And another thing about magic.. :) There should be a 7th school of magic for all things related to spirit and mind.. maybe also general stuff like dispels, teleporting.. anything that doesn't belong with the physical elements or life/death. Call it Arcane or Sorcery. How is mind magic.. water?
More about magic... I think they should move away from the type of (city) enchantments that give +1 to X per essence. Conjuring a Wall of Fire around your city is cool.. but +1 to growth or production isn't very magical or exciting. Same with unit enchantments.. flaming weapons = good, invisible +x to y buff = boring. When spells are cast, things need to happen instead of invisibly linger in the background. That's what mundane research is for. City enchantments should
Played some FE and it was kind of.. fun. Here's some first impressions. The overall presentation of FE could be improved. Right off the starting screen, the lullaby'ish music tried to put me to sleep. It certainly was not conveying the feeling of defiantly entering a devastated world with dangers lurking behind every corner to rebuild an empire from ashes. Music could be stronger with feelings of danger, mystery and defiance. Setting the mood just right is very important
Elemental Forums
Aura of Commerce? :x That's about as anti-magical as I can imagine. I hope magic will be magic and economics will be economics...
Disciples 3 really stands out visually among strategy games. Also the lore and factions are cool. Too bad the game itself is a bit on the shallow/simplistic side. Gameplay is more important in a strategy game but.. will there ever be a fantasy strategy with deep gameplay and stunning visuals? That said, it's cool that WoM / FE have their own visual identity. I just prefer less cartoony myself. FE will probably be forgiven for that if it's otherwise awe
So they're basically a pumped up version of Fighters at T1 that can also double as Flak. Whats the point of Fighters now?
I just don't get them. They're T1, very effective against pretty much everything. They seem to break the pattern of LRM kills LF - fighters kill LRM - flak kills fighters early tech race. Now I just spam Corvettes and they get the job done very effectively. What are they? They move like strikecraft. They have more weapon types than Frigates and Cruisers packed into a tiny little ship. And they have some passive disruptive abillity on top of that.
I don't really get the group sizes. It's about numbers and you can already train more units if you want more numbers. So why do you need to 'research' a bigger group size? Experience would be far cooler (elite troops) and make more sense at the same time.
That pic really makes me wish there were 3 alignments, including neutral. Instead of the black and white approach with life/death. That's a choice I don't like since I would choose a neutral faction most of the time. Neutral could get some utility from both life and death but without their most powerful stuff.
Research does serve a purpose. Factions that focus on research can be more technologically advanced than others, at the cost of something else. It creates diversity - i.e. a massive army of peasants against a small elite force with top notch equipment. But the key here is to make technological advancement a real choice to focus on with a drawback to it. Otherwise it's just extra clicking that is annoying.
I'd much prefer a city icon that takes up one square on the map. Or a pregenerated look for different levels of a city, with special 'one per faction' and 'one per world' buildings visualized. The manual grid building is just pointless and makes the cities look blocky and unattractive. Their zone of control should just be a circle with the option of building Guard Towers or Outposts to expand to a desired resource.
Separate Innate powers or 'lesser magic' from more powerful global scale Channeling magic that associates with the Shards and Global Mana. Innate powers: - These are the basic spells you get from level-up traits, Fire Disciple, Air Mage etc. Tactical spells and unit enchantments. - These spells do not require using the global mana pool. Each champion has a Personal Mana pool or 'Power
Yeah the imbue thing is a little unclear. Is there some kind of a trade off or is it just a mandatory 25 mana click on every champion? If there is no trade off except losing 25 mana, it should be removed and they should be able to cast their spells independently. In fact, innate magical powers should be separated from the more powerful global scale magic associated with shards which should be reserved for Channelers only. Shards would also make the 'mundane' ma
STARTING A NEW GAME First thing I noticed is the mood. There's a pretty tune playing in the background. I am about to enter a devastated land with the task of rebuilding from scratch in a hostile world. The mood should be - danger, defiance, boldness, ambition. The beginning needs a good kick and some excitement from the music. Play this on the background and you'll get my meaning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP
I also prefer the MoM way where the unhired Champions aren't on the map but show themselves randomly. Maybe some of them could be tied with quests and such on the map but I think most of them should be kind of random events, influenced by your prestige. Anyway champions just standing on the map waiting for recruitment or death is kind of unexciting (especially if they block a tile so you can't build on it...).
I think the Shards are too random. Create an Air Mage? Earth and Fire Shards next to your city.. Maybe there should be Lesser and Greater Shards. Lesser Shards would start out as neutral and you'd then be able to align them with your element of choice. Greater Shards would have a fixed element and be much more powerful in general. They would also be guarded by creatures that could only be controlled by strong magic of the same element. I.e. to conquer a Greater Fire
Instead of a campaign I would like to see some more emphasis on the exploration part of the game. Right now it's very unexciting. The planets are very similar, there's always an abundance of good choices of planets to colonize as range is unlimited, artifacts are pretty boring and you won't find anything else of interest etc..
Will shards still appear at random on the map? How about a system where shards would appear in appropriate terrain on the map? That way you would know where to look for what you need instead of them being completely random. A Sovereign with a focus in Fire magic could then automatically start the game in a volcanic region, which would further establish his identity. Likewise.. Mountains and high places for Air shards and Air mages. Lakes and islands for
This really looks promising and inspiring! The only thing I'm wondering about is the lack of an Arcane school of magic. Spells like Mana Blast and Mana Shield are oddly under Fire+Water or Earth+Water.. it doesn't make much sense and it means impossible to specialize in these type of spells - you get them seemingly at random based on what elements you pick. And Confusion is under.. Water? A category for Arcane / Spirit magic would definitely be a good addition to house
Would be cool if the new corvettes would be like a faster version of the existing light frigs, and frigates in general would become a little bigger. More weapons, hulls and fleet supply. A frigate class ship that just sits there in battle should have more guns imo.
Sins Forums
Ship movement should get some attention. I mean situations like... Ships turning in huge arcs through a visible minefield to execute a move order to a point behind them. Or just getting tangled up with other ships or structures. Most of the time turning in place would be preferred. Overtaking the ship you are supposed to be chasing and trying to destroy - and losing the target momentarily.
I'm tempted to try Radiance as my first if I know I'll be fighting right away. With the new boost to Reflective armor it should be interesting. AM burn counters most caps nicely and Cleansing Brilliance is ok. People don't seem to like the Rapture but I find Vengeance a situationally useful ability. I've taken down Starbases and strikecraft with it. Skirantra counters it with Repair cloud of course, and Vasari like to spam Skirantras. Halcyon is best for Advent though, just be
Easier way would be to have Perseverance grant considerable damage reduction. Percentage based Damage reduction would be better than repair for 1) making the ship different from other repair ships and 2) helping the valuable Advent caps survive focus fire. It should be powerful enough to encourage wiping out all Dominas before focusing caps.
Sins Forums
The Advent cannon should have more immediate effects. A chance of messing up a factions planets, structures and units for a certain duration. IDEAS: Turning ships neutral that will attack their own. Spreading anarchy on planets and structures disabling them or making them produce nothing for a period. Or the Deliverance shot could act as a remote domination for structures. It would be hilarious if you had to shoot down your own labs that were turned. Or if your p
Sins Forums
Speaking of the Subjugator.. The autocast on both abilities is absolutely horrible. It wastes Perseverance on anything in range including structures - and targets ships that aren't immobilized or don't have any hull damage. Or mostly chases those ships around because of the facing requirement. Watching them chase trade ships with Suppression is also pretty annoying to watch. Under no circumstances do I trust them to autocast and the extensive micro makes them slow to use and not worth
