Definitely a great start; hopefully coding in new traits is relatively straightforward for modders.

Are traits to include spell like functions, so we can train units with heal (priests), or arcane arrow (wizards), or blink (assassins)?

I'd like to see us be able to imbue any spell from our spellbooks that we've learned into a group of units (requiring crystal, and other such things, of course).

BTW, simultaneous damage could allow for blink to come back, now...

Maybe if you pass over the trait a window will pop with informations about it ?

Anyway, great ideas and it will make the fights more strategic too, now we'll have to think carefully about how to design a unit and how they will play in the fight

So can those units have more than one trait at a more expansive cost or are the base units stuck to one trait ?

Nice info

I think the last picture there shows 3 traits

Looking good cant wait!

This sounds great, can not wait to see it when it comes out.

Tarth getting the +10 to defense when hurt, makes it sound like each faction will have different abilities---that is fantastic.

These updates are great!   I really like the direction that FE is going.  

The ui updates are looking good.   I like the trait system, and I too hope that we can have many really impactful traits that actually change the way you use those soldiers.    

There was a comment above about ensuring that weapons don't get obsolete but instead have a different purpose.   I definitely agree with that, as I would like to have my dagger wielding assassins still be useful with out having to upgrade to a 2handed great sword just to keep up with the armor.   However, maybe they will have to upgrade what their daggers are made of, or possibly take some trait that allows them to ignore armor or a portion of armor?

Just thoughts.

I would love the beta to be available ASAP, but I don't think Frogboy has had any dev time on the AI of FE at this point, and I think it would be a mistake to give us FE with a non-working ai.  I could be wrong and maybe someone else has been working on AI, and it is already at a reasonable level.

That happens because the level system is actually very badly suited to endgame MMO play. Everything is tuned around a level playing field and some kind of expected thing. Having people able to level infinitely destroys that. WoW's mechanics are particularly poorly suited to it becuase being above level on things makes you nearly invincible in some cases (+10 levels on a caster means you're just not getting hit, period).

The game would actually work better if it didn't have levels at all and gear/talents acquired from quests were the ONLY progression system.

No, I think that'd be pretty boring. Traits let you do a lot more interesting things then +5 Dex does. Particularly in the area of either activate abilities or reactive ones. I mean if you tell me that the "Royal Guard" is a special unit who is tough due to elite training that helps them protect their ruler... do you want that to mean the unit has +10 CON, or that the unit has a "Last Stand" ability that lets it ignore what should be killing blows for a couple turns if it's near a Champion unit?

Thematically the second one lets you have scenarios where the guard makes a heroic effort to protect whoever he's guarding. Gameplay wise, it's just flat out more interesting that it can do something nobody else can, rather then every unit being the same only this one has a bit more HP.

The AI will probably be shameful when the Beta starts, but that's ok.  We just have to remember that Brad promised this game won't be released until ready which may make for a long Beta.  We just have to give him lots of good feedback on how to improve the AI.

P.S.  I think this is my favorite Dev Journal so far.

But why have a trait that changes the stats, when you could just change the stats?

So Tarth units are tough. Why is giving them +10 defence when below 50% health a better way of describing this than just giving them +1 con, that gives them a hp boost across the board? Or conversely, if you're not going to vary CON, what is the point in the attributes system?

Who wants to have to read the descriptions of 300 traits when a change to a couple of stats the player is already familiar with wouldrepresent basically the same thing? When I look at a unit to find out what it's like, I want to be able to find that out in a glance, not be reading "100 traits and 3000 combinations."

This is not an argument against traits. Traits are there to supplemented well designed and deep mechanics, not to replace them. Traits are like special rules: if they're not special you're missing the point. If every Tarthan, or every archer needs to have a special rule to behave as intended, then maybe your mechanics weren't deep or well designed in the first place.

Yeah, that's a great example of a circumstance for a trait: an elite unit for a certain purpose that the player is not going to build all the time.

That's not what I've got a problem with. It's when every tarthan needs a trait to work as intended, or every archer. Why give the standard archer a trait that they have the option to remove, when you could apply that trait to the bow itself (ie, all archers), and then if players want to train a cheap low quality unit, they have the option to have a "conscription" or "militia" trait that does that? If the purpose of your trait is to show that the unit is experienced and better at it's primary function, then what is the "unit experience" there for?

Put it this way, when looking at opposing troops, how many different unit types need to have traits before it becomes annoying? And if so, how many trait descriptions do you want to have to read on every enemy unit before you know what you're dealing with? How many exceptions to the rules do you need before it becomes clear that your rules are poorly written? I'm not going to put a number on it, but you must surely recognise that a number must hypothetically exist.

Looks great. ^^

I like the system and love the UI.

I'm all with you that stats should be the core, the meat of it. But traits can do things that simple stat boosts can't do. Special circumstances. Uniqueness. Just some off the top of my head.

Woodsman Trait: Unit pays no extra movement to move through woods

Patroller Trait: Unit moves 25% faster on roads.

Deep Forest Adventurer Trait: Unit moves 25% faster outside all zones of influence

Lonewolf Trait: Unit moves 25% faster when in an army with 2 or less units.

Follower Trait: Unit moves 25% faster when in an army with a champion.

Readiness Trait: Unit moves 25% faster in the turn it leaves a city.

All these and so many more traits that simply cannot be expressed by a simple "+1 to stats". These situational traits provide a vast amount of variety.

I'm not saying this instantly makes the game better. But if the traits are done RIGHT, then it absolutely makes the game better.

