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Fallen Enchantress: BETA 2 Preview

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Fallen Enchantress: BETA 2 Preview

from JoeUser Forums

Greetings!

It’s hard to believe it was just under a month ago that Fallen Enchantress went into public beta.  We’ve gotten a lot of great feedback, a lot of bug reports, crash reports, and suggestions.

Next Thursday, we plan to release BETA 2 which is intended to go out to everyone who purchased Elemental: War of Magic in 2010 plus anyone who has pre-ordered Fallen Enchantress.

Today, I’m going to walk you through some of the changes Derek and his team have implemented.  Those of you who were Fall From Heaven Fans or Galactic Civilizations fans will hopefully see the combination of the two really starting to show in beta 2.

Character Creation

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We have gotten a lot of feedback with regards to the “first impression” elements of Fallen Enchantress. Part of that goal is to make it clear to players what the distinctions are between each faction and each sovereign.

Visual Pass

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Across the board the art team has started to put in the Fallen Enchantress specific art assets.  This effectively means the world will look quite different.  More punch, less blah when it comes to the scenery.

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User Interface

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Beta 2 is our first pass with displaying the path of a selected unit.

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The main map UI has bee modified as well to place the often missed Govern button down with Spells and Turn in the bottom right.  In addition, important events now pop out for a turn from the side to inform players of events without interrupting the action.

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The new Kingdom Report screen helps players see where their kingdom stands as well as how far along they are towards achieving victory in one of the 4 victory conditions.

Music & Sound

Beta 2 includes the first set of new sound effects for Fallen Enchantress along with many new musical tracks to help bring the world to life.  I suspect the sound will be something that has amongst the biggest impact since FE beta 1 barely had any.

Balance Changes

Balance changes will be both subtle and obvious to players.  Fallen Enchantress provides 3 different technology paths to choose from.  Beta 2 is designed to give each technology tree its own path to world domination.

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The Warfare path is much the same as it was with Beta 1. The key resource for mundane warfare is metal, a resource that players pursuing this much live and die by.

The Civilization path has been altered to give more emphasis on building up your Empire through using diplomatic power. The resource of power here comes in the form of Diplomatic capital which is spent recruiting mercenaries, monsters and other factions to the war fighting for you.

The Magic path has gotten the most love.  Between raw mana power and magical equipment that uses crystal in lieu of metal, you can end up with a very powerful force of magical units.  Mages, Warlocks, and all manner of new units start to appear as the player goes up the magic tech tree.

Champions are automatically able to cast spells.  What makes the sovereign special – as a channeler – is they’re the ones with the ability to derive mana from the shards. All spell casters use the global pool supplied, ultimately, through your channeler.  The bottom line, lots more magic being thrown around.

Caravans are gone. They were a held over idea from GalCiv II that never made the sense in the Elemental universe. Roads now grow up somewhat more organically based on  your civilization techs with corresponding economic benefits.

Pacing

Beta 2 is our first pass at nailing down the three distinct acts of Fallen Enchantress.

Act I has the player exploring the world, building up their kingdom and trying to keep the world from ruining them. (Explore, Expand).

Act II begins when players determine the strategy they’re going to use to achieve victory. Maybe they’ll do it by building lots mundane units, maybe they’ll focus on a handful of champions, maybe they’ll recruit their armies, maybe they’ll build a force of powerful, magical armies or maybe they’ll amass enough mana and spells to bring ruin to their enemies and glory to their friends. (Exploit)

Act III is the end game, it’s the execution of their strategy. And this is where a lot of thought and effort has been put in.  Wrapping up the epic wars, quests, schemes, etc.  For me, personally, I enjoy being able to do very horrible things to my enemies with mana. If I have enough mana, I should be able to bring down the pain to those who oppose me while making my kingdom a land of gods.  This means expensive spells that can be stacked but don’t necessarily have upkeep. 

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In addition, the final quest and the spell of making are in the process of being made a lot more interesting and accessible.

AI

I would be remiss to not talk about the computer players. The tactical battle AI has been written from scratch for Beta 2. Late game, there will be no mistaking that this is a game with magic. Watching players and AI setting things up with their spells, countering each other spells, etc. is very enjoyable. I have come to the point where I end up watching the battles on auto play instead of using auto-resolve because it’s fun to watch ala GalCiv II battles. 

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The AI is much improved when dealing with custom created factions. In my game, I have created all my favorite Tolkien races and put them up against me. The AI will use the attributes that go with them to make them play differently. So my "Orcs” play quite differently from my “Elves”.  Modders, post-release will of course be able to take this to ridiculous level.

The AI is also much better strategically. It manages groups of armies now, this is something I never did get quite right in GalCiv II’s AI but the FE game engine makes it a snap for me to organize vast swaths of units and treat them as a single unit – and they don’t have to be on the same tile so it’s not some obnoxious death train. 

As a result of the AI improvements, the harder difficulty levels, where the AI gets special bonuses, have been drastically turned down.

