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Stardock's last chance... Elemental: Fallen Enchantress released
- Thread starter Zed
- Start date
Mortmal
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2009
- Messages
- 9,185
Installed the legendary heroes on steam since i received a key for free being an early elemental purchaser , theres a few differences with fallen enchantress, nothing outstanding at first but still i found significant and interesting changes. I prefer that new hero system, they were too costly and weak before, now they are more usefull (once leveled and equiped) and cheap, now you can have a more visible path of character development with lot of usefull skills . I wish they added a possibility to customize the race too now, as you can do your sovereign and empire but still stuck with the basic races. I'dlike to min max , add traits and weakness , give jugggernautes to non trogs etc.. etc.., and why not non human races too .
The magic been revamped a bit , and they have a complementary use to squad units . It seems a few things have been balanced, more city unrest if you spread out too much, so no more city spam. AI was ok in my last game, i suspect it vary greatly from one game to another, , and theres random events preventing other empire to blob too fast, like an undead rising, and elemental rising , imported from warlock i think. I got an event starting war on every factions , so all in all its a more lively game. They changed the colors tone , some maps and hue, its appreciable.
I reluctantly admit that i had some fun during my last game , it seems a bit more fluid that before, especially combat with units assisting each others when attacking , so yes its very similar to FE, but playing a bit more you clearly see the improvments.
The magic been revamped a bit , and they have a complementary use to squad units . It seems a few things have been balanced, more city unrest if you spread out too much, so no more city spam. AI was ok in my last game, i suspect it vary greatly from one game to another, , and theres random events preventing other empire to blob too fast, like an undead rising, and elemental rising , imported from warlock i think. I got an event starting war on every factions , so all in all its a more lively game. They changed the colors tone , some maps and hue, its appreciable.
I reluctantly admit that i had some fun during my last game , it seems a bit more fluid that before, especially combat with units assisting each others when attacking , so yes its very similar to FE, but playing a bit more you clearly see the improvments.
Multi-headed Cow
Guest
Since this is the first beta I sure as hell hope they haven't added 90% of the content that's supposed to be in here, because holy shit. If I paid $20 for while owning FE I'd be fucking pissed. I think Mortmal is being far too generous toward it.
One additional complaint that is PROBABLY (I would hope at least) something they're going to fix later in the beta, even though they've made the tactical battle maps far smaller and pushed the units in closer and attempted (Mostly unsuccessfully) to make them more tactically interesting with a few half-assed choke points, archers can shoot through obstacles. Even if you assume unit sizes are abstracted and that unit of 3 spearmen represents more than 3 spearmen (Which seems a bit difficult to wrap my brain around given there are single unit heroes), archers shoot arrows in a relatively straight line like they're directly shooting at something. It isn't Total War-style horribly inaccurate arced shots where you get 160 guys firing bows at once and hope you hit something, every attack in Elemental hits unless the opponent dodges. It just seems silly I can stuff my archers behind a building and fire THROUGH the building at melee units that have to run around the building to get to the archers.
Fallen Enchantress got around this unit by having the most boring tactical maps you've ever seen, which were just squares.
One additional complaint that is PROBABLY (I would hope at least) something they're going to fix later in the beta, even though they've made the tactical battle maps far smaller and pushed the units in closer and attempted (Mostly unsuccessfully) to make them more tactically interesting with a few half-assed choke points, archers can shoot through obstacles. Even if you assume unit sizes are abstracted and that unit of 3 spearmen represents more than 3 spearmen (Which seems a bit difficult to wrap my brain around given there are single unit heroes), archers shoot arrows in a relatively straight line like they're directly shooting at something. It isn't Total War-style horribly inaccurate arced shots where you get 160 guys firing bows at once and hope you hit something, every attack in Elemental hits unless the opponent dodges. It just seems silly I can stuff my archers behind a building and fire THROUGH the building at melee units that have to run around the building to get to the archers.
Fallen Enchantress got around this unit by having the most boring tactical maps you've ever seen, which were just squares.
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2002
- Messages
- 17,068
I enjoy MoM even though I've only played it retroactively and it hasn't aged very well in terms of graphics and interface (really nice art for the low res, though).
