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Dangerous amounts of fun

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Dangerous amounts of fun

from JoeUser Forums

Greetings!

Oh how I love this part of the beta.

First off, you guys are doing a wonderful job getting us great feedback. There have been several crashes that even our internal QA team hadn’t found yet. The net effect of the public beta team is that it effectively adds engineering hours available to us because we’re able to find and eliminate bugs quicker than we had originally projected.

Jesse and I were debugging through the ridiculously slow movement issue when you have an army. A N^2 number of calls were being made to update the army list creation which of course is just crazy.

A rather nasty crash that was occurring very regularly was found and eliminated today as well and a hard to find but nasty memory leak was found.

Balance, Polish, Game Play

We’ve gotten so much good feedback in the past week you guys that by the time the game comes out, it’ll seem like a very different (and much better) game than it would have otherwise been.

Let me outline some of the crucial things you guys have helped us consider and re-evaluate:

  1. Pacing Pacing Pacing.  This is always a tough thing but it just takes too long to do cool stuff.  We’re going to eliminate the requirement to build a special building in order to train units.  This was a holdover from Galactic Civilizations (it required a shipyard) and Sins of a Solar Empire (shipyard) that really has no purpose in Elemental other than act as a needless speed bump.
  2. Acquiring resources. Similarly, forcing a player to snake out to build a resource (OR be forced to spam cities) in order to make use of various resources IS NOT FUN. Instead, players will be able to simply select a resource and choose build if the resource is in their territory.  This not only “gets things moving” but also makes your area of influence matter more (since bigger cities generate a LOT more of it). 
  3. Custom Factions.  This is something that I think people will like a lot more in practice than they will like on paper.  Simply put, we want to let people do a lot more customization on RACE creation and faction creation than can realistically be done in the setup of a game. We’d like to see race creation and subsequently, faction creation to be something much more involved and interesting than it currently is.  As a result, we’re moving it to the Workshop area (modding aera).  Thus, you won’t have to create factions in the middle of setting up your game but rather can create them at your own pace outside the game and then use them as you see fit.  This also allows us to make the race creation a lot more custom and less cosmetic (i.e. we can have Elves and Orcs and other templates in the modding that players can then create their own custom technology trees for and their own custom tiles for, etc.).
  4. MAGIC. A lot of our time is being focused on streamling the magic system and making things more fun and interesting here.  Basically we want to make sure players can do a lot of magic stuff early on that’s fun and interesting. 
  5. Tactical Battles. You guys haven’t gotten to see this part yet but you will this week.  Let me set expectations here: Our tactical battles are very much like Master of Magic except that units have morale and there are terrain bonuses. So if you don’t like Master of Magic, you probably won’t like Elemental’s tactical battles (then again, if you don’t like MoM you probably won’t like Elemental in general).
  6. UI UI UI. Too many clicks. As outdated concepts start to go away, we can massively clean up the UI and start making better use of the empire tree and other systems in place to let the game be the focus.

Anyway, I hope some of you are enjoying the beta process as much as we like having you part of it.  If you’ve never been part of a real beta program before, this has probably been quite a trip so far.  You guys are truly part of our team.

Have a good weekend!

197,375 views 70 replies
Reply #26 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Cauldyth, reply 5

quoting postAcquiring resources. Similarly, forcing a player to snake out to build a resource (OR be forced to spam cities) in order to make use of various resources IS NOT FUN. Instead, players will be able to simply select a resource and choose build if the resource is in their territory.  This not only “gets things moving” but also makes your area of influence matter more (since bigger cities generate a LOT more of it).
Very, very nice.  I never liked having to grow the actual city to physically reach and occupy the resource.  It made for ugly cities, and wasn't realistic (how often were farms and mines inside medieval city walls?).  I'd given up hoping that it would change and had just accepted it, but you just made my day.

 

I too think this is a Major bonus and a very positive step in the right direction. Now having to defend these Resources will make for much better game play and intrigue.

N.B. Please have it so the conquered Resources put up a Warning Pop up.

