Hey, sounds like Supreme Commander.

I understand the OP's point.

I also feel that there's a distinct "blandness" for lack of a better word in FE. Factions may play differently, but they still "feel" the same. Is it just the visuals or the game lore being in it's infancy? To some extent maybe, but it's also not just completely superficial. Let me try to illustrate.

A good example is the fact that the sovereigns and champions in FE practically feel more or less the same, because they actually do function more or less the same. They both can cast spells and they are both essentially blank slates starting out except for some simple race traits and can be customized into a certain path as they gain levels. But the end result is that they are practically interchangeable aside from certain race bonuses or penalties. There are no true restrictions and consequently no champion or sovereign feels really special.

By contrast, MOM had heroes that were each unique and different. You had pure fighters that had no magic to necromancers that could cast tactical death spells and could life steal to dragon-riding heroes that could fly and breath fire. There's a certain sense of awe when you get Warrax as a hero for example, but when I get a new champion in FE it's a non-affair because they are basically all the same.

Another illustration are the spells. Sure you can cast a damage-based spell and provide some stat bonuses here and there in FE, but MOM had close to 25 unique global enchantments with effects that range from causing all enemies slaughtered to rise up as zombies and another that even stops time so that only the caster's faction could move, and not merely adjust some numbers on a spreadsheet. Is it any surprise then that people regard FE's magic system as also lacking in "uniqueness" and flavor especially when you compare it to MOM?

Hopefully you can understand our point better now.

Unfortunately I never played MOM and so I really don't understand the analogy to it's fullness. I know that there are a lot of people here who have played MOM and were disappointed that this game wasn't a MOM remake.

You have given a better interpretation of what you feel is missing from this game and from this point of view, I can see suggestions already included within your arguments that you would like to see FE move. Thank you for your reply because if this is the case, then I can now agree that there can be more global enchantments or at least some more global spells throughout.

Your comment about the variety and types of champions, I think you are right about the fact that there is small differences between champions on the map. Oddly enough each of the things that you mention I think can be modded into the game or the developers can add it to the game in the future.

You can definitely add more champions, but you can also add traits that force particular champions to NOT be able to cast magic. You can edit the current champions to create different types of level-up possibilities.

It's hard to come up with a coherent idea of what needs to change without some good critical feedback. Thank you for that because now I understand more of what the OP is suggesting (at least from your perspective). Thus, it doesn't seem like a huge gamebreaker that he was implying.

You owe it to yourself to give it a go and then you'll understand why it's held as the inspiration behind FE and Warlock and Age Of Wonders and why just about every pesky person on this forum is raving about it so much . It's also freeware.

I don't think the arcane monoliths are such a difference. A really flavorful Pariden would be all about magic and have a lot more restricted access to armor/weapon. Altar should have very few troops, and the henchmen mechanics should be more developed. Ythril has juggernauts, and that's it, really. The 'barbarian" feel of the faction is really underdevelopped.

Of course, faction differentiation is usually poorly implemented in other games too. But sometimes, it works, such as in Fall from Heaven II.

For instance, I can't make an initiative debuff that ends after a few turns because once the debuff goes away, the victim gets a free turn due to how initiative recalculation is handled. So on paper, you can do lots of things with Elemental's XMLs, in practice it often doesn't work so well. Not to mention that modding breaks the AI.

Fairly I haven't ignored what you have said. I've read what you said several times, I was having difficulties on deciphering what you were meaning because like I said before I've never played those games (except for warlock which I didn't care for long enough to give it a fair go). It's not as clear as you might think because you are leaving out so much detail. I agree that there is so much more potential that this game has and will continue to grow with that potential.

I do enjoy elemental and think it is a rather fun game to play. I really enjoy most aspects about the game and don't feel the same lacking features that other see in the game. Although, I can agree that there is more that can be done in these areas, it is not something that I ever expected from this game.

