RC 1 feedback

Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby eugeneloza » 26 Nov 2014, 03:03

'Finished' the game in about 3 hours... or maybe not?
I cannot leave the map after touching the crystal. The characters say that they should go to the village, but the map has no exit. Is that right (i.e. the end of the Episode I)? In this topic I read about skeletons, better sword etc... I've not encountered any of those.
Also, there is a 'hole' in the 'crystal' map that lets the party leave to the right empty area.

The game feels very nice. I liked it.
Few IMHO ideas:
1. Start is too slow. There may be no action, but there should be some content not just running around the village and probing all the walls searching for a hiding kid. E.g. background of the key characters. Simple logical starter quests. Maybe, a better variety of items.
2. Too much money. I ended up with over a 1000 drunes, with everything to buy in the shop I got being able to pass through the second forest map. Moreover the items I buy are 'significantly' better than mine. I.e. too little items variety and too large change they bring. The equipment should be slowly constantly improving in my opinion. Moreover, some equipment should be 'specialized', i.e. no 'super armor' but different armor being good for different purposes.
3. Too high respawn speed. The first battles are just a 'EXP grinding' until you can survive at least 4-5 battles. And actually having no idea 'weather to save the potions or not' makes me saving them. Moreover, not knowing how quick the pace will be makes more like grinding for EXP. Maybe, the monsters should also become stronger with character level, e.g. the final battle with the wolf was no challenge at all. Another idea here - most of the game becomes 'running away from foes' because of constantly respawning enemies slowly drain HP not letting the party to go to the new area.
4. Too ineffective 'shield' against 'first aid'. Actually I didn't see shield do anything at all - the character still was hurt and the damage was not reduced significantly to be noticed. While 'first aid' makes 4 to 5 new battles winnable without use of potions.
5. No in-game description of the mechanics (i.e. what is the difference between protection and defense).
6. Few battles need any attendance from the player. It's usually smashing the first opponent, then the second, etc. with the same hits. I.e. if this is the feature, then the characters should 'automatically' repeat the previous (or default) action, without need for the player to aimlessly press 'F' 6 times for each round and around 70 times per battle. Or, better, make the battles strategically-dependent. I.e. that every turn requires thinking and planning - that is to provide with more options and more challenges (e.g. one monster immune to arrows, the other to the sword, the third to the magic or specific attack style... many weak monsters vs area damage, some monsters are low hp, but high atk (should be taken out first), while the others are high-hp but low-atk, etc. / ). There is also no obvious way to estimate the enemy 'coolness', i.e. does the spider have more HP/ATK than the slime?
7. Not too obvious that some buildings have hidden upper entrances (like grandmother's) to be found by accident. Also the fact that to speak one should face the NPC. The wolf's necklace is also an non-obvious find, because before this all the items were stored in the chests. And it's hard to predict which tile is an item or not, I was clicking many times at a caterpillar in the second part of the first cave.
8. I still couldn't find out how the passage in the second part of the first cave was opened. No items to interact with (which was referred to as a mechanism). I was just walking around and the characters told that something has fallen. Neither any idea on how to get to the chest in the upper left island.
9. After opening of the forest pass in the second forest map, it does not show in the map.
10. The save points distribution is too uneven. Sometimes they just 3 to 4 battles away from one another... sometimes it takes a few dozen minutes before the player can save and postpone the game. Moreover save and rest places should not necessarily be together.
11. Chests/drops contain no interesting loot, e.g. no unique items which cannot be obtained the other way. There is a cool idea around that some items have attached skills/spells to them (e.g. like summoning an ally monster once per battle), not only defense/magical defense.
12. There is too much information during the battle. And with attention concentrated mainly on clicking 'F' as needed, it appears to be not used - i.e. neither action sequence, nor the specific damage need to be monitored - the 'remaining HP' is the only thing to take notice of. It would be much more interesting if the player would need to analyze this data, e.g. try to attack the creatures that move first to kill them before they attack.
13. Still can't figure out the meaning of blue crystal appearing near the character while speaking (along with understandable exclamation mark, question mark and three dots).
14. 'F'-'D' sequence in the party menu/inventory is very irritating. Forward-backward, no, not this submenu, back... Maybe it is still a good idea to implement mouse? It's very complicated at the beginning to get used to the process.
15. At the beginning of the game I tried for about 5 minutes to equip the helmet and other armor in the inventory, until I understood that they were not real items, but 'sort/filters' (still had doubts that I just didn't figure out how to do this until got the first 'other' item).
16. I have no idea how I came up with idea that to select the main menu item I have to press 'F'... For about a minute or two I was just cycling left-right keys, trying enter, spacebar, up/down... Mouse would also be helpful here.

