Elemental: What features are holding you back

Multiplayer.  Except that I already purchased thinking multiplayer was a feature.

Yeah, 1-N is freaking awful for single dice rolls.  It wouldn't be quite so bad if calculations were more like 1-N for each of the twelve guys in a squad, but even that is pretty bad when you consider that a single bad defense roll can kill your sovereign and end your game right there.

A lot of people are asking for special abilities.  I don't think the game needs them.  I think the game needs better balance with weapons, armor and unit training and a smarter AI, and it'll be fine.

I agree with the 1 to X damage rolls. Probably done this way so that shards move it up to 2D then 3D, etc. So more shards give tighter curves (guessing). Only other thing really rubbing me the wrong way is how stacks are. 9 guys (or gals since I'm egalitarian) with 6 attack are not one person of 54 attack. They are 9 girls each attacking with 6 attack. The hit calculation should run once individually. Perhaps that might kill off sovereigns..but 9 vs 1 is pretty long odds unless you crush them from afar with magic.

It's too bad champions and sovereigns can't be made apart of a stack - so that my Queen can attach to the 9 gals and be a stack of 10 (she's leading them to battle) and the sovereign could give bonuses to the stack. Same for Champions. That might help with the way champions/sovereign really get too weak once the big stacks come out.

Though Heroes 4 had the heroes on the field (instead of casting spells from the side) and it wasn't too bad. I think it was because Heroes stacks are each member rolling damage individually, but the stack just had the same stats (6 attack 1 defense is still the same even with 20 in the stack)

Fortunately or unfortunately for me, depending on how you look at it, I purchased the LE months ago to get in on the beta (and then wasn't able to participate much at all past a few crash reports in 1Z.. I know, it's my fault the game shipped like it did), so I'll just comment on your complaints:

Sad but true, this is completely right.  It's not quite the Civ1 spearmen vs. battleship issue, but it's damn close.  By turn 50 or so, or as soon as more than 1 AI has researched the basic adventure techs and unleashed level 3+ monsters on the world, Sovereigns stop being even moderately badass and are relegated to being that guy who summons the fire giants (early game) and teleports the army around (late game).  It's exacerbated by the horrible healing and mana regen mechanics: anything with enough HP to be useful and survive those random damage spikes is also going to take dozens if not hundreds of tuns to heal back up because no matter what you only regain 1hp in friendly territory and 5hp in a city (including large squads.. apparently they only get one bed per squad, so can only heal one guy at a time).  And since mana regen never goes higher than 1/turn without a high powered building, forget using magical healing to get around it, since you're just trading in HP for mana.

I will say that if it weren't for all the massive issues affecting the military, this might not be so bad.  I agree that a variety of troop abilities is absolutely necessary, but I think if the combat system weren't fundamentally flawed I could at least have fun with it 'til they fixed the issues.  You can manage some decent specialization now (ex. I have a 'scout' unit that is only ever built singlet, never in squads, because they have every sight-bonus granting item I can give them, and I build them to accompany my sovereigns and independent armies), but real specialist units would be nice.

Actually, according to at least one post I've read by devs, squads of troops do actually roll an attack for each trooper vs. the target.  It's not terribly noticable amidst the general randomness of the combat syste, though, so it's hard to say how accurate that is (yes, a dev said it, but given the amount of confusion in the XML files and the comments of "I think Bob checked that in, but I'm not sure", that's no guarantee).  It does seem to jibe roughly with what I've seen.. large squads of troops with basic weapons seem much less effective than their ATK stat would suggest.  Unfortunately its undeniable that squads are treated as one big ball of flesh when it comes to healing (see above, one bed per squad) which makes them insanely frustrating to use in the later game, or even after gaining a few levels.

Again, something that I'd actually mark as a bonus.  But again, that's coming from the perspective of someone who's already bought the game and is struggling to justify the purchase to themselves.  This wouldn't be quite as important if it weren't for #5 below, but all spells being X mana for Y damage really makes this lack stand out.

Personally I'd put this at #2, if not #1.  It's the most worrying because unlike the combat system, the fix goes beyond just tweaking some calculations.  Rewriting the spell list, redoing a lot of spell effects (and fixing broken ones) and adding unique secondary effects is just the first step, and that's likely to take a while.  Ideally we'd see the ability to purchase different levels of each spellbook to give a mix, and perhaps a way to make your Sovereign a more powerful magic user other than going out and squashing spiders and ambushing poor bandits on the road.

I've had the game since release, and I still enjoy tooling around with it a bit, but for the most part I'm letting it sit until the most egregious issues have been addressed.