I fucking love Civ V. I finished a Science game today -- took me two evenings and I had a blast. I even got all the DLCs and shit for it. I like all Civ games + Alpha Centauri (but not the console shit or the other spin-offs).
I like Fall from heaven for Civ IV or Civ III or whatever Civ it was for.
I like the Heroes games, but mostly because of the Hero system, music, town/army management and exploration. I don't enjoy the combat as much. For this reason, I don't really like the new King's Bounty games.
I like Age of Wonders, but I haven't played it very much. Like Heroes, it has great music and art.
I really like Warlock. If only it had more depth and narrative.
Everything in Elemental, although small improvements have been made over time, is average at best. Music and graphics are not necessarily 'ugly', just completely unappealing. The game has lacked a good artistic direction ever since the beginning. Add to that what I wrote above about a lack of "dynamic storytelling". There's barely any interaction with CPU players.
The TL;DR is that the game isn't fun. Stardock is trying hard to fix the 'franchise', but this was the last time I bothered to install anything Elemental.
I fucking love Civ V. I finished a Science game today -- took me two evenings and I had a blast. I even got all the DLCs and shit for it. I like all Civ games + Alpha Centauri (but not the console shit or the other spin-offs).
I like Fall from heaven for Civ IV or Civ III or whatever Civ it was for.
I like the Heroes games, but mostly because of the Hero system, music, town/army management and exploration. I don't enjoy the combat as much. For this reason, I don't really like the new King's Bounty games.
I like Age of Wonders, but I haven't played it very much. Like Heroes, it has great music and art.
I really like Warlock. If only it had more depth and narrative.
Everything in Elemental, although small improvements have been made over time, is average at best. Music and graphics are not necessarily 'ugly', just completely unappealing. The game has lacked a good artistic direction ever since the beginning. Add to that what I wrote above about a lack of "dynamic storytelling". There's barely any interaction with CPU players.
The TL;DR is that the game isn't fun. Stardock is trying hard to fix the 'franchise', but this was the last time I bothered to install anything Elemental.
Misconnected
Savant
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2012
- Messages
- 587
This, at least, is bullshit. If there's one thing Elemental has had ever since the first PR concept art, before they even had an engine, it's a hugely strong art direction. That the graphics are technically somewhere between "just OK" and "FUCK MY EEEYEEES!!!" is just that - a technical issue. The art direction may or may not be your cup of tea, but it is arguably the greatest strength of the franchise.
Civ5 sucks because of the switch to 1upt. There's tonnes of other stuff to bitch about, but hey, there was in Civ4 and every other Civ-like ever. And Civ5's failing isn't 1upt in itself, it's that the maps aren't designed for that kind of combat, and that the AI doesn't know how to play a hex based wargame. The maps are much, much too small for 1upt and the AI still plays like it was collecting doom stacks, with barely any idea of what individual units can do or how they can support each other. Think naval combat in Civ4 and multiply the fail by 3-5 orders of magnitude, plus maps almost ideally unsuited for that kind of gameplay.
I'm not trying to strawman the hell out of anyone, but most of the other criticisms I've heard of Civ5 are that the builder AI isn't as strong - which is true in the sense that it won't city spam even when it obviously should, but otherwise isn't really. And that the diplomacy is borked because the AI personalities are schizophrenic, which... Is a truth with hefty modifiers. Civ5's AI has very distinct personalities, it just prioritises smart moves above character (which sadly hasn't made it a better player yet, but it probably would be fucking horrible if it was as slavishly personality driven as Civ4).
DeepOcean
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2012
- Messages
- 7,395
This "hugely strong art direction" is your personal opinion, man. I find it nothing special. Alot of games have awesome art direction on the concept art even Shitout 3 has good concept art, but even the best concept art mean nothing if when translated in 3D, the 3d artists do a shitty job. What you are calling a technical issue coud be as easily a problem of shitty 3d art wich is a problem of art direction, there are alot of games with technical issues but with awesome art direction, if the artists are good they can learn to work with their limitations. I don't care all that much about graphics but the problem of Elemental from day one isn't low polygon count, low resolution textures and etc. (Elemental still have all this issues), the problem is that when I look at the a screenshot I have the feeling: This is one of the most uninteresting, generic fantasy game that I ever seen, even korean MMOs have more personality. Still, if the gameplay was good, this could be easily forgiven but from what I've been reading, the game is mediocre to shit in this department.