(Version 1.0.0. 4 sep 2014)
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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby Roots » 27 Nov 2014, 00:45

No, that is not the end of the game. You should be able to exit the map from the same way you entered it (the top middle area of the map, if I recall correctly). I think there's a save point on that map so I'm wondering: did you save your game after the crystal event took place, exited the game, then came back later and were unable to exit the map? If you are truly unable to leave the map, that seems like it could be a likely cause of the problem (the event data either wasn't saved to the save file, or wasn't loaded correctly back into the map when you loaded your save).

And yes, I noticed the "hole" in the upper right area of the tree line as well. That's a bug in the map that should be addressed. It should have nothing to do with breaking your ability to leave this map though.
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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby Bertram » 27 Nov 2014, 16:15

Now that's also quite some feedback. ;)

'Finished' the game in about 3 hours... or maybe not?

As Roots said, it isn't the case. You still have to go back to the village, from where you came. ;)

Also, there is a 'hole' in the 'crystal' map that lets the party leave to the right empty area.

Thanks, I'll have a look. :)

Well, every points given here are relevant, and I'm glad you still enjoy the first half of the Episode despite all those.

Points 1, 2, 3, 6, and 11 are linked IMHO. The lack of skills, items and quests is something that I'll need to address while I'm adding the missing features left, rebalance the game, and so on.
The 1.1 release will try to address a better balancing, the addition of a skill tree for more freedom, and a few more quests, to help making the starting village into something more interesting.
This is a neverending task, and I wish you could keep on testing once I'll have done a few of those points.

Point 4 is also linked to balancing but not only. First thing first is that you can trigger a skill on a character more than one time to get the maximum effect form it. Part of the lacking documentation I'm slowly adding. And skills strength will change with the skill tree implementation anyway.

5. is about the in game doc missing. This is known and I'm on it.

The points 6 and 12 are actually very relevant. There are two things to do to fix this. 1. The addition of a Rush option that makes every character attack for the given turn. (Being done by SuiteCake atm) and the second part is about the fact that as I was lacking skills, I made battle quicker to trigger more action. The thing is, once I'll have added battle event triggers, I'll be able to add counter-attack, attack blockers or breakers effects and such things, making the game more strategical.

7 is in two parts. The upper entrance thing is a wink to 80s games where such a trick was sometimes used to hide chests. I don't plan to fix this as it is the desired effect.
The necklace is something else. It is made not obvious for a good reason, but should have an equipment effect, and not just another useless item. I'll fix this asap.
But I don't want/plan to make hidden interactable area/items something obvious on purpose. You'll have to search a bit for hidden items, right?
That said, I plan to make Goddess statue interaction more obvious, a bit like it's done for NPCs.
But please, don't tell me you didn't think about facing the NPCs in order to speak to them. ;)

8. is also in two parts. The enigma in this part of the cave is to be redone. (I'll keep the surprise, though. ;]). As for the treasure chest on the top-right part, well ... ;)

9. True. Nice catch, I'll fix this asap.

10. This is planned to be fixed using a auto-save option made on each map change. The save points distribution will matter less afterwards, while permitting me to let a player go back to the previous save point in case of "emergency".

