EchoingZen

A little nervous...

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A little nervous...

from Elemental Forums

I haven't been around these forums as long as others, so I am hoping you guys can put my mind at ease.

Reading about Elemental: Fallen Enchantress ("FE") is giving me pause, because I am under the impression that FE will be stand-alone and will not integrate in to Elemental: War of Magic ("WoM").  WoM feels woefully incomplete, from the campaign that can only be considered a tutortial in terms of difficulty to the various game stopping bugs, and I am afraid that once FE releases that WoM will not get the much needed attention that it requires.

I understand that I would recieve a discounted price for FE since I had purchased WoM, but I don't want to spend any money on FE if it would pull resources from WoE, a game that I was anticipating for quite a while.  I have a feeling that WoM will get abandoned... please put my mind at ease.

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22,252 views 35 replies
Reply #26 from Elemental Forums Top

In keeping with this thread's title, the fact that the AI is mentioned nowhere in that list leaves me nervous.

The AI in Elemental is far from bad. It justs has two weaknesses.

1. It sucks at equipping items.

2. The tactical AI sucks.

This means that you can kill 10 times you weight in AI troops. If your looking for a challenge try playing while limiting yourself to the same armor the AI uses and auto resolving all combat. I imagine you will have a whole lot of trouble beating even a challening AI.

TL;DR without special abilities tied to equipment, the current system can't be made tactical.

Kinda a broad statement don't you think? There are many different ways to make the game tactical.

Reply #27 from Elemental Forums Top

Some possible

Quoting Dsraider, reply 26

In keeping with this thread's title, the fact that the AI is mentioned nowhere in that list leaves me nervous.
The AI in Elemental is far from bad. It justs has two weaknesses.

I'm glad the AI gives you a challenge. I'm happy that you find the diplomacy to be meaningful and logical. Sadly, it feels like the AI is sleeping when ever I play.

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Reply #28 from Elemental Forums Top

Kinda a broad statement don't you think? There are many different ways to make the game tactical.

With the current tech in game; which means, no bonus against certain types, limited to balancing the numbers on equipment etc. And I just can't fathom a system that adds tactical deep to battles by just turning those numbers.

Of course, if you start by changing the battle mechanics, a whole other dimension of possibilities gets opened. :)

Reply #29 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm glad the AI gives you a challenge. I'm happy that you find the diplomacy to be meaningful and logical. Sadly, the it feels like the AI is sleeping when ever I play.

OK, fair enough. Diplomacy is broken as well. However if your looking for a challenge just go FFA style and attack everybody ^_^  

Ya I know that these things should be fixed but my point is really that aside from the equipping things they aren't really strategic AI problems. The AI can build up huge empires and huge armies. It's quite a good strategic AI. It's just the broken Diplomacy system and the Tactical AI that are less then great and easily abusable, which negates the good strategic AI.

Reply #30 from Elemental Forums Top

as poor as the ai is, i don't really see how they can really get to grips with it until all the games basic mechanics are in place, and judging by the list they apparently aren't.

Reply #31 from Elemental Forums Top

actually, to be honest, i dont see why you can't flag a unit type as mounted with the weapon detecting what the unit type of the target is, then if its mounted add x damage for example. It seems to be in there in the xml, its just the back end system that needs a little tweak.

You have files that have unit data.

you have files that have weapon data.

you have attack code that uses the data, i dunno, seems like a win win to me.

You could have flyers, you could have stealth units...

Some units with a base armour piercing attack  - like wizards and priests in master of magic - those units are godly against armoured units.

ok ok, sometimes i feel like im flogging a horse... sigh - (goes back to lurking)

ps - i love those plans frogboy for the content patch, seems like a nice compromise for essence.

(still want it moddable though XD)

 

Reply #32 from Elemental Forums Top

I think we should just consider War of Magic to be an abandoned project and that Fallen Enchantress is the "real" Elemental strategy game we've been waiting for.

Reply #33 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Mtn_Man, reply 32
I think we should just have to consider War of Magic to be an abandoned project and that Fallen Enchantress is the "real" Elemental strategy game we've been waiting for.

I think you missed the point.

1. War of magic is not broken. No g ame is all things to all people. if someone is unhappy with it at this stage I feel bad about that but that isn't the same as the game being incomplete in some way. Heck, galciv and sins dont even have campaigns. Wom's was meant as an introduction to the world. Fe will bring more. 2. It will continue to get significant updates for the foreseeable future, particularly in v1.3 3. Galciv only had 3 devs on it too. Keep that in mind before dismissing what 3 devs on wom can do.

Frogboy has gone on and on about the coll things he plans to add to Elemental:War of Magic....

Reply #34 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Dsraider, reply 33
Frogboy has gone on and on about the coll things he plans to add to Elemental:War of Magic....

I never said WoM actually was an abandoned project, just that it makes sense to consider it one from a player's perspective.  Since TBS games take a significant time commitment and since I have limited time to play games, I'm going to play the more mature product which by all accounts is going to be FE.  I just don't see how WoM is going to be able to keep up with a game that is essentially starting from scratch and going back to the original design goals.

Reply #35 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 14
Hi Echo,

I'm not familiar with Alt-Tab and such being a problem these days. I rely on that feature on a daily basis when I work on the game. If there's some compatibility issue, you might just want to try running it windowed.

Regarding polish, that's really too subjective for me to get in. You'll never get a TBS game like this to be as polished as say Starcraft 2 or what have you.  It's the price we pay for having a game this relatively complex in a relatively niche genre.  

We have a lot of things we're going to be adding to WOM over the next few months.

Here's a brief list:


A lot of new goodie huts
Random events
Essence returned as a limiting factor on how many heroes you can imbue (where essence remains something good for you)
More variance in monsters in the world
More interesting world generation at start
More (a lot more) emphasis on missile weapons (i.e. lots more bandits with bows and such)
Minimum trained unit will be 4 (not 1)
Items that are made up of other items (forging)
Ability to find "plans" that let you build better items (via forging)

The ones that make sense for FE will likely make it in there too. But this is the direction we're looking to take WOM in.

 

This is exactly what I wanted to hear to decide if I should wait for FE this summer or pickup WOM now.

I've been wanting to play Elemental since I first heard of it being developed, but scared off by all the bad publicity it received when it first came out. But have continued to follow all the developments since.

So it sounds like a good time to buy the first game, I get to mess with it now with some upgrades on the way+ get a discount on FE when it comes out. And being a huge Fall from Heaven fan that was an automatic purchase anyway.