Interestingly enough, I completely disagree with you here. I think early game is actually the most fun part of the entire game with the most interesting strategic choices. It is fun to create your faction and sovereign, to uncover the map (or your immediate neighborhood if it is a large map) and identify important locations and dangerous monsters, to build up your infrastructure and expand while at the same time training your troops to get rid of the ever-lurking creatures around you that might be in the way of the desired spot for your next city, to get experience and decide which way to go with your champions, to keep the competing factions at bay.

It tends to get boring much later on when you reach mid to end game and your empire has been established. You reach a point where (if you survived that long) enemies are no real threat anymore, the research only provides for simple added numbers and all you can do is conquer the hapless competition or roam the map for quests that are not really that helpful anymore.
 

I DO have a long laundry list of things that are bothering me about Elemental: Legendary Heroes.  At this point, however, being within 2 weeks of scheduled release, I am holding back (yeah, reading my other recent posts, it might not seem like it, but there are a LOT of issues I'd like to discuss).  At this point, I've accepted that what we see now in the beta is what we are going to end up with, with some last minute tweaks, and a good number of people seem fairly happy with the result (I'm in the somewhat underwhelmed category).

Once we see release, I'm sure that myself and some other modders will try a few things, but I do want to see a LOOONG open discussion amongst regulars here about what is working and what could be better before Stardock goes for Round 4.  In short, I see a lot of missed potential in the design.  Sure it's fairly fun, but it could be soooooo much better with a fresh look.  I'd love to see a 'Wish List/Suggestions forum' added once LH is released, so that we can separate the 'what should be in the game' discussions from the 'this isn't working/I love this/etc.' threads.

Elemental still intrigues me, and I'm glad to see a good number of the reviewers being fairly happy with E:FE and some of the initial E:LH previews have also been kind.  But Elemental COULD be a 9.5 out of 10/10 out of 10, and I don't think it's there yet.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of angst resulted when Elemental:War Of Magic was first released.  If it had been stable, I think it would have received a much better reception, and some of the concepts the team tried in that design would have held up better.  But because people get annoyed when games crash, they start LOOKING for other reasons to hate the game, and want sweeping changes, instead of giving the design a fair chance.

And, as the OP did mention above, even now some things haven't been given the love and attention that they probably deserve, because we've been too busy focusing on other aspects of the game.  As an example, Diplomacy could be SOOOOOO much better, but I think that's a discussion for the wish list thread for future versions, as it works OK now and we want people to stay interested in the game so we CAN see another sequel.

And, I will fully support the NEXT version of Elemental not being free.  E:WOM is effectively finished, and I think Stardock has been more than generous in giving us early adopters two free games/expansions at this point.

What I'd love to see going forward would be a 'Stand Alone' expansion that revisits the E:WOM setting and upgrades all versions, incorporating a good number of the current concepts and engine fixes, with the work focusing on fixing things in the original E:WOM that weren't given a 'proper shake', such as boats and dynasties, and (in my own personal opinion) properly implemented Individual Mana pools.  And I'd think that this expansion should cost at least $10 at this point (more if you haven't already bought into the franchise).  But again, at this point I think it best to separate this discussion from E:LH, as overall E:LH isn't too bad of a game, and can be enjoyable the first few times. 

I'd envision this expansion as more of a 'revisit/balance expansion', not re-inventing the wheel which can take much longer to do, and drive up developments costs a lot.  There are a lot of concepts from the original E:WOM still in the code, which of course will need tweaking, so focusing on them and letting the modders/community point the way on balancing issues and such would keep costs down.

As an example of what I'm thinking, r.e. Dynasties and game balance, I'd love to see situations where you WANT/NEED to merge two empires, to counter some other threat in the game.  You spend some time cultivating the relationship with said empire/kingdom (lots of trading interaction and such), and where 'Hey, these guys are beating up on me, come help' actually had a strong reward mechanism for doing so, rather than just being some random diplomatic issue that you can sorta kinda ignore, while giving lip service of course.  Alliances are often cemented with marriages, but said potential ally won't just marry anyone, hence your need to score points with them, all the while dealing with whatever menacing empire(s) or kingdoms that are giving both of you grief.  And, of course, you can always try to go it alone, but this would bring more meaning to Diplomatic Victories and such.  Example: The Tarth/Pariden Alliance has become effectively unshakable, so do we take them out or appease them?  Oh, and just for fun you could borrow 'spies' from GC to intoduce intrigue into one or both courts of said alliance.

