Elemental Game Impressions

Positive and otherwise

from Elemental Forums

I got the initial 0-day and played the post release patch as well. I have not played 1.05 yet as I haven't had the time. So far:

 

 

The Good:

I love the option to build my own sovereign.

I like the research interfaces for both magic and worldly knowledge. Simple, easy to understand.

The map's geography is pretty and easy to read.

The little unit models are nicely done including their animations.

The Influence of MoM is clear and welcome.

Unit design is a wonderful concept.

The bad:

There seem to be major balance issues in combat. I can quickly build units that utterly dominate others. My favorite example are units using Lord Hammers which can be obtained in the earliest stages of the game. Lord Hamer's have an attack rating of *40* which is absurd. stack of 3 guys with no armor and Lord Hammers pretty much roll through everything at this stage. Stacks including more than 3 are the equivalent of the Death Star. Which leads me to:

Magic is nearly useless. In fact I win even faster by simply ignoring it altogether. I create Sovs with no spell books, build no magic research, and my gameplay is not any different.

My sovereign and hero units are nearly useless in the early-mid game compared to the melee units I train as stated above. As long as I start near an Iron deposit my units can have Lord Hammers for a few gildar but buying one for a hero or a Sov costs something like 800 Gildar? So instead of using these heros I let them sit in cities while my cheap and easy Hammerers dominate in just a few turns. That tends to make one of th good points of the game useless (customized Sovs). The Hammerers make Fire Giants look like pikers.

The AI is suicidal even at high levels. It loves to throw outclassed units into hopeless fights with my garrisons. It makes tiny cities outside of it's big ones to no seeming purpose (I just raze them).

If I intentionally let the game go into late turns (it has to be intentional because of the bad AI) then the item stacking coupled with the now overabundant Guildar make my Sov go from early game useless to Combat God with nigh unlimited HP and stats.

Items have no rhyme or reason.... Why is that 6000+ Gildar Elementium sword just a 20 Attack 1 combat speed turd? Why are ther so few abilities for items or units?

Domination or Adventure research seems to be partly broken. I research the right techs to recruit darklings or to use a Demon Gate and randomly the game simply doesn't recognize that I did?

The one time I actually got the Demon Gate tech to recognize and built the Demon Gate, for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how I was supposed to "summon demons". The city it was linked to couldn't "recruit" them, they were available as unit designs, and I didn't get a summoning spell to use. I have no idea what the problem is here.

Some of the tech trees are *very* short and you end up researching "refined foo" far too quickly.

The Auto-resolve is a genius in combat. So much so that I feel no need to ever hit tactical combat since it feels very shallow and slow anyway.

Notable locations have almost zero

Suggestions:

Many of the issues above can be fixed simply by tweaking values or fixing bugs. These should be tweaked/fixed.

Different damage and defense types. Piercing, slashi8ng, blunt, frost, poison, etc... the RPG standard. Right now there is just Damage and Defense which gets pretty dull.

Unit and item abilities. There needs to be a lot more differentiation for everything. Let these abilities add the depth currently missing from combat.

More Global Spells and Global Constructs to make casting or building things more meaningful.

 

That is probably enough for now...

 

I can't wait for this game to become whole.

 

elemental
11,884 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Well said.. except that I do make a "taxi cab" king that uses organized/adventurer and teleport to get my main army around quickly... so, magic isn't quite useless ;)

 

 

 

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Also, auto resolve is only good when you use heavy melee like you do. If you try archer or magic (which are so gimped atm there is little reason to) you'll see how bad auto resolve is with ranged or conserving mana.

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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

There are different defense types, for blunt, piercing and slashing. Helmets protect againts blunt weapons, for example if you have 10 defense helmet it will protect 10 against hammers,maces.. but only 1-10 against other weapon types. Same goes for other armor types.

This if i havent gotten it all wrong.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting diamondspider, reply 1
Well said.. except that I do make a "taxi cab" king that uses organized/adventurer and teleport to get my main army around quickly... so, magic isn't quite useless 
End of diamondspider's quote

Yeah, sadly my sov has just become a teleport bot for melee death squads.  I cast a blizzard occasionally just to watch how little damage it does even with 20 int and a water shard under my control.  :/

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Moogel, reply 3
There are different defense types, for blunt, piercing and slashing. Helmets protect againts blunt weapons, for example if you have 10 defense helmet it will protect 10 against hammers,maces.. but only 1-10 against other weapon types. Same goes for other armor types.

This if i havent gotten it all wrong.
End of Moogel's quote

 

Sadly you have. The game as it stand has exactly two Melee stats :

 

Attack and Defense. The game engine doesn't care if you are attacking with a 20 AT sword or a 20  AT hammer or if you are defending with Plate or simple a stack of 10 +1 Defense amulets.

 

It is the combat system for Warlords I. I am embarrassed for Stardock to even say that.

 

When Heroes of Might and Magic I has deeper and more variegated combat than you, well it wasn't broken street dates or journalists "taking quotes out of context" that can take the blame. It was plain bad decisions. Own it Stardock and stop flailing for excuses.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top


There seem to be major balance issues in combat. I can quickly build units that utterly dominate others. My favorite example are units using Lord Hammers which can be obtained in the earliest stages of the game. Lord Hamer's have an attack rating of *40* which is absurd. stack of 3 guys with no armor and Lord Hammers pretty much roll through everything at this stage. Stacks including more than 3 are the equivalent of the Death Star. Which leads me to:

Magic is nearly useless. In fact I win even faster by simply ignoring it altogether. I create Sovs with no spell books, build no magic research, and my gameplay is not any different.
End of quote

I agree with these two totally. The attack/defense system needs an overhaul to correct some major problems with this. Those 40 attack guys in a group of any real size can effectively one-shot just about anything. It makes combat very bland and annoying, and in the case of non-replaceable units like Champions and the Sovereign, simply not fun. Why use them when they'll just get obliterated in one attack when I can just train replaceable guys instead?

Made a suggestion on how to fix that over here.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting greywar, reply 5

 

It is the combat system for Warlords I. I am embarrassed for Stardock to even say that.

 
End of greywar's quote

 

Wtf is this really true? If so its really sad to hear....... :'(

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Not true, misinformation.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Rune_74, reply 8
Not true, misinformation.
End of Rune_74's quote

 

Great post. Dynamite disproving. You win hands down sir.

 

Here is the deal. The manual and Hiergammon claim there is damage and defense differentiation but the Game Engine doesn't actually do it.

 

A Helmet is currently just a *foo* with x amount of Defense and weapons are currently a *foo* with X amount of generic damage.

 

The game has no Elemental Damage (fire, water, frost, earth) and no defense against them either. The spells are Generic Damage.

 

Let me help you to win, just link to the post explaining the differences between slashing and blunt weapons and how different armor works against them. Just prove me wrong (I *want* to be wrong).

 

OR just imply that I am lying agai (my new fanboy fav) or say that PC Mag sucks or something like that instead of actually addressing the game.