Labor Day notes

Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

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Labor Day notes

It is great to be back to the land of high speed Internet connections.

The team got v1.07 out this week which addresses some of the issues reported by players. There’s a lot more to do of course. Here’s a few notes on what’s on our plate right now:

Enabling multiplayer. Why isn’t it up now? Because the same problems that would cause a user a problem in single player would happen in MP too except now there are now multiple human beings involved which increases the frustration. I’m going to look at the response to v1.07 this weekend and see where things stand.
Improving the AI Part 1. There is a little (lot) of confusion on the AI. Minor factions aren’t supposed to build. They’re just there. I think we’ll have to change that to either make it more obvious that they don’t do anything (like change the style of city to be more obvious) or have them behave more like major factions.
Improving the AI Part 2. I am hoping to be able to get my AI updates into v1.08 (next week) to make the major faction AI substantially more capable. The basic problem with the AI is that a lot of data changes were made very late in development (values for weapons and armor and how much various improvements do) that heavily altered the AI’s evaluation of what was “worth” constructing or how much it needed to protect its sovereign and such. This is the kind of thing that will have to be addressed – for starters.
Game Mechanic Changes. There are going to be quite a few game mechanic changes based on our own experience and reading on the forums. Keep posting your suggestions.
Magic System Changes. This is an area that’s going to get a lot of changes. For instance, Essence will become a boolean (true or false). Your mana will come from a global pool of mana that is from the shards. The elemental spell books (earth, air, fire, water) will get moved out of character creation and into the tech tree so that players can determine what spell books they want. Various spells will gain a mana “maint” rather than using “enchantment slots”. This all brings us to the next part
General UI. There are some outstanding posts on the forums with suggestions about the UI that we’re looking at. But generally speaking, we want to eliminate a lot of what I’d say (with the benefit of hindsight) gratuitous complexity (enchantment slots, tile limitations on cities, obscured game mechanics, etc.). We’ll get very specific with the community as we start to put these in.
Performance, Compatibility, Memory. These three things remain the most troubling and frankly, heart breaking issues. On a personal note, nothing pains us more than when someone accuses us of “rushing” the game. The phrase “works on my machine” is not an acceptable excuse. We just blew it on so many levels that it will require a detailed post-mortem (which I do plan to provide so players, customers, and others can learn from our mistakes in general and my personal mistakes in particular). When I read the check-in logs, I wince at how specific each “crash” is (“Crash caused by user having 8X AGP card in 4X AGP motherboard with soft lighting turned off when in the unit design window”). There’s a reason most games license their engines (Civilization and Fallout 3 use Gambryo for instance, other games use Unreal, and so on). We use our own home grown one “Kumquat” which is proving to have serious teething issues that we are most definitely suffering the consequences for.

There’s a ton more to add here but these are a few of the things on our mind. It’s been, as you can imagine, a horrible horrible couple of weeks. We’re doing out best to make sure Elemental lives up to its potential which brings me to the final part.

Elemental’s original release schedule was to have the first release (War of Magic – Book 1: Relias) and 2 expansion packs (Book 2: Cerena and Book 3: Magesta).

What we’re going to do is that for users who own the game by a certain date will get (at least) the first expansion pack for free as a token of our appreciation for hanging in there with us. As some long-time Stardock gamers can tell you, our expansion packs aren’t minor things.

Have a good weekend!

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Quoting EdrinFra,

reply 149

I forgot to say, about the AI:

Don't make it like galciv 2 in the area of warfare: all you had to do was ignore the others factions while researching whatever strengthen your research and economy, and once far ahead, research warfare and crush them... As a global rule in any strategic game, building an army and not using it quickly is a waste of resources...

And also, I'm waiting for potions and scrolls crafting : you should never see any fantasy world without these...

Not only potions and scrolls, what about a magic forge to make Items? Like magic swords and the like?

I really think that the ability to forge magical items is a must-have. But I do agree that its not emergencial...

Long live Stardock, and may your games receive patchs forever!! (I do like the patches... And will love Expansions, better yet if they are free...)

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Quoting BlacShade,

reply 132

@Castor76- The whole point of giving people the free expansion is as an apology for the less than perfect game in the beginning. I am pretty sure waiting till the last minute to buy the game so that it has the best fixes in order to get a free expansion completely destroys the point behind them handing it out in the first place...

My guess is that the cutoff date will be decided before the first expansion is announced just to prevent people from trying to sneak in at the last minute and score a free product.

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Did you at least have fun away? Make the wife happy?

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How was your trip, Frogboy?

I would beg that one of the gameplay changes is a completely rehaul of the adventure tech tree and the quest/notable system. I would totally beg. It's really not "fun" in its current setup.

Flip side of that, I recognize it's down the chain a ways, because the AI issues and the core mechanical issues of city building and spells are of greater importance, but... the Adventure chain is the core of that which makes the game feel RPG-y, and that part right now is just a bear.

Also: Keep up the good work. I continue to push along behind you guys, people make mistakes, it happens. This game is going to be a gem.

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Quoting LDiCesare,

reply 140

If you want to get the elemental books out of character creation, which I think is a very bad idea, you might as well get rid of them totally and only allow research of an elemental spell if you control the corresponding shard. However, I strongly advise making the exact opposite move: Increase the cost of spellbooks (each books worth 10 for instance) to force players to make a choice at character creation. Otherwise the game will stay bland. It's already sad that there is no 'Pure Fire' channeler for instance, that's going to be even worse with the proposed system.

I think if the player has to research the (element) spell book in the Magic tech tree, that unlocks the improved (element) spell book in the Magic tech tree, that unlocks the greater (element) spell book in the Magic tech tree and every spell book unlocks spells that can be researched with arcane knowledge he is forced to make a choice in every game.

Quoting EdrinFra,

reply 147

Spellbooks to research:
Buildings enabling to spend less mana/increase magical power when using tactical spells in a city's defence
Resource enchantments, like "increase the temple arcane production by 20%", "double the targeted fertile land yield"
Things (buildings/resources/skills...) that help maintain spells, i.e. that create mana that can only be used for spell maintenance, not for casting
Magical towers that acts like galciv space stations

I think these are very good ideas, because they increase the number of options to build the cities and they add more technologies to the Magic tree.

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I only play multiplayer games. So the good news, I haven't really experienced any bugs because I won't really play it till multiplayer comes out. The one game I did play solo the AI sucked and I stompped it on a rush.

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Throwing more ideas into the minor faction pool. I hope this doesn't substantially duplicate a post I missed in this thread.

Minor factions that produce valuable and unique tradeable goods that major factions can't create out of the same resource pile.

Like a minor faction with a horse tile that produces warhorses (+1 movement, +2 Def). You could trade with them to get the warhorses, but of course there's some risk another faction might trade with them too. Or you could conquer them and get a flow of regular horses yourself.

Or a drake faction that sits on a goldmine but produces drake mounts (+1 mov, flight (ignoring terrain on the global map)).

Or academic/magic factions that sit on a research tile, but can produce double the research that you can, making research treaties potentially more valuable than conquering.

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Regarding schools of magic:

Researching spells in the first school: normal cost

Researching spells in the second school: cost x 2

Researching spells in the third school: cost x 3

and so on, so can can specialize in a school at lesser cost...

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About Minor Factions:

I would not want them to expand, then there is too little a difference to any other run of the mill major faction.

Instead, they should grow one huge metropolis, get bonus to defense, trade, diplomacy, and have unique units that only their city can build.

They should be VERY hard to conquer, and should be VERY happy to trade with others, in order to have security thru diplomacy. Part of the difficulty in conquering should be through their special units.

These special units (and maybe some special trade buildings unique to their cities) should be the reward for conquering these minor faction cities.

(Once again though, people should WANT to leave them in peace in order to trade with them)

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The spells and spellcasting should be made interesting first and only then the balance of how you get them should be tackled. Frogboy is trying to make too many changes at once, and will be unable to see which effect each of the change actually had.

And the thing to me is that these are not choices in the long term. You can always get everything, the design of your sovereign essentially becomes irrelevant, he will always be a jack-of-all-magics, and the different sovereigns will have even less character.

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Quoting anjdavis,

reply 157

Minor factions that produce valuable and unique tradeable goods that major factions can't create out of the same resource pile.

Like a minor faction with a horse tile that produces warhorses (+1 movement, +2 Def). You could trade with them to get the warhorses, but of course there's some risk another faction might trade with them too. Or you could conquer them and get a flow of regular horses yourself.

I think this would be fun. it gives the minor factions a reason to exist. They should focus on making a huge, well defended city that you could conquer or trade with.

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Live long and prosper FB.

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Frogboy - welcome back, I'll bet you need a vacation from your vacation . At any rate, thanks for the update, and thanks to you and the team for the continuous work. Much appreciated.

Couple impressions:

I like the direction with minor factions. Lots of good ideas thrown out in this thread that would give them more personality. I look forward to what you come up with.
Count me in the "concerned" camp with shared mana pool. I think this has the potential to make the sovereigns and their progeny less important magic users unless done correctly. Here's a couple alternative/corollary suggestions that I would personally prefer to making ESSENCE into a boolean:
1. Keep essence as a scalar but make mana regenerate faster.
2. Uncouple Essence and Mana completely and have one (Essence) used for strategic spells (slow regen) and the other (Mana) tactical (quick regen).
3. Reintroduce WISDOM as a modifier for mana use and regeneration. This way you can level up a casters WIS to have super magic regenerating power.
4. [MAJOR RE-ENGINEER]: Give each caster their own Spell Books. Limit usable/knowable spells by level, INT, WIS or some combination thereof (a major re-work I know, but definitely will add uniqueness to casters). Casters can station themselves in a city with a Arcane resource building for a given time to "learn" the spell into their spell book. Higher level casters can provide a teaching bonus if also stationed in the city where first caster is learning the new spell (reduce time to learn spell).

Finally, Here's some additional thoughts I have about adding depth to the gaming experience: https://forums.elementalgame.com/395249

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The game is amazing. I dont know why the graphics get bashed so much from reviewers..... sometimes i just zoom in on my towns to max and watch the little peeps doin there thing. Keep up the great work

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Hey Nick, Thanks.

Any help on game play would be great.Glad im not the only crazy 1

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Long time lurker here...

I just wanted to say that I think the changes look good. Shared mana pool might work out pretty good. But moving the elemental books to the research tree bothers me and could be good or bad depending on how it's done.

I like diversity in a game. The more the better. Makes for better replayability.

It may work out pretty good if, for example, you made each consecutive elemental book cost substantially more to research.

That way, you can choose which patch you want to take after you begin.

For example:

Have a fire shard nearby after your start? Great, I can start research into fire magic. Or maybe you had your heart set on earth magic and made the tuff decision to just use the fire shard as an essence boost and hope you find an earth shard later.

Now, after I research earth magic I can make another tuff decision.. do I spend my precious research on getting fire magic to complement my earth magic? I already have a fire shard..

Well, (and this is nowhere near balanced, just numbers thrown in to get my point across so as to understand) I spent 25 turns researching earth magic, so now it might take 75 turns researching fire magic using my 1 point of research that I have if I wanted to also add that type.

Or I could wait until later to research it.

Now turn 200 I find an air shard.. do I want air magic? Well it takes even looonger to research. 150 more turns... and so on.

At this point it is not really worth researching it because I am using my time on that instead of civics or warfare etc.

BUT, I have the option if I wanted it.

As I said the numbers could be adjusted to better balance. I was just brainstorming an idea.

The different civs would be, well, different in magic. If the AI can be taught not to spend 500 turns of research on the 3rd or 4th book of magic, instead of just specializing in 1 or 2 that is.

If I wanted to roll-play an archmage of incredible power with weak army units I have that option. Or perhaps I want to play a civ that is high in tech and military and complement it with only earth magic to make even tuffer troops.

Just want to have to make tuff choices with different play styles .

Is that understandable? Sometimes I have a problem getting my point across. I'm pushing 40 and old age is catching up to me lol.

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Umm, wow. What is this thread? 4 posts per minute?

This sounds not so great... I can already determine which spell books I want. The problem is that there is little to no trade off for picking them and not enough difference between the books. Moving the spell books into the tech tree only makes things worse. Rather than having to spend a (what could be) valuable resource in the form of sovereign points to access a book instead I just wait 5ish turns to research it. All sovereign will still have access to all books for little to no cost.

Magic changes: When it walks like MoM and quacks like MoM... =P Hugs and kisses!
There are reasons why people want the MoM magic system back - or at least those parts that worked well.

Reseaching spell book "elements" sounds like a good idea but I would not completely take the elements off the sovereign creation.
That's such a central theme that it should be woven into the game at all levels.

Instead of giving them Fire Book yes/no, you could get bonus something to fire magic.

For instance:

Archmage: gain 15 % more mana from all shards
Attunement: Fire: gain 30 % more mana from fire shards and get a 15 % bonus to fire damage / effectivity / duration / AOE range
Attunement: Earth: gain 30 % more mana from earth shards and get a 15 % bonus to earth damage / effectivity / duration / AOE range
Artillerist: bonus to AOE area and "never miss" for spells that scatter like here
Summoner: summoned creatures have more HP and cost less to summon/upkeep. And/or the ability to summon multiple of those "one per caster" creatures.

And make these perks expensive! Not just one point each. That would mean "just take them all" and make the system absurd.

That would be serious customisation and since these are "flags" that the AI could check, an AI fire channeler would have a reason to make the research of fire books/magic a priority.

Edit:

And another point on sovereign creation:

Buying "starter equipment" is neat but I think there have to be a few options like a magic user robe that has some defense (and block/avoidance!) for the more wizardly inclined.
And a fez.
And a Pointy Hat of Wizardly Cliché. With glittery stars. And moons.
Not as much "physical" armor as a leather helm but some armor (being magical and all) and a bonus/boost/focus for castery stuff. Mana regen, spell range, buff duration...

Also, I think there should be (tradeable!) artifacts one can not just buy in game later. The difference to picking traits? Such artifact powers could not be multiplied by making babies.
And there should be a risk of losing this artifact to the enemy when losing a battle. Powerful yes, but with... trade offs.
There would be a reason to choose premade sovereigns because only one of them had "that" artifact with the cool power and it wasn't selectable at sovereign creation.
And premade sovereigns could be "overpowered", meaning it would cost more than 50 points to re-design them. But their abilities would be lopsided so they'd play radically different.

To get the very cool "special ability" of the premade sovereign you have to take the disadvantages that come with it instead of just reducing Str/Dex to get the points for it.

Player designed sovereigns are always more powerful because players tend to cherry pick the abilities that "work best".
The premade sovereigns would give the benefit of trying something you know doesn't work quite so well
but the sovereign has this very cool special perk so it might just be worth trying regardless...

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I think the magic system should not be a research deal either. Make it like master of magic! I'm not s ure if I like the mana pool. Make it so only the Sovereign can cast overland spells, and make intelligence how powerful the spell is and wisdom how much mana per turn that the sovereign can cast. This would work out really well imho. I think you should be able to find an extra book or two with quests, but research means that everyone will end up with the same books eventually which sucks.

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Also, where is the polish? Take note of the music in mom when you discover a new spell or item. The animation of your wizard pulling down the new spell and it writing into your spellbook. Little details like that. What ever happend to random events, devistating overland spells,, etc?

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A thought that I had for Minor Factions:

I like the idea of choosing how much freedom they have at game startup, but how about making an option where the only difference between them and major factions is that they don't have a magical sovereign? Or possibly no sovereign at all? Doing something like that would help underscore the difference magic makes in the world, and give the player an opportunity to feel all impressive about himself. Even if his butt's being handed to him by the other sovereigns, at least he doesn't have to let those puny minors push him around.

And if lack of magic doesn't present significant obstacles towards winning/staying alive, keep fiddling with the magic system. While the sovereign shouldn't be an all-powerful force right out of the box, they should be a pivotal figure in their faction's performance, without which the major faction would just be one of those piddly minor factions.

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Quoting Robert Hentschke,

reply 167

Reseaching spell book "elements" sounds like a good idea but I would not completely take the elements off the sovereign creation.
That's such a central theme that it should be woven into the game at all levels.

Instead of giving them Fire Book yes/no, you could get bonus something to fire magic.

For instance:

Archmage: gain 15 % more mana from all shards
Attunement: Fire: gain 30 % more mana from fire shards and get a 15 % bonus to fire damage / effectivity / duration / AOE range
Attunement: Earth: gain 30 % more mana from earth shards and get a 15 % bonus to earth damage / effectivity / duration / AOE range
alternatively, the "Artillerist" perk could grant a bonus to AOE area and accuracy for spells that scatter
like here
And make them expensive. Not just one point each. That would mean "just take them all".

That would be serious customisation and since these are "flags" that the AI could check, an AI fire channeler would have a reason to make the research of fire books/magic a priority.

Lol....I was thinking about the magic system in the last hour, and guess what? I just wanted to edit my previous post to suggest something very similar. So yeah, this idea is very good!

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Quoting Frogboy,

reply 37

It's pretty easy to make minor factions do more so I'll take your suggestions and do exactly that. Minor factions will focus on building one kick-arse metropolis but they won't expand.

Do not forget to have them manage their economies and defenses well. They may not wish to really expand buy they should stop being pushovers. Deploy defenses, make better troops for as much as your economy will allow. Seek trade to acquire more goods for better soldiers, and developments. Seek marriages to ensure mutual defenses with their allies, and be blessed with champions which grow for them, not just remain static.

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Quoting LDiCesare,

reply 160

The problem is if the change to spellbooks is made now, it will be pointless because NOONE in their right mind will ever research them, since it would only delay you from researching military which is what wins the game.

The spells and spellcasting should be made interesting first and only then the balance of how you get them should be tackled. Frogboy is trying to make too many changes at once, and will be unable to see which effect each of the change actually had.

And the thing to me is that these are not choices in the long term. You can always get everything, the design of your sovereign essentially becomes irrelevant, he will always be a jack-of-all-magics, and the different sovereigns will have even less character.

You are right, if the spells are not changed to make them more useful and interesting, noone will research them, but if Stardock changes the spells, too, spell casting could be really an alternate way to win the game.

I think if you have enough time to research every technology or spell in a game you have already won and if Elemental has talents at the character creation to improve the effect of one element, as Robert Hentschke suggested, it would make the Sovereigns different.

Quoting Robert Hentschke,

reply 167

Instead of giving them Fire Book yes/no, you could get bonus something to fire magic.

For instance:

Attunement: Fire: gain 30 % more mana from fire shards and get a 15 % bonus to fire damage / effectivity / duration / AOE range
Attunement: Earth: gain 30 % more mana from earth shards and get a 15 % bonus to earth damage / effectivity / duration / AOE range
alternatively, the "Artillerist" perk could grant a bonus to AOE area and "never miss" for spells that scatter
like here

And make them expensive. Not just one point each. That would mean "just take them all".

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Quoting Frogboy,

reply 50

Someone, somewhere put it best:

Under the current syste, the spell of making is a 20 mana spell. That's like 3 chain lightning spells. There's nothing to "save up" for. It also drastically hinders any sort of real POWER in the spells as they stand now.

One of the funnest things in MOM is the anticipation of being able to save up to cast something particularly nasty.

Earlier you mentioned essence becoming a boolean value. I might be in the minority here, but I really do like the 'Essence' mechanic. I like having to choose between increasing capacity vs damage, and I like the choice of keeping my sovereign tucked away safe or risking him to level up for more essence to imbue into combat champions. I think this mechanic might be one of the sources of fun for me in the current iteration of the game.

In MoM you had a mana pool and a casting skill, where casting skill dictated how much mana you could draw per turn. If a spell cost more than your skill then you cast it over multiple turns. Making essence act like casting skill solves the 20 mana spell of making problem and lets you throttle magic-use-per-turn while still leaving the current interesting essence-based decisions.

I'm somewhat concerned that a boolean value essence means that I will just imbue every champion because there is no longer a downside. It also removes a primary reason to be concerned about leveling my sovereign, namely that his essence is my only real source of more channelers. I'm worried that such an overhaul will remove one of the unique features this game has that actually works pretty well from a gameplay standpoint.

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Quoting mharmless,

reply 174

I had a similar thought myself. I had a few different thoughts above that I'm not married to. I like your idea as well.

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