Oh, and to borrow a concept from another fave game of mine, whenever you conquer a city, you have "Occupy, Pillage or Raze' as options, with Pillaging destroying some/a lot of structures for resources but the city stays somewhat intact.  Even Occupy should probably have some collateral damage.  These three decisions become VERY IMPORTANT in diplomacy, if a workable surrender structure is implemented. Kingdoms/Empires might be more willing to surrender if you are nice to their cities during your campaign.  And, sparing a city (we won, but you can keep your city) might make for an interesting twist for Diplomacy... just possibly leading to an alliance down the road.  And an opposing Sovereign just might join your ranks (as a Champion type) rather than fighting to the death, depending on how 'clean' you've kept things and if he's more pissed at another Kingdom/Empire that has been destroying his/her empire. Or not...

Diplomacy alone has SOOOO MUCH potential!

Looking at where the game is now, I can only imagine how cool E:WOM would have been with the current engine and some balancing/tweaking (but not flat out changes).  Maybe if I win the lottery or something...

So, in my assessment, I think it's time to accept what we can't change, as release is upon us, and start the ideas/suggestions discussion for the next version in a fresh setting.  All the while expecting Stardock to continue quashing bugs in E:LH in the short term, of course!

Very well written and detailed post kvm1800. I agree with most of what you say, and specially with the feeling that too many efforts have been spent in reinventing the wheel. Yes, that was not the perfect wheel, but there was no need to reinvent it either, specially when other parts of the game where (are) in a lot more need of attention, and there was no need to substitute the old wheel by a new half baked wheel which is again a non-perfect wheel and IMHO an even worse wheel that the one it is substituting.

Also you make a good point in how unmoddable those new aspects are. Not being to change champion paths is a big issue. Maybe that will be solved in later patches, but right now that's how it works And I am curious why encumbrance and random skills cannot be accessed through modding. After all the work is done, so why not allow modders to use it if they want?

I also agree that by far FE is much better game than LH, because the few additions of LH don't compensate. Curiously enough, my feeling with 0.50 was different, I felt like "Wow, that's a pretty great game for just version 0.50!" but versions have succeeded and that feeling changed for worse.

Also there is something I wonder about. Why worry to make a game with such great lore as Elemental and then put so few effort in the campaigns? Aren't campaigns supposed to capitalize and expand on the lore? After all those years I still remember Julia from Age of Wonders or Crag Hack, Tarnum, Gem and Sandro from Heroes of Might and Magic III and that's thanks to the great campaigns those games have.

Yes, I think they have thrown some things out too easily.  The way you work at improving a particular mechanic affects how well it turns out, but a lot of it has thrown the baby out too.  If you don't do a good job improving a certain mechanic, then of course it won't work.  It doesn't mean the mechanic itself is flawed, just that the improvement process is flawed.  Everytime you throw out a mechanic that could work, you essentially go back to square one.

To be fair, Brad has used the term "entitement", quite a lot.

Lol. Thus is the kind of post that could be quoted for a cracked.com article on why gaming entitlement.

i love this quote:

While I disagree with the OP's statement referenced above, it is his opinion. It is not entitlement.

It's really bad when the rabid fan boys label any contrary opinion as entitlement. It's an attempt at silencing differing opinions through shaming/mocking.

Kind of like political correctness.

Please refrain from personal attacks, xan.

We do read through the threads and we are aware that our hard core fans, especially the ones from the beginning, aren't happy about the removal of encumbrance.  The battle between complexity vs. focus has been with us for as long as games have been around.

Kael and Frogboy and Soren concluded that encumbrance was a mechanic that was convoluted and implied complexity and depth that just didn't exist. But we do know that it's removal changed the way the game is played and that some of our most loyal players miss that way of playing. E.g. Getting horses lowed enc. which in turn let you wear heavier armor as opposed to needing to spend for armor proficiency separately. that heir goal is for the player to have to make interesting choices. Not being able to make uber units that can do it all is less satisfying if you are used to it, but it does make it a better game IMHO. 

I am sure someone else could say what I said more elegantly than I have. I just think some of you are resorting to hyperbole to try to get your way And that isn't fair to those of us who think the game needed these kinds of changes.

I don't disagree with the OP, but I'm pretty willing to attribute most things to personal preference. Some people love the game and some don't.

But, the one (legitimate, IMO) gripe that I do have is that it's gotten harder, not easier, to modify core aspects of the game with the latest release. I remember waaay back it was suggested by the higher ups that we could easily be playing total conversion mods set in a fallout-style world or something similar.

That seems fairly unrealistic now, to put it mildly.

I agree with some of this. I own several other strategy games (Warlock, Civ5, Eador, Endless Space) and I usually prefer real time strategy such as Supreme Commander. I have to say this is by far my favorite turn based game. I have over 90 hours just in LH and over 100 in FE and I love both games. I enjoy LH more. I think the changes to the game made it more fun.

