[0.980B] Beta Feedback

from Elemental Forums

I just saw 0.981C has been release. I couldn't see any of the following in that changelog so I guess they are still relevant:

Tactical battle setup option. This is one of the old issues for me that severely hinder the enjoyment of the game. Here is a sketch I made of how the 3x3 grid could be used to place critical troops in the ranks...

Mites and other groups severely inconsistent in their stats. You can enter a battle against 3 parties of Mites with 3 units per party. 2 of the parties will have a total of 3 hit points (3 x 1) and the other will have a total of 9 hitpoints (3 x 3). This also seems to happen with wolves.

Damage bar doesn't reduce when attacked by Troll. The damage bar indicator in tactical battles doesn't reduce when attached by trolls (not sure if this is impacted anywhere else).

Hard to pick damage amounts in damage bar. The damage bar fills with black as you take damage. It also has a black box around it, and it has a black drop shadow below and to the right of it. This combines to make quickly assessing damage difficult. Even full health units appear to have about 10% damage. Please change the black box to white and that would fix it.

Is XP still divided by the number of heroes in a stack? (I hope it is!) This should be indicated somehow - perhaps after a battle there should be a bracketed amount next to the actual amount to indicate what the full XP was. Rollover this would explain what is going on. Eg. 120 / 3 heroes =40XP.

Would still really really really like some sort of pop-up when a turn ends and a city isn't building. Did I say I really want this? This is such an annoyance.

Levelling up feels too quick at the moment.

Units should start battles in defensive posture.

When a resource is destroyed the game doesn't zoom to the location. This was due to be fixed at some point according to Kael but so far hasn't been. Is it still on the radar?

Groups, parties etc seem unbalanced. My preference would be to have them removed from the game entirely or to just have the size of a stack dictated by the quality of the equipment of the stack. That is, a lightly armed militia group would have 9 members but a fully armed squad with all the bells and whistles would have say 6 members. The game would decide this through an algorithm. Or... Allow the existing squads to upgrade to Companies etc. My preference though would be to only raise the number by one per level or to just drop the whole squad size idea. As a concept it's a balance nightmare and should have been ditched long ago I think.

Find unbuilt resources. It would be nice to have a register of resources that includes the resources within your area that haven't been built yet.

Game start is always the same approach. Spam pioneers; research civ to get Cooperation (so you can build groups); explore with heroes. The world doesn't make me play any differently each time. The AI doesn't force me down a particular line. The resources I find don't give me opportunities to exploit a different approach. By mid game I haven't built any combat units because I just don't need to. Why would I waste Pioneer time building a weak unit that can't be upgraded to Groups? The start of the game needs to be seriously looked at. It's fun - but it's always the same approach. Always! For a game with such a wide variety from the map generation it is really surprising that the starting phase doesn't throw different opportunities or threats. Terrain doesn't matter. Choke-points don't matter. Lairs don't matter. The map generation really only dictates where you need to walk to move your pioneers around to spam out your cities.

20,264 views 15 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

LOL DAS!  You crack me up. 

1. Love the tactical battle setup suggestion.  Very cool, sleek solution.

2.  Don't mind the mite groups and other groups having differing hit points... makes things interesting.

3.  Damage troll bar fixed in next patch

4.  Yes, XP is still divided.

5.  Yeah, they could have spent a few extra months on the notification system to make it really cool.  Don't know if they will now this late in the cycle.  They could have set it up so that the player selected the kinds of things to be notified about and designed an in-game scheduler to setup your own reminders.

6.  I don't think leveling is too fast and it's the funnest part so they can't change that.

7.  Yes, need to zoom to the location of a destroyed resource.

8.  Don't think groups are unbalanced.

9.  Yes, it would be nice to know what resources are un-improved and/or capable of upgrades.

10.  Who told you my strategy?  Oh, is that everybody's strategy?  If 3-person groups were upgradeable to 5-person groups, we wouldn't have to beeline for Cooperation.  Or if the AI started attacking us earlier, we'd need to create 3-person groups.

 

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I don't think it's always necessary to use the same tech strategy.  That's just plain silly-ness.