I absolutely agree with the points above; I think the issues which are holding the game back (to the point where I don't feel the drive to dive in just yet) can be distilled down into just a few very broad categories:

1. Overall balance. The game feels as if many of the units/items/spells are still populated with placeholder values; in addition, the combat and damage systems feel rudimentary and unacceptably "swingy". Likewise, sovereign creation, faction creation, and unit design are stuffed to the brim with options on either side of the balance spectrum (overpowered options like Organized or war hammers or squads, alongside useless or broken options such as armor pieces that provide less bonus at more cost).

2. Gameplay bugs. Champion traits and faction perks which don't seem to work; game-breaking abuses such as ring/amulet stacking; etc.

3. Variety and imagination. There are a number of wonderful systems in place which could form the structure of an amazing fantasy TBS game - questing/exploration, an original tech system, city improvements, and a great approach to unit design. However, while the seeds are there, many of the systems in the game are strongly lacking in development and polish. Unit design is lacking in variety, meaningful choices, aesthetics, and balance. Unit traits and special abilities are so few and far in-between that it feels more akin to a simple war game than a fantasy adventure, especially given the decision to make everything a "human or a minor variation thereof". City improvement has potential, but currently is pretty rail-driven with few meaningful choices to be made. Units level up, but it doesn't seem to mean very much (especially for champions). I think that the much-maligned magic system solidly deserves its reputation, as well - there are far too many copy/paste effects, and as with unit design, there are a handful of overly powerful options sprinkled in with a lot of marginal or even useless spells.

Those are, in order (with balance being the largest factor), the primary issues which affect my playing experience to the point where I'd rather just wait it out and hope for some good patches. If those three factors are addressed, and I sincerely hope that they are, I can see Elemental carving a permanent  slot in my "games I play regularly" rotation. The game's so full of potential that it's practically leaking it, but there needs to be a strong balance/design push (fix the combat system, rebalance unit stats from scratch with a tested and mathematically sound progression) before I think I can really enjoy it.

Master of Magic has a deserved reputation as a wildly and wonderfully unbalanced game (especially its spells and heroes), but I think the reason that it can provide such a wonderfully "unbalanced" experience and still remain fun and engaging is because the underlying foundation (the combat system and unit progression) is well-built and well-balanced. You can cast crazy spells, develop crazy heroes, and enchant up some mean stacks, but it's only meaningful because you're doing so against the backdrop of a very balanced progression. Elemental badly needs to develop that underlying structure, in my opinion.

Hi,

I too consider the 1-N combat damage system a horrible design decision, and it is one of the things that's holding me back from buying the game right now. It gives more weight to luck and weakens tactical and strategical playing.

Balance is also a big concern to me. I like games where there is no optimal way to play, no "best path", but where instead you have multiple options of how to try to win, and have to be flexible and adapt to the current situation.

Another big factor why I'm not buying the game yet is the weak AI. I don't care for multiplayer, and would like to face a challenge when playing single player *without the AI having resort to cheating too much*. The later Civ 4 AI (Blake's betterAI) was fine in that regard, and has raised the bar for what I expect from a 4X game. An ideal AI would have to play under the same rules as a human and still surprise me and pose a challenge. I know that this is not possible to achieve, so smaller boni are okay. Big boni like no fog of war are not, though.

-Kylearan

Information.

The Heirogaram (sp) is very very lacking in information. Stardock should go have a read of CivIV's civilopedia, and then have a look at what fans have modded in with the BAT/BUG mods (ie, in game articles on tactics and strategies). Same for FallfromHeave2, lots and lots of information. Actually, there's more information than you need(I enjoyed my first game of FfH2 without reading very much and fumbling my way through).

Similarly, the game should recommend what you should build in your city. It doesn't have to be the best option, but at least tell me what a sensible option might be. This eases new players into the game. Civ and Colonization both do this well. True, with CivIV I nearly always ignore the suggestions these days, as I have learnt the game and can come up with my own strategies, but they helped me learn.

So, more player guidance and more information so I can understand cause and effect in the game. I don't want to have to alt-tab to read a guide in the middle of my game as a) this will crash the game and b) it kinda ruins the immersion.

I have to say, the Total War games are pretty bad for this too. The game doesn't really explain how a lot of the mechanic works in detail.

Agree with OP's points, totally 100% agree in the case of #1. That's the single biggest problem with the game right now. The system is so wildly unpredictable that any reasonable attempt at strategy or balance just doesn't work. Make a bunch of guys with maces and you destroy everything. And if they die? Just make more. Champions are much harder to build up, more fragile, and far harder to replace.

What I'd add to the list is multiplayer. Listed on the box feature, still disabled, and now we've learned it won't be enabled this week either.

