I can't believe how much I got for my pre-order of WoM. The game I am playing now is the best strategy game I have ever played. Thank you so much, and please make another expansion!
At all levels challenging and below, the AI doesn't get any bonuses or cheat in any way I am aware of. I think it is policy for it play the same game as the player at challenging and below, and all the discrepancies I have seen in the beta have been classified bugs. I don't know of any bugs left in that regard that haven't been fixed.
There are a few other reviews up if you do a google search and look in the news. Gameranx gave it a 9/10, 411mania gave it 8/10, rtsguru gave it a 8/10, and I saw some other one with a 7.5/10. I don't know if and when these will make it to metacritic. Gameranx review- http://www.gameranx.com/features/id/14851/article/fallen-enchantress-legendary-heroes-review/
5/10 is a score is for games that are a disaster. The review doesn't read like a disaster, it reads like the reviewer wasn't pleased with the tutorial and swarm. The tutorial was actually pretty bad the last time I checked (at the beginning of the beta), but there is very little here about any negative experience of playing the game. I wonder if the reviewer thinks that swarm gives those surrounding units an extra attack? That would be crazy unbalanced, but it is not the case. Where i
Kinect is nothing compared to the IllumiRoom http://www.computerandvideogames.com/407439/illumiroom-reportedly-set-to-feature-at-next-xbox-event/ Check out the video, this thing is wild. I can't believe the effect that will augment the vibrate, where your entire room shudders. That is a marvel of engineering. edit: much better video http://www.ign
[quote who="Teodosio" reply="51" id="3361002"] I had doubts regarding the xp split too, but looking at these figures I would say that the xp split system is fair enough. It seems fine to me.[/quote] Fair is a loaded word. I would wonder, who would put two other champions with the sovereign if it meant being 4 levels below what the sov would be otherwise? Do those two champions add that much value to the stack? I would say they almost never do, and in most cases you can acco
Whether ethical misconduct requires intent is a philosophical matter, and I do love those, but suffice to say there is at least one camp that considers intent irrelevent (consequentialists/utilitarians). I don't think it is an important issue here though. I think a design can be unethical, let's say if we saw stadium plans that had extra concession stands where fire exits should be. Maybe the designer forgot about them and there is no intent to endanger people. It is a matter
Congratulations on the excellent game. It is the best strategy game I have played. I hope it gets received as well as it deserves!
I agree, thank you for the analysis JoeBall. For a long time many people posted that they felt they had to take those traits, I think with that analysis there would be very few who would. But I bet many new players will feel they have take them too.
Thank you, Bombbr. I have never heard a math joke based on transitivity, I was hoping someone would notice. I was proud of that one all day.
The game I am going to use as an example is Diablo 3. For those of you who are not aware, Blizzard put a real money auction house in to the game where they take a 15% cut on all money cashed out of the system and an extra 15% cut on any commodity transactions in the game (also $1 on all transactions). This is within a game designed around addictive tendencies, where the goal is to get people to play a 10 hour game for hundreds of hours through loot and numbers greed as mobs with ever higher n
[quote who="katrisa" reply="45" id="3360544"] I also feel that adjusting the shared XP and removing XP bonus traits would help alleviate this issue. And... the current xp split really isn't fun as it forces the player to consciously make a decision about how to split their troupes and heroes for leveling purposes rather than true strategic purposes.[/quote] This is really well put. The design problem is to minimize XP greed and XP maximization from s
If you don't mind fielding questions, there are some things I am extremely curious about. How long did it take to design the AI system? Do you use any statistical learning in your design? How do you determine and modify the weights on priorities? Finally, i f you had not gone with a fair AI approach and instead just gave the illusion of playing a human-like game without playing by the rules at all, how much time do you think you would have saved (in this game and over the year
I am fascinated by AI, so I am throwing in two cents. It seems like if it doesn't affect war-waging, it won't make the most immediate impact. It seems like tactical battle improvements would be the quickest way to increase challenge. If heroes had fireballs and blizzards and went for the turn reduction trait, or in general aimed heavy hitting spells at sensitive targets, the AI would be a lot more deadly. Summoning heroes would be powerful as well, plopping down air elementals
I am going to have call Q.E.D. on this thread unless someone can refute the argument I made based on the proof I swore I saw Parrottmath make in a thread somewhere.
