Next patch

[WraithLord]

Wow, look at the latest entry in the dev log:

8th june
* Modding: Fixed problem with disappearing magic abilities when enabling many mods.
* Increased maximum number of messages (for huge games).
* Increased maximum number of commanders and units (for huge games).

All items are extremely welcome. I wonder whether the third item will allow nations such as Pangaea and LA Ermor to participate in huge games.

[fantasma]

Can we get an increase to the lab size, please?

Parking your equipment on researchers is just annoying micromanagement.

[Endoperez]

That's annoying, but that won't stop you from playing.


Personally, I'm most worried about the spellmodding limits.

1) There are only 100 or so slots for new modded spells and spell descriptions.

2) You can't give #onebattlespell links to modded spells, because you can't use names and the modded spells' ID numbers change depending on the order the mods were enabled in.

[Zeldor]

fantasma:

We would first know if lab space should be biggeer. Of course it would be easier to manage but KO may treat small lab as a way to limit forging. We need at least counter of items we are forging and free spaces. I have forged over 50 items many many times.

[Loren]

Fix the battlefield overload bug. It was fixed once and then broke again in the next patch.

Clams should not be subject to the don't-work-together rule. A commander with two clams should make two pearls/turn.

I would like to see items similar to clams for all gems, although I don't think there should be a version for blood slaves.

A variety of tough summons that are not limited-quantity. We have Tartanians on Death, every other path should get something similar.

Repeat build queues.

When a scout is discovered there should be a "goto province" button. I don't give a hoot about the battle, I just want to know where I lost the eye.

[JimMorrison]

Why not a version for blood slaves? It would be a cursed item, like the Soul Contract, but it's the Teen Modeling Contract. >.>

But I agree with the basic concept, it would be nice to have ways to augment gem incomes, especially when you didn't find what you were hoping for. Of course they ultimately become a bit abusable like the clams, so it's kind of complicated. I guess my thought is if clams are going to stay, others should be added, else, make clams just as inconvenient as the Ruby Eye, and Blood Stones. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Beorne]

One thing I'd like to see in the next patch (along with bug killing) is some polishing over the "old" nations. The later nations are much more polished and well worked, not saying the old ones are lacking, but confronting to the latter ones try are a little less "deep".

Ah, and spell blacklist, I forgot. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[NTJedi]

WraithLord said:
* Increased maximum number of commanders and units (for huge games).

All items are extremely welcome. I wonder whether the third item will allow nations such as Pangaea and LA Ermor to participate in huge games.



Definitely very happy to see the maximum number of commanders and units increased!! This is terrific news!

[Tyrant]

@Loren- many many games already use a mod to nerf Clams and other gem items, adding more types of them would be met with howls of outrage (not from me though).

I would like to see gem items not benefit from forge bonuses so that people would lay off the nerf mods.

[Wokeye]

I think its fair to say that while we love new nations, new spells and those annoying bugs fixed, we'd also like to see aspects of the core game fixed to improve the quality of our MP games. For example:
- removing or tweak exploitable spells/game mechanics;
- address significant imbalances between some nations - ie add more specialist content to the very worst ones, nerf the ones normally excluded from games for freespawn/being too good - ie LA ermor and ryleh (?);
- review and incorporate some of the CB mod aspects - spell levels, resource costs, troops stats, pretender design.

This will make our MP games better and keep us coming back.

I thank the devs for responding to some of these with the latest patch or two that I've been around for (eg LA Abysian improvements).

It worries me that some experienced players will simply not play a vanilla game in favour of CB mod games - this is surely indicative of a set of well-recognised imbalances that should be addressed for the community to retain senior members.

Starcraft was tweaked over time to make it into a Korean national sport, why shouldn't Dom3? Maybe we can claim a country too?

[Tyrant]

Wokeye said:


It worries me that some experienced players will simply not play a vanilla game in favour of CB mod games - this is surely indicative of a set of well-recognised imbalances that should be addressed for the community to retain senior members.



Not to start yet another CB flame war, but there are also plenty of veteran players who are of the opposite persuasion, including me.



Wokeye said:

Starcraft was tweaked over time to make it into a Korean national sport, why shouldn't Dom3? Maybe we can claim a country too?



I nominate Finland as we seem to have a nice bridgehead there already!

[Wokeye]

Tyrant said:
Not to start yet another CB flame war, but there are also plenty of veteran players who are of the opposite persuasion, including me.




Apologies - based on recent posts I thought it was widely accepted as an improvement. *searches for forum CB flamewars*

Finland sounds fine. Iceland has EVE and Turkey has Mountnblade.

[quantum_mechani]

Tyrant said:

Not to start yet another CB flame war, but there are also plenty of veteran players who are of the opposite persuasion, including me.



I don't think anyone ever said all veteran players like the mod. However, I don't know of any veteran players that call it _less_ balanced and a lot that do prefer it.

