Performance Issues...begone!
Published on September 2, 2010 By ScottTykoski In Elemental Dev Journals

More of a maintenance update than anything, Elemental v1.07 focuses on the performance issues seen by both high and low end users. There are more improvements to come as code is continually improved and tile-designs are streamlined, but this update should bring a healthy FPS boost to all. And, if your frames per second remain under-par, new options will give you additional wiggle-room.
 
That's not to say gameplay dosen't get some update love...resources no longer use up city tiles, unit groups save out the necessary info to regenerate themselves on reload, and item stacking heroes is a thing of the past...but performance, memory usage, and overall stability were our targets here.
 

Note: A 1.07.025 hotfix was published with a fix for a crash in the 'Custom Sovereign' system (Merchant/Brilliant/Meditative traits). This would have caused a crash loading saved sovereigns or games with those traits applied as well.
 
---------------------------------------------------
----------- Elemental v1.07 Change Log  -----------
---------------------------------------------------

***************
* Performance *
+ Major improvement to rendering system, especially when over cities.
+ Condensed scene rendering process from 3 passes through scene into a single pass
+ Bunch of fixes to the issues behind "DX Error: Invalid Call", particularly when Alt-Tab'ing. This will continue to be worked on.
+ Added new framerate limiter ( limits framerate to refresh rate of device )
- Removed throttle framerates option (this is always on now)
+ Particle Effects no longer render if the "Disable Particle Effects" option is on
+ Outlines now LOD-out as you zoom out
+ Added option "Disable Outlines" to the options screen to turn off rendering outlines (Might help lower-end machines, and some people prefer no outlines)
+ Commented out unnecessary debug messages

*************
* Bug Fixes *
+ Fixed Various Memory Leaks
+ Fixed the issue that was causing the unimproved tile designs for elemental shards to stick around after a shard-harvesting improvement was built on top of them.
+ fixed a bug where if you have the option on where when entering/leaving city build mode, the camera switches between overhead and default view, you could get stuck in overhead view (and forced to manually move the camera back) if you pressed the city build mode button, while already in city build mode
+ fixed bug where AI demands a tribute of 0 gildar
+ fixed display issue where improvement cost entries overfilled the improvement build list
+ fixed display issue where units with long names overfilled the name area on the level up wnd.
+ fixed display issue on battle init wnd, if defense or attack was negative then it showed up as a huge number.  Beserker ring gives a -3 to defense, which could give you negative overall defense.  Same might be true of attack if in the future we have some strange item that decreases your attack.
+ Fixed bug where units in tile designs (like horses, wargs, etc) would not fade out when the tile is under fog of war
+ Fixed "jumping units" when starting new game from within a game (or loading a game within a game)
+ Other fixes regarding battle initition window, creating mountains in map editor, first contact status not being set to relation unknown
+ Fixed a bug where improvements that were flagged as once-per-city were able
to be placed twice.

**********************
* Gameplay / Balance *
+ Fixed bug where economic treaty gold bonuses weren't getting added to the global resource pool
+ Changed how creatures and NPCs increase their stats when they level up to nerf incredibly powerful high-level monsters running around
+ Stacking of items fixed (can now only wear 1 per type per champion)
+ Pioneers in a boat can no longer build a Settlement at sea
+ Wild improvements will now be able to be taken into account in a city's resource usage correctly, if any of them ever have negative resource production
+ Refugee camps (and other wild improvements that provide population storage bonuses) improvements
+ Fixed Miner sovereign profession bonus
+ Fixed Great Warriors faction bonus
+ Removed really high starting mana regen ability from Umber's faction config
+ Fixed Advanced Tracking techs (in both tech trees) to change the player ability that is hooked up to affect movement
+ Fixed broken productionreq tag on vengeance coating
+ References to Ice shards changed to Water for consistency
+ Sprint duration adjusted to 2
+ Lowered HP for fallen peasant
+ Fixed up resource hoard description text
+ Various food resources now provide different amounts as indicated by old description text
+ Improved output of Temple of Essence
+ Improved output of Tower of Titans, Tower of Souls
+ Fixed construction resource cost for curgen's exchange
+ Resource hoard costs now mirror kingdoms resource costs
+ Fixed up description text for construction yard
+ Great Theatre no longer provides +100% Gildar, only +100% Prestige
+ AI: Added code to send sovereign back to his capital city if he has no destination after the early phase of the game
+ Fixes for various terrain types not responding to RaiseLand spell
+ Resource hoards no longer deduct from the buildable tiles of a city (the 'bananna cities' from the forums)

