Wraith367

Join Date 02/2006

Feedback after a few hours

Love the idea - but its pretty clear that it is still alpha. I am sure some (hopefully most) of this is already planned to be fixed, but I will just dump everything here anyways.

The Good:

Good graphics.

Much improved economy vs FE (although costs could use some rebalancing - it seems very easy to get a few production buildings and then just spam whatever unit you prefer)

GUI setup is spectacular (with a few exceptions)

Stable

Needs work:

Auto-used integrated graphics by default. Perhaps this explains why some other users are complaining of terrible performance?

Shard attack messages can get spammy / frustrating - If I can't reach a shard on the other side of the map, hearing it is under attack every other turn gets old.

Can't figure out outpost upgrades.

Hard to get certain crafting components, would enjoy either buying with mana or producing from city (would help with lack of things to build past early game)

An indicator of city growth is needed

Healing is frustrating - have to craft potions just to heal my troops. Even worse with randomness or loot drops - may not have enough to craft anything!

Heal ring doesn't grant heal ability.

Paladin building doesn't work.

Cities desperately need a production queue. Rally point would also be appreciated. A mid-late game teleport unit to army / hero would be awesome.

Stunned units still seem to participate in flanking

Being pushed 4 range is kinda excessive, especially when going through terrain features.

Inventory system is frustrating to manage. I don't like having to craft things 1 by 1, then give them 1 by 1 to each unit. At that point, even FE's designer was better than this level of micromanagement.

Few graphical errors - boundaries between tiles sometimes show up, water is occasionally screwy, and fog of war often looks fakey / sharp corners.

Neutral (camp) city ranges are very hard to see sometimes

Why can't I change research? This is very frustrating sometimes. Especially if there is a misclick when first choosing research.

Sovereign upgrade tree needs some balancing.

The bad:

Combat feels very simplified. Why were criticals removed? If elements are a big deal, why are the resistances gone?

The game often auto-combats for me, and usually manages to screw up when it does.

The enemy seems to magically be able to settle any fertile region, even if my army just cleared out a city there 5 turns ago and blocked the only entrance since then. Extremely frustrating.

Battle maps get boring. Please add terrain features - hills, thickets, healing shrines, whatever.

Limited content - I have seen only a few enemies, and a few low level sites. There seems to be a decent amount of items, but I don't see many besides basic armors / potions.

Hero trees don't have as much choice / interesting level ups as in FE.

The very, very bad:

Combat is boring. This wasn't true in FE, which was a good combat / quest simulator burdened with a meh economic / diplomatic system. As this is means to be a combat/quest focused 4x, this is a major issue. We were told this would be a highly tactical combat mostly focused on using the correct spells and unit abilities. Currently, this is the farthest thing from the truth.

1) Very limited selection of units, with fairly small differentiation. Admittedly, I couldn't build some units (mages) because I couldn't get crystals, but units mostly have similar stats and the 1 special ability. The 1 special ability is fairly well done, but basic. And when you only have 3 or 4 of them to play around with... it gets old pretty fast. I know you swapped from FE's design system to preset in order to be able to build more diverse units, but as of right now there are significantly less choices.

2) Less combat tactics (in part due to a lesser number of enemy types). When you find yourself using the same soldier / archer stack to kill the same bandit rider / archer / wolf enemy stack for the 100th time, its very hard to maintain interest.

3) Items don't add anything interesting. They are a way to spend more resources for slightly better stats (much as in FE), but they don't give anything interesting or offer any new tactics, only micromanagement (in FE, some items did open up new opportunities).

Hopefully, these issues are because of the alpha state. Here are some possible solutions to combat problems:

If units can't use weapon items, need some choice on creation (eg frost vs flame axe vs axe with circle attack).

Some way to differentiate units. Either some sort of passive upgrade system (preferably with choices - eg upgrade soldier into swordsman or berserker, with different stats and abilities), or do something more like AOW / Eador, where units can get larger bonuses occasionally when leveling up, such as passive or active abilities. As is, units get a nice stat bonus when leveling, but don't get more interesting. This makes me feel less attached to them, and more inclined to mass produce and autobattle (especially with production so easily available), rather than treasure and level up units.

More unit types. Spellcaster units (can get spells from spellbook items?). Units with magic weapon. Beast units. Summon units. Monsters. Machines. Each of these should have special abilities / passives. Each sovereign type should also have a few unique units.

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ScottTykoski

Join Date 03/2001

+132

Excellent list...I'll get this assimilated into our feedback docs so the design team can discuss the points at length

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Really do appreciate your response - many other similar alphas do not even acknowledge feedback. Nice to be appreciated!

Started and finished a new game, difficulty 2/5, on one of the small maps. More feedback, in no particular order

Issues:

Battle areas feel cramped. They would be fine, except unit movement is generally quite high. 4 to 5 in battle? Makes getting around too easy.