13. Eh eh. well it's a sweat drop, as seen in certain mangas. If you see a better open source graphics that can replace this one, I would happily use it. :)

14. There won't be mouse support, as the game is meant to be played with a gamepad. That said, if you see simplifications in the menus, I'll gladly take the advice.
16. Yeah, I added a F1 help window on purpose here, and the help window should display at first run to help about this. Also, on the boot screen, an indication about the F1 window is also
appearing after a few seconds. You can also change the game keys in the options menu on the boot screen and after pressing escape in game.

15. Yeah, part of the missing documentation and tutorial. It will hopefully come in time. ;)

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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby eugeneloza » 28 Nov 2014, 11:35

You should be able to exit the map from the same way you entered it

hmm... there is no exit... I was bumping and F-clicking there, but there is no cave, neither any interactible item. I did one circle around the map after touching the crystal without reloading. And then closed the game, opened it again reloaded the map and probed all the walls and explored the 'open area' to the right... with the same result.
As soon as I come home I'll try to find and post the screenshot/save file.
When I entered the map there was already no 'exit' i.e. I came to a free space in the middle of the map with no cave entrance around.
That said, if you see simplifications in the menus, I'll gladly take the advice.

It may be done that way then:
* Parallel enter and F keys. I.e. that they just would do the same thing, because 'enter' is much more convenient for selecting main menu items in case someone like me missed F1 description thinking it doesn't influence the main menu :)
* Maybe there should be more (even separate) menus then? E.g. 'S' key brings up all available options. But there are separate keys (at least for PC) for inventory use/equip (I), map (M), etc. Or, another way: 'push 1 to select first character inventory/use'. /// maybe use/inventory should be joined * there is not much space out there, but it still can be arranged.
* If there are no items of the type, then filters should be either invisible, or blanked out (i.e. not to be missidentified as items when the inventory is empty).
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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby eugeneloza » 29 Nov 2014, 07:04

Inside the screnshot of the entrance area and the save file.
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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby Bertram » 29 Nov 2014, 13:05

hmm... there is no exit... I was bumping and F-clicking there, but there is no cave, neither any interactible item.


Thanks for the screenie. Well, there is an exit and it is located below your character in the screenshot. Just go south from where Bronann is and you should exit the map. I will have to make the entrance more obvious, though. :)

* Parallel enter and F keys. I.e. that they just would do the same thing, because 'enter' is much more convenient for selecting main menu items in case someone like me missed F1 description thinking it doesn't influence the main menu :)

Again, while this is a fine request in itself, I would think about it more generically. Like adding two possible different and configurable keys for the same action. I must say I'm not fond into hard-coding keys here.

* Maybe there should be more (even separate) menus then? E.g. 'S' key brings up all available options. But there are separate keys (at least for PC) for inventory use/equip (I), map (M), etc. Or, another way: 'push 1 to select first character inventory/use'. /// maybe use/inventory should be joined * there is not much space out there, but it still can be arranged.

Hmm, more clearly splitting inventory from equipment may be a good idea. I won't think about adding shortcut keys for now, as I'd like to deal with skills refactoring first. Maybe later...

* If there are no items of the type, then filters should be either invisible, or blanked out (i.e. not to be missidentified as items when the inventory is empty).

Sounds fair. I'll make them appear grayed in that case. :)
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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby eugeneloza » 29 Nov 2014, 14:47

Wow... that really was a hidden exit :) Never guessed anytghing like that is possible before, while found the same hidden entrances to the houses in the up...
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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby Bertram » 29 Nov 2014, 16:18

Yeah, what is obvious for someone, is not for someone else. That's why feedback is important. :)
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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby eugeneloza » 30 Nov 2014, 01:32

So, finished the Episode 1... now completely :)