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top



Tactical battle setup option. This is one of the old issues for me that severely hinder the enjoyment of the game. Here is a sketch I made of how the 3x3 grid could be used to place critical troops in the ranks...

this is just great

simple yet effective, i doubt we will see  it but id really like something like this

good job

 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I like your tactical combat setup solution.  Simple yet elegant.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

The unit organization thing is a must. Should have been prioritized months ago.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

It might make sense to include the configuration for the placement of units on the tactical map in the same window used to manage armies on a strategic tile (when this is implemented).

Similar to the OP's suggestion, the 9 tile grid used to represent armies on the strategic map could be made to relate directly to a 9 tile grid on the tactical map, with the top row being the back, bottom the front (middle - middle).  This would gradually decrease the initial space between opposing troops on the tactical map a bit as the larger (more offensive) army sizes are researched as well.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

:thumbsup:

The set-up suggestion is great and Cardinaldirection's suggestion is even better.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

This would be awesome.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Allowing tactical setup and fixing unit selection and grouping on the strategic map would be very welcome.

Now that there are a number of improvements that reward a city for having no production queue, I wish there was a way to "OK" the city for zzz's.  Right now if I want to leave a city zzz'ing it forces me to do a manual end turn.  Unless there is a way to do this that I am just missing?

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Age of Wonders just allowed you to choose Merchandise on a continuous loop to have a city essentially sleep.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Das123, reply 11
Age of Wonders just allowed you to choose Merchandise on a continuous loop to have a city essentially sleep.

A similar thing should be built for elemental, meaby with a slight (10/20% bonus to either unrest reduction or gildar income), but to start with one that just makes the city shaddap, meaby with a special icon instead of Zzz

I also still want to see something like the original post.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Groups, parties etc seem unbalanced. My preference would be to have them removed from the game entirely or to just have the size of a stack dictated by the quality of the equipment of the stack. That is, a lightly armed militia group would have 9 members but a fully armed squad with all the bells and whistles would have say 6 members. The game would decide this through an algorithm. Or... Allow the existing squads to upgrade to Companies etc. My preference though would be to only raise the number by one per level or to just drop the whole squad size idea. As a concept it's a balance nightmare and should have been ditched long ago I think.

 

--> For me the biggest balancing problems arise indeed from this point.
  hence my "one hit --> one possible kill" change request

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

k6

Great suggestion for tactical battle!! Would love to see such a feature added in.


Game start is always the same approach. Spam pioneers; research civ to get Cooperation (so you can build groups); explore with heroes. The world doesn't make me play any differently each time. The AI doesn't force me down a particular line. The resources I find don't give me opportunities to exploit a different approach. By mid game I haven't built any combat units because I just don't need to. Why would I waste Pioneer time building a weak unit that can't be upgraded to Groups? The start of the game needs to be seriously looked at. It's fun - but it's always the same approach. Always! For a game with such a wide variety from the map generation it is really surprising that the starting phase doesn't throw different opportunities or threats. Terrain doesn't matter. Choke-points don't matter. Lairs don't matter. The map generation really only dictates where you need to walk to move your pioneers around to spam out your cities.

This is basically why I only voted 'fair' on the last poll. 

  • Spamming pioneers just isn't right. See my scout idea in other threads for more details.
  • Groups, etc, just isn't right either. There needs to be some way to merge a lower type into a larger type. Maybe while a unit is in a city, it can have an ungrade button to increase the size of the troop for a cost. The unit is then placed into the city queue for upgrade.
  • Tactical terrain is needed. Strategic terrain is okay...but it's not utilized at all.
  • When enemy units pass into ZoC of one of your outposts you NEED to be notified. Crossing that ZofC should enforce end of movement too (just like a river)
  • City ZofC shouldn't neccesarily have right of way against an outpost ZofC. IMO, adjacent tiles next to an outpost should have right of way, unless they are within two tiles of a city.
Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Das123, reply 11
Age of Wonders just allowed you to choose Merchandise on a continuous loop to have a city essentially sleep.

Yes, also MoM had a "make gold" option.  We need something like that.

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

Excellent suggestion Das, I really hope this gets in before release though we haven't heard any comment about his yet. I was about to repeat what cardinaldirection said earlier. That would make things even more elegant.