***********
* Battles *
+ Changed the calculation for battle damage to take multiple troops into better account (with each unit getting an individual attack roll).
+ Every time panic is caused, the combat text for the panic will be shown.
+ Fixed a problem where misses and non-damage spells would cause an on hit animation to be played in tactical battles.
+ Fixed a possible bug where units would no longer update their troop counts after reaching a single troop left.
+ When selecting the spell book in tactical battles the cursor should now reset to the arrow.
+ When clicking on a unit's hiergemenon entry in tactical battles the cursor should now reset to the arrow.
+ Turned on bounding box picking for tactical battles to improve the feel of unit selection.
+ Selecting units should now be turned back on while other units are animating in tactical battles.
+ Fixed a bug where unit tooltips in tactical battles would draw over tooltips for items and spells.
+ Added some checks to the battle init window to stop the window from showing when defenders or attackers were null. Also added logic to clear waiting flags in this case.

******
* UI *
+ Adopted the unit vitals context for a Details tab to show when a wild improvement is selected on the main map, to give more meaningful and easier to read information
- If the improvement is under construction, it says so and uses the level slider to show the progress towards completion and the turns left
- If the improvement is done, it shows what that improvement is producing and has an entry to get further information about the improvement by opening up the lorebook
- Also, it shows which city an improvement is linked to, or "Not linked" if it isn't.  If it is linked, the tooltip explains that this city is contributing production bonuses to the resource production of that improvement.  If the improvement is not linked, the tooltip says how many tiles the nearest city needs to be closer to link with that city, explaining that it will be able to get city production bonuses if it does link
+ New Tactical Icons hooked up for Smelter, Trade Center, Construction Yard, Merchant Guild
+ New Tile Designs for Ventri Iron Mine, Stone Quarry, Clay Quarry, Marble Quarry, Drath Village, Shrill Hive, Spider Nest
+ Fixed bug where double-clicking on a spell you couldn't cast from the spellbook popup would queue a bunch of "Can't cast tactical spell" message boxes to appear over and over, now just plays a little failure sound if something that can't be cast is double-clicked
+ Fixed a typo in a campaign dialog
+ When you build an improvement on a resource, the map notifier for it is removed
+ Fixed typo "completly restored" to "completely restored"
+ Fixed some places where the display of per-turn gold production lagged behind changes to it, gets rid of some income discrepancies between some screens when loading a game, adding/cancelling a treaty, etc.


****************
* Known Issues *

+ Tactical Battles: Stuck turn if you use space bar or click "Pass Turn" button while selected unit is moving.  Clicking auto-resolve will end the battle if the turn is stuck.
+ Occasional instances of damage indicators not appearing over units.


Comments (Page 9)
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on Sep 03, 2010

Thanks for the continuous communication, effort, and patches, Stardock.  It is all appreciated.

 

-Sorgan-
If they were truly working hard this would have never happened and they would have listened to and read the beta notes........

But you would still be a douchebag, so there really is not any real difference as far as we're concerned.

 

on Sep 03, 2010

Keep up the good work!

 

on Sep 03, 2010

Tydorius
I do understand how much of a pain debugging and such are. I work a lot in database administration and previously had a CEO that liked to log in behind my back and delete things he thought were 'not really needed'. Tables, fields, and even random bits of SQL.

