To those who went before us…

Dinner? As in, to attend dinner, or to be dinner?

So... this game looks about ready for beta release, right guys? RIGHT? GUYS?

He probably believed it was the former but since Relias found his journal I would guess he believed wrong.

I hope there won't be quite as many typos and errors in the finished product though. Maybe you should let me

into your Alpha so I can start wordcrunching?

Tomas

 Oh, just noticed something. What does that Spell Mastery statistic do?

diner huh?, wander if a hundred sets of chainmail and axes would appease their appetites (I"m picturing 'Dances with Wolves' when he breaks out with the cases of rifles for tha injuns) - I used to love giving the indians rifles & horses in colonization, with the right settings the Europeans have a very difficult time

You've spelt encumbrance wrong - might be a good idea to correct it before release...

"me" is mispelled in this text.  Unless you meant Mademoiselle, "mme".

Brad must be posting these screenshots and the like as tests for those who are lucky enough to enter the beta.  Finding small mistakes in spelling, and asking important and specific questions could mean beta access.  

Just my two cents

the critical question is

is it ti BE dinner or is it to EAT dinner?

harpo

Frogboy, the stats window is awful! There is no logic in stats location, the numbers cant tell me nothing. Make groups of stats, hihglight strongest and weakest stats, divide important and unimportant stats.

Good call. There might be some logic. At least it seems like the topmost four stats are 'base' stats of a sort and others might be derived from them somehow. Although at least in WoM it wasn't quite like that.

Some visual separating would be nice. At least separating 'base' stats and combat stats. Is movement for strategic map, tactical map or both?

I agree. For example it doesn't make sense that Hit Points is displayed in the exact same manner as the actual stats. I would pair defense and hitpoints together in some separate box. I would also show current hit points somewhere.

There's a lot of room for improvement in the stats panel.

I would also sort the special abilities somehow. Magic skills first, then positive traits then traits with pros and cons then negative traits, perhaps.

In the past few years most developers have realized that most character stats are a dumb useless relic of the bad old days of RPG design, when neckbeards with more time than brain power had a compulsive urge to provide a number for every potential thing a character could do. 

Not Stardock. Apparently Stardock is cool with having oodles of mostly irrelevant stats for the player to pick through. Characters who have no ability to use a bow? Of course they need an accuracy stat! Characters who will never cast spells? SPELL MASTERY IS THEIR MOST ESSENTIAL STAT! Constitution and hitpoints? Redundant redundancies aren't redundant after all!

I mean sure this game is free and all, but maybe you guys should cast Summon Standards or possibly research Modern Gaming. 

Modern gaming is terrible.  Its what gave us Call of Duty 8.  I would very much like it if developers would STOP dumbing games down.  The RPG genre is an absolute mess as it is.  Taking away stats just turns games into a FPS clone but with swords, much like Skyrim.

E:wom had five stats that mattered: hitpoints, attack, defense, dodge and accuracy. And EVERYBODY bitched about it being too simplistic, too one-dimensional. So I say let's wait and see what the stats actually do before we bitch about it in FE. It could be bad. It could be good. We have no idea.

Precisely.  Everything is becoming homogenised these days - soon, our only option will be cross, triangle, square or circle.. hrrrrr...   Vive la difference!!

Vive la difference!!

Looking at those stats it doesn't seem like overkill, and seems like what is needed.

Top row is raw stats.

Moves is char speed on map

Attack is damage done

Defense is damage resisted

Hit Points is obvious

Initiative is combat speed

Accuracy is hit chance

Dodge is reduction to to-hit chance

Critical Hit is critical hit chance (wonder if crits negate dodge or not, this could be troublesome, I have a suggestion below on how to nip this potential issue in the bud)

Spell Resist is resisting spells

Spell Mastery is probably a combination what spells you can cast and lowering spell resist

Suggestions on these stats based on first look/assumptions:

1) Criticals.  I'd like to see criticals have random effects, not just be one consistent effect.  Maybe something simplistic like roll a 3d6, have 16 possible results, and that's what the crit does.  A critical hit might bypass defense one time, dodge the next, do more damage the next time.  rare results might produce exotic effects, or multiple effects.  Some crit results might require damage to be dealt. 

Certain character traits might influence criticals- like an assassin trait might give you a crit bonus, and you get to roll for critical hits twice when you get crits, for a double bonus.  A luck trait might give you a chance to resist crits.

I think this is important, because if crits do a consistent effect, you can build a strategy around crits and maybe negate/degenerate the game.

Some of this has come from seeing the problems in Dungeons of Dredmor.

2) Is weapon vs weapon interaction going to affect stats?   My suggestion would be default bonuses and penalties given based on weapon wielded, based on weapon faced, but with experience with a weapon, or training level, skills would be granted

Would be levels like advanced/expert/master- each of which would enhance the bonuses and minimize the penalties.

Certain weapons would be easier to level up (spears would be the easiest) , while exotic weapons would be the hardest.

Possible improvement

================

1) The traits circles. They should be removed from the left hand side completely.  

The inconvenince of current UI design is that, when there are many traits available in the game, just looking at the icon won't be enough for gamer to to quickly recognize what the trait does.  Not until gamer mouse over each one, one-by-one.

Instead, traits should be displayed in similar way as how 'Strength/Dex/Int' is displayed. Both the icon & the trait name is displayed at the right hand side (at where the WEAPONS is currently displayed, just below the Stats).  

2) I cannot tell exactly what kind of sword I am using unless I mouse over. This is tedious if I want to quickly glance what I have already equiped.

Therefore, in the default view of "unit details', a new 'Currently equiped' section should be made.  It would be located below the 'Trait' section.  Icon of the sword(and all other equipment) is listed on the left, the function of the sword listed on the right (which again, is similar to how each 'Stats' are displayed now).