I'm sorry, but I think your "quick oversight" of units makes for boring gameplay. You can surely disagree with me, but there it is. We had that in E:wom.

@Heavenfall

Yes, those are the sorts of things traits should do. Infact, i think i suggested the woodsmen one somewhere myself.

Glad we agree.

I edited my post a bit.

I think I misunderstood you the first time then. If the goal of a trait is to just provide some kind of flat stat boost, then yeah it'd probably make more sense as a stat boost (or a higher quality bow for the archery one).

They might be constrained from that due to game design reasons though, if it's not possible to have "Tarth peasant" have different base stats then another peasant, but it is possible to start them with a trait (even if it is one that just boosts stats). That would be an unfortunate limitation, but still a lot better then what WoM allowed.

Excellent news about unit upgrades!!!

Thanks for sharing!

Also: is the interface final, because it would be nice not to have to drill through the unit creation screen to do unit design!

Traits are a good inclusion but each faction really needs tangible characteristics. If we aren't going to have unique units for factions then individual traits need to be nerfed (or ommitted) for some factions and boosted for others. Perhaps factions could start with some unique traits.

Did anyone notice the training times on the units in the pictures above? 32 turns! ouch.

And to address the trait discussion, Some of the traits they discussed were stat bonuses and some were conditional stat bonuses. The Tarthian extra defense only applies at 50% or less hp. This couldn't be modeled as a simple stat bonus and needs the trait. While I do believe a lot of traits should be in this form (not just simple stat bonuses) there should still be some stat bonuses. That trait would represent a training the unit received.

Sounds good SD, keep up the good work.

p.s. I really like the chainmail on the second picture.

I'm curious what players can do to affect stats (strength, dex, etc.). Many of you disagree with having traits that merely add a bit of strength, and I can see why special abilities or more circumstantial bonuses would be more interesting - but if traits don't affect stats, will players have any way to change a unit's strength? Will there be equipment, magic rings or some such, or 'elite training', that can boost a unit's dex? Because if the only way to change stats is to pick a different race, and then your str/dex/etc is fixed for the rest of the game, you may as well remove those stats; there's no point to them if there's no choice involved. Adding stat bonuses to traits seems like a straightforward way to give players a choice to change those stats, but stat bonuses on equipment/training/whatever would work equally well.

Yeah, based on the original post that seems likely to be the case.

Ultimately, whether a trait in considered meaningful or superfluous is a completely subjective decision. Personally stuff like defence bonuses below 50% falls a little south of the line because when I ask myself "how will this alter my approach?" the answer ends up being "probably not much." It just seems like a round about way of saying "tougher than average," which I believe can be said more straight forwardly. You have to look at it individually.

I only raised the point because I've definately witness "trait creep" in other games. For example, in the total war games it is a frequent ocurrence to have characters with ~20 traits that no one ever bothers reading. If they're just flavour than that's fine, but you'd frequently get situations where a general would have no command stars listed on his profile (making you think he was a poor commander), but then he'd have traits like "good attacker: +2 command when attacking" AND "good defender +2 command when defending." As a player you just want to know "do i put this guy in charge of an army, a city, or do i not trust him with a paperclip?" But if you looked at the stat line to make that quick decision you'd end up making the wrong one. To be safe you had to read all 20 trait descriptions, on all 10 of your characters.

So you just end up thinking "it's better to just increase the attribute and be clear about it."

For stuff the stat system can't handle, like movement through terrain, then traits are great. For very specific situations it's great. But every time you try to kill a tarthan you're going to have to get his health below 50%. Are players going to do the calcs and work what effect that has on how they should design their armies? Probably not. If you increase the con across the board are people going to look and think "lots of hit points! maybe best to focus on volume of attacks rather than attack strength!" Very possibly.

Generally you want people to be able to look at a unit quickly and think "hmm, experienced tier 2 spearmen, my guys can probably beat that." That's not to say that traits shouldn't be able to swing a battle, but again, it's a judgement call. If the player looses because the had the "form phalanx" trait and he charged them with cavalry, then he thinks "well fair enough, i'll have to alter my approach," but if the unit is better because is just has 5 or 6 different traits all saying "+5% defence when attacking, +1 move point in the first turn, reroll first attack roll" that just make the enemy guys slightly "better" in lots of general little ways, then he just thinks "WTF?" and gets frustrated because he feels the game he thought he understood is hiding information from him. Where each one falls is a judgement call, but if you can't look at a trait and think "how will this alter my approach?" then it probably shouldn't be a trait.

Well, there is still some meaning attached to that specific trait. I don't know exactly how strong 10 defense is, but it may be better to focus such targets with magic when they get below 50%, or save that ability that reduces defense for it, or other stuff. Really, we don't know enough about the combat system to say that it's either bad or good (bad = doesn't change how you fight it, good = changes how you fight it but doesn't break game).

yes quite ridicoulous. lets hope training times will be altered. i really hate to be sitting on a town waiting eons for 1 troop to produce. id rather have unit producing be somewat constant and not slow that way you can accually field and move around forces quite fast. to offset factions having good amounts of troops is to have a really nasty tough world that to explore it you need those troops. but waiting 32 turns for a unit to produce is ANTI FUN.

all in all though thx derek for the dev journal so +rep to you. thank you for your vision to make FE a great game in the making. keep up the hard work and it will pay off in the pc gaming community im sure of it.

Nice pics. One request - make it 10 items in the row. 8 is weird;D

looking like it will reboot the elemental brand, and I want it ASAP please

harpo