* Maybe I missed something, but I couldn't get any more copper ore to get a better attack crossbow. Maybe I should have fought those Dark Soldiers instead of sneaking, as suggested? / Can I make two separate crossbows? It seems that not. Then, there is a good question does M.ATK affect 'First Aid' level, or only incapacitating shot?
Battles are much more interesting in the second part, especially that horde of rats in a chest.
* The 'ladder not of wood' was very unobvious solution, had to look for a hint on this forum. Maybe the extended brick texture should go lower?
* Dorver is a too weak opponent. Considered to be a boss, but the skeleton fight before him is much more challenging.
* Andromalius in the end also appeared to be too weak for the party 19th level, e.g. comparing to that horde of rats.
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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby Roots » 30 Nov 2014, 05:35

Horde of rats was the scariest enemy in the game. As soon as I encountered them I said to myself "Nope! F*#% this!" and used an item to escape from the battle. Its the only battle I ran from in the game. :p
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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby eugeneloza » 30 Nov 2014, 10:16

Yeah. That one was fantastic. Had to use 3 to 4 small moon juice potions. And it was almost constantly first aid either to Bronnan either to Kalya. When half of the rats were down it felt such a relief, when Kalya got to shoot sometimes. But such a small reward both concerning XP and loot :)
* Harlequin battle was also nice. But the problem was to understand that Harlequins are not respawning. And another problem concerning the amount of potions in the inventory. It seems that one may quickly run out of those (as Harlequin drains SP) and nowhere to buy/grind them around (or were there some bats before?).
* Another un-obvious problem is that one sould sequentially kill all the monsters in the 'moving floor' secret room in the Shrine to get to the Dorover which by some reason makes the press stop - I was running around the room, clicking for some hidden lever/object/triggerplate.
* And one more un-obvious thing which I finally figured out - that the weapon must be unequipped to be upgraded.
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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby Bertram » 02 Dec 2014, 10:29

Roots {l Wrote}:Horde of rats was the scariest enemy in the game. As soon as I encountered them I said to myself "Nope! F*#% this!" and used an item to escape from the battle. Its the only battle I ran from in the game. :p

eugeneloza {l Wrote}:Yeah. That one was fantastic. Had to use 3 to 4 small moon juice potions. And it was almost constantly first aid either to Bronnan either to Kalya. When half of the rats were down it felt such a relief, when Kalya got to shoot sometimes. But such a small reward both concerning XP and loot :)

:)
@Roots: Your turn to add a trapped chest now in HoA. ;) (And my turn to say Nope! .... Err, wait, not in front of the kids.)

* Harlequin battle was also nice. But the problem was to understand that Harlequins are not respawning.
* Another un-obvious problem is that one sould sequentially kill all the monsters in the 'moving floor' secret room in the Shrine to get to the Dorover which by some reason makes the press stop - I was running around the room, clicking for some hidden lever/object/triggerplate.

Congrats, you're the first one to find that room AFAIK. But it's also normal that those were meant not to be obvious. :>
Note that I will add a bit of variety to the Harlequin battle for the next release as requested by Roots, IIRC.

And another problem concerning the amount of potions in the inventory. It seems that one may quickly run out of those (as Harlequin drains SP) and nowhere to buy/grind them around (or were there some bats before?).

Yeah, a merchant will be added. ;)

* And one more un-obvious thing which I finally figured out - that the weapon must be unequipped to be upgraded.

Yep, I had seen it but as the feature was not used much, I chose not to improve that for the release. But you're right, I'll open an issue about it.

* Maybe I missed something, but I couldn't get any more copper ore to get a better attack crossbow. Maybe I should have fought those Dark Soldiers instead of sneaking, as suggested? / Can I make two separate crossbows? It seems that not. Then, there is a good question does M.ATK affect 'First Aid' level, or only incapacitating shot?

The Protection sets the time of the Shield spell. The Vigor is used to set the amount of healed HP in the version 1.0.
All that should somewhat change once my skill tree UI is done since I'm planning to let you either earn new skills or improve your current ones.

Battles are much more interesting in the second part, especially that horde of rats in a chest.

Thanks. This was done on purpose. I made the first part easier to make some kind of tutorial but from the comments I've received I should make the battles more twisted from the start while shorter. This will have to be done for the next release.

