I was originally keeping a list of minor issues, but eventually I got sick of doing the fetch quests and gave up before leaving the town.
Please improve the starting quests! Many great JRPGs either start with simple battles, or left you in a sandbox environment where you could choose to either battle or complete some very simple quests. VT does neither: it bottlenecks you into completing a series of moderately-difficult fetch quests. I see that this complaint is not new so I won't elaborate further.
May I suggest having the fetch quests optional (similar to grandma's chickens), or adding a simple battling arena to the town so the player can try out battles right from the start? Maybe a rat-infested basement or sparring ring in the middle of town, to use two cliches in RPGs.
- The menu items have too much vertical space
- Enter should work in the menus; I wasn't expecting space instead.
- I couldn't remap the keys to whatever I wanted; the game only let me switch around the keys between D, S, C, space I think. I tried changing the map key to tab but it didn't work.
- The list of resolutions is limited, I couldn't find my native one (1080p). Does the engine not detect all supported resolutions?
- The collision boxes around objects like trees and tables is a bit too big; your sprite is unable to touch a lot of the objects due to this. This makes the game feel cramped. I think the collision box around the ground floor table in your house is so big that you cannot have your body stand behind it.
- The buildings in the starting town look too similar, it makes it easier to get lost. Maybe give them different colours here and there, or add more landmarks?
- The areas where you can travel off the map aren't obvious, this makes it easier to get lost as well. I recommend drawing paths that lead to the edge of the map.
- Everyone's so mean in the town! They're either telling me not to talk to them, or ordering me around. Does Bronann have no friends? I wanted to throw people into a lake, especially Orlinn.
- The main plot takes too long to start, so motivation was lacking. Maybe more foreshadowing could help? This could also be addressed if the starting quests were shorter, or more interesting.
- The walk animation doesn't match with the ground, so it looks like the characters are floating
- Is there a town map function? It would help players find their way.
Skeletons on the second floor are appears in some time again.
This prevent from thinking about balls and annoying.
Bertram {l Wrote}:Why not.
Depends on whether you'd rather have the more visible scent thing in the dungeon I still have to script.
If not, there is the rare crash bug left to make me worry.
Regards,
First of all, after a long pause I was really surprised about the status. There were some really nice parts in the game. Really nice parts were:
* The slime mother: nice idea. However, it only spawned two slime during my fight. Should be more.
* The harlequin
* The ball puzzles
* Orlinns fight against the final boss
* The rat chest That was a massacre, but finally I won (after using 15 or more potions). It was the highlight of the game.
Don't get me wrong. Although in the following a longer text about what was not so cool is given, everthing are only minor thinks.
I was not happy with the fine balancing of the game. Over all, the balancing is already at a good stage. It was never too hard or too simple. However, especially the beginning was not really fun. One starts with level 1 and wins a fight without problems. However, I was very unlikely to win more then one fight without going to the statue. Money to buy potions was also not available. Thus, the first 15 minutes after leaving the village was (at least for me) fighting the enemy in the starting map again and again, until I've reached level 4. I didn't enjoy this part. Then, most of the battles very quite easy.
But this becomes a problem, since most of the encounters are really not challenging, but rewarded with still quite much XP. One goes up in the levels quite fast.
One option would be:
* Increase the required XP for leveling. One have to do lot of simple fights to level up.
* Reduce the XP reward at higher levels for low level monsters. This will require from the player to always go on and not farming XP with easy enemies.
* Introduce higher level versions of the enemies (as I have already suggested for Allacrost . The red slime might be a result of this. Thus, you can gradually increase the difficulty.
Also, there is a long time the player cannot buy new potions (after finding orlinn until reaching the shrine entrance). It was not a problem for me since I fortunately bought enough in the beginning and didn't need all at the cemetery but it can be a limiting and frustrating point in the game.
To be honest, I really hate ( ) save points. It forces you to sometimes spend more time for the game than you originally wanted. Also you always run into the danger of losing your progress when not reaching a save point after a long time. However, as you decided to use this system instead of "normal" saving, it is absolut acceptable for me.
Did you think about a teleporting system? At some points, I thought it would be really fancy to have to ability to e.g. teleport between the save points. E.g. you are deep in the forrest and want to go back to the village. You are still at a high level and the enemies are not challenging. So you go all the way back to the village, fighting boring fights (or dodging them) to buy potions (or what ever). Teleporting would not make the game simpler but a bit more fast paced. Also, one can avoid repeating fights.
You should think about adding a few side quests from the guys in the village.
Did you think about a system of user-defined skill system? I.e., let the player decide where to add points rather then having a hard coded system. I though also about a level system for the skills, so the player can improve the favorite skill when leveling.
Can you add some kind of warning before the first encounter of the fenrir wolf to use (or buy) some portions. Basically, this fight is not so hard and should not be a real problem for the player, but you miss the chance of a good introduction of the first boss. I was really disappointed about the simple dialog in advance of the fight.
