Hotfix, Stability Pass and More - Not Compatable with Old Saves!!
Published on August 26, 2010 By ScottTykoski In Elemental Dev Journals

Hey guys!

Got a fancy new build coming your way tonight. The big fix we wanted to get out there was for the "white screen" that happened in tactical battles on certain setups (this should also fix memory issues those players may have encountered).

We're testing this internally now and we'll let you know when its public. In the meantime, here's the changelong of various additions and bugfixes...

10:08pm - Just finish testing the major bullet points...giving it one last look over (a be triple sure when the boss isn't around) then we'll start the mirror uploading.

11:10pm - It's out!  Stop reading this post and go update!!!!     

---------------------------------------------------------
----------- Elemental v1.06 Change Log  ------------
---------------------------------------------------------

**********************
* Gameplay / Balance *

+ Cost of weapons increased in terms of gold and materials
+ Monster leveling tops out earlier so that there aren’t crazy powerful monsters late game
+ Training time increased for the more sophisticated weapons
+ AI will focus more on training soldiers rather than building up their cities if under threat
+ General AI improvements
+ AI smarter about training units in cities based on their current resource situation
+ AI more effective at determining who to go to war with
+ By default, the AI opponents added in the Choose Opponents window get difficulty set based on the World Difficulty
+ Campaign: Markinn now gives tactical HASTE spell instead of strategic SUMMON ROCK GIANT spell
+ Campaign: city leveup bonuses for TECH KNOWLEDGE and ARCANE KNOWLEDGE now suppressed in campaign
+ AI sov's are now using an HP adjustment multiplier based on AI difficulty settings

***********
* Battles *
+ Hooked up the projectile follow camera code to obey the Auto-Move Camera in Tactical option.
+ Adding message boxes to explain why spell casting fails.
+ Fix to repick targets in autoresolve when a counterattack kills the attacker.
+ Fix to make targeting picking more intelligent (to be sure it doesn't pick invalid targets).
+ Auto selection of the next unit in tactical battles should no longer occur if the game option for not auto selecting is turned on.
+ Tactical action cost modifiers for everything except for movement (which can have buffs) should now be 1.
+ The tactical action cost of special abilities is now 2.
+ All tactical actions use up to their cost, except for spells which require at least 2 action points.
+ When a tactical battle closes it now sets the cursor to be an arrow.

******
* UI *
+ Fixed Map Notifiers only placed for resources your faction can eventually tap (ex. won’t tell kingdoms about wargs)
+ Trade Equipment Wnd tweaks so that summoned creatures show up in the scene views better.
+ Hooked up new entries for the actions list, vitals list, and other basic image entries in main game wnd contexts to act more like buttons (highlight and have a click down state) to indicate that they are clickable

*************
* Bug Fixes *

+ Fixed the infamous "white screen" in tactical battles that occurred on a very specific hardware/driver/OS configuration.

+ Fixed a problem that would cause the particle effects to disappear after alt-tabbing out of the game when running in full-screen.
+ Fixed a DirectX warning in Tile Highlight Graphic
+ fixed uninitalized UNIT pointer in AIMessageBox (caused a debugger crash, probably fixes random crashes users have witnessed)
+ Fixed bug where linked pioneer improvements were getting the multiplier bonuses from their linked cities twice
+ Changed around the values grabbed for some resource breakdowns so that they match getting rid of this double bonus
+ You can no longer build pioneer improvements on resources outside of your ZOC, even if they are adjacent to a city, to prevent them from getting destroyed if they can't get absorbed in time
+ Adjacent pioneer improvements to cities now get absorbed into the city the very next turn, instead of 2 turns after they became adjacent
+ Fixed bug where custom empire factions designed in the faction designer wouldn't have a valid tech tree
+ Custom factions now get the appropriate wall set, and change their name to "Kingdom of" or "Empire of" appropriately
+ Fixed a bug in the faction designer that caused the race spinner to not match the actual race being displayed
+ Shortened the text in the caravan info cards to make it less likely that text entries will overflow to the next line down, and got rid of some old text that doesn't mean anything to how caravans work anymore, and got rid of some hardcoded strings, and moved the hardcoded quote to the different caravan/trader unit types
+ CMapGenerator no longer generates race starting position for tactical battles, since they aren’t used in that mode and were causing debug messages to flood output as the random land tile buffer isn’t getting filled after the first tactical battle map is created.
+ Campaign: Fixed oddity where reloading a save would reblock the pass between New pariden and Gilden.

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

** Hotfix Update **

We've released a 1.06 hotfix - despite our intentions were to have 1.06 be more supportive of 1.05 saved games, things didn't work as planned and we were seeing a lot of oddities throughout the forums.

The hotfix will force the player to start with the new data, ensuring validity of key components (read: less crashy).

Enjoy!


Comments (Page 13)
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on Aug 27, 2010

They had to invalidate old saves, unfortunately. They tried to keep them valid, and they were working for some people but not others. After spending a few hours trying to figure it out they had to disable old saves.

on Aug 27, 2010

I'm just amazed at this work, I wasn't expecting anything till next week.

on Aug 27, 2010

but guys please, next time you pull something like this, display a big warning when people click to update to a non-backwards compatible patch, one which they have to OK to proceed
  Yes, I was frustrated such a system was not in place as well. I've emailed the Impulse team about such a feature (though I hope we can simply avoid 'old saves dont work' from now on).

on Aug 27, 2010

I'm really looking forward to this game. I'm going to buy it as soon as I hear that the performance issues have been fixed.

on Aug 27, 2010

Just wanted to mention something quickly.