Juat as a heads up. In 3.0 I had a 1200 turn game before crashing out. In 3A I can't seem to get past 250... ;)

Reply #27 from Elemental Forums Top
  1. Custom Factions.  This is something that I think people will like a lot more in practice than they will like on paper.  Simply put, we want to let people do a lot more customization on RACE creation and faction creation than can realistically be done in the setup of a game. We’d like to see race creation and subsequently, faction creation to be something much more involved and interesting than it currently is.  As a result, we’re moving it to the Workshop area (modding aera).  Thus, you won’t have to create factions in the middle of setting up your game but rather can create them at your own pace outside the game and then use them as you see fit.  This also allows us to make the race creation a lot more custom and less cosmetic (i.e. we can have Elves and Orcs and other templates in the modding that players can then create their own custom technology trees for and their own custom tiles for, etc.).

 

About this, how will it work ? Can you show us ? Can we choose the size of a Race, like making hobbit, dwarf ? And if yes, will it cost points and change factor like strength and HP ?

 

Edit :
Will there be options like "you can only build city in mountain", "you get a malus of movement point on terrain that isn't mountain", "you get a movement point bonus on mountain" ?

If yes, it'll allow us to actually make race and faction really different.

SoundPackager - Customize the Windows sound scheme
Reply #28 from Elemental Forums Top

Moving in the right direction, especially in regard to snake cities.

But, uhm, I noticed too that there aren't any rivers yet.  Is it just me?  Not even dried lakes or river beds.

Reply #29 from Elemental Forums Top

Just a few comments/suggestions.

 

Firstly, i've really been enjoying the beta :). The crashes really annoy me in 3-A purely because I'm suddenly finding it a fun and absorbing game rather than a cool testing experience.

 

My main thoughts/suggestions:

1) I still feel cities could be slightly more specialised. Perhaps wonders will do this, I imagine (hope) the tech trees are still being worked on?

2) A-la point 1, I hope the Empire tech tree is receiving considerable work? It just seems a bit contrived atm and most of the changes just reduce fun.

 

3) More useful strategic magic would certainly be nice. Can't comment on tactical.

 

4) My major complaint. A popular one i think. The time it takes to build units. Surely if the resources are sapped on clicking the train button, there is no need for a long delay? I'm aware you probably don't want huge armies popping up in two turns but i think the timing needs major work. I'd like to see either:

 

a) single unit takes 1 turn, party 2, group 4, largestthingiforgettheword 8

b) all units take 2 turns to pop out after i've paid their cost

c) All units take different time to build... but this is reduced!

d) If none of the above happens, we really could use a hurry option. Either way, it would probably be nice. Double resources or something. Maybe even lower prestige for the Kingdoms? "You whip your workers and they finish Abi-Dhalzim's Horrid Hot-Cross Bun in 1 turn. But now everybody else looks at you as a brutal slave-mongering badger-baiter. -3 to prestige for 10 turns."

Reply #30 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Stmorpheus, reply 9
i like what is see here, but one problem i have is that TO much is happening to fast.  i am not sure if this is something that will get fixed in the post beta cleanup, but i think you get magic WAY to fast.  i have almost all the spells within the first hundred or so turns.  to me this makes magic feel cheap and not special.  i understand that i can get volcano very quickly but can't use it unless i have the shards, but it still makes me feel like volcano isn't much of an achievement.  i want to be able to play and it take ALOT of my resources to be able to get a spell like this, like its some kind of monumental achievement.

oh and i really don't care for the special unit buildings.  i think these are unnecessary.  i think that instead of a single unit being built out of having a certain building, i think that building should give you traits you can add to the units you create.  for instance i don't like having dungeon master units, these are units that are out of my control to make.  they are just there.  i want to be able to assign traits to units, much like the scout, or messenger kit. then call them what i want and make them look like what i want.

in short i want improvements that unlock traits i can put on units, instead of units that are made for me.

 

You know, I've been contemplating something like this, along with metal deposits.  The current 'metal usage' situation is sporadic.  Currently, the only use for metal is to train units that are equipped with metal weapons & armor... and completely ignoring, say, all those pots, pans, nails, cart braces, and everything else used in a Metropolis of 1500 people.

So, here are some of my thoughts on it:

(Civilization) Harvesting > Mining lets you build Mines

(Warfare) Equipment > Weaponry lets you build Smithies (require metal to build).  Any city with a Smithy can train a unit with light weapons/armor (dagger, shortsword), and reduce the metal cost to train from what it is currently.  (As the 'cost' is now in the Smithy, not the unit)  In other words, make it like an Archery Range being required to build bow-equipped units.

