[1.09q] The current state of Elemental: War of Magic.

And what remains to be done !

from Elemental Forums

Hello Elemental players !

 

So, 1.09q was another good step forward. I see lots of improvements, the game is definitely going towards a better direction. In the end... it's really nice. Armor values are balanced, cities now produce the gold they should be producing, the AI is less and less dumb. I'm starting to enjoy the game. 

There are still quite a few issues, and I'd like to discuss them and the solutions that could be used to fix them. So, let's start:

-City building: The "population as a resource" thing is still almost unused. It's there, but mechanically, it only does something in the 10 first turns of the game. Then, you forget about it. What could you use it for? 

The problem has many origins:

-Buildings don't use the population that much, armies are never big enough to make population an issue.

-Other resources are the limiting factor, etc. When Frogboy introduced the system a few months ago, he said that map resources wouldn't be as important as population and that most of the resource flow would come from the population. Well, it's true for materials and gold, to an extent, but for the other resources ? It's not. So in the end, the game is still about looking for map resources and use them.

But the most important issue is:

-There is nothing to build but studies and a few workshops ! We need a lot more choices for level 1,2 and 3 cities, Choices that use population a lot. We need moderately powerful buildings that use 30, 40, 50 people at once. And we need huge, population-eating buildings for level 4 and 5 cities. We need to have to spend that population, and we need to feel like we *won't* be able to build everything and have to make choices. Otherwise, population as resource is utterly pointless and can be removed. That's the point of having a resource: preventing us from doing everything and forcing us to make choices ! So, make us spend it a lot, lot more.

Also, make population use a local resource, so that it at least become a local issue.

-Tech tree: We can still beeline and rush late tech by ignoring early ones. Since the increase in tech research time is dependent only on the number of researched techs in that line, gamebreaking late techs can still be obtained way too quickly.

-Balance: There's been significant progress made here, but as some people (myself included) discussed in other places, there's still a lot of work:

-All spells need to be useful, not just arcane arrow and teleport. Actually... well, other damage spells are actually nice for non-primary casters, but for the Int-heavy casters, elemental damage spells are for the most part useless. This is in part due to an issue with spell power scaling: some spells scale with intelligence, some don't. Those which don't should be stronger than those which do for a 10-Int caster, making it ideal for secondary casters (melee heroes imbued as a mean of weakening the enemy before he arrives). I think that the scaling of spell damage should be reviewed. 3/4 intelligence is a bad, bad idea, for instance: it's better than strength for weapons, and it cannot be resisted by armor ! I'd rather see something like: base damage 6+1/4 Intelligence for arcane arrow.

-Being able to cast spells several times in a round is a bit (lot) overpowered.

-Touch of entropy is a joke that I can cast 3 times a round. Seriously, no spell should deal more than 25-30 damage a round (remember: armor not factored in, so that's still enough to almost kill a veteran-level unit). And such damage should be costly. Otherwise, it encourages Sovereign/Champion/Elite Unit sniping. It's not fun if the enemy can easily kill your very best units: he should have to work for it. Touch of entropy could be: deals 20 damage+1/5 intelligence, and deals 5 to the caster as a drawback.

-Fast weapons are really useless as it is. They're supposed to be good against unarmored units, but in the end, the slow weapons are better in all situations. Except with tremendous strength, but here's the issue I have with that. If daggers, longswords, and other weapons are available to regular units, then there should be reasons why you'd sometimes equip your units with them. If a weapon depends on strength to be useful, then it should be a champion-only weapon. Otherwise, you're just testing if the player is smart enough to not equip his units with a weapon that has no use.

-A few weapons need some love. Slow weapons need to be a lot better in the current system, and maybe the warhammer/broadsword tier and maces need a very small boost. They're just under the armor values of their tech tier (full light plate + shield =17, broadsword = 15), leading to a few too many blocked results still. Giving them +1 damage would probably make them just right. Bows also need a small boost, most notably the late game bows.

