Big picture notes - after two games of SK

from Elemental Forums

First of all - thank you, StarDock for working on this game, it look very promising.

Here are my concerns and observations of big picture - features and mechanics that have strong impact on game experience.

 

1. The real difference from FE:LH is crafting and, maybe, logistics. Thats good, but IMO not enough. One big enemy with some lesser fractions fiddling around really doesn't feel that different. Battles are not something new, too, though completely different ones were advertised. Hope something will change here.

2. That crafting thing is amazing! 

3. Speed of units. It's nice to have sane global speed at last, but...  Tactical battles are completely broken. Infantry makes halve of battlefield in one turn and cavalry can get virtually anywhere. There is no tactic that way. I guess, some buffs should only work on global map and sovereign skill buffs should be more limited somehow (warlord-only, perhaps?)

4. Battle magic. Now we have pioneers burning their way to rich areas on the one side and mages not being special about magic on the other side. May be ordinary troops should have really low spell mastery, or increased spell costs (or both).

5. Stats scaling with level. Feels very right that way (different units have different stats scaling). Good job!

6. Bugs. It's ok to have bugs in beta, of course. But. Many of those bugs are there from FE (or even longer, I haven't played WoM). They are there for years, and that makes me sad. Because it feels like they will be there for another few years. New features are awsome, but overall quality is also very important!

 

I'm not here to just runt. I'm looking for a great game to play, and I hope SK will become one eventually (and that my feedback will help).

 

Edit: sorry, forgot another major one:

 

7. Humor. I hope it is just placeholder in demo. Because it feels inappropriate, and just does not fit in to the game, IMO.

 

32,850 views 26 replies
Reply #1 from SorcererKing Forums Top

Can you mention which bugs you are referring to?

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Bugs that were around for ages:

- AI moving multiple units in one square in battles.

- Units (i've encountered in battles only, but possibly happens in global, too) hijacking mouse events of GUI above them.

- Sometimes you just cannot select a square in battle (mostly because of Verda). It is even worse, because you can no longer rotate the camera.

- Simultanous events in AI turn leads to non pleasant effects. Like shard is destroyed -> Go to -> show next event (battle). Or mouse pointer being in hourglass mode for no reason. Former got worse, because those events are no longer accessable after turn starts, and you are going to find this shard manually.

- Path length in global. While you are hovering mouse around, it shows that you can get there in one turn. But when you press a button, it ends up with army walking one square less. Sometimes i find myself in a tricky situations, where every square matters, and calculate path by hand. This is very frustrating.

 

I guess this list is not exhaustive, I'll add to it if I remember more or encounter another such a bug.

 

Again, these bugs are not anything new, I've encoutered them in FE from version 1.3 (when I've started to play it) and they were always there.

 

 

Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from SorcererKing Forums Top

Sometimes units move off the tacitcal map, standing on tile outside. I can still attack them with melee attacks but not with ranged attacks.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

There is couple more: 

- auto-save problem, when the position and remained movement points are not saved properly 

- on the global map you your army can still occupy the same tile as enemy, or enter the treasure chest/quest/lair without triggering an event

- archer's shots still sometimes come from the other side during tactical battle 

- unit placement sometimes is bad in tactical battles (pioneers to the front!)

 

To OP: some time ago we were trying to convince devs to have a thread were they would acknowledge bugs which are not workable (too much effort for little improvement), but we never got any response. Thus, the same bugs get reported over and over again. I visit this forums daily for couple minutes and since WoM I have seen some of them reported multiple times with not a word of acknowledgment from devs. I got myself tired and stopped writing them down in FE period of development, now, since we have a new game, I thought they would fix/pay attention to those old bugs. Alas, it is not going to happen. Sigh. Then they put unrest in the game saying that community has asked for it - though I had never read anyone suggesting it. Well, that's life, and that's their game. 

Reply #5 from SorcererKing Forums Top

geniusisme is right.  i will second those bugs he did and confirm they also exist in LH so please fix them.  i'll add one more that i've reported multiple times.  when you load a saved game, all your units move.  that's bologna and should not happen cuz it causes lots of problems such as the aforementioned multiple units on the same tile bug.

