[.802] First Improvements/Glitches/Impressions

from Elemental Forums

So after my first hour of beta two here my first comments (w/o any order):

 

Improvements

- Provide small amount of material at game start => otherwise always first building currently is workshop

- Offer a button in dialog for received items to use them immediately (e.g. book of strength). Now you have to click OK->Items-> Double Click (so four clicks instead of just one)...By the way I mentioned this one already for the last beta version.

- Scroll speed should adapt to zoom level. If you zoom to highest details the map scrolling can get really fast.

- Offer a way in 3D-Engine to determine if units/heroes are stationed in a town (I could not recognize any change when stationing a hero in the town)

- for me currently the usable area of a town is not clear enough, e.g. to determine when I can build on resource. This is especially true if the influence areas of two cities have merged.

- Display movement radius of current unit (you have currently to count tiles, to know if you will reach a target or not with in one turn)

Impressions

- Too many escort quests / inn at the start of the game

Glitches

-if one resource is used competely (e.g. material) there is a small glitch in the resource bar display

- on zoom out of city one flag at the entry looses for me the flag pole.

- Description of iron mentiones this to be rare resource, with in 10 minutes of game play I've found 3 of those.

- Tool tips for army values does not match (e.g.display in bar said 8 defense, and tool tip offered a calculation with result 6.75 or movement is one and tool tip says movement is 0)

- I currently see no way to get the rating of the sovereign (or other heroes) when he has troops with him. Then always the army rating is shwon for the sovereign

 

 

Feel free to comment on any of those. If you want screen-shots just let me know. This was just my first short look into the game, so I spend not too much time in providing all the report data probably needed for the issues above.

 

In general "Good Work" but still a lot to do in respect to usability.

3,921 views 11 replies
Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Waypoint and Movement System

Overall waypoint and movement system is clunky and unresponsive.

When I select my unit and click a destination on the map... sometimes when I hit end of turn the unit will not move but any surrounding NPC units will move.

But after that initial loss of a turn the unit will travel each turn until arriving at the waypoint.

Then if I give a new way point and hit end turn - the unit will not move until I hit end turn again. I have to hit end turn 2x before a unit will begin to move. Maybe I don't understand the movement system.

Default scroll speed is set way too low.

Waypointing does not seem to be as responsive as it needs to be. Sometimes it takes more than one click on the ground to get the waypoint placed. Then coupled with units not moving after hitting end of turn makes the game feel sluggish.

If you have your build window open and decide to scroll with the mouse you get rubber banding around the map. You must have the build window closed.

 

Questing

Too many escort quests. Hopefully this is just a place holder to the real quests - cause as it is now it is not fun.

One quest had me go to a dragon fountain and upon arrival a window popped up of what looks like an arch graphic but is empty in the middle. is there supposed to be a picture there?

Quest text window is squished at the bottom of the screen and sometimes cuts long strings of text off.

 

Graphics

Laggy and glitchy still when it comes to scrolling or when your town updates buildings. Keep wanting to zoom in and look closer to my avatar but he just shrinks, and shrinks, and shrinks, lol.

 

Champions/NPCS - EDIT learned that champions are more dynamic than this

Lots of champions running around. I wonder what the point of them are? I understand they give bonuses but it seems excessive. Shouldn't they be rarer? Or harder to achieve? It only costs gold to get a champion on your side. Why not earn their trust? And what are they doing running around? Should they be doing something? Some npcs are just a plain ordinary scout. What is his point. Who does he work for? Potentially me I assume. Wanting more back story here.

Maybe you earn champions by completing quests? EDIT learned that they will be...

First game right clicked near an NPC merchant and killed him. I wanted to recruit. Example of the waypoint detecting is clunky.

 

Sound Effects/Music

Hopefully we will see more sound effects. As it is now there are practically none in the game. None for leveling up, being attacked etc.

 

UI

Sometimes when you have the build unit window open you want to quickly go to the buildings tab but you have to click done for it to be available. Overall the UI seems excessively "Clicky" - it needs further streamlining.

Need better tool tips. Example Barracks....This tech let's you build barracks. umm really? I find myself building structures but I have no real clear idea what they do or what I should be building. I feel like I have no direction understanding of what buildings I must be making. To me it feels like building spam. Ok each turn I go the city and see what I can build then I build it. I keep doing this until I run out of money. I have no plan or strategy involved with this.

