Beta 0.7 Feedback (Continued in 0.701 Feedback Thread)

The underwater roads are quite amusing to see.

Example 3 - enemy AI in tactical dogpiled a single tile. Those bastards.

Example 4 - Arctic Wolf Cloak missing text descriptor of benefits.

Example 5 - I killed the Sorcerer King but no victory celebration or end game. The turns keep going. He's a real bad dude.

Example 6 - for some reason the ZOC on that tower shrunk from 2 to 1. I lost the shard as a result. Weird-sauce.

Example 7 - please place quantity in inventory within the crafting window. For example, in order to see whether I should make more of a consumable I have to navigate to the inventory screen. Less navigation is good.

Example 8 - the Clerics Ring is not allowing Tandis to cast heal. Please heal the healer's ring.

Example 9 - please note the dead Ogre remains on the map after battle. I had hypnotized him and he was killed by his colleagues during the tactical battle.

Yes, and this map just needs to be fixed.

Example 10 - I entered this lost battlefield with the scout and then realized it meant a battle. It gave me the option to leave and come back. However, when going back it will not retrigger the quest.

Example 11 - the murder quest leads to a screen titled "Gumshoe" but there is nothing listed.

Thanks for the feedback! 

Ya, this is incredibly useful.  Thanks!

You are very welcome!

In the interests of compiling things in one, main thread...

1) The Sorcerer King seems to send out a lot of 1 unit armies that can often be killed without having a full tactical battle. I assume that the Sorcerer King probably has to do some scouting so I can understand some of that, but he seems to do this A LOT - and to some of the same places over and over again.

2) Sorcerer King units do not attack outposts - is this how it's supposed to work?

3) Suggestion - units on the same tile as an outpost or inside a city get a defensive bonus that represents the walls or other defenses of the structure/city. If this is already happening, please make it more obvious somehow so that players may appreciate their own (possibly inadvertent) cleverness!

4) Sometimes the cursor/tile alignment is off on the tactical battle map - what I mean is, when one is using the mouse to select a tile to move a unit in tactical combat, sometimes the tile that highlights is not actually the one under the cursor. This has only happened to me once or twice and seemed to correct itself when the turn passed to the next unit in the initiative list. (I will admit the possibility that a combination of the late hour and the isometric perspective of the tactical combat could have been playing tricks on my eyes).

5) Balance suggestion - Archers vs Trog Archers - I am not a techie, but I am a game-rules kind of guy (rules, their interaction, and their effects are a big part of my profession in real life).

Here's the problem: The Trog Archers (great unit, btw) do so much damage that they can one-shot player made archers. Player Archers have such low initiative that they often die before ever getting to act in combat. Meanwhile, the Trog Archers seem to have medium-high(ish) initiative scores, which means that they virtually always act before Player Archers get an opportunity. Also, I have noticed that AI controlled archer units tend to attack the player unit with the lowest HP at any given time, and archers are relatively low HP units. The up shot of all this is that I don't really want to build archers myself since I never really know when I might have to face some Trog Archers (bandit archers seem to have lower initiative) and when I DO face some Trog Archers, my archers tend to die before they ever have a chance to act at all in battle. 

(Edit: Just took another look at the new patch notes. Was the "Snipe" ability the cause of this problem?)

Solution: We either need a damage penalty for ranged units based on distance from target over (i.e. greater than) a certain number of tiles or the initiative score of Player Archers should be raised so that they might have an opportunity to act before they are killed in one shot. Alternatively, raising the HP of Player Archers so that they could survive the initial attack could work. But please don't alter the Trog Archers! They are a really cool enemy and I like the flavor of them being a glass cannon.

6) Suggestion - Notification when the AI uses a special move in combat. Sometimes there is a graphic and you can kind of tell what's going on but it doesn't seem like that happens with all special moves to which the AI has access.

7) Scouts - when ordered to "Explore," Scouts will not pick up treasure chests. This may be working as intended but it would be great if that could be changed. I don't mind moving my scouts manually on the smaller maps that we currently have access to but I could see it becoming a bit too micro-managing-y on larger maps where multiple scouting units would be necessary/efficient.

marlowe,

There may be a couple other options, not saying these are all in game now, just options to either use or be added to the game:

-Armor up your archers to prevent easy death (which itself may need balancing)

-Leave archers behind when attacking a group with trog archers

-Craft something that increases initiative for either archers or for another unit that would let it go before those trog archers and cast a spell to kill/debuff them

-Some type of strategic spell to cast slow on enemy army before attacking

And I agree, they are an awesome enemy to be facing, and also wouldn't like to see them changed dramatically. But there definitely should be some type of counter against them.

Yeah, at the moment sending out unequipped archers is kind of a suicide mission for the archer in a lot of cases. Crafting does cover a multitude of bases, but at the moment I can see no reason not to give a crafted item to Tandis or to a Pikeman unit (Pikeman are great! Maybe too great...).

The problem I see right now is that there is basically no reason for the player to train any archers at all from what I have seen so far. The best strategy against Trog Archers at this point seems to be to hit them with a fireball scroll and/or direct damage spell, and to bum rush them with Tandis for clean up.

The other problem with building archers currently is opportunity cost. Unit slots in armies are pretty limited, especially early on, and I just can't justify taking up a slot in an army with an archer when I could have a pikeman instead (metal permitting, of course) which is just a universally better unit.

I realize that balancing will come with time but I wanted to get some of these issues out there in the talk-space.

Absolutely. At this point though, archers are somewhat decent if, as you say, keep them out of the line of fire of trog archers. Get some levels under their belts against non ranged enemies, throw some armor on them... they do improve.

Also, I'd have to look but are there any spells that help protect from ranged attacks as in FE:LH?

There is one but I forget the name off hand - essentially the caster summons up some wind to blow the arrows off course (well, a chance to do so anyway). Tandis does have the "give everyone +15 dodge" but it doesn't seem to help my poor archers much.

Yep, those would help, but I'm thinking strategic level buff, so it would be permanent (well permanent until you cancel that is).

Archer plus 6 rings of haste.  Try it.

Ya know, I had thought of trying to duplicate numerous trinkets and such but figured they were unique and would not equip. There I go making assumptions again!

They'll probably nerf it, but it is pretty fun

Quoting mqpiffle, reply 23

They'll probably nerf it, but it is pretty fun

They probably SHOULD nerf that one...

In all seriousness though, I find the opportunity cost of training an archer I can't use a lot of the time until I can deck him out with equipment to be just too high. After all, just think what could be done with that Logistics point - a different unit (Pikeman!), a mine, a wheat field, some horses, etc.

I'm sure I could also find better uses for the metal used to make all those rings or give the rings to units more likely to survive in the first place.

I don't think it's WAY off, but something with player-made archers is out of whack.

I just get my champion, usually Tandis or Varda to cast Blizzard or Fireball or use scrolls. It is mana or resource intensive, though.

Trog Archers are super dangerous. Lol.

One thing I didn't like is when you have a huge army and you run into Trog Archers and it goes into auto combat and I end up losing a unit. *Grrr*