I don't know if I"m a 'hardcore' fan or whatever that means, but I do know modding means nothing to me. I have 200 games on steam and I play whatever seems good that day (I'm a father with small children, I get to play at night when the wife steals the TV and the kids are in bed, turn based games are becoming a new staple since I can quit on a dime). I prefer the devs not waste time with modding at all and just make a fun game. The games that have great modding tend to have bland games because of it (I"m looking at you oblivion and skyrim....the mods are the only things that make those games even playable...).

I do agree with some of the balance issues, but that stuff is minor and is always being tweaked, what I care about the most is how much fun I have with the game. I got this game for free, and I can't wait to buy the map pack for it. Not because I care about the map pack, but the game is so good I want to reward the devs with something for all they're hard work.

I love this game, I think the devs are amazing and have done an amazing job. Please continue focusing on making a fun game, that trumps all else in my opinion.

..Should've just removed all the initiative modifiers that are baked directly into weapons (except magical), instead of the entire encumbrance system.  Weapon weights, and the initiative penalties of the different encumbrance levels just needed some attention; especially concerning casting.

Edit: I do feel however that this thread is attempting to communicate much more to the devs than merely discontent over the removal of the encumbrance system.  The title is "Final verdicts on Legendary Heroes", and the OP is directing the test community to discuss the general direction that the developers are taking the franchise, as well as the areas of the game that are receiving the brunt of their attention.

While Encumberance is on my list, so is the removal of stat points, removal of boats, removal of Dynasties, how City Building now works versus how it used to work (some good, some bad), the 'hot button' Mana Pool issue (we will forever be divided on this one global versus individual pools), how lairs now work, removal of 'build and train at the same time', removal of separate tech trees for Kingdom and Empire (we went backwards, not forward on this, we should have multiple tech trees by now), weapon/armor/combat balance, actual dungeons versus some dungeon-ey looking map, lacking implementation of Diplomacy (already detailed above), (lack of) XP gain issues for administrators, limited modding options of the traits tree, and a number of other issues.

AND, one of the things modders have been asking for is that when you 'orphan' a feature, that we still have access to it for our mods.  Some things are still available, others aren't, or are effectively broken at this point.  Because a number of things have been moved beyond our reach, we can't very easily demonstrate to you developer types what we are thinking would work better in Elemental (or prove to ourselves it's not necessarily better).

And, a number of people have suggested check boxes for game options multiple times now, for (pick your old favorite thing).  The more customizable a game is during setup, the more reasons to go back and replay it later (what if I tried this option instead of this other option).

Here's an example of what I've seen in other games:

WebPlayCiv forum posts

Scroll down to post 16, and you'll note a number of options to choose from when setting up your game for Alpha Centauri.  While I'm sure there are better examples out there, this illustrates HOW you can allow for more options in setup, and allow players to customize the Elemental experience to THEIR tastes.  The ability to make the game more your own adds to the mystique, and hence a person's attachment to this game.

Sure, you might not want to play with 'Advanced Diplomatic Options' as an example, but someone else might.  This also allows players to set the parameters in advance r.e. how long they are looking for in a go round with a given scenario.  Want a short game? Uncheck a bunch of 'advanced features'.  Want a LOT of stuff to think about?  Check a bunch of options.  You get my meaning.

Yes, Elemental does have a few options during game setup.  But it could have a bunch more.

But I digress.  A lot of us want the same thing here.  A totally kickass game.  Sure, we may differ as to what we think works and doesn't work, but the overall goal is satisfaction and replayability.  The more people replay a game, the more willing they will be to tell their friends about it, and the more willing they will be to get expansions and such.  You guys have your sales numbers, so you know just how well E:WOM and E:FE have done.  But imagine if those numbers could be double or triple what they are now?

Gaming is a 'side thing' with Stardock, sure, but you have a whole community of gamers here that are willing to put in the work for a great product.  You do utilize us to a degree, but give us more tools so we can 'pay it forward' by more completely augmenting the Elemental experience, and y'all will benefit.

Freelancer has some pretty extensive mods, and that game is MUCH harder to mod than this one.  By comparison, many have made efforts to mod Elemental, and ended up leaving this community in frustration.  I'm in the often frustrated camp myself, but am still willing to try, as are others.  Elemental SHOULD have as rabid a modder base as a number of the other classics, but how moddable the game is really falls in Stardock's court (short of reverse-engineering the code, which I believe violates the EULA).  Think about that.

Apologies, this post is longer than I intended, but I'm trying to convey the magnitude of the situation.  Thank you for reading at least.

I disagree with a lot of what the OP said. I think LH is an much better game than FE, despite its flaws. I do wish they had at least another month to work on bug fixes, balancing and AI however.