-A few late-game weapons are too strong. The great scimitar, for instance, could be slightly reduced. Not only that, but that new weapon giving +65 damage and -10 Constitution is way too exaggerated in both its effects to be interesting. 65 damage is a one-hit kill on almost anything (I saw it early game, which exacerbated the issue). 50 damage would be more in line with the rest of the game. Oh, and -10 consitution ? I'll just arcane-arrow the user to death.  

-Resources: That's a subject of debate on this forum: some people seem to like the way adventure techs spawn resources, but I've seen quite a lot of people who dislike this feature. I'm one of the latter. The problem I have with it is that it utterly kills a source of strong gaming dynamics and diplomacy: the war for resources. Everyone gets his own little crystal crag, so there's no reason to explore to find one, there's not reason to want to steal one from the neighboring country. Not only that, but when other people gets the tech, the number of crags in the world increase. Wait, isn't that supposed to be a rare resource ? So yeah, it inflicts a big blow to the overall feeling of the game.

If resources were spawned randomly at the beginning, it would have the following effects: the map wouldn't be balanced anymore. And while I'm a supporter of giving everything a use in the game ("mechanics balance"), I'm also a huge supporter of geopolitics imbalance. Why ? Because when someone gets a crystal crag and no one else has one, he gains a source of power. And what happens to the other factions ? They becomes envious, see the need to capture that resource and make that source of powers theirs, and go to war. And you've introduced a very interesting source of conflict in the game ! Even better: weaker factions could ally, put aside their differences to go and steal that resources. They could agree on beating the crap out of the current owner, and then fight between themselves to decide who'll get the resource once it's been reached. Si it's not only a source of conflict, but it's also a source of diplomacy.

So please think about it, Stardock, because I really think it's a shame that those resources are so conveniently placed at our doorstep, 1 per faction

 

Edit: oh, and those children dealing double or triple damage in one blow... I think there's an issue here. Actually, I think the assassin's power is too exploitable: put a lordhammer/great scimitar on the guy, and go sovereign hunting with 110 damage !

elemental
10,443 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Great post! I agree with everything here. Just to add a little something to one of your points.

 

-City building: The "population as a resource" thing is still almost unused. It's there, but mechanically, it only does something in the 10 first turns of the game. Then, you forget about it. What could you use it for? 

 

I wonder if maybe only a certain proportion of your population should be considered as specialists. After all, there are presumably the very young and old in your cities as well as healthy workers. Just a personal preference, and really only a cosmetic difference from upping the population requirements on all the buildings, but... it would make it easier to balance population as a resource, as you wouldn't have to edit the cost for each building.

Also, like I've said before, I agree with you 100% on the topic of rare resources driving conflict.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Your population as a resource comment about it being unused is true in my experience.  Although I've only played 1.09p (haven't had time to play 1.09q), I expect the issue remains unsolved.  After population grows, the population limit doesn't stop me from building whatever I want if I have the materials.  The idea that gold comes from population is a good idea though, and it has often been a limiting factor in whether or not to build a new study because I couldn't afford the maintenance cost.  But other than that, I often have population still unused and idle.

A small idea though: we could either have buildings where you can assign the number of people to, for example, each library adds, say, +2% to tech production, which is then multiplied by the number of population you send to study there.  If you have 100 population studying, with one library, you'll generate 2 tech points for the city.  Adding another library will generate 4 tech points, and so on.  

This way, building more libraries increases tech points, but so does assigning all your idle citizens to studying.  You can also shuffle your citizens around, so if you need faster troops, you can assign everyone to the barracks or whatever to get an equal boost to troop training production.  Of course, the numbers are not balanced, but the idea is still there.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I wonder if maybe only a certain proportion of your population should be considered as specialists. After all, there are presumably the very young and old in your cities as well as healthy workers.

That wouldn't solve the other problem: there's nothing to build for most of the game but libraries, a few workshop and labs. We need at least 2 or 3 more small buildings of the sort, and a few more non-spammable at city level 2-3-4.

