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Elemental v1.06 Released (now with 100% more hotfix!)

Elemental v1.06 Released (now with 100% more hotfix!)

Hotfix, Stability Pass and More - Not Compatable with Old Saves!!

Hey guys!

Got a fancy new build coming your way tonight. The big fix we wanted to get out there was for the "white screen" that happened in tactical battles on certain setups (this should also fix memory issues those players may have encountered).

We're testing this internally now and we'll let you know when its public. In the meantime, here's the changelong of various additions and bugfixes...

10:08pm - Just finish testing the major bullet points...giving it one last look over (a be triple sure when the boss isn't around) then we'll start the mirror uploading.

11:10pm - It's out!  Stop reading this post and go update!!!!     

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----------- Elemental v1.06 Change Log  ------------
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**********************
* Gameplay / Balance *

+ Cost of weapons increased in terms of gold and materials
+ Monster leveling tops out earlier so that there aren’t crazy powerful monsters late game
+ Training time increased for the more sophisticated weapons
+ AI will focus more on training soldiers rather than building up their cities if under threat
+ General AI improvements
+ AI smarter about training units in cities based on their current resource situation
+ AI more effective at determining who to go to war with
+ By default, the AI opponents added in the Choose Opponents window get difficulty set based on the World Difficulty
+ Campaign: Markinn now gives tactical HASTE spell instead of strategic SUMMON ROCK GIANT spell
+ Campaign: city leveup bonuses for TECH KNOWLEDGE and ARCANE KNOWLEDGE now suppressed in campaign
+ AI sov's are now using an HP adjustment multiplier based on AI difficulty settings

***********
* Battles *
+ Hooked up the projectile follow camera code to obey the Auto-Move Camera in Tactical option.
+ Adding message boxes to explain why spell casting fails.
+ Fix to repick targets in autoresolve when a counterattack kills the attacker.
+ Fix to make targeting picking more intelligent (to be sure it doesn't pick invalid targets).
+ Auto selection of the next unit in tactical battles should no longer occur if the game option for not auto selecting is turned on.
+ Tactical action cost modifiers for everything except for movement (which can have buffs) should now be 1.
+ The tactical action cost of special abilities is now 2.
+ All tactical actions use up to their cost, except for spells which require at least 2 action points.
+ When a tactical battle closes it now sets the cursor to be an arrow.

******
* UI *
+ Fixed Map Notifiers only placed for resources your faction can eventually tap (ex. won’t tell kingdoms about wargs)
+ Trade Equipment Wnd tweaks so that summoned creatures show up in the scene views better.
+ Hooked up new entries for the actions list, vitals list, and other basic image entries in main game wnd contexts to act more like buttons (highlight and have a click down state) to indicate that they are clickable

*************
* Bug Fixes *

+ Fixed the infamous "white screen" in tactical battles that occurred on a very specific hardware/driver/OS configuration.

+ Fixed a problem that would cause the particle effects to disappear after alt-tabbing out of the game when running in full-screen.
+ Fixed a DirectX warning in Tile Highlight Graphic
+ fixed uninitalized UNIT pointer in AIMessageBox (caused a debugger crash, probably fixes random crashes users have witnessed)
+ Fixed bug where linked pioneer improvements were getting the multiplier bonuses from their linked cities twice
+ Changed around the values grabbed for some resource breakdowns so that they match getting rid of this double bonus
+ You can no longer build pioneer improvements on resources outside of your ZOC, even if they are adjacent to a city, to prevent them from getting destroyed if they can't get absorbed in time
+ Adjacent pioneer improvements to cities now get absorbed into the city the very next turn, instead of 2 turns after they became adjacent
+ Fixed bug where custom empire factions designed in the faction designer wouldn't have a valid tech tree
+ Custom factions now get the appropriate wall set, and change their name to "Kingdom of" or "Empire of" appropriately
+ Fixed a bug in the faction designer that caused the race spinner to not match the actual race being displayed
+ Shortened the text in the caravan info cards to make it less likely that text entries will overflow to the next line down, and got rid of some old text that doesn't mean anything to how caravans work anymore, and got rid of some hardcoded strings, and moved the hardcoded quote to the different caravan/trader unit types
+ CMapGenerator no longer generates race starting position for tactical battles, since they aren’t used in that mode and were causing debug messages to flood output as the random land tile buffer isn’t getting filled after the first tactical battle map is created.
+ Campaign: Fixed oddity where reloading a save would reblock the pass between New pariden and Gilden.

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

** Hotfix Update **

We've released a 1.06 hotfix - despite our intentions were to have 1.06 be more supportive of 1.05 saved games, things didn't work as planned and we were seeing a lot of oddities throughout the forums.

The hotfix will force the player to start with the new data, ensuring validity of key components (read: less crashy).

Enjoy!

373,392 views 208 replies
Reply #26 Top

Quoting Austinvn, reply 24

Funny, I have that exact card and no problems. Just out of curiosity, what version of windows? Think I read something about an issue with 64-bit vista/7, I'm still running ye olde and reliable XP.

My Win7/64-bit and ATI 5870 has been a rock star.  I think there is an issue, as you mentioned, but it's definitely not blanketed across that OS/GPU.

