Dm184741

Join Date 03/2007

Game concepts I haven’t figured out (v914)

yes, I've tried looking for them in the doc too

* I have very little idea what trading for tech points really does.

Looked in help couldn't find any hint in there either. Sometimes it appears to do absolutely nothing. Sometimes it appears to get applied to some research goals, but I no idea how it decides which particular techs to apply it to other than mil, magic, civ ect. there seems to be absolutely zero predictability.

* Spell Mastery, what does it do?

I get the sense that it affect the success rate of casting resistible spells like slow, but that doesn't seem to carry over to direct damage spells… does it have any effect on them? If so I have no idea what. It also doesn't seem to carry over for summon or unit buff spells either… if I’m not a water or death mage do I really care about spell power? Also chaos doesn’t seem to be resistible does it matter for that spell?

* Dodge, How does it work?

so if I have 10 dodge does that mean I always have a 10% of being missed? OR

is the dodge number subtracted from their accuracy so that if that have 110% accuracy they will still always hit?

<edit: I looked at the description again which makes me lean towards option 2 here, but still not sure>

* Inititive, how does it translates into turns?

I know higher initiative == turns more quickly and thus more turns, but the formula is hazy, how am I supposed to decide if +1 initiative == more damage than +2 damage? Diablo, WOW, and dungeon crawlers typically take the guess work out of this by providing a dps (damage per second) calc built in. If you had some sort of equivalent then I wouldn't need the formula as much (would still probably need it for complex calcs which involve magic on some of the turns e.g. if I only need one of the spells to win with acceptable damage. is hast more damage per mana point efficient than growth? The AI could probably also benefit from these calcs...

* What wakes sleeping monsters?

I’ve seen the computer build settlements right next to a strong monster set and have it just sit there, while strong monster sets have just decided to roam bc my border is next to them. (I understand from other threads that the comp may cheat (unofficially explained by an alliance with monsters), but that was confusing when I was learning the game, especially when I take a city and it is immediatly destroyed by the sleeping monster which wakes bc it is now my city and not the computer's.)

- also some monsters will be woken up, if you end your turn next to them, I can tell you how frustrating it is to have your army stack get slaughtered bc the comp decided to use a stupid path and end their turn next to a dormant deadly stack.

- along those lines, I’m not sure but it seems like my caravans/roads wake sleeping monsters too.

- the ability to not waking sleeping monsters is a huge requirement for success (and apparently AI) in the current version of the game so it would be nice for its UI and doc side to see some love. It would be nice if you could see %chance to wake sleeping monster/wake per turn(however it works) by hovering over them and a warning: do you really want to build this city/outpost/zocBuilding here… when you are building next to something that could kill the settlement/outpost (which is most everything)

- it would also be nice if the computer didn't completely flaunt this in your face by building cities directly next to deadly stacks which will destroy your city the instant you take it.

* Which difficulty represents the AI playing its best, but not cheating?

* How does xp work?

If 2 ppl are in my party and I kill a 100xp monster who gets the xp:

- do they both get 100xp (multiply model)

- is it split evenly so that they each get 50xp

- does the unit delivering the killing blow get the xp (not a fan of this option, as it encourages too much micro, which I assure you the AI won't even do right)

- is the xp distributed proportionally to a unit's 'contribution' to the fight?

Why do I care?

The even/proportional distribution model encourages hero soloing, where-as the multiply model encourages stacks of doom.

Since hero leveling seems to be a huge component of military strength which way I choose matters for how effectively I or the AI for that matter plays the game.

* How do I read stats on Armor/weapons?

(ok I’ve since figured out how to reverse understand these by equipping them and hovering over the attack or defense to get the very helpful pop-up, but it is mostly a matter of memorization to figure this out before equipping them.)

From the original post:

damage 9, 9 cutting is that:

18 damage 9 of which is typed cutting the other 9 of which is untyped brute damage? OR

is it 9 damage all of which is cutting?

In general I think it is 9 damage all of which is cutting, but then on defense it seems the reverse is true… 2 defense 2 blunt seems to mean 4 defense 2 of which only applies to cutting typed damage… talk about confusing

- It would be far more clear to be consistent across weapons and armor and list the item descriptions like the hover text.

* When I get a notification that one of my structures got destroyed, How do I figure out which one it was that got destroyed?

(ok maybe not technically a game concept, but this dirves me crazy, once I'm even mid-sized it is hard to figure out)

Background: this is broken out of a super long post I did on my 1^st impressions of the game, more will come to your delight or horror

https://forums.elementalgame.com/425000

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you sir, are asking good questions

XP are split differently in 914, now the hero and the champions get more than the other units, but still, soloing is definitly the way to go to improve you sov and win a game, devs are bound to balance this further as it is not yet satisfactory

roaming monsters are a drag - seen the AI building an outpost next to a lair and awaking a monster which decides to chase my champion three tiles farther IS cheating, I don't care being chased, as long as monsters chase everybody, devs insist that the player and the AI get the same treatment, but I have yet to see one of their cities destroyed

I'll avidly read any answers to your questions

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joasoze

Join Date 02/2006

+39

About the monsters. Froggie had some issues with fog of war and monsters (the monsters used the human players fow, and not the AI fow), and this is probably the reason that the monsters dont do much against the AI (yet). I saw hoarder spiders take out an outpost of my enemy yesterday, the round before I was gonna take it out myself. It happens, but not that often.