What kills most of the game for me is the complete lack of variation with the items and only gildar after killing spawns. 

We need some sort of after battle random loot with random attributes so it can become really worthy of our time. Otherwise I'll just buy the best shop items and put it on all the champions or what not, even though later they serve no purpose when I can build trained groups of random units that will be way more effective.

So yeah, killing a high level monster pack should give us some sort of satisfactory reward and not just 1000 gildar so I can buy the same uber armor in the shop.

I'm really hoping such a thing can be implemented besides the major battle/gameplay/ui issues.

Great summary of the most important issues. 100% agreement, especially with #1.

According to Frogboy, the squad members already roll damage separately, even though this isn't shown in the UI. However, it seems that defense is just a sum of all members of the defending unit, which is bad. Combined with #1 I would call it crippling.

I've just won my second game, and while I'm looking forward to many of the features mentioned above (which will, I believe, all come in time) the thing I'd really like right now is a history of my past game outcomes so I can compare the stats from my endgame kingdom to my previous efforts.

Bugs, late game crawl and crashes, then balancing units out.

What they should do in combat is run it like D&D.  When you attack you roll a d20 then you add what your attack bonus is to that roll. This is then compared to the defenders Armor Class which is not a roll. Then if your score equals or exceeds the Armor Class you hit and then roll damage.

Now in Elemental what you could do is run the attack roll just like I described above. But the Defense could be done in two ways:

1) Have a set number which is affected by DEX, Armor, Spells, Magic items etc. However it will need to be a bit higher than it is now.

2) Have a roll system that is just like the attack I describe above.

Now how this could translate to Elemental is as follows we will use a D10 "dice" for rolling.

Roll:   Soldier: Att: 5   Def: 5        Spider: Att: 6  Def:3

Soldier attacks the combuter rolls D10 and rols a 4. The soldiers ATT is 5 so we add this to the roll to get 9 (4+5=9.) Spiders roll thier defense roll from the d10 and get a 4. Spider's Def is 3 (4+3= 7)  So the Soldiers hit and do damage. Now Damage should be it's own stat. You could either have it similar to D&D where the weapon/spell + Abillity (Str for melee and DEx for Range)  generates a damage range. For Example have a Simple club = 1-6 (Range of 1 thru 6.)  You could have a fireball be 12 - 20. I think you get the general idea.

Also you would have many factors to affect Attack Defense and damage rolls like Terrain effects, Spells, Magic items (both benefical and cursed) Type of attacks such as (Blunt/Slash/Pierce as well as Fire/Cold/Acid/Earth/Death/Life/Water etc.)

There is so much that could be done to this game that would make it more engaging.

Now I have not had as much problems with the Champions in the game. what I do is Hire a lot of them and as I get them My Soverign empowers them with magic. So basically my Soverign is there to make spell casters. and these spell casters build up mana and become power houses when with an army.

It is a very effective stratagy. However the Champions are quite usless if they are just melee units without spellcasting.

Nice - I like this a lot.

Could also do it for magic with, say Int/2 being added on with Dex/2 for defending direct damage spells (ability to get out of the way of the spell) or Wis/2 for defending against status spells (or status effects on damage spells). Would also give WIS a reason to exist outside of creation. Sure, make it equal starting Essence but also let it continue to exist on its own and this could give it a reason for it.

Yes, yes, and yes.

The combat system is my #1 as well, and not just the system itself, but also the tactical combat engine.  Fundamental changes need to be made to make tactical combat fun, rather than an excercise in making sure the auto-resolve doesn't kill your weak guys that are tagging along for XP. 

First, I find the "tactical" combat almost devoid of tactics.  Magic users cast, archers fire, melee guys move up and swing.  Positioning and unit formation mean nothing.  Combined arms and army composition mean very little.  Morale has little to no effect. 

My suggestion: the tactical combat engine, at a minimum, should include the concepts of engagement and flanking.  Units in melee with each other are engaged - breaking that engagement gives the opponent a free shot.  For flanking, if a unit is engaged, and attacked by a second unit (not the one it is engaged with) it suffers extra damage, or is easier to hit.  Archers engaged with a melee unit cannot shoot anyone else.  Similar to these concepts is the idea of support - that a unit with a friendly unit next to it is more effective.  Adding these things in a relatively simple way would make the tactical combat much, much more enjoyable.