 

small idea though: we could either have buildings where you can assign the number of people to, for example, each library adds, say, +2% to tech production, which is then multiplied by the number of population you send to study there.
I love that idea.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I would say that slow weapons need to SLOW the unit down. If lordhammer caused a penalty, it would get less move and less attacks. Sure I could buff the unit before battle and even equip it with magical speed bunnies, but the whole strength issue would at least be partially solved. The other thing I want to try with a mod is having end game weapons give and subtract from stats. Armor always reduces speed and buffs defense: the heavier the armor, the more dramatic the scale. Weapons would increase dex or speed. Magic could do it all, making it possible to have some very powerful magical units that force one to fully research the tree in order to counter a unit that is merely using heavy armor and weapons that are mundane.

I wholeheartedly think that daggers need to be added to the magic tree and the adventure tree. Allowing for poisoned daggers and enchanted abilities from a weapon that help mage or adventure heroes and the sov of course.

Of course that stuff is better modded than bequeathed to the all too busy devs and it should wait for 1.1.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Werewindlefr, reply 3

That wouldn't solve the other problem: there's nothing to build for most of the game but libraries, a few workshop and labs. We need at least 2 or 3 more small buildings of the sort, and a few more non-spammable at city level 2-3-4.

True dat. Problem is, I'm not really sure what other buildings would have to do.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top


-Tech tree: We can still beeline and rush late tech by ignoring early ones. Since the increase in tech research time is dependent only on the number of researched techs in that line, gamebreaking late techs can still be obtained way too quickly.

Define "gamebreaking".  I think if anything it's an AI problem rather than the tech tree. If you do rush a tech the AI should be smart enough to exploit any gaps doing so leaves you with. For example, if you neglect hospitality then it should start focusing on prestige in border cities to try and take resources from you via a border push. If you ignore armour it should start fielding more archers to exploit that.

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

It's actually the computer that exploits this.. The empire only has to research 3 techs to get that crazy sword and one more for armor. I was rather surprised to see the enemy lord with 77 attack power after about a hundred or so turns in. When I was researching for dragons I noticed that the rarity level changed from (unlikely) to (likely) after researching a few times. I'm pretty sure this idea could (and probably should) be applied to some of the easy to beeline techs to prevent them from being overpowered.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Archonsod, reply 6

quoting post
-Tech tree: We can still beeline and rush late tech by ignoring early ones. Since the increase in tech research time is dependent only on the number of researched techs in that line, gamebreaking late techs can still be obtained way too quickly.


Define "gamebreaking".  I think if anything it's an AI problem rather than the tech tree. If you do rush a tech the AI should be smart enough to exploit any gaps doing so leaves you with. For example, if you neglect hospitality then it should start focusing on prestige in border cities to try and take resources from you via a border push. If you ignore armour it should start fielding more archers to exploit that.
It's gamebreaking because rushing some late game techs is actually a lot more powerful than being balanced. And so the AI can only stop you with similar exploit. Fun.

Yes, using more of this "unlike->likely" mechanics is a good idea.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top


-Balance: There's been significant progress made here, but as some people (myself included) discussed in other places, there's still a lot of work:

-All spells need to be useful, not just arcane arrow and teleport. Actually... well, other damage spells are actually nice for non-primary casters, but for the Int-heavy casters, elemental damage spells are for the most part useless. This is in part due to an issue with spell power scaling: some spells scale with intelligence, some don't. Those which don't should be stronger than those which do for a 10-Int caster, making it ideal for secondary casters (melee heroes imbued as a mean of weakening the enemy before he arrives). I think that the scaling of spell damage should be reviewed. 3/4 intelligence is a bad, bad idea, for instance: it's better than strength for weapons, and it cannot be resisted by armor ! I'd rather see something like: base damage 6+1/4 Intelligence for arcane arrow.

-Being able to cast spells several times in a round is a bit (lot) overpowered.

-Touch of entropy is a joke that I can cast 3 times a round. Seriously, no spell should deal more than 25-30 damage a round (remember: armor not factored in, so that's still enough to almost kill a veteran-level unit). And such damage should be costly. Otherwise, it encourages Sovereign/Champion/Elite Unit sniping. It's not fun if the enemy can easily kill your very best units: he should have to work for it. Touch of entropy could be: deals 20 damage+1/5 intelligence, and deals 5 to the caster as a drawback.