3) Instead of having a 'Equipment' button, make a 'Backpack' button. This view will look similar to the 'currently equipped' section that, at a glance, you know what is the capability of the piece of equipment. Just drag & drop the sword from the backpack to the portrait on the left will equip it (& unequip the weapon currently holding).  This section is hiddened by default, until the 'Backpack' button is clicked.

4) Rename the button 'Details' to something like Biography or history;  if detail really means the lore of the unit. I found that having a Detail button inside the Unit Details screen aren't that helpful/precise.

5) Considered that currently there can be 9 units in a tile, there should be a 'Next Unit' button/keyboard shortcut that allow gamer to cycle thorough all units inside the stack.  This avoid gamer the need to click each unit one-by-one to see what exactly is in the stack

Amen.

I'm starting to think gamers don't know what they want anymore. My most favorite example is the HoMM series. HoMM4 comes out, everyone bitches about changing the game mechanics, saying they diverted from the tried and true formula that made Heroes3 so fun. So what does Heroes 5 do? Clone HoMM3, just insert better graphics. Gamers bitch again because the game is "too stale". HoMM 6 comes out and it's back to "I hate this game, they changed the mechanics way too much. HoMM 3 was way better. I want a town screen. This series has gone down the tubes, these devs suck." etc.

I enjoyed 4, 5 and am loving 6 so far... maybe it's just the fact that they've re-orchestrated some of the Heroes 2 music (by far my favorite game out of the series) and it is actually fun to play.

I know that the majority of people will be happy with whatever the devs decide to do with FE, as long as it's fun. 

Relias still looks like a halfling, but ugly.

I'm sorry, I didn't realize I had stepped into bizarro world where people liked having irrelevant numbers cluttering things up. Do you people also collect belly button lint?

Lemme grab a bunch of obvious should not exist stats and explain this to you apparently very dense people:

Strength/Dexterity/Attack/Defense/Dodge/Accuracy

Intelligence/Spell Mastery

Constitution/Hit Points 

Let's start with the basic fundamental concept that is being missed with all of these. When you are using a hidden function with multiple inputs to determine some actual value used by the engine, and only letting the player increase the value of one of the raw inputs, you are doing something very dumb, not something very clever. That's called needless abstraction. It violates the most critical rule of gaming: do not tell player dumb lies. 

Constitution means hit points. It's the raw input, hit points are the output. Being able to modify both is dumb. Being able to access both is dumb. Maybe constitution is also used as a save check in a few random spells, and knowing what kind of spaghetti design this series is famous for it's probably also used in a few other completely unrelated things. That's not interesting or creative, that's needless microscoping and messy design. You have mundane armor, you have magical armor. Encapsulate and be done. 

Intelligence and Spell Mastery? Same freaking thing. Spell mastery is the better name because it explains what the thing does, but you are still better off gating spells by level up point assignment than by a raw input that's been pressed into too many tasks. Neither should exist. But if one has to exist, spell mastery is the better one. 

Strength, Dexterity, Attack, Defense, Dodge. These are all different ways of saying two things: attack and defense, how much can I hurt something, and how much can I avoid being hurt. Strength and dexterity are obviously bad (see Con and Hit points above). Defense and dodge are also silly, but for a slightly different reason. You've already got an accuracy stat, lord knows why but you do.* In which case, dodge and accuracy are redundant stats. Either everything has bad accuracy and dodge is mostly irrelevant (bad bad bad terrible way of doing things), or everything has perfect accuracy and dodge is what reduces it (which is great with a clicky skill system, but not so much with a +1 skill system where it can be stacked until stupid). In which case you don't need accuracy because the default state of all units is hitting. 

So of ten things, I see a use for five: hit points, spell mastery, attack, defense, dodge.

If I was actually in charge, I'd reduce it to three (attack, defense, hit points), two of which would be entirely dependent on gear, and determine the rest by a Diablo style skill system. Well, minus all the irrelevant +3% increase shit which was always dumb, but the basic idea of "this is an active skill that does X" and "this is a passive skill that does Y" and "pick one thing that looks neat on level up" was always good so plus all that. So instead of a dodge skill, you'd press a button on your unit and for the next two turns it'd avoid half of all incoming attacks or some such. Active is interesting, passive is not. One requires the player to think, the other just requires the player to stack bonus gear. 

Which gets me round to my final point. Needless numbers and loads of silly gear are not the hallmarks of a great game. They aren't what makes a game intelligent. They don't require an intelligent player. They just require a player capable of putting up with boredom long enough to accumulate just enough gear to put their character in question over the edge beyond which other units are simply not capable of hitting/touching/hurting it. And as any statistician will tell you, a simpler formula with only significant variables is a far more elegant, useful and predictive tool than a kitchen sink formula with every possible input under the sun. 

*You should never waste player time by having them miss randomly. Missing because they personally didn't aim well with their mouse? Awesome. Missing because the enemy did something to prevent/dodge/avoid the hit? Awesome! Missing because the RNG hates you? Frustrating beyond belief, because it means a wasted animation and usually around six seconds of time. That doesn't seem like much, until you realize that ten misses is a minute, and a hundred misses is ten minutes. How much of your life do you want to spend waiting on random chance miss animations, hmm? More generally, failure conditions where the player can fail simply because Computer Say No are dumb. 

Thank god you aren't in charge. I'd hate to see someone who bases opinions on assumptions have any kind of power over decisions.

Those aren't too many numbers.

Too many numbers would be something like this:

Saves vs malediction, breath, transport, and spell

Dodge, parry, block, dual parry

elemental affinities:

Now that is overkill.

I think what we got now is a good balance , provided those stats have enough unique independent factors to be worked with.