* The 'ladder not of wood' was very unobvious solution, had to look for a hint on this forum. Maybe the extended brick texture should go lower?

Yeah, sounds fair. I'll do it.

* Dorver is a too weak opponent. Considered to be a boss, but the skeleton fight before him is much more challenging.

I think I didn't spend enough time balancing this one. ;) Ok, it's noted.

* Andromalius in the end also appeared to be too weak for the party 19th level, e.g. comparing to that horde of rats.

Just for the record, you shouldn't compare the horde of rats to anything else, since it's a special trap, meant to make you panic. ;)
But you're right, Andromalius should be made more interesting and more twisted. :>

There is quite some work on the 1.1 release, but all this feedback will greatly help. Thanks! :)

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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby eugeneloza » 02 Dec 2014, 13:42

Yeah, a merchant will be added.

Hmm... I don't think a merchant will be needed there. But adding a chest with around 4-5 light/medium healing potions would be good. Another solution is to make a simple grinder like a few bats which would often drop minor healing potions. Cause lack of merchants has its tension feel of not being sure in future - what to expect. And would definately break the moment of meeting Sophia alive.
This is not a 'required' case, but just a backdoor in case a player is not well prepared (was rushing forward and spent too little time on leveling-up) - and saved over the only save slot he used - in that case such situation would mean replaying all the game from the very beginning. Maybe, even some kind of a simple check may be made to find out if the player has a total of e.g. 5 healing potions to kill Harlequin and in case no - give him some by event.
OR... Just came up with an extremely simple idea. Let the eyeballs drop some. They are not strong opponents and are rather easily killed. And in case player has none, he would have to grind some from eyeballs before fighting Harlequin.

P.S. I'm almost done with Ukrainian translation and PMed a question on Transifex about the stone inscription 'cause it may be translated in several different ways depending on its meaning, which I didn't get.
I'll also need to test the translation in-game as soon as I'm done, to see how it fits the whole concept. E.g. English does not show the gender of 'the speaker', while our grammar requires this. I was using Russian translation and memories of the game for reference, but in-game testing (especially for composite phrases) is necessary to avoid such errors. Another thing to check is the lenghts of the phrases: usually translation to Russian/Ukrainan produeces around +50% of the text length like most of other slavic languages. However, I couldn't figure out how to make an in-game usable file from the translation file.
And another question concerning translations: Keeping Russian translation parallel to Ukrainian I noticed that some pharases of Russian text may be improved. However, there is a significant difference: when I was making the Ukrainian translation I followed the concept of making the text looking more 'native' rather than exact translation. Several times even caught myself writing about a Carpathian village rather than about a Japanese RPG. Russian text follows more exact translation style. Should I also look into making Russian more native culture-friendly with a price of being less exact, or just check for a few phrases that could be 'expressed better' without loosing the exactness of translation?
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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby Bertram » 02 Dec 2014, 14:14

Hmm... I don't think a merchant will be needed there. But adding a chest with around 4-5 light/medium healing potions would be good. Another solution is to make a simple grinder like a few bats which would often drop minor healing potions. Cause lack of merchants has its tension feel of not being sure in future - what to expect. And would definately break the moment of meeting Sophia alive.
This is not a 'required' case, but just a backdoor in case a player is not well prepared (was rushing forward and spent too little time on leveling-up) - and saved over the only save slot he used - in that case such situation would mean replaying all the game from the very beginning. Maybe, even some kind of a simple check may be made to find out if the player has a total of e.g. 5 healing potions to kill Harlequin and in case no - give him some by event.
OR... Just came up with an extremely simple idea. Let the eyeballs drop some. They are not strong opponents and are rather easily killed. And in case player has none, he would have to grind some from eyeballs before fighting Harlequin.

The idea about the eyeballs is simple and efficient. I will do just that, but I'll let the merchant option open. Note that I didn't mean I would add Sophia there, just in case. ;)

P.S. I'm almost done with Ukrainian translation and PMed a question on Transifex about the stone inscription 'cause it may be translated in several different ways depending on its meaning, which I didn't get.