[MaxWilson]

It's useful to have around and I mine it for rules occasionally. I like the things CB does with pretenders and scales. Generally I like additive mods more than subtractive ones.

I think the key thing is that many veteran players get attached to a ruleset and don't like having to play under a different one. (Gandalf Parker is an exception. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif)

-Max

[Ironhawk]

No, I dont think thats the key thing. I know of many veterans who actually constantly seek new games with different rules and situations in order to expose themselves to new challenges. The reason why CB is favored is because it tries to give (at least) niche roles to every unit, spell, etc, instead of just accepting that some units are useless and others dominant.

[Ironhawk]

My 2 cents on an upcoming patch:

First of all, thanks IW! I had thought that the most recent patch might be the last and that you might be moving on to your next game. This will be a treat http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

As for suggestions, two things pop to mind:

- Increase the Global Spell limit (or make it a game setting), for huge games.

- Fix the Dome Stacking Bug


wait did they fix dome stacking in the last patch? I havent tested it...

[quantum_mechani]

Dome stacking is gone (at least the most abusive air dome kind).

[Lingchih]

I will play the CB mod. In fact I am playing it right now in one MP game. It's good, but I prefer vanilla. I think the game should be played as most new players would play it, without mods.

[Kuritza]

I fail to see how CB makes all spells and units equally useful, to be honest. Still no use for vyvern, giant eagle and bog beast, etc etc.

[quantum_mechani]

Kuritza said:
Still no use for vyvern, giant eagle and bog beast, etc etc.

This is always debatable, but I've used wyverns, for instance, to great effect in CB. Try MA Man and use dragon master and you can get a very large force early game. I have used and seen used:

Summon animals
Summon Bane
Summon Sea Dogs
Prison of Fire
Bind Bone Fiends
Harm
Summon Sea lions
... etc.

And that's just the spells.

[llamabeast]

Those are indeed an _exceptionally_ cool set of fixes.


Definitely very happy to see the maximum number of commanders and units increased!! This is terrific news!



I thought you would be happy NTJedi!

[WraithLord]

I wonder if IW could give us the numbers of the new limits. Just so we could do rough calculations of how big a maps we can play with Pan or Ermor.

[johan osterman]

WraithLord said:
I wonder if IW could give us the numbers of the new limits. Just so we could do rough calculations of how big a maps we can play with Pan or Ermor.


Maximum number of units have been increased by two and maximum number of commanders by four.

[llamabeast]

By two?!! Well that won't make a lot of difference then! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[I am being a pain. I presume JO meant a factor of two.]

[Zeldor]

Percent? Or 2 more units and 4 more commanders? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[MaxWilson]

[laughs out loud]

[WraithLord]

LOL

So if I GOR 4 units I get to increase the unit limit by a whooping total of six http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Edit, If indeed JO's comment refers to power of, than these indeed are great news. Old unit limit was what, 32k?- So now 1M. Very cool.

[mindlar]

Pretty sure it's a multiplier. So if the old unit limit was 32k, it would be 64k now. Commanders now 4 times as populous.

[johan osterman]

I must say you are very optimistic if you truly believe the number of maximum commanders have been increased tenthousandfold.

In truth I have no idea how big the increase is. I was just being a jackass.

Edit: I'm also an idiot as I obviously confused factor of four with a magnitude increase of four. This is extra embarassing as I have some background in mathematics.

[Ironhawk]

Kuritza said:
I fail to see how CB makes all spells and units equally useful, to be honest.



Thankfully, thats not what CB is supposed to do. If all units were equal, the game would become boring. CB is supposed to make more units/spells etc, useful (at the very least a niche use) rather than having one set of units that are good and the rest that are useless, as in Vanilla.

[Ironhawk]

johan osterman said:
In truth I have no idea how big the increase is.



I just got off the phone with JK. He assures me that the limits for both units and commanders have increased by "a gazillion". His words.

[NTJedi]

quantum_mechani said:
Dome stacking is gone (at least the most abusive air dome kind).



I see this issue listed within the bug thread, yet I don't see anything mentioned about this being fixed within the bug thread or the Illwinter progress page. I only see voice of Apsu/Tiamat being fixed as being used against domes.

What's your source for the issue being gone?

[quantum_mechani]

A brief test Micah ran. As I recall, the bug was that you could stack up enough air domes that no spells would get through, so none would shatter. The test showed that if any air dome failed a check, then that one was shattered. Which is arguably still abusable, but it's also not to hard for the other person to shatter those domes fairly cheaply with 2-3 gem rituals.

[Micah]

Actually the last time I ran the test (Which was the previous patch, I believe) each spell just checked against one air dome, no matter how many were in the stack. If it penetrated the spell would work and one dome would be broken. The next incoming spell would then check against a dome, assuming there was at least one left.

Thus, if there are 10 air domes on a province and someone launches 45 mind hunts at it that means (on average, of course) that 9 mind hunts will go off in the province and one dome will be left.

