marionesi

[quote quoting="post"] Spells need to be CHOSEN, and not given. Because this game focuses on researching Tech and not Spells (Because the Dual Research system of EWoM was cumbersome, and I am glad it is gone), Spells need to be chosen a different way. Why not utilize the tried-and-true skill tree method? For instance; Sovereigns get 2 Spell points to spend every level, plus more if they choose the "Research Spells" level improvement. Champions only get spell points if t

By the way, this is something I never quite understood. Everyone talks of overpowered slingers, but there were units with Missile Immunity (e.g. all magicians) that would have caused huge problems to slingers, not to mention the Guardian wind spell or, worse, Flame strike, to get rid of them in 1 turn. Personally, I always thought the strongest unit were Paladins... but this discussion might be off topic :)

I think the game should be such that if you want to focus on heroes you can make them pretty strong. In MoM building super-strong heroes was really a lot of fun. Yes, they were probably too strong in the end, and FE should not go that far. But it was fun. They were also very weak in the beginning, and this was good, since this is basically true in every RPG. I expect a level 1 hero with little to no equipement to be defeated by 3 militiamen or get close to, especially if it's n

[quote who="Satrhan" reply="13" id="3225931"]Well I like your idea. It can add a lot of flavour that the whole random availability of shards could never match. As a side note, yesterday I came across this article. How awesome would it be to have themed armies like you see in there? They could be an option if you combine an elemental allegiance with a focus on summoning and/or enchanting units.[/quote] Thanks :) As HF pointed out, allowing shard mutation can be tricky.

I am all in for the magic schools being specialized on certain types of spells while completely missing others. And it seems you have done quite a lot of work about it! My general comment is that your framework could be used - as you do - to check whether schools are well characterized, and spot what is not coherent with a school intended purpose. This should imply at least two types of spells missing for each school, and at least 2-3 types of spells that eac

[quote who="mqpiffle" reply="10" id="3225320"]It's possible that some intrepid modder might be modding something similar into the game and may perhaps call on you for further ideas when the first baby steps of the mod are ready to be released to the community. [/quote] Glad to hear that :D

[quote who="bottleimp" reply="40" id="3225545"] Elemental Shards Having them affect the power of all spells seems a no brainer to me (why affect some but not others?), then add in a spell that allows you to change the element of a shard to any other and suddenly players have real choice about how they want to focus their magical abilities. Again seems pretty easy to implement; we already have the corrupt spell, and some spells are affected by shards so nothing that isn't a

[quote who="Gorshmak" reply="8" id="3225234"]Marionesi, what you propose is to my understanding a burned earth approach. If the AI were to properly leverage this philosophy, any opposite shards in its territory would be gone/lost, making a quick conquer of that sovereign a high priority. That is something I don't like at all. Also, as stated above it removes to a high degree the fortune factor (lucky find of shards I like/need) - right now I have high hopes whenever I push back

[quote who="Heavenfall" reply="5" id="3225181"] A big part now is replayability from each game - champions and shards are random. You can't go into the game expecting to dominate one type of magic. That's good. And you want to take it away.[/quote] I respectfully disagree :) I do see why offering an easy option to mutate all shards into the same type could make the game less interesting, and I agree. My purpose was quite different, and it's probably my fault if I have

Since 120 people clicked on the post but just 1 replied, I was wondering why. Was it because... 1. you thought this to be too big a change at this point of the Beta 2. it was too long to read :P 3. it was uninteresting, or not needed a change 4. you just felt there was not much to add or what? Thanks in advance guys for the feedback.

I'm glad you liked it. And I think your suggestions are interesting. If allegiance to some element is to be made mandatory, which could also be nice, then it could work like this. As you begin char creation, you are given an Elemental Prysm. Place it on one of the four basic Elements, and the above applies. Only, you cannot use life/death since by default they are not available. Place it on Life (kingdom) or death (empires), and you'll be allowed to use that el

The purpose There are two things in the game that, I believe, could be improved. Both have to do with Elements. The first one, as I noted in a previous post, is that shards have a pretty passive role as of now: you find them, you build a shrine, you upgrade it. So, the interaction is quite limited. This is not bad in itself, since they are a resource, but since the game name is Elemental, I think it would be more fun if we could interact with shards. T