It's not my intention to derail this topic but WTF?!  That is seriously f***ed up.

on Sep 03, 2010


+ Changed the calculation for battle damage to take multiple troops into better account (with each unit getting an individual attack roll).

Can you also change the UI to represent this? Instead of having say a 24 for for ATK on party of 4 guys it would show 6x4 or something like that. Or maybe on the Info card the Sword icon in front of Attack would have a tiny 4 under it.

Also in case it hasn't been ask as I don't have time to read the 5 pages of post. Does this change also apply to defense? I'd hate to think groups still have stacked defense.

Lastly can you release your combat formulas to us so we can better discuss them rather then simply have to infer what they are either from testing or examining the code directly. And it leaves less room for speculation as if the display doesn't change and peolpe haven't read these patches notes they will still think a group has a single stacked attack roll like they did before this patch.

on Sep 03, 2010

PyroMancer2k

quoting post
+ Changed the calculation for battle damage to take multiple troops into better account (with each unit getting an individual attack roll).

Can you also change the UI to represent this? Instead of having say a 24 for for ATK on party of 4 guys it would show 6x4 or something like that. Or maybe on the Info card the Sword icon in front of Attack would have a tiny 4 under it.

Also in case it hasn't been ask as I don't have time to read the 5 pages of post. Does this change also apply to defense? I'd hate to think groups still have stacked defense.

Lastly can you release your combat formulas to us so we can better discuss them rather then simply have to infer what they are either from testing or examining the code directly. And it leaves less room for speculation as if the display doesn't change and peolpe haven't read these patches notes they will still think a group has a single stacked attack roll like they did before this patch.

 

This please! I want some transparency in game mechanics... This is very important for modding too.

on Sep 03, 2010

"Note that a fix for 'shards respawning on reload' did get in for 1.07..."

Oh wow!  the shard issues have been the main thing keeping me from playing the game.  this fix should really be mentioned in the Patch Notes!

if the Shards are also now properly affecting spell damage in manual tactical battles that should totally be mentioned in the notes as well!

shard spawning and lack of an increase to spell damage from shards have been my two biggest hold-ups.  if these are both fixed that is awesome!

on Sep 03, 2010

Wow, I went on vacation over the week and I come back to another great patch.  Thanks! 

on Sep 03, 2010

Valentine82
No one ever mentions this, but can we please get the AI Diplomacy fixed so that the AI doesn't constantly pester us to go to war with our friends and allies? Even my "hostile" adversary Kraxis demands that I join forces with him and attack my allies with whom I have every treaty available, The Altar. What makes this worse is that Kraxis has never even encountered The Altar, in diplomacy it says they Haven't Met.

STOP THE AI FROM DEMANDING THAT WE GO TO WAR WITH OUR FRIENDS, PARTICULARLY WHEN THE AI HAS NOT EVEN ENCOUNTERED THE FACTION THEY'RE PROPOSING A WAR AGAINST

But great patch, don't let me seem ungrateful, this is just an issue that seems overlooked and I'm trying to call it to your attention.

 

Agree the A.I is very bad as far as player interactins go, i have posted a few suggestions to the dev's on this already. i suspect Brad is working on it and wil have a major patch soon after he gets back.

on Sep 03, 2010

PyroMancer2k

quoting post
+ Changed the calculation for battle damage to take multiple troops into better account (with each unit getting an individual attack roll).

Can you also change the UI to represent this? Instead of having say a 24 for for ATK on party of 4 guys it would show 6x4 or something like that. Or maybe on the Info card the Sword icon in front of Attack would have a tiny 4 under it.

Also in case it hasn't been ask as I don't have time to read the 5 pages of post. Does this change also apply to defense? I'd hate to think groups still have stacked defense.

