a book, and then being able to immediately research high level spells. I would much prefer not having levels that can be unlocked directly but rather have available spells appear randomly from all levels with a much higher percentage for the low levels rather than the high levels - and that as you research the low level spells from a book, the chance of high level spells in the same book also increases. So specialisation by proxy rather than by design if you will.
Quests (13/40)
- RPG (2/10)
- Randomised outcomes (0/5)
- Integration with game world (5/10)
- Different quests (2/10)
- Balance (4/5)
Comment: Boring and one dimensional. No improvement over 1.09.
Cities (51/70)
- Management (8/10)
- Buildings (8/10)
- Graphics (8/10)
- Ambient sound (2/5)
- Integrations with game world (8/10)
- User interface (6/10)
- Balance (11/15)
Comment: I like the way population and mana has been designed and also like that you can specialise cities to an extent. Would love to be able to see city statistics when placing buildings!!!! - Please!!!!
Monsters (33/50)
- RPG (8/10)
- Different types (8/15)
- Graphics (7/10)
- Sound (3/5)
- Balance (7/10)
Comment: I like that they now band together and are more aggressive but give me more types thanks.
Tactical Battles (63/100)
- Strategy (20/35)
- Fun (12/20)
- Graphics (7/10)
- Sound (3/5)
- User interface (10/15)
- Balance (11/15)
Comment: Massive improvement over 1.09. It would be good to be able to place your units before entering a battle and for the battle maps to have more terrain modifiers and obstacles. Would be good for some obstacles to block archery - or at least affect the to-hit chance.
General Gameplay (80/120)
- AI (25/40)
- Fun factor (25/30)
- New experience each time (15/30)
- Balance (15/20)
Comment: Improvement over 1.09. AI is still weak but getting better.
Total (563/1000) 56%
