4X Stardock's Elemental: Sorcerer King War of Fallen Legendary Heroes

[Monocause]

Looks quite interesting, kinda like Elemental meets AI War - might be getting this in two weeks.

But Space Rangers HD seems a way more likely purchase.

 

[whatevername]

Maybe if people stopped buying shitty games 3 times in a row then shitty developers would become bums and other games would get better?

 

[MoLAoS]

Maybe if people stopped buying shitty games 3 times in a row then shitty developers would become bums and other games would get better?

This strategy stopped being effective 10 years ago.

 

[Great Deceiver]

The edginess in this thread is pretty laughable. I was just looking for some impressions, Hobo Elf's were of an old build and I was wondering if a lot had changed since then. The premise of the game seems interesting enough.

 

[Grokalibre]

The edginess in this thread is pretty laughable. I was just looking for some impressions, Hobo Elf's were of an old build and I was wondering if a lot had changed since then. The premise of the game seems interesting enough.

For what it's worth, I find it pretty entertaining. Haven't played any of the previous FE games though so I can't compare. I'm no self-proclaimed 4x Expert who plays in ultra-hardcore-ironman mode either so so I can't talk of the balance either. From my casual point of view, the main issues are in the UI. For instance to build a road, you have to open the spellbook, select the spell category, then the spell, then click on the tile, it gets old fast. I find the writing amusing, it often makes fun of how loot is everything for fantasy players, and of how heroes are glorified mass-murderers.
Not the game of the decade but definitely not a turd either.

Now my rpgcodex critic:
-no EGA monitor support
-UI is not optimized for trackball users
-no floppy disk retail version available
-no npc who talks with his hamster
= Game is full of shit.

 

[MoLAoS]

Insane mode is not too difficult if you have good exploits, or even not exploiting really. A lot of it depends on if you get a good map. Having no crystal near by ruined a couple of my games. Brad thought normal was a bit too hard, but its not really. Taking a custom Sovereign makes it a bit easier to cheese the design mistakes.

 

[Sitra Achara]

Wait a year until they finish patching. (Well, lately this applies to a lot of games...)

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

it's a fun little game if taken for no more than 30 minutes at a time.

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

It's just a dumbed down version of Fallen Enchantress, with research reduced to discovering spells, simplistic town development, no designing units etc. Not much to be had here.

The map generator seems rather retarded - just finished a game where i beat the Sorcerer King without even encountering any of my 3 "opponents", as they were probably all huddled on some island in the only undiscovered corner of the map.
Also, he would be harder to beat if most his forces didn't run into amountain range and get stuck there. So much for the AI.

So, can't really recomend this one. Stardock has been around for so damn long, yet they still seem clueless in so many of the design decisions...

 

[Monocause]

I've been watching a youtube LP of this by Tokshen and I've got to say it looks quite good - much better in many regards than fallen enchantress was after legendary heroes and a number of patches came out.

Simplifying the research, city management and a lot of things essentially is a good decision by Stardock. You can see that they were deeply affected with feature creep when they designed fallen enchantress (which I still enjoyed despite my quite critical outlook). Unit design was rubbish. Research and city management were badly done for the most part. Sorcerer King seems to keep up things that were good about FE while streamlining or getting rid of things that they just couldn't cope with.

The result seems to be a tighter, more focused experience, and that is entirely to the game's benefit. Also the tweaks to the art style are welcome as I found fallen enchantress simply an ugly game; I prefer bland but usable WoW-ish style rather than FE's weird ugliness. There's balance issues and other stuff but it's barely been released and I'm sure most of the major issues will get patched out soon.

I'll be grabbing this within a couple weeks and will post some impressions or maybe do an LP of my own.

For those interested in the LP: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrCqw-30TkeUI7EdJW9zlCn-AjJFaq7Uk

 

[Renegen]

I played the game for less than an hour and it seemed like a poorly designed bug riddled mess. Loading screens were way too long, I had weird 5 second lock ups often when ending turns or doing other important moves, archers had infinite range and raped your dudes. The graphics are extremely simple and although it has some of the Fallen Enchantress charm in that regard it's lost most of it too the game just looks primitive, few animations when you do anything. Everywhere I turned there was an obvious problem. I'd say the game needs 6 more months to be fun.