Please show to hit chance / probably damage indicators over units rather than in bottom gui (see how AOW does it). It is often a bit annoying to find, and doesn't work for multi-target spells or abilities.

Need some battle mechanics transparency somewhere. What exactly is the flanking bonus? How are resistance to abilities (eg stun, flank) calculated?

Ranged units are a bit strong right now. Would enjoy a ranged accuracy penalty past some certain range, or a penalty for shooting through terrain / shooting at units in 'cover' cells.

Kael randomly died in tactical on me. Had 2 hp, ran him away from enemy. No ranged enemies or spells. Next turn he just disappeared.

Crafting can be very random. Got the hunters short sword on turn 15. Really made the game a ton easier for me.

Units need to heal the hp they gain on level ups.

When a city expands, need an indicator of what tiles are being harvested.

Finally found some equipment rather than just crafting materials. Unfortunately, it required level 18!? By the very end of the game, maxing xp on my starting champion only got him to 12.

Autoexplore scouts should gather treasure chests

Shift - move orders on world map would be appreciated

Ability to move again in tactical (if moved less than max movement) would also be nice

Scout was attacked and died while auto-moving. The area stayed revealed for several turns.

Scaling feels way off - once I got 2 shards, game really sped up. Once I had 4 shards, it didn't take long to max all possible spells and level up my sovereign a half dozen times.

Enemy lieutenants are kinda weak since they have no support. Just debuff them (graveseal is especially nice, or shrink), surround them, and kill. They need to start with an army, probably with some support units to cleanse them.

Mounted charge feels very strong. Long ranged, seems to deal full damage ignoring armor (if not, see battle mechanics transparency). Possibly make it cost life to ride through enemies?

Mounted charge going through obstacles / friendlies feels wrong.

Mid game, the enemy started spamming armies at me. A nice change from being totally ignored, but my main stack can't deal with 3 to 4 new armies (many of them only 1 unit) each turn. It drained my movement, and units still slipped through to my shards (as singletons). Very frustrating - I don't feel like it is advantageous to keep a guard just to protect a shard, but we need some way to deal with a few leakers. Also, enemy armies should be fewer but more powerful.

Towards the end, when researching quickly, I would go from 6 choices to 3, then 1, then none. What happened to the other choices?

Marching orders sovereign skill doesn't work (interaction with the spell that gives similar bonus perhaps?)

Hurl boulder graphics.

Late game I just beelined the SK capital with my main stack. i was ignored by approximately 30 enemy stacks on my way there, many of which were full armies. The only units that would attack my were ocassional roamers.

Couldn't use shadow keys on my first attempt at the gate - had to do so several turns later.

Last fight was rather lackluster - again, limited support (died to one blizzard scroll). Once that happens, just debuff and surround.

General / Suggestions:

Would be nice to be able to spy SK's current goals : Rather than "Shard was attacked", we may know that SK is focusing on destroying this particular shard, and get a notification when it is completed and he gets a new goal. Could also know that he is focusing on destroying one of your cities, winning over a minor faction, doing a quest, upgrading his own cities / settling, etc.

AI shouldn't just ignored you throughout most of the game, and then suddenly start spamming armies at you. A more gradual curve based on your threat is needed. AI armies are also lackluster - trogs warriors/archers have absurdly low hp, and both the casters are pretty weak. Ogres and the berserkers are a bit better, but by the time they came out spells and cavalry could kill them before they could move.

Crafting system feel less like "I want to craft A, better go out and find required ingredient X", but "have XYZ, hope I can craft something useful with them". Already used all your wolf pelts on gloves early on? No cool shadow cloaks for you!

Midgame feels non-existent. Went directly from struggling to clear bandits to get my 2nd city and shard to feeling like I had researched everything, could take down lieutenants and neutral stacks with ease, and beelining for SK capital.

SK feels like the neutrals from FE - this is a bad thing as this was very frustrating trying to figure out what they would do. Sometimes he will attack outposts / farms / etc - or not. Sometimes he will throw some units at a shard - or not. Sometimes he will attack a city, other times walk by. Same for my offensive stacks. Please give more clear rules (these can change over time). Also need more ways to deal with small attacks (1 enemy beelining my shards), and more of an early-warning system.

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davrovana

Join Date 05/2009

+61

Ranged units are powerful early game. Then Harbingers and shadow wargs are common, and they are basically unhittable by archers, leaving them as wasted army space.

So Archers go from useful to almost useless.Yet they can't be upgraded for damage or accuracy.

Can the +50 dodge versus ranged be nerfed a bit? It's okay that some units are resistant to archery, but +50 ranged dodge on a 50 dodge unit (harbinger) is a little excessive.