I thought a casting limit is the wrong idea, but you are right. There should be a casting limit of x mana per turn (Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic) or one spell per turn (Disciples 2) in Elemental, too.

The effects of some spells were changed in version 1.09r, but instead of reducing the damage of Arcane Arrow and Spell Blast it would be better to look why these spells are very good. The reason is that these spells WERE the only ones with a very good damage scaling. Instead of reducing their damage the other spells should get the same amount of damage scaling to make them useful or the HP scaling should be reduced.

I think it is a mistake to have a system where some parts are scaling with the level and some parts are not scaling with the level, because spells like Heal are very good at the early game, but less powerful in the late game, because they do not scale with the level, but the HP scale with the level.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top



-There is nothing to build but studies and a few workshops ! We need a lot more choices for level 1,2 and 3 cities, Choices that use population a lot. We need moderately powerful buildings that use 30, 40, 50 people at once. And we need huge, population-eating buildings for level 4 and 5 cities. We need to have to spend that population, and we need to feel like we *won't* be able to build everything and have to make choices. Otherwise, population as resource is utterly pointless and can be removed. That's the point of having a resource: preventing us from doing everything and forcing us to make choices ! So, make us spend it a lot, lot more.

Also, make population use a local resource, so that it at least become a local issue.

 

Maybe assign a part of the population as a "militia", possible to be recruited 2x faster than usual? Some kind of Barracks building that could be upgradeable as the city grows (to accomodate more recruits)?

 

-Tech tree: We can still beeline and rush late tech by ignoring early ones. Since the increase in tech research time is dependent only on the number of researched techs in that line, gamebreaking late techs can still be obtained way too quickly.

I would like to see different tech trees for different factions...perhaps mods will take care of that one.

 



-All spells need to be useful, not just arcane arrow and teleport. Actually... well, other damage spells are actually nice for non-primary casters, but for the Int-heavy casters, elemental damage spells are for the most part useless. This is in part due to an issue with spell power scaling: some spells scale with intelligence, some don't. Those which don't should be stronger than those which do for a 10-Int caster, making it ideal for secondary casters (melee heroes imbued as a mean of weakening the enemy before he arrives). I think that the scaling of spell damage should be reviewed. 3/4 intelligence is a bad, bad idea, for instance: it's better than strength for weapons, and it cannot be resisted by armor ! I'd rather see something like: base damage 6+1/4 Intelligence for arcane arrow.

Spells are still not unique enough, though much improvement has been done. Also, I'd like to see some unique spells per faction and more diversity in spells. Just one example, some "binding" spells that would enable you to capture and include wild animals in your army - you'd have to pay the upkeep of course.

 

-Being able to cast spells several times in a round is a bit (lot) overpowered.

Definitely. But I'd say that with higher Intelligence, Sovereigns should be able to cast spells more than once per round. For start, one spell per round, but if you invest heavily into Intelligence, you should be able to improve that.



-Fast weapons are really useless as it is. They're supposed to be good against unarmored units, but in the end, the slow weapons are better in all situations. Except with tremendous strength, but here's the issue I have with that. If daggers, longswords, and other weapons are available to regular units, then there should be reasons why you'd sometimes equip your units with them. If a weapon depends on strength to be useful, then it should be a champion-only weapon. Otherwise, you're just testing if the player is smart enough to not equip his units with a weapon that has no use.

-A few weapons need some love. Slow weapons need to be a lot better in the current system, and maybe the warhammer/broadsword tier and maces need a very small boost. They're just under the armor values of their tech tier (full light plate + shield =17, broadsword = 15), leading to a few too many blocked results still. Giving them +1 damage would probably make them just right. Bows also need a small boost, most notably the late game bows.

Fast weapons should be connected to Dexterity -> That would enable creation of fast, Dexterity/Dodge unarmored champions with fast weapons. Diversity!