 

[Monocause]

I played the game for less than an hour and it seemed like a poorly designed bug riddled mess. Loading screens were way too long, I had weird 5 second lock ups often when ending turns or doing other important moves, archers had infinite range and raped your dudes. The graphics are extremely simple and although it has some of the Fallen Enchantress charm in that regard it's lost most of it too the game just looks primitive, few animations when you do anything. Everywhere I turned there was an obvious problem. I'd say the game needs 6 more months to be fun.

Asked a friend who's playing his copy now what he thinks. He said:

Well it's bullshit.

Loading's quick, no freezes.

Archers aren't OP. Most archers are very easy to outmaneuver/outheal.

The LP I've watched didn't highlight these issues either so meh, i guess mileage varies

 

[Irenaeus II]

I'll buy this shit just to support Stardock, as usual. But Endless Legends is the one I'm buying AND playing this weekend.

I've decided to not buy it. Elemental Fallen Enchentress Legendary Heroes looks much much better. This looks... bad.

 

[Metro]

Wait four years until they put out all of the required expansions.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Wait four years until they re-release the game three times and it still sucks.

 

[Irenaeus II]

I'll buy this shit just to support Stardock, as usual. But Endless Legends is the one I'm buying AND playing this weekend.

I've decided to not buy it. Elemental Fallen Enchentress Legendary Heroes looks much much better. This looks... bad.

I got a 25% discount for being a loyal stardocker... This is tempeting me. Maybe I'll just look at the screenshots again and delete the email with the discount.

 

[MoLAoS]

Too bad you guys missed the 40% off sale at like GMG or something.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

I'll buy this shit just to support Stardock, as usual. But Endless Legends is the one I'm buying AND playing this weekend.

Fuck endless leftism. Trying very hard to be vancian but failing and the map looking like my teen years bedroom. Not even a good combat and shit AI? I don't even get the point of this game.

 

[ArchAngel]

I'll buy this shit just to support Stardock, as usual. But Endless Legends is the one I'm buying AND playing this weekend.

Fuck endless leftism. Trying very hard to be vancian but failing and the map looking like my teen years bedroom. Not even a good combat and shit AI? I don't even get the point of this game.

Not our problem you are without taste.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

I elaborated how this game is tasteless I have the high ground here.

 

[Irenaeus II]

I'll buy this shit just to support Stardock, as usual. But Endless Legends is the one I'm buying AND playing this weekend.

Fuck endless leftism. Trying very hard to be vancian but failing and the map looking like my teen years bedroom. Not even a good combat and shit AI? I don't even get the point of this game.

The point of the game is 4X like any other. Combat felt old pretty fast and bad AI is unfortunately the standard of this genre. They did fail being Vancian, but had some interesting bits, at least at first. Map looked p. good, your teen years bedroom sounds really crazy. I'm interested in why you called it endless leftism, maybe I didn't play enough factions to see it?

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Leftism just because of the studio but they did manage to shove memes into the script. Shit AI is because unlike this game here, the AI isn't an environment but another player just like you, which means there's no challenge at all. Shit combat that is shit, from the first battle, something that's at least decent in others 4X.

My teen years bedroom was a mess with no coherent floor in sight and covered in various artifacts that made for a huge Picasso mess just like the map. Can't deny that it looks like nothing and inspires nothing.

The only fun is the factions but it's worthless with the AI like it is. In multiplayer its either elves with OP archer who ragequits if you dont play manual battles, or pro PVP players zerg rushing with armors. Multiplayer is dead though.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Ok, I didn't know the studio was leftist, hadn't played their games before.

From what you are saying, there can only be challenge if the AI is an enviroment? I don't get it. Maybe I'm just bad at strategy games.

Your teen years bedroom does sound like a horrifying mess.

 

[Metro]

Too bad you guys missed the 40% off sale at like GMG or something.

Too bad you didn't wait until it was in the $1 tier of a future Humble Bundle.

 

[MoLAoS]

Too bad you guys missed the 40% off sale at like GMG or something.

Too bad you didn't wait until it was in the $1 tier of a future Humble Bundle.

Like I'm gonna remember a game this middling by the time it goes in the Humble Bundle.