Reply #27 Top

Quoting Jharii, reply 26

Quoting Austinvn, reply 24
Funny, I have that exact card and no problems. Just out of curiosity, what version of windows? Think I read something about an issue with 64-bit vista/7, I'm still running ye olde and reliable XP.

My Win7/64-bit and ATI 5870 has been a rock star.  I think there is an issue, as you mentioned, but it's definitely not blanketed across that OS/GPU.

Much newer card anyway - it could be something obscure like 64-bit 7 and certain older ATI cards. Anyway I'm sure the Stardock guys already have it figured out, was just wondering. :P

Reply #28 Top

Looking at the AI changes, I look forward to testing out the bum rush again. Mwahahaha...

Reply #29 Top

+ Fixed Map Notifiers only placed for resources your faction can eventually tap (ex. won’t tell kingdoms about wargs)

Hey wait a sec. Does this mean we can't know about resources we might be denying the enemy?

Reply #30 Top

Nice looking patch, Thank you for this, I will be a happy bunny if this fixes the memory leak issue, Elemental is the first game I have played in a while which feels like its got a bit of soul to it and I can't wait for it to progress past this initial teething stage.

Reply #31 Top

The fun just never ends here in Section 9, way to go guys!!

Reply #32 Top

Just wanted to throw in my thanks as well : D I <3 Stardock

 

Although I hope the patches keep coming, I equally hope you guys are getting enough rest : P

 

Reply #33 Top

Thanks guys! Im gunna take a break and start a new game after the patch with the opponent difficulty cranked up and see if i get a bit more action.

Reply #34 Top

Quoting DivineWrath, reply 29

+ Fixed Map Notifiers only placed for resources your faction can eventually tap (ex. won’t tell kingdoms about wargs)

Hey wait a sec. Does this mean we can't know about resources we might be denying the enemy?

Denying it to them? What about flat-out destroying those stinking assets with the Make It A Desert strategic spell? Sounds like this change would decrease the value of that spell significantly because the tastiest targets would be things you could never use yourself.

Reply #35 Top

The good news is that even if there weren't any big issues going on or problems, I'm pretty sure the folks at SD would still be cranking away at making the game better.

Reply #36 Top

question will save games still be viable after patch.

Reply #37 Top

Denying it to them? What about flat-out destroying those stinking assets with the Make It A Desert strategic spell? Sounds like this change would decrease the value of that spell significantly because the tastiest targets would be things you could never use yourself.

How does getting rid of the red exclamation marks to point you to a resource you can't use change this? :P

Reply #38 Top

+ Fixed Map Notifiers only placed for resources your faction can eventually tap (ex. won’t tell kingdoms about wargs)

Hey wait a sec. Does this mean we can't know about resources we might be denying the enemy?

You just won't get the ! popups. You can still see them on the map.

Reply #39 Top

Well, technically if you capture a Warg Kennel as a Kingdom you will still collect Warg resource, and be able to build Warg Mounts.

You just can't build new Kennels (atop a Warg resource)

Reply #40 Top

Keep up the good work guys.  Hopefully you'll track down all the little graphical glitches in the next few patches.  Seeing one of my sovereign's sons with his brother's wife's portrait is rather strange.  :omg:

Reply #41 Top

re: Performance Issues - We're still tracking these down, doing a lot of stress testing on the various areas to see when the batching threads are breaking a sweat.  This is definatly the next big ticket item  :)

edit: And I know Brad's said this before, but everyones enthusiasim for the game does wonders for our enthusiasm for working on the game, so 1000x thank you. It's been a stressful couple of days, and seeing people playing and having fun means the world to us.

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Reply #42 Top

Quoting Annatar11, reply 37
... How does getting rid of the red exclamation marks to point you to a resource you can't use change this?

If I had UI or docs that told me what Map Notifiers are, I wouldn't have made the 'mistake' :-|

p.s. Yes, I've broken down and done a tad of griping. But I've spent more time playing. And still almost always on the cloth map, 'cause it's prettier.

Reply #43 Top

Good work on patches guys. Hoping that the next one will solve the performance issue.

Reply #44 Top

That's great news! Thank you for your hard and dedicated work!

I figured out my budget, and picked up Elemental(not Limited Edition:() today. Good timing for me!

Can't wait to get crackin'

Reply #46 Top

Oh good, another night of barely any sleep.

 

Well to be fair, I probably would have ended up playing elemental into the wee hours of the morning anyways (thank god for no work tommorow).

Reply #47 Top

Thanks SD for all of the hard work - again!

Reply #48 Top

great work, there's a lot to fix and I'm still have a lot of fun with this game, but the performance is KILLING me. i had an ATI Radeon 4670, just put my brand new GeForce GTX 460 today...and absolutely no difference in performance.

It really does seem like the game is not using my graphics card at all, like some people are saying (i dont know how to tell) but its not even 100% quick on the cloth map.

Reply #49 Top

Damn it's getting late there isn't it? Are you guys still planning on releasing this tonight (Thursday)? Thanks for working at odd hours.

 

I'm downloading the game now... only 10% so far :( I was hoping it would be out by the time my download is complete.

Reply #50 Top

If the game runs, it's using your graphics card. :P

On another note, you uninstalling your drivers when you switch graphics cards? Then installing new ones?