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"may or may not be your cup of tea, but it is arguably the greatest strength of the franchise." Yes and I'm arguing it's not. The art direction does not stop at concept art stage. It needs to be implemented well, and if it's not, then the art direction has been compromised and is not as strong as you say it is. Regardless, I think it's very bland and generic. Fantasy can be done a lot better. Basically look at any European game.
Civ V with the expansions and stuff strikes a good balance between all the victory conditions and systems. I don't mind the one-unit-per-tile as much as others I guess. My greatest annoyance about it is that you can't buy units from a city if there's already a unit in it. You can stack flying units, though.
Initially I didn't like Civ V because I thought it lacked stuff the previous games had, but they've added a lot of stuff over time, and the upcoming expansion will add even more complexity.
The AI in Civ V has been greatly improved from what it used to be.
Unlike Stardock they actually try to improve the game in a meaningful way.
Metro
Arcane
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2009
- Messages
- 27,792
I personally like the art style and couldn't give two fucks about texture and polygon count in a turn-based strategy game... that said everything else seems bad. For the $20 I'll probably preorder Eador... on Steam (suck it, haters!). And, yeah, I really loved the combat in Warlock, too, and wish they had a bigger budget to have made a more polished game.
Mortmal
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2009
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- 9,185
You cant say they arent trying to improve their game, there was much less work to fix civ 5 than to fix elemental . Civ5 now is ok but even after an expansion its missing important stuff. Its also very streamlined . Fallen enchantress is average and legendary heroes is ok, elemental was a stinking pile of shit, thats improvment !
I remember the AI sending me unit after unit of the generic guys, now they are sending a doom stack, some world maps are better, tactical combat better ,a few things are balanced . Still after playing a few hours ,i encounter some of the isues like monsters completely ignoring AI players, they rush my settlers but completely avoid AI ones on normal and challenging level, i am not trying under that, i have my standards.Some units are far better than others , juggernauts units you get too early in my opinon and heavy armor squad , annihilate even high level melee hero, only the ranged mage heroes seems worth keeping . They are doing efforts, no point bashing them all the time , even if those are slow painful efforts at 20 $...
I remember the AI sending me unit after unit of the generic guys, now they are sending a doom stack, some world maps are better, tactical combat better ,a few things are balanced . Still after playing a few hours ,i encounter some of the isues like monsters completely ignoring AI players, they rush my settlers but completely avoid AI ones on normal and challenging level, i am not trying under that, i have my standards.Some units are far better than others , juggernauts units you get too early in my opinon and heavy armor squad , annihilate even high level melee hero, only the ranged mage heroes seems worth keeping . They are doing efforts, no point bashing them all the time , even if those are slow painful efforts at 20 $...
Mortmal
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2009
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- 9,185
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2002
- Messages
- 17,068
I don't care about getting it for free. I would gladly pay $100 for a game I know will be very good. It was unfair to write that they haven't tried to improved it. It's just that I don't think they have, in any meaningful way.
I'm sorry for the Civ comparisons by the way. It's just that it's the only 'recent' 4x I play.
I'm sorry for the Civ comparisons by the way. It's just that it's the only 'recent' 4x I play.
Raghar
Arcane
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- Jul 16, 2009
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- 22,693
DakaSha
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2010
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This
Mortmal
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2009
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- 9,185
Wouldnt mind either but we are in the minority , apprently 100$ is ok for an hardcore WW2 wargame, but for other genres its not . Also if you like civ5 the Faerun mod is not too bad, not any close of FFH alas.
Multi-headed Cow
Guest
Maybe I was being too harsh on Legendary Heroes. I found an exciting new gameplay system they added since Fallen Enchantress. The first new system I've seen!
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