The AI will raze cities and will surrender rather than dragging the game on endlessly. How they play depends pretty heavily on the faction. So don’t expect them to train or

Misc

I’m only scratching the surface here and I’m forgetting lots of small and large balance tweaks to the game ranging from cost of upgrading units (much cheaper) to the pacing of the tech tree to the cost and maint of units.  You’ll have have to wait and see for answers on all those things. 

I will say Champions are still very powerful but they will level up much slower if you try to just create a stack up them.  I had..ahem…a game last night where my “mega stack” of 5 champions got killed by a single AI champion because my stack was only level 5 and the AI champion was level 8 (and since the AI now makes great use of magic in tactical battles, it can do some horrific things to those who are unwary).  On the bright side, trained units don’t count against you in terms of experience sharing. So put that champion with lots of trained units, it’s what the AI does.

When will the final version be released?

We still see months of work ahead of us. We don’t have a specific “gold” date yet.  We intend to follow-up with a BETA 3 roughly a month from now. We’ll have a better idea where we are at that point to start thinking of release dates.

Cheers!

249,590 views 100 replies
Reply #76 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Sarudak, reply 75

For all values of X except for X = 0 of course!

quite right good sir! ;)

Reply #77 from Elemental Forums Top


 We have gotten a lot of feedback with regards to the “first impression” elements of Fallen Enchantress. Part of that goal is to make it clear to players what the distinctions are between each faction and each sovereign.
Visual Pass

Across the board the art team has started to put in the Fallen Enchantress specific art assets.  This effectively means the world will look quite different.  More punch, less blah when it comes to the scenery.

One of the things I noticed that is happening more and more as I play is that I am facing units that I created for other races.  The problem I have with this is that I feel I create units with a feel for the Sovereign and Race that I am playing.  Yesterday I was playing, and I ran into Relias' Altar units using my Naja Riders I created for Kul-Al-Kulan.  The Naja Riders were basically the standard Naja Warriors the game creates with wargs and upgradeable equipement.  It still just did not fit with Relias.  It is kind of neat facing creations that I made but you completely lose the distinction between factions when this happens.

Offworld Trading Company
Reply #78 from Elemental Forums Top


Champions are automatically able to cast spells.  What makes the sovereign special – as a channeler – is they’re the ones with the ability to derive mana from the shards. All spell casters use the global pool supplied, ultimately, through your channeler.  The bottom line, lots more magic being thrown around.

Please elaborate on this?  I don't understand what this means to the game.

Reply #79 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting KingHobbit, reply 77

quoting post
 We have gotten a lot of feedback with regards to the “first impression” elements of Fallen Enchantress. Part of that goal is to make it clear to players what the distinctions are between each faction and each sovereign.
Visual Pass

Across the board the art team has started to put in the Fallen Enchantress specific art assets.  This effectively means the world will look quite different.  More punch, less blah when it comes to the scenery.

One of the things I noticed that is happening more and more as I play is that I am facing units that I created for other races.  The problem I have with this is that I feel I create units with a feel for the Sovereign and Race that I am playing.  Yesterday I was playing, and I ran into Relias' Altar units using my Naja Riders I created for Kul-Al-Kulan.  The Naja Riders were basically the standard Naja Warriors the game creates with wargs and upgradeable equipement.  It still just did not fit with Relias.  It is kind of neat facing creations that I made but you completely lose the distinction between factions when this happens.

 

Yes!!!  I agree 125% with this!!  Please don't let the AI use our designs!!  Sometimes I create trained units identical to existing units just to be able to give them names I like.

Reply #80 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm realy excited about the new champion exp change. It realy sounds nice, armies with a champion as commander. ^^

Reply #81 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Aerion, reply 78

quoting post
Champions are automatically able to cast spells.  What makes the sovereign special – as a channeler – is they’re the ones with the ability to derive mana from the shards. All spell casters use the global pool supplied, ultimately, through your channeler.  The bottom line, lots more magic being thrown around.


Please elaborate on this?  I don't understand what this means to the game.

 

Basically, if a Champion starts with Earth 1 ... he will use Earth 1 spells. (this assumes that champs will originally have some fabricated pool of mana to draw from before you recruit them) -> in order to fight off those that would attack them.

Also, it means that they can cast spells (drawing from your own mana) after you recruit them: no need to imbue them before they can use Magical promotions they already have.

Reply #82 from Elemental Forums Top

I've been thinking. What if imbue stuck around, only at a higher cost but it lets you get a new line of spells each time you use it for a champion. Say you get a champ with air and water, but want fire and/or earth. Let each imbue cast give you the option of learning a new line of spells. If this were used, I'd like to see it as a pretty high cost in mana to help balance, and possibly not even let you pick your line, but just randomly get rewarded with one you don't currently have.

Reply #83 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Leo, reply 82
I've been thinking. What if imbue stuck around, but only at a higher cost but it lets you get a new line of spells each time you use it for a champion. Say you get a champ with air and water, but want fire and/or earth. Let each imbue cast give you the option of learning a new line of spells. If this were used, I'd like to see it as a pretty high cost in mana to help balance, and possibly not even let you pick your line, but just randomly get rewarded with one you don't currently have.