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@joasoze I don't think a bug where the monsters use my fow can explain their behavior. I can sit there with the monster + (city/watchtower) plainly in view with the monster completely dormant.

I'm not claiming they never take out AI owned units, watchtowers or cities. I even saw a stampede of roaming monsters trample an AI city once, and only once. It is just very rare, like accident level rare, where they just happened to randomly roam into the city square. I see cities build 1 square next to a deadly group of demons and assassin demons which has even sat there long enough to spawn multiple assassin demons to roam, but none of them ever attached the city.

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Quoting ,

quoting post

* When I get a notification that one of my structures got destroyed, How do I figure out which one it was that got destroyed?

(ok maybe not technically a game concept, but this dirves me crazy, once I'm even mid-sized it is hard to figure out)

This is a non-bug that needs fixing / rethinking. I think it's going to take a little more feedback than from myself since I can't remember how other turn based strats handled AI turns. Going to start a new post about this when I get home tonight. I've lost too many battles because something happened that I didn't know, but should have..and if the tables were turned, the AI can always see. E.G. an army taking a road though enemy territory from fog to fog, you can miss this movement...AI would not. This relates to the lack of information about not-your-turn events.

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Quoting jonmdewey,

* I have very little idea what trading for tech points really does.

It is suppose to apply to random techs in that tree, but this is sort of a new feature and isn't too well defined. Sometimes I see it working, sometime it doesn't seem like it actually does anything. It might be a problem due to trading for multiple type of tech points at once, I'm not entire sure, because I haven't tested this extensively. Most of the time, I just trade away all my tech points to the lowest AI (about to die) for as much crystals as I can get... seeing as how I'm usually way ahead in research.

Quoting jonmdewey,

* Spell Mastery, what does it do?

Just as you think it does... affects success rate of resistible spells. It has no effect on direct damage, summoning or buffing spells. So no, you probably don't care if you don't use debuffs. It also affects counterspells, but I usually just kill the caster instead of countering them. Also, chaos isn't resistible, it's a random effect.

Quoting jonmdewey,

* Dodge, How does it work?

2nd option is right. Attacker's Accuracy - Defender's Dodge = chance to hit.

Quoting jonmdewey,

* Inititive, how does it translates into turns?

Initiative and turns depends on the unit you compare it to. Most of the time, 1 initiative difference just means you get to move a bit earlier. However, if you have 10 initiative, and the opponent has 5, you'll move twice before they can. This makes spells like haste and slow very powerful in combination. With some shards, it's not hard to haste yourself, slow your enemy, and move 5 times before they can. In unit design, you usually want to max attack and initiative, and try not to use any initiative penalizing weapons.

Quoting jonmdewey,

* What wakes sleeping monsters?

Supposedly, proximity and ZoC overtake. Basically if you move too close (usually around 2 tiles), they'll start chasing you (yes, this includes caravans), or if your ZoC overtake their lair, then they will start roaming. But as you've seen, there are buggy behaviors with the AI and monsters. Sometimes the two just don't see one another, and it results in what you think is cheating. It's being worked on.

Quoting jonmdewey,

* Which difficulty represents the AI playing its best, but not cheating?

Challenging

Quoting jonmdewey,

* How does xp work?

Exp distribution is a bit complicated... basically, heroes get a bonus exp, but splits it if there are more than one hero in the party, but don't if it's just units. So say a monster gives 10 exp. If a hero killed it, they might get 12 exp (assuming no bonus exp traits). If you have a hero and 2 units, the hero gets 12 exp, and both units gets 10 exp. If there's 2 heroes, then both gets 6 exp. If there's 2 heroes and 2 units, then both heroes gets 6 exp, and both units gets 5 exp. If there's 3 heroes, all three gets 4 exp. If there's 3 heroes and 2 units, then the 3 heroes gets 4 exp, and the units gets 3 exp.

In other words, for max exp, you want 1 hero per army, and bring troops to help him.

Quoting jonmdewey,

* How do I read stats on Armor/weapons?

9 damage, 9 cutting means you do 9 cutting damage.

2 defense + 2 blunt means you get 2 defense to everything (pierce, cutting and blunt) and 2 extra blunt defense (so 4 blunt, 2 pierce, and 2 cutting).

Quoting jonmdewey,

* When I get a notification that one of my structures got destroyed, How do I figure out which one it was that got destroyed?

You don't, and it's a horrible nightmare trying to find out. Yes, it needs work.

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Trading tech: you receive X points of research that get randomly applied to the topics in relevant tree. Switching your research to the topic you want before the trade doesn't help.

(Accuracy of attacker - dodge of defender) / 100 = probability of hit.

Initiative is your energy generation. You keep getting energy, up to the point you get enough for a move. You move, your energy goes to zero, and you wait to get full again.