Of course, one of the reasons combat is so simple is probably so that the AI can handle it.  This will require a major AI upgrade, and I'd encourage Stardock to think about changing the Auto-Resolve in the process.  I suggest that Auto-Resolve ought to be based on something other than the AI playing both sides really fast in the tactical combat engine.  I'd recommend something based on a combat rating ratio (assuming they modify the way Combat Ratings are calculated so it really does reflect the combat power of the stack), with some random chance of attrition.  Make it roughly equivalent, but not the same.  The reason is that I don't want to take the time to play out every battle, but if I can see that the AI is doing stupid stuff with my troops, that's going to be frustrating.  I don't want to have to choose between being bored or frustrated.  If you can make an AI that does everything exactly the way I would have, great! - except that now there's no reason for me to do tactical combat at all.  So I just don't see a good solution if the AI is just playing out tactical combat for me. 

I'm not impressed by the random-terrain-gives-bonuses-and-penalties "feature", which requires you to mouseover the whole battlefield in order to find the important squares (if there are any) on the battlefield.  Add in that the terrain modifier isn't really that significant, and it's a layer of the game that could be interesting, but isn't.  I like the idea that terrain influences the battle, but I'd rather see just a few squares in each battlefield that give a significant bonus.  These squares should be easy to identify, maybe by a graphic, or maybe a toggled overlay.  It would be even better if the location of the squares was dictated by the terrain in global map.  So if I attack someone on a hill on the big map, they get a few "high ground" squares on their side of the battlefield map.

I think the Morale system has promise, but it needs to be made a lot more significant in the game.  Morale should definitely affect the effectiveness of groups, and should have more levels than just "rout if it's low enough" - losing movement points and/or moving randomly are both possibilities.  This, of course, becomes a lot more significant if positioning actually matters.

Lastly, from an eye candy perspective, I'd really encourage Stardock to look at the scale of the figures on the battlefield.  It really looks terrible when a single figure is defending one corner of his square, and then has to run to another corner to defend against a second attacker.  Figures should be large enough that they don't need to move within the square, but can attack and defend from the center of it.  Of course, the consequence here is that larger squads and monsters (i.e., dragons) will have to be larger than a single square.  I recognize this is a lot of extra work on the core code, but I think it would be worth it in the long run.

If the tactical combat engine is interesting, then the units can be fairly simple, and you still have interesting combat.  Even so, I think a single Attack and Defense rating is too simple (and, as the OP said, the 1-N model is just terrible).  I'd really like to see the "to hit" and damage rolls separated.  I think the minimum here is to have Attack and Defense used to calculate probability to hit, and then have a separate "Damage" stat, which could be modified by the Att/Def ratio.  I think I'd prefer to add an Armor stat as well, that mitigates damage.  Then Att/Def are used to calculate whether the strike hit, and Damage/Armor are used to calculate damage to the unit.  I think 4 stats would really start to give the units some differentiation and personality.  Implicit in all of this is that HPs are balanced better with the combat model, so that trade-offs in the stats mean something - if the combat model strongly favors any single strategy (glass cannons currently), then it isn't much fun.  The model should implicitly lead to a system of expensive generalists and cheaper specialists who are strong in specific situations, but weak in others.

Aside from the combat system, I'd probably put a meaningful magic system as a close second priority for me.  Special unit abilities become less important if the tactical combat itself is interesting.  I'd still like to see special abilities, but they're not the centerpiece of combat - the combat itself should be the centerpiece of combat.  The OP mentioned balance as well, and that's pretty much a no-brainer.  But, really, I think Stardock hasn't even finished the engine yet (or at least, I hope they haven't), so let's get that done first because it's hard to balance the units when the combat system itself is in flux.  Meaningful damage types I could do without, actually.  I think the whole slashing/bashing/piercing thing is probably more complexity than the system really needs, and doesn't necessarily offer that much.  Yes, I would like to be able to build a counter unit to a specific enemy unit that's hurting me, but I think a good combat system would offer that without multiple damage types.  Magic resistances, OTOH, would be very nice to see.  That would help differentiate the magic types in the game, which would be a good thing, but the magic system needs a lot more help than just that to be really interesting.   

I agree.

This is the most important thing to me (I call it "diversity").

Are you the same Dwiggs that created an AoWSM mod?

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay for one

 It's not a bad system if implemented properly, Stardock however haven't implemented it properly. It's quick, understandable and easy to do, and you can get an incredibly deep system out of it. The problem the current system has is that N is unlimited, which is a complete failure. If you want a 1 - N system to work, then you need a maximum limit on N. Ideally, this should be related to the average hitpoints. If we set the current N to 10 for example, it means on average an attack with maximum damage against an undefended opponent will cause some damage, but rarely a one shot kill. Against a target with maximum damage, then you've around a 50% chance of doing some damage with a one shot kill being impossible (assuming the lowest roll is in fact 1). Although taking a leaf from Warhammer these systems tend to work better with a 1-N roll for attack and a fixed defence, so you can at least predict that a 5 defence unit will take damage from 50% of strikes by a 10 attack creature.