I did have the feeling of improvements of my weapons. I switch to the metal blade after leaving the village and got one of the improved crossbow for Kalya. However, in both cases, I didn't see improved damaged on enemies. I basically think this is caused mainly by improved enemy statistics later in the game, but one is losing the (happy) feeling of having improved weapons. Maybe you can think about increasing the hit points of the later enemies but also increasing the damage. The game will not change but the player has a better feeling.
I didn't really get why I have to kill all the enemies in the final map of the forrest to remove the stone. Though, it was not so hard to solve this quest, it was not really logic for me, how this should correlate.
However, really thank you again for creating the first episode. I'm really looking forward for the next.
I can also confirm a possible game crash after playing a long time. This happens also once for me. Sorry, a BT also not available from my side.
As for the crashes, it's hard to reproduce. It only happened after a long playthrough. Maybe I should try to let the game idle a few hours with gdb, and then see if it happens.
Speaking of this, does anybody managed to reach those chests?
What I'd like to do about this is provide a few potions for a starter: If you go and see Flora as Kalya tell you, you'd be rewarded with a few free potions. What do you think? (Would be after the release, anyway.)
As for the enemies becoming too easy, were the snakes or the bats too easy, for instance?
Yeah, here, a merchant is missing. I'll have to think about this...
To answer that problem, I decided to add support for auto save when you go from a map to another, and ask the player if he prefers to load the auto-save or the regular one.
Game content:Can you add some kind of warning before the first encounter of the fenrir wolf to use (or buy) some portions. Basically, this fight is not so hard and should not be a real problem for the player, but you miss the chance of a good introduction of the first boss. I was really disappointed about the simple dialog in advance of the fight.
Makes me think I'd like to add hints when losing a battle, and during the battle when a character reaches a special state, or something, but it's not completely related.
Here, I don't really know. What would you suggest?
NemesisDD {l Wrote}:Speaking of this, does anybody managed to reach those chests?
To be honest: me not.
NemesisDD {l Wrote}:To answer that problem, I decided to add support for auto save when you go from a map to another, and ask the player if he prefers to load the auto-save or the regular one.
That sounds perfect. Basically, the maps are all small enough that you will not lose to much progress in case of an unexpected event.
NemesisDD {l Wrote}:Well, at the moment it is something like: "I hear something" ... and suddently the battle starts. Maybe just split both events, first the dialog, so the player knows something will happen. If he then goes another step or two, let the battle start. This gives the player some time to use potions or spells before the fight actually starts.
NemesisDD {l Wrote}:To be honest: me not.
Akien {l Wrote}:I couldn't either; I did not see any obvious way to reach them at first, so thought I would go on and probably find some clues. But when you go on... hey ;-)
Akien {l Wrote}:With the exception of the Black Soldiers whom I could hardly damage (with blows dealing 2 or 3 when they would hit me for 30+ IIRC). For these I think it's normal since you are supposed to try to avoid them, but then something is troubling: you start by fighting one of them, and after 3 minutes two more soldiers join the fight. It gives the feeling that you [i]might[/b] be able to kill the first one before the 3 minutes if you are cunning enough, but one fighter is so overpowered that it doesn't make much sense.
Another thing: it might be me but I couldn't find much ore to trade weapons with the hunter. After I almost completed the Mt Elbrus shrine I could trade for a better crossbow for Kalya, but then I had 0 ore to consider upgrading Bronann's sword (and I couldn't upgrade it either before I traded Kalya's crossbow, so it's not a "you get to upgrade one of two heroes, choose as fits your fighting style" mechanism).
Apart from tweaking some values, I see two changes that could make the balance more reliable :
- Define the XP yielded by monsters as a function of the party's average level (so a Slime would give e.g. 30 XP when you're level 1, 20 XP for level 2, 10 XP for level 3 and later, etc.).
- Increase the needed XP from one level to the next, and increase gradually the XP given by high level monsters (e.g. a level 1 monster gives you a 20th of the level 2 XP, and a level 10 monster gives you a 20th of the level 10 XP - but killing level 1 creatures when you're level 10 should not impact your XP amount significantly).
Bertram {l Wrote}:NemesisDD {l Wrote}:To be honest: me not.Akien {l Wrote}:I couldn't either; I did not see any obvious way to reach them at first, so thought I would go on and probably find some clues. But when you go on... hey ;-)
Eh eh, np. I just wanted to know whether someone managed to do it. (it is feasible, yet not that obvious.)
Bertram {l Wrote}:Akien {l Wrote}:With the exception of the Black Soldiers whom I could hardly damage (with blows dealing 2 or 3 when they would hit me for 30+ IIRC). For these I think it's normal since you are supposed to try to avoid them, but then something is troubling: you start by fighting one of them, and after 3 minutes two more soldiers join the fight. It gives the feeling that you [i]might[/b] be able to kill the first one before the 3 minutes if you are cunning enough, but one fighter is so overpowered that it doesn't make much sense.
Yes, you can. It's really neither easy not obvious how to, but it's feasible.