Sorry, I've got quite some things to do lately and I haven't catch up with everything yet. The (bad) meaning of it is that you have to clear the way of monsters before being able to go through. This very riddle is not that good, so I will rework it for the next release though.

And another question concerning translations: Keeping Russian translation parallel to Ukrainian I noticed that some pharases of Russian text may be improved. However, there is a significant difference: when I was making the Ukrainian translation I followed the concept of making the text looking more 'native' rather than exact translation. Several times even caught myself writing about a Carpathian village rather than about a Japanese RPG. Russian text follows more exact translation style. Should I also look into making Russian more native culture-friendly with a price of being less exact, or just check for a few phrases that could be 'expressed better' without loosing the exactness of translation?

Every main translator has got his own point of view about this, but I'll give you mine. I tried to write the English dialogues to be as if seen in an average RPG by my humble self, with all the mistakes that can happen when you're not an actual native of the language. BUT, I did translate the dialogues in French to make the story feels like home for french people. So, I'd say if you want it to feel like an Ukrainian story, just go for it, I did the same. :)

Thanks also for the effort on the Ukrainian translation. :D

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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby eugeneloza » 02 Dec 2014, 15:05

The (bad) meaning of it is that you have to clear the way of monsters before being able to go through.

Maybe something like 'Many come in, but to go through no one must be left behind alive.' Sounds too obvious for me.
'Only the arena champion may pass'. Too unobvious :)
'Creatures souls are the key' or 'Monsters are the key to pass' sounds better.
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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby Akien » 02 Dec 2014, 15:38

eugeneloza {l Wrote}:
The (bad) meaning of it is that you have to clear the way of monsters before being able to go through.

Maybe something like 'Many come in, but to go through no one must be left behind alive.' Sounds too obvious for me.
'Only the arena champion may pass'. Too unobvious :)
'Creatures souls are the key' or 'Monsters are the key to pass' sounds better.

I don't remember the exact message but I know that I interpreted it as "only one person must be alive to go through". So the first time I played 0.6, I arranged for Kalya's death while beating the monsters, so that Bronann would be the last man standing :-D When playing 1.0, I found out that I did not have to kill Kalya :-p
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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby Bertram » 02 Dec 2014, 16:13

Maybe something like 'Many come in, but to go through no one must be left behind alive.' Sounds too obvious for me.
'Only the arena champion may pass'. Too unobvious :)
'Creatures souls are the key' or 'Monsters are the key to pass' sounds better.

Hard to find, isn't it? ;)
I like a mix of the two latest ones most: "Creature's souls are the key to pass..."
I will also add a visual hint around the exit, I guess. (Such as flames disappear once you've beaten a monster party.)

I don't remember the exact message but I know that I interpreted it as "only one person must be alive to go through". So the first time I played 0.6, I arranged for Kalya's death while beating the monsters, so that Bronann would be the last man standing :-D When playing 1.0, I found out that I did not have to kill Kalya :-p

True, this is not very well fitting.

Thanks for the help about it.
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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby eugeneloza » 02 Dec 2014, 16:56

I arranged for Kalya's death while beating the monsters

I had the same idea then :)
I like a mix of the two latest ones most

Came up with another idea while taking subway home:
'Those who fall dead do not come back,
When all are gone, they open path.'

And then Kalya should mention not 'a mechanism' but speak of 'some magic protecting the stone from moving' and 'It must have to do something with that riddle' (if characters saw the riddle).
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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby Bertram » 02 Dec 2014, 18:05

That's a very good idea. I'll prepare a change asap in the main branch and let you both see about it. :)
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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby eugeneloza » 02 Dec 2014, 19:24

Hmm... about that riddle again.
I've remembered, that when I was passing that dungeon I was deliberately avoiding fighting enemies, because I was already 'bored' by constantly-respawning enemies in the previous one. But actually, it's easy to predict that some players would slay all enemies on their way to the stone, and the stone would open before they see it and before the player has a chance to understand the riddle.
Maybe, the last enemy should be in the area, inaccessible prior to seeing the exit stone, e.g. this area would be open after pushing a pressure plate near the exit.
Or, simpler, make the exit not in the lower right part of the dungeon, but in the lower left (which requires no additional scripting), increasing chances, that player would bump into it before slaying all the monsters around.
(UPD) Moreover, the last empty area (where the exit is located now) may contain some boss-level monster, like another slime mother, 4 slimes in a group, or just several sequential fights.
but I'll let the merchant option open. Note that I didn't mean I would add Sophia there, just in case.