Reply #31 from Elemental Forums Top

Sounds like some great improvements. 3A was so much more fun that 3, I'm really looking forward to 3B this week.

Reply #32 from Elemental Forums Top

Glad to hear the refinement continues, 3A felt almost like a game I can't wait to mess with new stuff in a less buggy environment!

Reply #33 from Elemental Forums Top


...Our tactical battles are very much like Master of Magic except that units have morale and there are terrain bonuses....

yesss...  :)

Reply #34 from Elemental Forums Top

Tactical Battles. You guys haven’t gotten to see this part yet but you will this week.  Let me set expectations here: Our tactical battles are very much like Master of Magic except that units have morale and there are terrain bonuses. So if you don’t like Master of Magic,

if you dont like MOM you should just play tetris imo :D

 

anywyay good choice, mom was just nearly perfect, with the addition of morale and terrain could just get near perfection

 

my concern are more toward magical system but in 3a we already see some evolution, im positive

Reply #35 from Elemental Forums Top

Tactical Battles. You guys haven’t gotten to see this part yet but you will this week. Let me set expectations here: Our tactical battles are very much like Master of Magic except that units have morale and there are terrain bonuses. So if you don’t like Master of Magic, you probably won’t like Elemental’s tactical battles (then again, if you don’t like MoM you probably won’t like Elemental in general).

How close to MoM battles I ask... Because, you know, MoM is OLD and not very strategic in its combat.

Since you are going to release the Tactical Combat this week, can't you give us a sample? One or Two screenshots? Or even a video?

Thanks in advance, and by the way, the game is going well...

Reply #36 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting AngeloBraz, reply 24

Quoting Frogboy, reply 4


Quoting Batlord,
reply 2
What about AI ?


I don't think anyone considers AI to be an important factor. The beta community has has been pretty clear that they don't think the AI needs to be even in the game...

 

 

 



 

What do you mean? You're ditching the single-player part of the game?!

 

Your sarcasm radar seems to be out of order.

Reply #37 from Elemental Forums Top

LOL. Frogboy owned everyone with his supposed "anti-AI" statement.  :grin:

 

Lots of good things here. Can't wait until the beta this week.

Reply #38 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm really looking forward to these changes. But I do agree with others sentiments that the pacing of the game is still way out of whack. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I have trouble training even small armies. I think the most soldiers I've ever had control of in a game was maybe ~100, and that was with several level 4-5 cities and smaller ones. It's just so expensive to train, and to maintain, large numbers of troops that armies tend to be really small..

And magic is definitely too accessible. Some spells need to either be much more expensive to research, some spells should have prerequisites. I'm not even sure those changes would make magic feel like it should, but I don't know what would.

Reply #39 from Elemental Forums Top

I really like the idea of building on resources away from the city, but make them need defending separately, so that you still have the option to snake and protect resources using the city protection.

Also are you still planning to have a selectable bonus when cities level-up, if so can there be a visual marker of this in the city, like a statue or something that way you can see a visual reminder with a card showing the details of the option you picked.

Apologies if these have already been suggested.

Reply #40 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting pigeonpigeon, reply 38
And magic is definitely too accessible. Some spells need to either be much more expensive to research, some spells should have prerequisites. I'm not even sure those changes would make magic feel like it should, but I don't know what would.

I think the ideal solution is to just slow down acquisition of spells, and then flesh out the spell books with additional spells so that you're still getting something new on a regular basis.  The second part of that is the tricky one, though.

 

Reply #41 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting pigeonpigeon, reply 38
I'm really looking forward to these changes. But I do agree with others sentiments that the pacing of the game is still way out of whack. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I have trouble training even small armies. I think the most soldiers I've ever had control of in a game was maybe ~100, and that was with several level 4-5 cities and smaller ones. It's just so expensive to train, and to maintain, large numbers of troops that armies tend to be really small..

And magic is definitely too accessible. Some spells need to either be much more expensive to research, some spells should have prerequisites. I'm not even sure those changes would make magic feel like it should, but I don't know what would.