Bertram {l Wrote}:Another thing: it might be me but I couldn't find much ore to trade weapons with the hunter. After I almost completed the Mt Elbrus shrine I could trade for a better crossbow for Kalya, but then I had 0 ore to consider upgrading Bronann's sword (and I couldn't upgrade it either before I traded Kalya's crossbow, so it's not a "you get to upgrade one of two heroes, choose as fits your fighting style" mechanism).
Well, normally, yes it is. But not every pieces of ore are in the Shrine dungeon...
Bertram {l Wrote}:It seems to me there is a lot of small interesting bits gathering on tweaking the game in here. So I'd propose this:
I'll add the visible scent missing script & code part, try to catch the crash's root, and see whether I can split the first fenrir event, and if there is no more show-stoppers, I'll release.
Then, we'll gather all the discussion around and we'll try to fix them for a 1.1 release, including the new village quest, improved balancing, and all the little perks we've talked about.
Would it be ok for you, guys?
1) Dialogue text
The most glaring errors to me were in the dialogues of the characters. It felt extremely rough and erroneous in numerous places. I think it was because there was no English proof-reader, or at least not a native one. Some of the phrases were difficult to comprehend.
2) Overall balancing
4) Lack of equipment upgrades
5) Poor purchasing power
6) Skills with significantly high SP requirements
10) Heavy leveling requirements
3) Monsters interferring with puzzle solving
7) Lack of SP regeneration options
8) Annoying/tedious battles
11) Insignificant key items
Maybe future releases will use them, but it seemed strange to have so many key items that had no use. Curiously, even some of the basic starting equipment such as a tunic was considered a key item and could not be sold.
Bertram {l Wrote}:Thanks for the even late feedback. All what you said is very true some effort should be done to smooth those parts, of course. But as always easier said than fixed.
1) Dialogue text
Well, I'm French as a matter of fact, and even if it seems english speakers can fathom what I mean when writing or speaking in English, I remain French.
And English (American or British) has a lot subleties just like in French, and every language, I guess. Thus, if you see sentences to fix, as you are native to the base language of the game, feel free to propose improvement. It's unfortunately an area where I cannot be perfect, it seems.
2) Overall balancing
4) Lack of equipment upgrades
5) Poor purchasing power
6) Skills with significantly high SP requirements
10) Heavy leveling requirements
IMHO, all this is linked actually. And note that simply solved. The lack of items, skills, and such is first coming from the fact that I have focused on the game story while dealing what I could do so far with the current skill system. Unfortunately, I can't do everything at once and I had to choose. And all the rest is somehow linked to this. As for equipment, you're right, there are a few spots where I should add a few things, but it will need to be defined from the start so that the player has a smoother experience and monsters level and fights will also have to be smoothed so that the first battle are made much easier, making the player able to run into the forest quicker and longer, at least on the first maps.
The very first things I'd like to change is to make characters earn skill points that you can spend on a skill tree, either but unlocking a new skill, or by strenghening an unlocked one. This will add more depths to it at first. But this will require to refactor the skill targeting system as it still has a drafty design, IMHO, to permit making skills more generically handled in term of targets, for instance. And this will require to make more skills, the visuals for them, and so on...
Once all this will be done, an 1.1 release should be a good idea.
7) Lack of SP regeneration options
Actually, we already talked about it. Note that this is linked to the other balancing points, but this is a false problem for two reasons. First of all, if you had the possibility to get enough moon juice potions, you wouldn't have complained, secondly auto-regeneration equipment is usually the sort of equipment you earn later in such a game, so I'm not fond adding that kind of stuff now. But maybe I'm missing something? Feel free to point out.
8) Annoying/tedious battles
Ok for the Harlequin example, I'll keep in mind to make the different battles a bit varied, to make it more interesting. Have you got other examples?
11) Insignificant key items
Well, "so many" here is 3 or 4? Could you tell me exactly what item feels wrong and why?
The starting equipment has been intentionnally made key equipment for story reason. I know I keep repeating this without reaching the story point where it is useful, but it will com in time.
No problem. i figured that this had to do with the fact that English is not your first language (and it's a difficult language even for native speakers). I'd be more than happy to go through the text and make improvements. My only worry is that I don't speak French, so I'm concerned that my text may deviate from what you really wanted the characters to say in some places. Regardless, I'll have a go at it when I get the chance.
I understand. And balancing is not at all an easy task either. I know from experience. I like the idea you proposed about the skill tree, although it will be a lot of work and would likely make balancing even more difficult. Still, it's worth the effort.
Not particularly, no. Most battles in the game were fine. Although that treasure trap battle with the 10+ rat enemies I was not a fan of at all (too difficult and takes too long to win that fight).
This was just a really minor quip. It's not a problem, just a curiosity I thought I'd mention. If you have future plans for those key items, then it makes sense for them to stick around. I was a little disappointed that the wolf necklace I picked up after what seemed like an optional mini-boss fight was a key item and, in the player's view, was useless because it didn't reward the player with anything.
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