A lot of what you are asking for can actually be modded into the game and I look forward to a robust modding community to provide that gameplay for you to come back and enjoy the game. I hope that the developers decide to implement many of the things that you want from this game so as to not be disappointed to the promise that was made in the game. Then again I've played GalCiv I and wasn't that impressed, and then I played GalCiv II and was really impressed. So I think given the appropriate amount of time this game will become what you want. But I suppose at this moment it isn't what you were hoping for them to provide at the moment. If I knew how to model buildings into the game, I would definitely make each faction have their own unique style of building, which I think would go a long way for you at the very least.

I know there are plenty of people who added some fun spells to the game already and there will be plenty more to come.

Thank you for your insight onto why the game is what it is for you. It educated me a lot on why people were not happy with what they were getting.

It is NOT freeware. I think you are confusing it with 'abandonware' (which isn't a legal term anyhow), but even that isn't true, because MoM is being officially sold again (and has been for a couple years now). Except for this part, though, I entirely agree with your statement.

These are 2 good points.  One of the things that MoM did really well was offer the possibility of unique games and stories, and I think you nailed a couple of the features that enabled this.  Some MoM games became focused on 1 -3 champions who dominated battles with a good set of support troops.  Other games centered around Elven Lords or Paladins.  Or you might have multiple groups of Slingers or Berzerkers, which didn't dominate like Paladins, but could be heavy hitters if cranked out in numbers.

I don't remember Zombie Mastery ever turning a game around, but those types of spells definitely added flavor.  The combination of spells and unit types added an RPG- or story-like feeling, so it really felt like you could choose to be a Necromancer, nature, or chaos mage, etc.  

One other interesting point about MoM heroes:  the Warrax comment arguably refers to a lack of balance.  There were some heroes like Warrax or Fang who had good potential to turn into heavy hitters.  There were others like Zaldran (sp?) who could occasionally go big-time.  But there were many others who would never be great heroes.  This actually created more variety in play, though, because sometimes you relied more on heroes, sometimes you relied more on troops.

Also, regarding balance, certain races like Klackons or Lizardmen were weak late-game, so if you started out as those races, you needed to conquer a few cities from other races to get the military going.  Dark Elves also had to go that route because they bred so slow.  This drove a sort of multi-cultural requirement for many games, where you'd conquer halflings for slingers/food, high men for paladins, nomads for gold, etc.  If the MoM developers had worked more on balance (which is something I usually argue for), gameplay would have been very different.  

Anyway, I'm satisfied with FE so far.  I think it could use more flavor, and I'm hoping to see an expansion of diplomacy and some other areas of the game, but it seems pretty solid to me so far.

When fighting resoln, I get different theme music and of course the terrain is colored differently from when I am fighting most other factions. So, clearly, this illustrates a focus on game mechanics to the exclusion of all else?

And that's nothing compared to the differences in how the game feels when I play resoln.  (However given a bug I found when doing so, I feel like people have been mostly ignoring them.)

 I see your point there, Valentine82, but you are comparing FE to wrong (basically very different) games. This game should be compared rather to Sid Meyer's Civilization or  Warlock: Master of Magic rather than HoMaM or Disciples series. 

I don't really see what the rage is about. Especially what he says about modders? As far as I know, FE is moddable to an extent few other games can match. I actually agree that the factions in FE are a bit bland. So I installed Heavenfalla Stormworld mod. Problem solved. With that mod I absolutely love this game. LOVE. As in I'll probably play it for years and I'll tell everyone to buy it and I can't wait for the expansions to give me more.

So thank you Stardock. And thank you Heavenfall. And sorry Valentine that you feel the way you do, but maybe you should try some of the mods before you say the modders have been ignored?

Valentine82

Your critique of this game is not going to work on these forums because most of the users are people that have been around for a couple of years and invested a significant amount of time into this game.

I don't think there is any point in arguing because you will get stomped tot he ground rather than any meaningful discussion as to what can be made better.