 

i agree with magic too accessible but few changes were made

still there should be much more progression with top tier spells hard to reach and to cast maybe

 

about armies no i dont agree, it was nearly easy to get some units going, ofc if you want the top notch units they are expensive but there are heroes, there is magic, soldiers are not the centre of the game, imo

Reply #42 from Elemental Forums Top

My $0.02 - pacing has come a long way in the latest build IMO. I think troop building and magic can use a little more work, but overall I'm pretty happy with the time it is taking to do stuff. I guess I generally fall into the camp of making it harder to get/attain stuff (spells, army, good cities/resources, etc.) than letting us build all kinds of stuff 100 turns into the game.

Reply #43 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting ogredpowell, reply 25
right now pacing is huge.

 

 

Im finding that in able to afford even PARTIES of units, i have to build up to level 3-4 cities, and my armies do not seem to match that of my poplualation (when i have over a grand of people working for me, and I have like 15-20 soldiers total +5 champions....

 

I agree here, pacing (which we know is being worked on) the first 50 turns of the game need a tad more impact.  It currently feels like the game starts around the 50-75 turn mark.  (usually when the game crashes to desktop. DOH!)  Magic - it just doesn't feel important or relevant as of yet.  I mean, it is, but the way you learn/overall UI and tech tree stuff needs... something to help it along.  I'm sure this is being worked on too.

 

 

Reply #44 from Elemental Forums Top

Greetings!

Oh how I love this part of the beta.

...


Pacing Pacing Pacing.  This is always a tough thing but it just takes too long to do cool stuff.  We’re going to eliminate the requirement to build a special building in order to train units.  This was a holdover from Galactic Civilizations (it required a shipyard) and Sins of a Solar Empire (shipyard) that really has no purpose in Elemental other than act as a needless speed bump.
...

IMO, the development of the first 100 turns is way too slow. I think it should be streamlined very significantly. Getting rid of the requirement to build a special building for units is a start. Here are some other possibilities:

* A sovereign-founded city begins with a significant population boost (say, it starts at 25, level 2?).

* A sovereign-founded city begins with an "imperial guard" unit that is a unique, elite unit that develops automatically over the course of the game.

* A sovereign-founded city begins with some buildings pre-built.

* Unit production speed, espeically for non-elite units, could be much lower.

I'm sure there are lots of other possibilities here

Reply #45 from Elemental Forums Top

talk about hitting the nail on the HEAD! the destroy city option is coming back right?

i had taken a bunch of enemy cities and there were just too many to keep track of id rather just destroy and forget than not.

 

which gives me an idea of maybe choosing the difference between outpost focus or city focus

for example maybe outposts defence are higher but lower production of food and other materials

Reply #46 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 4

Quoting Batlord, reply 2What about AI ?
I don't think anyone considers AI to be an important factor. The beta community has has been pretty clear that they don't think the AI needs to be even in the game...

 

 

?

Reply #47 from Elemental Forums Top

Awsome post!! Love these ideas, and hope to see them come alive in the next build. It will indeed make the game more fun..

What i like about .806 is that it didn't really shut my computer off after a short time.. The only thing is the memmory leaks. Wich migh even be improoved by next beta.

In my opinion A.I can be worked on later on (as a last priority). And i'm sure it will be improoved over time.. As most people are aware of, is that this game is going to be so mod-able that i'm sure most people will play mod'ed games rather then the actually "default" game over time.

I do considder A.I. fairly important thougth. Even thought i don't think we necceserly need a high tec A.I in Elemental. Cuz the game strarts to get it's own soul.. There is so much goin on in the game that you won't even think about how smart/stupid the A.I. is...

Reply #48 from Elemental Forums Top


Greetings!
Oh how I love this part of the beta.
First off, you guys are doing a wonderful job getting us great feedback. There have been several crashes that even our internal QA team hadn’t found yet.

Hope you find my problem soon. Havnt gotten to play last 3 beta versions due to crash on clicking new game :( Still I have faith in the long term :)

Reply #49 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting sage2, reply 44



IMO, the development of the first 100 turns is way too slow.

 

based on what?

 

100 turns of mom you just passed all the time to get the first buildings and a bit of exploring

 

i already do more in elemental than in civ/mom and we arein beta

 

i dont agree thats too slow considering you can explore and start questing, much more fun than it was on mom/civ where first turns were more boring

Reply #50 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 4

Quoting Batlord, reply 2What about AI ?
I don't think anyone considers AI to be an important factor. The beta community has has been pretty clear that they don't think the AI needs to be even in the game...

 

 

 

i hope you are joking.......