When I first downloaded the game I couldn't even play because the game kept on freezeing on me after a few minutes no matter what I was doing (sandbox, campaign, or editors). After the last couple of patches, I have finally been able to play without freezes. Last night I played for hours without crashes. It was one of those sessions where you just keep taking another turn and before you know it it's 5AM. While there are still issues, I am now enjoying exploreing the game and it's features.

Keep up the good patch work.

 

on Aug 27, 2010

cwg009



Quoting gardner0,
reply 85
Guys, I was on the fence about  buying the game, since I barely have time to play what I already own.  However, Stardock has earned my loyalty with Sins, Demigod, Majesty 2, etc.  When I saw how hard you guys are working to quickly release the patches, I decided to send my dollars your way.  The game is installing now.  Keep up the good work and realize that you are appreciated.

Scott

 


 

I don't mean to dampen your enthusiasm, but none of those 3 games are made by Stardock. Only 2 of them are even published by Stardock.

Cwg009, consider my enthusiasm not dampened. <g>  Yes, I know that this dev team didn't do those other titles, but Stardock (because of Brad Wardell) has become a publisher I trust and want to support.  They're taking on the big guys like EA, Microsoft, Vivendi (Activision), etc.  This can only be good for the developers (like Ironclad, Gas Powered Games, etc.)  You're right that Majesty 2 is a little different, though Stardock calls Paradox a "publishing partner".  I was really happy to see a sequel, since Majesty was such a clever new approach.

Anyway, Elemental shows great promise in the half-hour I played last night.  I'm clearing my schedule for the weekend!

Have fun!

Scott

 

on Aug 27, 2010

Well, nice to know the epic sandbox I've been playing since Monday is now rendered a giant waste of time. I suppose it's my fault for not checking the forum, but I'd looked over 1.06 and decided to take the risk and it worked perfectly. Who knew the 1.06 related update that popped up later that night would indeed wipe out my saves. A prominent notice with any future updates warning us it will invalidate any saved games and thus leaving the choice up to the players would be neat. (Although on the bright side I don't have to worry about that dragon that was about to rampage through my kingdom, do I? )

on Aug 27, 2010

BoogieBac

Seriously though, go home, get some rest, I just end up dreaming about Elemental development anyways, so it makes no difference to me

 

Then we should have Frogboy's wife kick your ass into vacation. That said, thank you and the team for all that work! Although I posted Suggestions yesterday (which I still think as valid), I really enjoyed my game time yesterday. Still thinking there are balance issues, but at some point was thinking I was close to that MoM feeling. Maybe I don't have exactly that feeling because I've grown old and I haven't school exams to fail which made for extra-excitment

 

on Aug 27, 2010

Despite patch install this am I still have the following occuring:

1) with hardware mouse chosen in options, upon interface launch (main menu) the mouse on screen x,y coordinates do not match to the actual click x,y coordinates or rollover states (so appearance of hardware mouse x,y not equal to actual x,y in the interface) this is at 1900x1200. The only way to correct this is to alt-tab on the main menu then alt-tab back to the game. This corrects the x,y coordinate issue.

2) After launching a new game I can successfully play for up to 5 minutes and then get a game freeze - screen freezes (usually while attempting to scroll away from the character back towards my first settlement) - symptoms: music abruptly "skips" followed by no sound and screen freeze. Previous to patch this also occurred -> the only difference now is Vista (32bit) reports the game has crashed. However the only way to exit the screen (as it is frozen not a true CTD) is to control-alt-delete and launch task manager. At that point you can see the Vista system error message and choose to end the game. 

screen res: 1900x1200

2x antialiasing

Hardware mouse

Terrain/vegetation set to medium

Cloth map set to 1024x1024

Detail: High

I have an Nvidia 8800 GTX and a razor mouse.

I can run Starcraft II full res, high detail at 1900x1200 with no issues/problems whatsoever.

Soo... gotta be a bug with this. Disappointed as just purchased. Looking for a fix/some luv guys.

Another patch on it's way soon??

 

Thanks!

on Aug 27, 2010

Ive been having a DX error when alt Tabbing between the game and another program, which crashes the game to Desk Top.

 

on Aug 27, 2010

When will Superpeasants be fixed?

on Aug 27, 2010

Thanks for the new patch.  I had a few minor requests for future patches when you guys get through the major stuff.

1)  Everytime I get a new patch from you guys all of my settings are reset which is quite annoying.  Is it really necessary to change my auto move, mouse settings, ect everytime there is a patch?  I just get the impression there will be lots of patches for this game and having to remember all my settings (I change a lot of them) is rather annoying.

2) Please let us go to the main menu from tactical battles.  If a battle is going badly I shouldn't have to play through the whole thing or go to windows to kill the process.  Just disable the save option or whatever is causing you not to allow this currently.

3) Everytime I save the game when I come back the game map is not properly drawn.  Basically the land is drawn but most of the items like cities and units are not.  It only fixes itself after I zoom in/out some.  I haven't tested this but I'm guessing this may be related to saving when on the cloth map.  When I come back after a save the GUI is not the cloth map anymore but is on the 3D map.

on Aug 27, 2010

Thanks so much for all the patches!!!
The game is simply amazing to me!
Its like a developer finally made a game that I can REALLY enjoy!


Keep up the good work!

The only thing that is  bothering me so far is that in later turns it starts to slow down.

on Aug 27, 2010

The game says by all of my saved games that the version is incorrect. However my game is 1.06.19.

on Aug 27, 2010

Please go to sleep devs.

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