 

Or perhaps combine this with magic research. Research the line you want, and then use Imbue(or some other name for this ability) with a high mana cost to actually let a particular champion learn the new line.

Reply #84 from Elemental Forums Top

A spell to give mages access to new elements would be a great late game option. One of those extremely expensive spells.

Reply #85 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting seanw3, reply 84
A spell to give mages access to new elements would be a great late game option. One of those extremely expensive spells.

 

Has there been any discussion regarding multi-element spells?

Reply #86 from Elemental Forums Top

Not in the vanilla, but there are mods in the works that use prereqs in such a way.

Reply #87 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Hanekem, reply 69
while I am only so-so at seeing Caravans gone, I am a bit more worried at seeing no road building unit to replace it.

Organic sounds nice and all, but does that mean it will go over to that outpost over there or just between cities? will it choose the best path, the path I would choose or something or another option?
It is probable that in its first iteration the "organic" roads will suck, as most first iterations do. We need to make sure to give good feedback so that this system will be good by release.

Reply #88 from Elemental Forums Top

Just out of curiousity, what happens to a road if you raise a mountain or sink it and turn into a lake.  Does it automatically change the path?

 

What would the new organic roads do?

Reply #89 from Stardock Forums Top

Can't wait to try out the new build.

 

I hope the AI will be abnle to kick some butt.

 

 

Reply #90 from Elemental Forums Top

I wouldn't think 'new element' spells would have to be TOO expensive ...

just have it to be a Mid-tech element, with 50 or so mana cost ... 50 mana cost for each element that is, and it only gives you 'apprentice' level (so you'd have to level up for better spells still)

 

-> its not like you want spells on champs that don't take 'path of the mage' anyways xD

Reply #91 from Elemental Forums Top

Lots of spells are very useful even for a fighter-type.  Curse and Slow come to mind as two of the cheapest but most powerful spells out there for totally boning a single target.  Try casting slow on somebody when you have multiple water shards, it's not pretty what happens to the poor beastie, and that would work with just Apprentice-I Water magic.

Reply #92 from Elemental Forums Top

True ... but I think thats mainly for a stack with only fighter champions. If you have even one mage champion its probably better to use the mage (due to less mana cost).

However ... everyone should have haste so that they can haste themselves ;)

Reply #93 from Elemental Forums Top

If your champs have to split the exp in half between them, come 0.80, I think the market for pure fighter champs is going to be pretty low.

 

Reply #94 from Elemental Forums Top

I am excited for this. I guess when this happens I will have to put CK2 on the back burner for a while.

Reply #95 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Manii, reply 93
If your champs have to split the exp in half between them, come 0.80, I think the market for pure fighter champs is going to be pretty low.

 

Not if you give them abilities to start off with that allow them to give other normal unit bonuses like a Leadership skill.

Reply #96 from Elemental Forums Top

Liking the look of a lot of these changes.  XP splitting will hopefully stop the stack of doom, but why can't xp be split into two parts in battles?  Part one is an amount of xp depending on the opositions strength and split between all units & champs who take part and survive a battle.  The second value of xp awarded is for actual damage each unit or champ inflicts in a battle. 

Obviously the amounts of xp awarded for both parts would be dependant on the opposing armies total strength values eg from "week" to "epic" levels.  I'm sure some clever bod out there could work something out!

 

Cheers,

Andy.

Reply #97 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Manii, reply 93
If your champs have to split the exp in half between them, come 0.80, I think the market for pure fighter champs is going to be pretty low. 

Anything that gets pure fighter champs to go first, and if the fighter is fast and can cover ground.  They could one shot quite a few people.  I had the Stonecutter guy in my last game.  He had the Legendary Two Handed Maul.  He was level 24 and he one shot an Ashwake Dragon, he did almost 400 points in one hit.  I had him travellling around with Lady Irane, and three mounted archer groups for support.  He would run and hack away and the archers would just run around and shoot.  Put Haste and Growth on him, and he was just brutal.  Counter attack also comes in handy.

Granted I could have ended the game quite a bit earlier, but I wanted to explore the world that I conquered.  I left Ceresa in a corner with some forces to keep her pinned down, while I went around and defeated Curgen's Tomb, Delin (the Pyre of Man), and any other quest I could find that was hidden.  One of my favorites was the tournament.  I got all kinds of experience fighting that thing.  I got both dragon eyes, just because I could.  Ceresa was begging for peace by the end of the game, but I enjoyed toying with my prey before the cutting its head off.

Reply #98 from Elemental Forums Top

Regarding the few comments above about how road placement my such with the change, at least at first. How would it be different than now? Did we actually have control over positioning of roads beyond simply arbitrarily linking every city? I was under the impression that it we would not, so unless I'm mistaken about that I would presume the placement of roads would be done as it is now, minus the caravan requirements...

Reply #99 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting davidabc66, reply 98
Did we actually have control over positioning of roads beyond simply arbitrarily linking every city?

No.  You do not have control of road placement in .77

Reply #100 from Demigod Forums Top

multiplayer?

 

anyway, in the mean time,

check

http://afterwind.com

 

nice...while waiting for FE...