Lastly can you release your combat formulas to us so we can better discuss them rather then simply have to infer what they are either from testing or examining the code directly. And it leaves less room for speculation as if the display doesn't change and peolpe haven't read these patches notes they will still think a group has a single stacked attack roll like they did before this patch.

Agree with all this. It'd be great if the ingame UI actually made it clear how these mechanics work - a longterm goal perhaps, for after the mechanics have been finalized. In the meantime, could we at least get a post explaining the current attack/defense calculations, especially with regards to squads? I'm honestly not certain how it works anymore, the randomness of the combat system makes it difficult to test, and we've never gotten a complete explanation.

It's more difficult to give feedback when the mechanics are unclear to us - sure I could say "it feels like defense sucks because my 100 defense sovereign got hit for 20 by a 24 attack squad" - but is that really something that can happen often in the current system, or was I just incredibly unlucky? Without knowing the calculations behind that result, it's hard to say.

on Sep 03, 2010

Thanks Stardock crew for your hard work on the patches! You've obviously got your priorities sorted and I can't wait to see what 1.1 holds for us.

on Sep 03, 2010

DrGuppie

They definitely appear to be, since now my sov and his spawn can do upwards of 160dmg with fireball   (I'm finishing a pre-1.07 game where easily 20 shards spawned, mostly air, but about 5 or 6 are fire).

 

[Edit] I should clarify that I haven't seen them do 160dmg in one shot, but they have consistently produced more damage than they were before. The 160 is coming from the max damage info in the spell book when I go to cast it.

Nope really, they do not. I did some tests with 1.07, and no more damage with multiple shards. Although spell info in tactical combat reports correct spell maximum damage (as always, that was never bugged), actual damage of that magnitude never happens.

on Sep 03, 2010

xStarfirex
Thank you for this, Wasn't expecting so much in this patch. My only gripe is did you have to reduce item stacking to just one per item? One per item is fine for the packs etc but it would be nice to equip at the very least a couple of rings Keep up the great work.

You can still equip multiple rings and amulets. It's just limited to one of each type of ring or amulet. For example, you could still equip a ring of speed, and a ring of agility, but you wouldn't be able to equip 2 rings of agility. So, you can still end up looking like Mr. T if you purchased every single ring and amulet that's for sale and equipping them  . Needs to find me a mohawk smiley face...

This change was really meant to get rid of the overpowered stacking of items that give the same bonus to get ridiculous stats.

on Sep 03, 2010

Squiggled

You can still equip multiple rings and amulets. It's just limited to one of each type of ring or amulet. For example, you could still equip a ring of speed, and a ring of agility, but you wouldn't be able to equip 2 rings of agility. So, you can still end up looking like Mr. T if you purchased every single ring and amulet that's for sale and equipping them  . Needs to find me a mohawk smiley face...

This change was really meant to get rid of the overpowered stacking of items that give the same bonus to get ridiculous stats.

I'd rather see a stricter two total rings, one total amulet, etc system myself, deciding which rings to use is an interesting choice - rather than just buying one of everything to optimize your sovereign, no tradeoffs, no tough decisions except what to buy first. Of course, it's a step in the right direction, much better than "buy 50 eagle eye rings for 500g and see the world (literally)."

on Sep 03, 2010

3 updates in 2 weeks keep on rocking

on Sep 03, 2010

Awesome patch! The game plays far more smoothly now..aside from I actually crash to desktop every now and then..Which didn't happen before, but that is fine, I'm certain you guys will fix that issue asap...

 

However, about the discussion that has been going on about shards and such, in one of my previous games I had many, many water shards, and my abilities related to them never did much beyond the range of 0-39 points of damage. My intelligence and/or shards seemed to play little role in the output, until I noticed the combat log on auto-resolve battles..There, my champions/sovereign would absolutely destroy a creature's face with over 130 points of damage with a spell I couldn't even get to do more than 20. I'm not sure what the deal is there..Anyway, I look forward to the next update.

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