If you can beat the dragons guarding the dragon lair, and a single dragon can beat the AI, doesn't that mean you can beat the AI anyway? Isn't that the transitive property of dragon-slaying? Edit: I could have swore I saw Parrottmath prove transitive closure over the set of dragon-related combats in a thread somewhere here.
[quote who="Mistwraithe" reply="30" id="3359799"] Underpowered heroes and XP splitting are hardly analogous with each other. Heroes were much more powerful in most versions of FE and that had XP splitting so don't pretend that the two issues are the same. I certainly would like heroes to be more powerful but that can by done by increasing how fast their level (amongst other things), rather than changing the XP splitting.[/quote] The problem with XP splitting
The only thing that was wrong with E:WoM was that it was underfleshed and undertested. It seems almost exactly like LH, execpt without the pacing, the fullness of content, and the polish. People called it a disaster, but I don't think it was an abomination, it's just what happens to a game that is undercooked. If someone expects Gal Civ 2 with swords and magic, they will get that with a heaping helping of love and care all over. If someone expects a knock their socks off
I believe the design imperative should be every trait does something noticeable, and is something to look forward to in and of itself. In my opinion, if you can reasonably imagine yourself as a player going blah, or why do I need to take this to get what I really want, it should go. If it is in doubt, make it do two or more things to make sure the player is satisfied by it. The experience of getting level rewards is a big-time attraction which the player looks forward to before and revels in
I think I may have misunderstood with the mana pools. If you just mean mana pools as an internal mana budgeting scheme, that's probably a good idea. There is a big difference to me between an AI with bonuses and an AI that doesn't play the same game. Here is one economical (in development terms) way to make an AI. First, forget about managing the economy. All you are interested in is the appearance to the player, so just spawn units at the rate and quality that seems to match
[quote who="GFireflyE" reply="2" id="3359405"] It's almost like the AI needs two pools of mana. The first pool is dedicated for 'common' spells. The second pool of mana is for 'larger' spells. Both pools grow, and both pools grow at different rates, depending on how far along you are in a game; a 'weighting' if you will. Throw in some exception handlers in so that the AI can choose to occasionally 'borrow' from one pool to supply the other if it
Coyote303, I am curious, how would you play in the following situation? It is a 2/(X+1) split instead of a 1/X. 1 hero = 100% 2 heroes = (66% each) 133% 3 heroes = (50% each) 150% 4 heroes = (40%) 160% 5 heroes = (33.2%) 166% 6 heroes (28.5%) 171% Would you feel compelled to put all your heroes in to one stack? Even though you could theoretically only do 1/X as many quests, 1/X as many goodie huts, and cover 1/X as much of the map as separating them? I think XP c
SBFMadDjinn, I think you may overvalue balance in this genre in terms of forecasting how much players will like it. I don't think most of the top games in this genre have held up well to the desire to win. For instance, Master of Magic, Age of Wonders 2 and Shadow Magic, and Dominons 3 were nowhere near balanced, in the sense there were overpowered strategies everywhere, and hardly challenges for players who are out to win. The systems, especially magic as a system, seem incredibly diffic
It depends on whether you are just talking about a warrior hero or heroes in general. A high-init mage hero could kite almost any high-level troop (unless they had that automatic first-strike, then they may get a one-shot win) and destroy it with high-powered spells. A single mage hero may be able to take out an army of elite units, with spells like dirge of ceresa or fireball. A warrior hero is far worse off than a mage hero in almost every scenario, with the exception of when the hi
Mistwraithe, that is why I said that it was more unclear what is motivating people who aren't "playing to win". They do want to win the game, and they do like challenge and a lack of exploits, but there is something fundamentally different going on than in someone who plays the game like a chess game. There are a lot of elements that are adornments but don't specifically maximize winning prospects, and these players are enticed by them. It may be thoughts like, "I want to build up my