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ScottTykoski

Join Date 03/2001

+132

Quoting Wraith367,

reply 1

Need some battle mechanics transparency somewhere. What exactly is the flanking bonus? How are resistance to abilities (eg stun, flank) calculated?

We've talked about getting in some supplemental battle text to accompany the 'Enraged', 'Haste', 'Fear' text. Some '+4 Attack', 'Swarmed', 'Immune to Cold' or '-5 Initative' would really help explain what's going on behind the scenes.

Quoting Wraith367,

reply 2

Ability to move again in tactical (if moved less than max movement) would also be nice

This certainly screwed me a few times, and I think even Brad got a taste of this in his Live Stream. We'll talk it over and make sure that's the movement rule we want.

Quoting Wraith367,

reply 3

Scaling feels way off - once I got 2 shards, game really sped up. Once I had 4 shards, it didn't take long to max all possible spells and level up my sovereign a half dozen times.

Magic scaling a big area of balance / pacing concern. We don't want early spells to take 30 turns but don't want late spells to take 2 turns. Throw in the ability to 'put it all towards Lore' and things get complicated...but certainly solvable

Quoting Wraith367,

reply 3

Hurl boulder graphics.

Oh jeeze, this The solution is to attach a model to particle effects, but that's proven harder than originally though. Gonna push for it again and hopefully put that horrible effect behind us.

Quoting Wraith367,

reply 4

Last fight was rather lackluster - again, limited support (died to one blizzard scroll).

The final battle will be getting TONS of iteration...very placeholder at the moment (needed to focus on the second-to-second gameplay up until now). We have some fun ideas for this, and I'm sure will be getting lots of great ideas from you guys too.

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Quoting Wraith367,

reply 2

Stardock has never really designed their boss monsters particularly well. If they were better designed they wouldn't need an army. For some reason they have always made them slow which is a huge problem when they are outnumbered so badly. They just don't get enough actions to be a real threat.

-All the bosses normal attacks should have splash like cleave so they can hit multiple units and so normal attacks aren't a waste of time.

-Higher base Initiative to make up for the fact they are always outnumbered. Giving them 2 actions per round could also work.

-Higher spell resistance to prevent them from being cursed to uselessness. Maybe even allow them to clear curses using an ability.

-More Unique abilities and spells. Bosses need custom abilities to prevent players from just beating them down. In particular more spells that target entire armies and grant counterattacks are needed to make bosses more challenging and fun to fight. Unique summons that perform multiple roles, and thus won't be wasted, would also help. For instance in addition to Blizzard Vetrar could have....

White Out: Autocast at start. Every enemy unit takes 2 cold damage every turn.

Ice Armor: Units that attack this unit in melee takes 3 cold damage and lose 1 Initiative.

Elemental Nova: Summon an Ice Elemental at target location and do cold damage to enemies in adjacent tiles.

Core Freeze: Removes enchantments from caster and heals 10% of max hp.

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Played new beta. More feedback:

lieutenant attacked shard and died

diplomacy menu desperately needed. Having to hunt down units and hope its been 20 turns is not fun

autocombat killing my units - taking damage was bad enough but plain old losing units?

fire elemental (from guardian) ability heals enemies

diplomacy menu on units by move command - can cause wasted turns, as you move towards them when you really just want the diplo menu

mouse over - status effects, tile effects, etc would be greatly appreciated in tactical. Tooltips for abilities often break and disappear.

enemy spam on shards still frustrating. I spent the whole game trying to protect 1 shard that was on the edge of my territory, but couldn't do it. I had 4 fully upgraded outposts around it, but enemy would waltz through and suicide on the shard. Didn't have enough logistics to dedicate an army just to defend it.

cant cast spells in tactical - possibly due to arrow commander auto-fire at start of round treated as a spell?

obscuring fog (research) is taking 0 more turns - never finishing

got +1 indifference - lost 250 mana, and had neverending bandits and bandit lairs (abandon villages) spawn. Seems harsh for a single event penalty

notifications - please put in bottom right, have pop up have an X button. Top right is hard to see.

New turn sound would be nice

heal shard spell is kinda expensive, doesn't work

initiative / next move bar seems to be wrong

Upgrading outposts with pioneers - constructor micromanagement is bad enough in galciv. Please don't port them into SK.

Ended up quitting the game because the 2nd lieutenant was nowhere to be found (this was after I reloaded when fire lieutenant died)

Archer hero is pretty weak. Bad abilities, and never got a craftable bow.

Overall, a nice improvement. However, my main problem from before still exists - the enemy doesn't act anything like a civ. Random units wander around, and may attack you or just hang out. Minor faction units do the same thing, as do monsters. It feels like no one in the game has any goals, and thus like I have nothing to counter.

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