I'm not sure I want them balanced. I always thought it a bit silly in MoM that a single guy on a horse can slaughter eight guys armed with Halberds without raising a sweat. Generally, the guy outnumbered 8 - 1 is going to be in trouble even if we replace his sword with a machine gun, there is a limit to how many people a single guy can actively defend against at one time, unless he's in a castle and they're outside.

 Although I don't think it should be as it is now where it's pretty much an instant kill. Maybe give champions a chance to avoid damage or otherwise be able to avoid being attacked by groups. Alternatively extend the sovereign system to every NPC, so they only die if you ultimately lose the battle (and just to be mean, switch the Assassin ability so that if a unit with Assassin kills a hero in battle they die as they would now).

Yeah I don't disagree with this.  I didn't specifically state it, but 1-N being a problem because N gets so large is absolutely what I was getting at.  And I agree 100% that N is related to hitpoints.  A 1-10 damage system where units have 50 hp is generally going to be fine, because it will take on average 10 hits to kill which means that the overall combat result becomes gaussian in distribution (like rolling multiple dice.)    However when 1-N is used and N can be higher than average HP (like elemental) then this is just absurd.

The fixed defense is also very important.  Warhammer went with it and so did D&D.   These guys know their stuff and decided that one random roll per combat outcome is quite enough - adding a second for defense almost always introduces too much randomness.  Two very popular systems right there that did things the way they did for very good reasons. Elemental could learn from this.

The demo. Pretty much mandatory for me nowadays.

Yes, I was the creator of DwigMod for SM. Eventually, The_stranger took over on his own and developed it even further. I must thank you for your wonderful unit recoloring tool, which I remember making extensive use of while creating new units. AoW:SM was a great TBS experience, and I'm hoping Elemental can head down the same road with some work.

Exactly this! Right now, if we define a "skirmish" as the exchange of attacks between two units until one dies, the skirmish's outcome tends to be determined by a relatively small number of dice rolls. I think (based on dev comments I've read, although I could be wrong) that this may be the byproduct of a conscious design effort to speed up tactical combat.

However, the problem with this approach is that it tends to make combat extremely random, especially as N (the set of possible discrete random results) increases. If N is large and a skirmish is decided by just a few dice rolls, battles become a toss-up (strongly in favor of whoever strikes first if units start getting one-shotted, which is horrible for the current AI and the tactical combat experience in general).

The more rolls that become involved, the smoother the distribution becomes, and the more predictable combat becomes. While "predictable" sometimes tends to carry negative connotations as a word, it is a good thing to a degree in strategy gaming. Having some level of predictability is what lets the system "make sense"; a player expects a 6 ATT / 6 DEF unit to be much sturdier and almost as strong as an 8 ATT / 0 DEF unit. The more rolls that a skirmish entails, the more predictable it becomes; precisely how smooth the curve should be is a design choice, but I'd argue that hovering on the "few rolls/very unpredictable" end of the spectrum is generally a very poor choice, as it trivializes so many decisions.

For comparison's sake, Master of Magic had a highly predictable system - there were a lot of dicerolls per skirmish. Each individual point of ATT had a 30% base chance to deal 1 damage; then, each individual point of DEF had a base 30% chance to reduce damage by 1. It was an elegant system with great room for mechanic expansion (+ to hit, armor piercing, etc.), and it was very good for predictability in that combat results felt like they "made sense". (Even with this many rolls per skirmish, battle results certainly weren't predetermined, as my Load Game button can attest...)

While reducing the ratio of damage output to HP might slightly increase the length of tactical combats, I think it's a far more important issue than pacing - at the current ratio, strategy becomes fairly trivial and results become uncomfortably random. This is what I mean when I complain that we need a solid redesign of the damage/combat system. (If tactical combat length is an issue, there are many other avenues to explore which aren't so detrimental to game balance - speeding up attack and movement animations, tweaking army positioning, reducing spell animation time or allowing the player to act through it, addressing kiting, and so on.)

Absolutely spot on, and worded much better than my attempt :)  I really hope Stardock take notice of this and go with something similar to the MoM system, or at the very least something which has many more dice rolls to determine the outcome.

I think if members of this board and Elemental fans in general were surveyed on whether they want quick, random combat or longer, deep, more predictable (but still capable of an upset!)  combat, the latter would win by an absolute landslide.

Your hours of strategic planning, leveling up and careful tactical placements mean very little if one random number can undo it all!