I didn't try this with multiple dome types, someone else can be my guest =)

[Zeldor]

Last time I had multiply domed province [1-2 fire domes, 2-3 air domes, 1-2 astral domes] some spells got through [I got message about fire dome killing enemy mages] but none of them went down.

[Gandalf Parker]

Im guessing that with Kristoffer doing most of the updates lately that the gameplay and mod wishlists will be be looked at more than maps and server wishlists.

[NTJedi]

Zeldor said:
Last time I had multiply domed province [1-2 fire domes, 2-3 air domes, 1-2 astral domes] some spells got through [I got message about fire dome killing enemy mages] but none of them went down.



The fire dome effect can still strike enemies without the spells penetrating the air and astral domes. Each dome is like a layer of cake... if they penetrate the fire dome they can still be stopped by the astral or air dome.

Based on the response from Micah it sounds like the domes need more testing. I'm sure if the multiple dome issue was fixed it'd be listed on the progress page or updated on the bug shortlist... no reason for Illwinter to secretly fix a major issue.

[Endoperez]

NTJedi said:
I'm sure if the multiple dome issue was fixed it'd be listed on the progress page or updated on the bug shortlist... no reason for Illwinter to secretly fix a major issue.



They can forget to list it, or it might have been fixed when they weren't updating the progress page. I didn't know it was a major issue, and I read almost everything that isn't in the MP subforum.

[NTJedi]

Endoperez said:
They can forget to list it, or it might have been fixed when they weren't updating the progress page.


My career has me work with developers and it's very unlikely for any developer to forget listing major fixes... yet I guess anything is possible.


Endoperez said:
I didn't know it was a major issue, and I read almost everything that isn't in the MP subforum.



Yes, major issue... as it's listed this way in the shortlist bug thread. (RED) Guess I read more than you. lol

[Kristoffer O]

> My career has me work with developers and it's very unlikely for any developer to forget listing major fixes... yet I guess anything is possible.

It is perfectly common to forget listing fixes. Major or Minor. We do it all the time. Actually remembering to document fixes is a lucky event http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Sometimes I have the update page up and ready, but most of the time I forget about it entirely. Then it suddenly pops up in my mind and I update whatever I can remember having done the last couple of hours or days. Quite unreliable.

[Zeldor]

But you still didn't say if it was fixed or not http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[NTJedi]

Kristoffer O said:
It is perfectly common to forget listing fixes. Major or Minor. We do it all the time. Actually remembering to document fixes is a lucky event http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


To my knowledge it's never happened for any of the major companies where I've worked. Every bug is first tested for confirmation on being reproduced, then verified by another department which enters details into a database, then categorized in order of importance, then verified again by the QA department, then passed to a developer as a work task, then tested by QA again before finally being fixed. I realize Illwinter doesn't have these stages in place so maybe it is common for your team.


Kristoffer O said:
Sometimes I have the update page up and ready, but most of the time I forget about it entirely. Then it suddenly pops up in my mind and I update whatever I can remember having done the last couple of hours or days. Quite unreliable.


Someone in the community will eventually run some dome testing and we'll eventually know whether the dome issue was fixed. Let us know if there's anything we can do to help.

[thejeff]

Sure, if you're passed a list of fixes to make and you're being paid (or reviewed, etc) based on that list, you're going to make sure every thing is checked off.

All of these stages are in place because, when you let coders work on their own, they just make it work. They document little to nothing, usually as an afterthought, certainly not every stage of they way.

[llamabeast]

I generally have little idea exactly what I've done when I've been coding for a bit. I just know I've done some good stuff. So I completely understand what KO means.

[Edi]

NTJedi said:
My career has me work with developers and it's very unlikely for any developer to forget listing major fixes... yet I guess anything is possible.


You have no idea how often an exchange between me and IW has been like this:

IW: *reading bug shortlist* Wasn't this fixed already three patches ago?
Me: When? Nobody told me it had even been looked at and it's not on the progress page... *goes off to greenify list entry*

[quantum_mechani]

Micah said:
Actually the last time I ran the test (Which was the previous patch, I believe) each spell just checked against one air dome, no matter how many were in the stack. If it penetrated the spell would work and one dome would be broken. The next incoming spell would then check against a dome, assuming there was at least one left.




Sorry, this was what I was attempting to convey.

[lch]

Edi said:

NTJedi said:
My career has me work with developers and it's very unlikely for any developer to forget listing major fixes... yet I guess anything is possible.


You have no idea how often an exchange between me and IW has been like this:

IW: *reading bug shortlist* Wasn't this fixed already three patches ago?
Me: When? Nobody told me it had even been looked at and it's not on the progress page... *goes off to greenify list entry*


That might have to do with Illwinter being a 2-man project and NTJedi working with major companies which have a staff that's several orders of magnitude bigger. An intermediate solution would be to switch to a bugtracker. But that's no use if the developers don't know how/like to use one.