Monsters wake up for different reasons: (1) They always wake up if someone's dominion covers them. BUT when they wake up, they do not set out to rampage unless they have a target. When they get YOU as a target, they always attack, unless there are pathing issues. When the target is AI owned, often it gets a pass. It's muddy. (2) In late game, they set off without provocation, depending on their power, i.e. tough guys get the wanderlust later. (3) Some, but not all, will attack units that are adjacent to their lairs. Personally, I think monsters have ALL the tricks they need, they just need to be tuned.

AI definitely cheats on Hard and Ridiculous. On lower difficulties I am not sure.

XP has worked differently with every patch, but for the first time, .914 gives you numbers you can use to understand what's going on. It seems that there is hero xp and unit xp, and that gets given to the relevant units, and is shared if there are more than one per type. I am not quite sure, but what works best is solo hero, then hero+unit. Multiple heroes advance excruciatingly slowly.

Armor/weapons. Base + bonuses. Check the breakdown on the character page, it's very clear. Keep in mind your own dominion gives you bonuses.

Destroyed outposts - no way to tell where it happened. There should be a clickable notification with its own category at some point.

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Thank you for pointing this out, so it can be thoroughly explained in the game

I would give you karma, but I cannot figure out this forum interface

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

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Great post, and a warning sign for what the game does wrong, both in mechanics and presentation.

Stardock have always tried to reduce the amount of stats in their games and use board-game style mechanics that anyone could follow through. But it seems like in Elemental the former has stood in the way of the latter, to the extent that too much happens "under the hood" leaving us unsure of why things go wrong when they do.

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Quoting ,

quoting post

* Spell Mastery, what does it do?

I get the sense that it affect the success rate of casting resistible spells like slow, but that doesn't seem to carry over to direct damage spells… does it have any effect on them? If so I have no idea what. It also doesn't seem to carry over for summon or unit buff spells either… if I’m not a water or death mage do I really care about spell power? Also chaos doesn’t seem to be resistible does it matter for that spell?

I asked for improvement in the UI tactical battles to show this information. It would be nice to see what our spell mastery is and what the target's spell resistance is so we have a sense about how effective the spell would be.

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Quoting ,

quoting post

* Which difficulty represents the AI playing its best, but not cheating?

Challenging. The AI starts cheating at Hard.

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wow thanks all for the great answers.

The initiative explanation makes sense of why slow seems so powerful (specially when chaosSlow and iceElementalSlow stack on top of it- though those all stacking may be a bug)

The spell power thing is a little disappointing :/ it looks like the only way earth, air, and life mages can really improve their spells is with shards, and the one manaCost reduction trait I've seem popup (but it doesn't seem to be a skill series)

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Spell power is a tricky one for me. You can logic it out in that the magic itself doesn't effect the target, the spell creates the condition... ie a ball of fire, and then the target has to deal with it. But it's magic...can reason it out in any way.

Problem is leveling. (Clarity is a problem too but, well not AS important as mechanics.) But with leveling, spell power creates resistance. There needs to be a defense against it. I'm not sure if there is an elemental damage perk for certain levels/classes...but there is gear. It's hard to put a value on a few points of resistance / power vs +% damage increase/resistance. You can't tell what a point is worth. You know if you stack it you will increase the power of your mage but...you won't really know if the points are being used. +% is always used, +n to a random die roll is not.

It's not a bad thing, just hard to value. I'm thinking that it might be better to have +% power and resistances to levels. Leave the +n on gear. That way a caster can more effectively use resistance/power gear and the player has a better feel for how their caster stands against others. I mean, to me after 5 levels of +10% resistance bonuses, I would have a better feeling for the defensive power of my spell resist vs casters than if I had 5 levels of +2 resist.

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To be honest, I don't know why they don't just have spell damage scale with spell mastery... and spell resistance would reduce damage. Basically your magic damage would multiply by (spell mastery - spell resist/100). It would make both stats more useful.

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joasoze

Join Date 02/2006

+39

I have two questions of my own

What happens if you go into negative population (Magnar slaving or other reason). Does growth just stop? Is there a negative growth until balance is restored, or are the population just removed??

If you have 4 prestige and two cities, they should get 2 growth each. If one have no more food/growth. Will the growth be 2-0 or will the two move so that its 4-0? I suspect 2-0

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Quoting joasoze,

reply 14

What happens if you go into negative population (Magnar slaving or other reason). Does growth just stop? Is there a negative growth until balance is restored, or are the population just removed??

If you have 4 prestige and two cities, they should get 2 growth each. If one have no more food/growth. Will the growth be 2-0 or will the two move so that its 4-0? I suspect 2-0

1. Negative population??? never seen that..

2. It will be 2-0 in all the games I have tried it, pain in the ass really...

You can see the second take effect if you look over the city details part of your cities throughout the game.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

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joasoze

Join Date 02/2006

+39

I meant negative food, not population. Arragh... too tired

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If negative food, population disappears the following turn. You see this quite often when you take away or destroy a farm (or the like).

In a 4 prestige 2 city scenario, it'll be 2/0 growth.

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yep negative food population disappears - this is a bit rough seen the time it takes for the population to reach the preceding level again, it should decrease at a certain speed

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