[quote who="j_wl_b" reply="21" id="3212288"] If I were to suggest a change I would suggest that the player should be able to either upgrade a shard to produce more mana or increase an elements power not both as is currently done. This would create strategic choice where a player would need to choose between increasing the amount of mana they get per turn or the amount of power their spells do. If this choice is presented to a player when they first level up a shard and if they must then

I think the upgradable shards, if anything, create even more options. Yes, one could imagine mana generating- upgrades and spell power- upgrades, maybe mutually exclusive, with the path-choice after the first level shrine, which always generates mana. This would already achieve some strategic choice regarding shards, and also force the player to focus on some elements more than others ( since mana gen is same for all elements, but spell boosting is only for the element of the shard where the

[quote who="seanw3" reply="17" id="3208792"]Now that shards upgrade to better shards, it would be good to include that in the idea. What level would a shard have to be at to switch it over? It's not my idea, but I think it could make an excellent mod.[/quote] I am not in the beta - not much time to dive in right now - hence I am not sure how shards have changed in Beta4. All I know is through reading the forum once in a while. I agree this could be a great mod. I have no programmi

I think these changes are best suited for an expansion. I hope that Derek & Co. will keep in mind these suggestions for the future...

[quote who="seanw3" reply="13" id="3207354"]After seeing the new system, how would you change this idea? [/quote] Not sure what you mean. How is the new system changing the role of shards as of now?

Sorry if anyone has already said this, but a stronger capital would make small empires slighly more viable compared to large ones, so maybe make the game more enjoable even for those who are not top-ranked. Besides, it makes some sense. In Civ IV the "capital" advantage worked very well I must say. But I am moderately against a standardized start though. At the very least, make it optional, a sort of flaggable option at the beginning. Something that reminds me of the "advanced start" opt

As always, leaving what you wrote "cooling down" for 24 hrs and then reading it back gives you a new perspective on it. Hence, I read my post again and I think that And I think what I wrote is amazing :D :D :D Ok, no jokes, actually I thought that at this stage in the development of the game, some suggestions may be to deep to be implemented. Allowing shard changing is - imo - a very nice idea, but at this point it might change the game too much (but please Derek tell me

Terrain modifiers are not among my priorities. Talking of priorities, I thought since the game is called Elemental they could give more strategic depth to elemental shards. Fell free to contribute with your thoughts/ideas on this discussion I created a couple of days ago https://forums.elementalgame.com/429318

[quote who="Vallu751" reply="7" id="3206273"]Wouldn't these changes actually simplify the game a lot? I mean I could just decide to play a fire mage and make every shard I meet have a fire shrine. Every game I could accomplish the same thing, no matter what the map layout would be.[/quote] This is where balance is of absolute importance. Transforming a non-fire shard into a fire shard should come at a cost, high enough to make you think about it. In MoM, you had to c

[quote who="GFireflyE" reply="3" id="3206187"] Instead, I propose you come across a shard. It has a default property of one of the 4 elements. (say fire as an example). You may choose to maintain that default 'fire' property, gaining 100% of the bonous to spells and mana of that elemental type OR choose to change/warp the shard to your will, encuring 50% penalty to that potency, but gaining an element type of your choosing, (water air or ea

As of now, once you find a shard, there is not too much to think about: you try to capture it and build a shrine to start generating mana. You can upgrade the shrine to get some area bonus in Beta 4 I believe. Each shard gives bonuses to spells of its element, and all shards contribute to generate mana to be used for all spells. If Derek and the other devs have not thought about it, I would encourage them to think about a few twists in how the shards play a r

My two cents on tactical combat: In the video, FB's attack on the slowed enemy could actually have be his best option. The reason is that the un-slowed bandit (or whatever it is) had just attacked, hence FB decided to attack the opponent that was next in the initiative bar. This is the best tactic if you have a good chance to kill your opponent with a single attack (which indeed happened) since you could kill them all before any of them

A few thoughts: Step 1: Starbases? But their ZoC's can intersect (with the right upgrades) and their bonuses are cumulative, allowing you to build strong defenses if you desire. > Beware! If ZoC's can overlap, one can find himself in the odd situation where being right beside an outpost gives you less protection than being quite distant from 2 of them, but close enough to get both bonuse