Emperorjarin

Join Date 08/2009

[.913] Attacked by mobs BEFORE first turn

I just updated to the new patch, and started a new game to see how much has changed since .912. So I choose my custom summoner sov, set the game to Easy (bumping the AI to normal because I've been having issues with wandering mobs being too hard at the beginning) and leaving everything else at normal settings, when lo and behold as soon as the game loads I get the message "Sov is under attack!" I nearly quit the game right then and there; I don't even have a chance to BUILD A CITY before I'm under attack!?!?! That's completely unacceptable. If I lose in the early game, it should be because I overextended myself way too much, NOT because a damn wolf pack sniped my sovereign before she could build a city on the first freaking turn.

Now don't get me wrong, I love the random enemies and think there should be more of them, generally speaking. I also think they should be implemented more incrementally; I do not want a forest drake to be 7 tiles away from my founding city, blocking my only expansion route, and I certainly don't want to be attacked by a goddamn wolf pack before I can even found my first city. To be honest, I nearly ragequit because of that, but lucky for me I was able to defeat the little buggers. FIX THIS. If I wanted to risk being wiped out at turn one, I would play the game at the max difficulty level. This was on EASY setting; I want the game to be EASY when I play on this setting, NOT nearly kill me because of shitty RNG. I will try to play through this game some more, see if this ever happens again, but IMO, something like this should NEVER happen.

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To follow up, I'm guessing that the game doesn't have a distance limit for mobs, or that that distance limit is so small as to be irrelevant. Starting adjacent to a wolf pack on turn one, and being attacked by it before the game begins, is completely unacceptable. The devs need to reevaluate the distance parameters set up for wild monsters.

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I also experienced this. Thankfully my custom sovereign had the Summoner trait so he could summon a Shadow Warg to help him against 3 wolves. It's kinda crazy that the NPCs Monsters get to move at the beginning of the game before anyone else.

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You (the OP) is getting far to worked up about this. Worst case scenario: You have to restart a game.

I do not in any way want a system where the startup zone is warm and comfy. When you generate a map its very difficult to start evaluating chokepoints and such relative to the placement of AI empires and monsters.

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The human player should certainly be the first to move in the game. You shouldn't be attacked before you even have a chance to do anything.

However I seriously hope they don't tone down the monsters. If the world is supposed to be dangerous and is supposed to be one of our chief enemies, then the world needs to be dangerous. Not faux-dangerous.

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Had this happen too, seems like a small bug. After a restart things were fine. This didn't happen before .0913 though.

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I had the same thing happen, too, being attacked by 3 wolves before turn 1, and I also was able to summon a warg to survive.

Does this happen to the AI, too? If an AI sov gets killed by a wolf pack before turn 1, would we even be able to tell what happened?

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Yes, I've seen an AI faction get nailed on Turn 1, and I LOL'ed.

I believe lair monsters are still kinda tame to the AI's as I haven't witnessed any AI outposts or cities get crashed by monsters.

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Quoting joasoze,

reply 3

You (the OP) is getting far to worked up about this. Worst case scenario: You have to restart a game.

I do not in any way want a system where the startup zone is warm and comfy. When you generate a map its very difficult to start evaluating chokepoints and such relative to the placement of AI empires and monsters.

So, you want a challenging game? Play on Challenging. I want an easy game; I played on Easy. When that was still too hard, I went to Beginner. When the monster AI is hellbent on annihilating me even on Beginner, there's a problem. Or are you suggesting that there should not be a difficulty setting where people can learn how to play the game in a, well, Easy manner?

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I agree. The easy difficulties should be, well easy.

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Quoting joasoze,

reply 3

This isn't a matter of easy v. challenging. Randomly starting next to a monster who gets the first turn and kills you is not challenge. It is random chance. It is a waste of the player's time to allow a situation which ends the game right after it starts with absolutely no recourse. It is poor design. It's a matter of perception, and random chance.

