some comments on beta3

from Elemental Forums

Hi,

 

Here are some remarks from a previous player of Elemental and an old gamer:

1 - It would be better for the eyes if the tooltip indicating the nature of the terrain under the cursor, and the resources produced, where attached to the mouse, and not at the top right of the screen. See how your eyes move back and forth between the tiles you inspect and the little box at the top right? Not good...

2 - Why cities get 10% unrest even with zero taxes? Except in the rare case where you can afford zero tax AND have a gallow, you are back to always have a production penalty because of unrest, so it seems weird.

3 - There is no visual feedback indicating that a stack has remaining move points, or none at all.

4 - Please by all mean replace the awful Elemental random name generator with either a predefined list of names (split by faction or whatever) or something better (should not be hard).

 5 - You only sell something at 10% of its buying price, is this not a tad ... extreme? Pork rib at 60 gildar is also quite pricey (or at least reduce the price and the potency)

6 - If you ender a quest square but decline the quest, the quest is gone, I guess it is on purpose?

7 - Some items have misleading descriptions, like this Hate stone that seems to imply you can suffer an adverse effect of it, whereas it is not true (from what I have experienced). Adding lore text is good, but they should not make the player believes in something erroneous either.

 

2,782 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

1. Absolutely not. There already is information attached to the cursor - information about the unit/building underneath it.  If you display both, it gets messy.  And of course, there are already too many games out there in which you cannot get information about the terrain unless the tile is empty.  The way FE does it right now is perfect.

2. Not quite true. There's the tower of dominion, the cleric, the town hall, the palace, the gallows, the jail, the bathhouse, the onyx throne, and I am sure I am forgetting something.  I.e. there are already many ways to suppress unrest.  I would not object to more, and I would not object to more sources of unrest.

As for the 10% at zero taxes, these are the good for nothing that always find something to bitch about.  The people who refuse to work on the lumber mill because they think that the city should be building a vuvuzela factory.

3. If you press tab, you get the stacks with remaining move. If you click on a stack, you can see the remaining move.  I would not mind an option that shows the remaining move as a bar, but I would keep it off.  I hate visual clutter. If anything I would get rid of the shields that sometimes, but not always appear over the units.

4. You mean at the custom race/sovereign page?  Hell, just get rid of it and force the player to type in a name. I hate it when I realize that I'm playing the Ooshivaguidians.

5. I think the selling prices are fine... the problem is that the buying prices are ridiculous.  I would keep the selling prices, and reduce the buying prices to 33% of what they are right now.

6. I think they fixed this already, at least for the quests where it makes sense. 

7. Yes, there are a ton of items/quests/skills like this.  I try to report them, but it's kind of boring.  Good thing there are beta testers more conscientious that me :-)

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

About the name generator, it is also used for cities I believe. And it is plain horrendous. Eshalliekkib. Really???

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting PocusFr, reply 2
About the name generator, it is also used for cities I believe. And it is plain horrendous. Eshalliekkib. Really???
End of PocusFr's quote

Me thinks too, would love to see it polished just a little, I do like assistance to random names though! cant force me to be creative all the time, after all I usually play PC games to stress off, and naming each and every of my cities so I will actually remember them somewhat is a pain. (Ok I am poor at coming up with names, and numbers just wont cut).

What I mean is, unique ("Proper") names like the ones I see in "Civ 5" makes me remember my cities, atleast a little bit, by name.
Not that I cant live without it though.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting PocusFr, reply 2
About the name generator, it is also used for cities I believe. And it is plain horrendous. Eshalliekkib. Really???
End of PocusFr's quote

 

Actually, picking memorable names for my cities is one of the things I enjoy most about 4X games.              I never use computer generated names; and I always pick evocative names, that fit my mood of the moment.  So many possibilites! 

One time, I may pick the names of Ancient settlements in Egypt.  OR, if I am playing a Viking kingdom (and because I am half Danish -- my father having immigrated from Denmark), I may choose all Danish names.  Another time (because I grew up in the Chicagoland area) I may use names derived all from the suburbs of Chicago.  If I am in a native-American mood, I may choose all settlement names taken from American Indian (usually tribal) names.   If I am in a Science Fiction literature mood, I may pick the names of great SciFi authors, or place-names from their best stories ...

Choosing great settlement names (or star-system/planet names;  or place-names) is one of the great Joys of playing a good 4X Fantasy game!   It adds to the feeling of immersion ...       :thumbsup: