Any plan to beef up the Magic/Spell game system? Could that be fixed in patches, or wait until Elemental2?

from Elemental Forums

Just curious if the patches can revamp the Magic/Spell system, or would the patches only do minor changes, such as on game balancing, interface enhancements or bug fixes? I'm still on the fence with this game. Like everyone says, the game has a lot of potential, and I am still debating about buying it to try it (but the stories of refund hassling sure makes me think twice).

My main concern is with the game's magic system. Honestly I was looking for MoM2, but I'd be equally satisfied if this becomes a fun 4x Magic fantasy TBS game in its own right with its own charms. I'm encouraged with the news on patches being released, eventually this should get the game better. But if the patches cannot change something fundamental such as the game's core magic mechanism then I might as well wait for Elemental 2 (I hope there will be an "E2"), and hope that it'll incorporate real interesting magic system in its core system. GalCiv2 > GalCiv, so I'm hopeful things will get better for Stardock.

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13,052 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

As far as I'm aware, magic is set to get a fairly major overhaul in the 1.1 patch.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Am I alone is thinking this game would have been better if they just blatantly ripped the best parts out of Gal Civ / Age of Wonders / MoM / Master of Orion and just compiled it and streamlined it into the new engine?

 

I for one, would have been a happier bunny.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

There's going to be major additions in the 1.x version.

The horrible reviews do have a silver lining, we (you guys and us) have the opportunity to do some major good stuff that would normally raise eye brows in a non-sequel. 

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Well... I sure look forward to raising my eye brows   |-)

 

Magic... any chance of seeing that the different types of magic (earth, fire, etc) can be improved? Such as, I concentrate on my fire magic, spend some points improving it, whereupon all my fire magic will be more powerful?

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting JamesMoriarty123, reply 3
Am I alone is thinking this game would have been better if they just blatantly ripped the best parts out of Gal Civ / Age of Wonders / MoM / Master of Orion and just compiled it and streamlined it into the new engine?

 

I for one, would have been a happier bunny.

Same here.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

This is a quote from the Frogboy's latest dev journal:

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”.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 4
There's going to be major additions in the 1.x version.

The horrible reviews do have a silver lining, we (you guys and us) have the opportunity to do some major good stuff that would normally raise eye brows in a non-sequel. 

Please lets not restart the cycle of hype. Can we just work on getting Elemental up to a reasonable release standard, before worrying about awesome eyebrow raising?

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

I for one would love some eyebrow raising! I think everyone was impressed by GalCiv2 so there's no reason that Stardock can't do the same with the Elemental 1.x. Part of the charm with Master of Magic is the control of "magic nodes" that add to mana income which player had option to raise casting ability, or research speed. I see the ownership of shards would do something equally pivotal...since the backdrop of the game seems to revolve these magical shards.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

For those of you with complaints about the admittedly lousy magic damage in vanilla, even 1.07, check out Heavenfall's bugfix mod - https://forums.elementalgame.com/395013 which makes playing casters worth it for me.  My armies are all caster based, and I often win tactical battles against armies with double my ATR rating, by judicious use of area effect spells, etc.  I actually like the magic system now, although I agree with everyone else that it needs overhaul, since I only use about 5 spells out of the whole bunch on a regular basis...

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Arkenor, reply 8

Quoting Frogboy, reply 4There's going to be major additions in the 1.x version.

The horrible reviews do have a silver lining, we (you guys and us) have the opportunity to do some major good stuff that would normally raise eye brows in a non-sequel. 
Please lets not restart the cycle of hype. Can we just work on getting Elemental up to a reasonable release standard, before worrying about awesome eyebrow raising?

I think Brad was talking about how people would find it weird if an expansion totally overhauled the original game. Since Elemental started out so poorly, an overhaul is needed regardless. In this case the eyebrow raising won't be an issue.

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting JamesMoriarty123, reply 3
Am I alone is thinking this game would have been better if they just blatantly ripped the best parts out of Gal Civ / Age of Wonders / MoM / Master of Orion and just compiled it and streamlined it into the new engine?

 

I for one, would have been a happier bunny.

 I couldn't agree more. I always thought that to make a great game, you take the best parts/ideas from other great games, add your own ideas and innovations and combine them for a fantastic result (hopefully).

  I would love for this game to be great but my concern is that in order to make the changes that could accomplish that (diversity in magic, factions, units, usefull heroes, tons of special abilities that can be applied to heros and units alike to name a few), it won't just take a little tweaking but a total re-design. Hopefully the people who make these decisions now have the objectivity to admit that they were on the wrong track with thier original system/ideas and have the courage to make whatever changes are necessary, no matter how drastic, or no matter how much they don't agree with the original "lore". It seems they are responding positively to critism so far and admitting thier failures so I am going to remain hopefull. I also hope they take thier time and get it right.

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting marlowwe, reply 11



Quoting Arkenor,
reply 8

Quoting Frogboy, reply 4There's going to be major additions in the 1.x version.

The horrible reviews do have a silver lining, we (you guys and us) have the opportunity to do some major good stuff that would normally raise eye brows in a non-sequel. 
Please lets not restart the cycle of hype. Can we just work on getting Elemental up to a reasonable release standard, before worrying about awesome eyebrow raising?


I think Brad was talking about how people would find it weird if an expansion totally overhauled the original game. Since Elemental started out so poorly, an overhaul is needed regardless. In this case the eyebrow raising won't be an issue.

This is what i understood from Brads post aswell. There is a lot riding on this major patch and i am sure its going to make or break the game for the current and future elemental community. Brad knows it, we know it and the Stardock team know it. This means that they will be trying their best not only to improve the core mechanics, but also to provide more content and improve A.I. This will insure the games life span is increased enough for them to even think about releasing a paid for expansion or expanding the franchise or releasing any other games for that fact.

Good luck guys, i'd hate to see yet another of my fav game companies cease to exsist or stop making games.

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Master_of_Magic, reply 9
Part of the charm with Master of Magic is the control of "magic nodes" that add to mana income which player had option to raise casting ability, or research speed. I see the ownership of shards would do something equally pivotal...since the backdrop of the game seems to revolve these magical shards.

 

I couldn't agree more... in fact it was a major point on my post about fixing some of the magic problems.