Think about someone who had just purchased the game. They read the reviews and were are all excited. They anxiously wait for the download. They wait through the install, and Steam's strange "first time operation" installation that takes forever and appears to be identical regardless of game. They are pleased that they could build a sovereign if they wanted to but have been waiting a long time, and select the one that sounds the coolest. The really pretty loading splash screen happens and...... Wolves attack. How do I? Game over.

Is this a situation that is acceptable to allow for a player the very first time they start the game, and are they going to feel good about their purchase if it is their first experience with it?

I say no. Therefore, there should be a scaling minimum distance between start locations and monster lairs.

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Quoting Malsqueek,

reply 10

Quoting joasoze, reply 3You (the OP) is getting far to worked up about this. Worst case scenario: You have to restart a game.

I do not in any way want a system where the startup zone is warm and comfy. When you generate a map its very difficult to start evaluating chokepoints and such relative to the placement of AI empires and monsters.

This isn't a matter of easy v. challenging. Randomly starting next to a monster who gets the first turn and kills you is not challenge. It is random chance. It is a waste of the player's time to allow a situation which ends the game right after it starts with absolutely no recourse. It is poor design. It's a matter of perception, and random chance.

Think about someone who had just purchased the game. They read the reviews and were are all excited. They anxiously wait for the download. They wait through the install, and Steam's strange "first time operation" installation that takes forever and appears to be identical regardless of game. They are pleased that they could build a sovereign if they wanted to but have been waiting a long time, and select the one that sounds the coolest. The really pretty loading splash screen happens and...... Wolves attack. How do I? Game over.

Is this a situation that is acceptable to allow for a player the very first time they start the game, and are they going to feel good about their purchase if it is their first experience with it?

I say no. Therefore, there should be a scaling minimum distance between start locations and monster lairs.

Of course it's not intended design! We're still in beta remember? Didn't happen in the latest versions before this one, so I guess this side-effect was introduced unintentionally. A bug that will be fixed in the next version. No idea why people get so worked up about this.

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Quoting LordTheRon,

reply 11

Ehhh.. Seriously crappy starts have been pretty rampant since FE Beta was released. This is just a new iteration of them, and I see it as a big turn off for people who aren't in the beta.

Remember Daikatana? It had one of the crappiest first two levels of any game ever produced and suffered horribly for it. This is Beta, remember? I see a problem that others see and intend to report on it.

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I don't think a minimum distance is the problem its the fact that the player isn't the first to take action it's the AI.

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Maybe the AI's first turn (both factions and monsters) should start on Season 2, so the human player always has a chance to have their first turn first. Although I'm not sure what should happen in future multiplayer games if MP is implemented.

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Just as a note, the game is in a beta and as such, should be treated as much.

"This beta may contain bugs and a (its) primary focus is to obtain feedback on gameplay and the identification of issues."

While it may be no fun to lose on season 1, but the same concept can be applied that it's no fun to crash on season 1 as well.

*Edit

Apparently, I was way late to wave the beta flag.

Kudos to those of you who did.

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How about, factions start far enough apart, monsters and ruffians don't get a turn in the first season, but AI factions do. This should also cut down on the times an AI faction gets killed on Season 1 - if the monsters and ruffians always go before the AI, they might not be able to found their first city. I think each faction should always at least be able to found their first city before being attacked by monsters.

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Quoting hmsmiley,

reply 13

I don't think a minimum distance is the problem its the fact that the player isn't the first to take action it's the AI.

I disagree. The problem is both. What difference does it make if the Sovereign gets to move and found a city if it still gets attacked and killed ? My point in all fairness any sort of danger that is game ending or game breaking shouldn't be that close at start. Almost any monster is too tough if it's multiple units.

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Simple fix for this have NPC monsters all spawn from the monster spawn points after the first turn. Be interesting if the NPC monsters build new spawn points after wandering around for x number of turns.

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Quoting StevenAus,

reply 16

I totally agree "All other movement" should be the last turn to occur, after the player, and after the AI factions. That alone will resolve the "pre-first-turn-kill", and will help with the turn 1 kills in general, though I do think that lair difficulties should be tiered by distance from faction start.

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