The feeling I had, when the party fled from the village is some kind of 'no one alive around, only enemies', even like 'nowhere to seek help', 'no idea where to go' and 'maybe all the country is dead'. Which was greatly amplified by bumping into a Black Soldier and seeing that I cannot deal enough damage to him - it made me think, that I even made some fatal mistake and ended up with too low-level characters to beat that 'who-knows-how-long' ascension with limited resources. That looks really fine to me. And any living character, especially an elder, would instantly break that desolation feeling.

(UPD) P.S. I've had hard time finding the cave entrance at the start-fleeing map (i.e. that is why I bumped into a Black Soldier, I even thought that despite Kalya'a warning, it is the only way - but when I came up to need of using potions I thought that maybe not, reloaded and started another search), made several circles around the map until finally found the accessible entrance. E.g. a kind of a minimap like in Lyana forest would be of good use there.
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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby eugeneloza » 03 Dec 2014, 10:36

And any living character, especially an elder, would instantly break that desolation feeling.

Actually even some familiar monster did that partially. I don't remember which one, maybe a few bats.

Concerning items:
I thought that it is rather easy to miss iron sword and better armor for Bronnan in the basement where the player cannot come back. While it's rather obvious that Kalya says that 'take everything you want', but, maybe, Sophia should sell an arbalest & iron swords both to be used for trade/crafting + advanced armor set in case someone misses them in that scene.
Another relative question on game mechanics: when calculating the attack value is it:
Weapon.atk + character.str (1)
or
weapon.atk x character.str (2)
or something complex like
weapon.atk + character.str/enemy.def (3)
Because in first variant the damage would be mainly determined by character.str and weapon quality is actually not very important, but in the second obtaining the better weapon would be critical for survival; and third variant (which are actually multiple formulae possible) with weapon type being rather important but still producing balanced damage.
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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby eugeneloza » 04 Dec 2014, 20:18

Remembered one more thing, when finding wolfpain necklace Kalya says: "Don't even start, this one is all mine." ---- I'd better change it to "Don't even start, the necklace is all mine." because I first thought that she wanted to fight Fenrir on her own and didn't understand why she became so bold, 'cause she was afraid of it earlier.
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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby Bertram » 05 Dec 2014, 11:35

Just posting to say that I've read your comments, and find them relevant. :) Keep posting as you see fit, I'll make changes on the 1.1 version little by little taking your advice in account.
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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby eugeneloza » 05 Dec 2014, 17:16

1. Hmm... Grandmother Brymir travels much faster than Bronan :) She is either at her home, either gossiping in the village center before Bronan can get there... :) Or, maybe those should have different names? Moreover... do they use different map sprites?
2. (UPD) There is a locked house at the mountain top. After finishing the episode for the first time I've finally understood that it's Kalya's home. But, maybe, it should be specified somehow, e.g. I was thinking I've missed some part of the game. I've changed it to 'This is a house where Hertz, Kalya and Orlin live. They are out and the door is locked.' in Ukrainian.
3. (UPD2) 'Purchases:' is a negative number.
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Re: RC 1 feedback

Postby Bertram » 05 Dec 2014, 20:51

1 & 2: Yeah, need to be fixed. Btw, Brymir should only be the one in the village center.
Quick answer: Purchases is a negative number on purpose. If you look at the whole line, it tells Funds: x Purchases: -y Total: z (x -y = z).
Is there something unclear about it?
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