Item Shop

Can't seem to easily sell in an item shop which at the moment units' inventories seem small. All units should be able to sell and buy quickly and easily from the item shop.


Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

i'll second all of the above of Sparhawk and Iswalie!  You guys already said 90% of what i logged on here to report. 

I have read that the goal was to have city building be simple (non Anno- or Settlers-like) so that it doesn't distract from the core of the game.  However right now it is tedious without being compelling -- Way too much effort spent going back and demolishing buildings that are no longer optimal now that a city has leveled up.  (deleting workshops to make room for lumber mill; deleting merchant carts to make room for market, studies to make room for libraries).  

 

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Why would you knock down workshops and merchants? You can't build unlimited lumber mills or markets.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

For future reference, if you have specific bug reports to post, please post each bug in its own thread so it's easier to summarize and categorize them for the developers. General feedback is fine in one place, though.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

> Why would you knock down workshops and merchants?

I definitely tear down a lot of workshops, it seems like there's plenty of forests around to build lumbermills.

In any city which isn't totally specialized, i've been razing the older, less space efficient buildings.

I agree that in a city that was specialized and totally dedicated to gilders, one might fill up on Markets and also keep in the Merchants; but in that case wouldn't you likely tear down all the other outpost level buildings; workshops, gardens, studys?  (Sometimes to replace them with the more space efficient upgrades, but just as often with houses)  Likewise in a science city don't you tear down any Merchants?

I'll keep an eye on the boards for posts about town build orders... maybe I'm just still a noob  :|

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting smakemupagus, reply 7
> Why would you knock down workshops and merchants?

I definitely tear down a lot of workshops, it seems like there's plenty of forests around to build lumbermills.

In any city which isn't totally specialized, i've been razing the older, less space efficient buildings.

I agree that in a city that was specialized and totally dedicated to gilders, one might fill up on Markets and also keep in the Merchants; but in that case wouldn't you likely tear down all the other outpost level buildings; workshops, gardens, studys?  (Sometimes to replace them with the more space efficient upgrades, but just as often with houses)  Likewise in a science city don't you tear down any Merchants?

I'll keep an eye on the boards for posts about town build orders... maybe I'm just still a noob 
End of smakemupagus's quote

I'd only do that if I were running out of space.    I don't think I've ever torn down a workshop or merchant as it's detrimental to do it.

You can only build 1 of those buildings per level.

You shouldn't have to tear down existing buildings unless you've decided to go in a very different direction.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 8

I don't think I've ever torn down a workshop or merchant as it's detrimental to do it.

You can only build 1 of those buildings per level.

You shouldn't have to tear down existing buildings unless you've decided to go in a very different direction.

End of Frogboy's quote

Thanks for the replies.  Here is my reasoning quantitatively, in case it's helpful.

I will be interested to see how your AI solves this equation (particularly in the case of Market vs Merchant).

1)

A Market is 6 gildars on 4 squares (1.5 G/sq);

A Merchant is 1 gildar on 1 sq (1 G/sq);

Since the "free squares" are such a precious resource, i think there is in fact quite good motivation for tearing down the Merchant. 

2) 

A School is 5 Learning for 4 squares (1.25 L/sq)

A Study is (1 L/sq)

A major difference is that the upfront gold & tools cost of the studys were pretty large, so there's a lot more wasted resources in this case.  So I agree that tear down of a Study is probably a mistake.

Take care.

PS.  The art direction you guys went with this game is awesome.  Can't wait to see the tactical battles.

 

 

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

I don't see free squares as been precious, however.  I have both markets and merchants.  I can only build 1 of each per city level.

We can to encourage users to build both, so if it isn't working out that way, the answer will likely come in the form of increasing tiles since the main benefit of larger cities is being able to build *more* of a given thing per level.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting kryo, reply 6
For future reference, if you have specific bug reports to post, please post each bug in its own thread so it's easier to summarize and categorize them for the developers. General feedback is fine in one place, though.
End of kryo's quote

Hello Kryo,

sure will do.

I just did not want to spam the forum with on specific issues and most of the issues were more in the area of feedback.

I will post all the glitches then separately after the next update (probably next week?).

 

I still hope my issues where helpful to you guys.