Reply #6 from SorcererKing Forums Top

bugs +1

Reply #7 from SorcererKing Forums Top

Good stuff.  Will forward to the team.  I actually haven't seen most of these before (or noticed anyway).  

http://screencast.com/t/EyyEexm76eT 

Reply #8 from SorcererKing Forums Top

Quoting geniusisme, reply 2

Units (i've encountered in battles only, but possibly happens in global, too) hijacking mouse events of GUI above them.

I believe this one only happens in tactical, usually when trying to select a unit ability with the mouse pointer and there's a unit directly 'under' the UI.  The pointer can't figure out which object should take the lead and freaks out.  Of course, the UI should win, no freak-outs required.

Reply #9 from SorcererKing Forums Top

Yeah, these bugs are annoying, especially the two units in the same file in both tactical and strategy maps.

 

I also hate how units get stuck in the movement even though they're being attacked in the strategy map. It looks sloppy.

Reply #10 from SorcererKing Forums Top

That is so odd as I've never seen that happen in tactical battles.  Two different units in the same tile in tactical?

Reply #11 from SorcererKing Forums Top

I've definitely seen the two units occupying the same square bug. Usually seems to be mounted units, IIRC.

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

I confirm too - next time I see two units on the same tile I will try to take screen-print. I mean in tactical battles it happens rarely, in strategy map is quite common if you save/load a lot. 

Reply #13 from SorcererKing Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 10

That is so odd as I've never seen that happen in tactical battles.  Two different units in the same tile in tactical?

It seems to happen most in that desert-y map with the bottleneck in the middle.  And often with mounted units as Thormodr said.

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

add one more annoying to the list 

- after hitting end of turn, if my army is attacked, then it immediately continues it executes its planned move right at the beginning of a turn. Very annoying. 

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

Please do not force auto-resolve battles when you have decisive advantage. 

And please do not web units that are right next to spiders.

Reply #16 from SorcererKing Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 10
That is so odd as I've never seen that happen in tactical battles.  Two different units in the same tile in tactical?

Frog, please see reply#2 in this 0.70 thread: http://forums.sorcererking.com/458187/get;3498027. Also please see reply# 13 in this 0.701 thread: http://forums.sorcererking.com/458360/get;3499771. Please note yourself and cbray acknowledged the feedback. Also please tell me you guys do find the time I spent logging those issues as valuable - I would be a sad panda if the fruits of my feedback efforts travel down one of those black holes we see in GalCiv3 (which look awesome btw).

Reply #17 from SorcererKing Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 10

That is so odd as I've never seen that happen in tactical battles.  Two different units in the same tile in tactical?

... or more than two. This happenes in my games all the time. Usually when units can not reach me because another unit is blocking the path, like at a choke point on the tactical map. It also happens often with units that retreat to the same tile, like archers that try to get away from me. Archers also tend to leave the map, standing one tile outside.

Reply #18 from Elemental Forums Top

     I can confirm that I have seen most of the aforementioned bugs with relatively little play time invested. It is more than a little disheartening to see bugs travel from previous games into this one. Issues like the units occupying the same space have been noted many times without attention or resolution. I let my friend, who I convinced to purchase FE:LH, play my copy of SK recently. After a few hours he experienced unit stacking bugs, pathing bugs and movement on load bugs. He looked at me and said, "I refuse to support a developer that allows bugs to migrate from game to game without at least trying to fix them." That was all it took...a customer who loves FE:LH and logged 100s of hours...gone as a potential buyer. I am sure most folks won't have an opportunity to play test before purchase, but those that do may very well be as turned off as my friend was.

Reply #19 from Elemental Forums Top

One of the little annoying things - now that I remember - regarding path-finding in tactical battles. If I try to attack enemy unit which is not right beside my unit, so my unit has to move first, and then I click on enemy my unit will choose totally random path to get close and to attack. Sometimes instead of going literally two tiles in a straight line and attack, it goes like 8 tiles in the circle and comes from behind wasting time ... I have to click first to move and then to attack or wait for my unit to wonder around. It was like this in FE as well. 

 

I have a huge list of bugs just after 9h into a game, and frog has 230h without spotting those bugs. I do not know how to explain it, honestly. 

Reply #20 from SorcererKing Forums Top

I have definitely seen two units occupying the same tile in a tactical battle in SK - in 0.7 I believe. It's possible that I even caught it on video in my LP of the beta.

Let me check...

 

Yep! Here it is. This link will take you to Part 4 of my LP on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l6S67LF_is&list=PLu_Uxi6l_RLNIogusjBVuJSD0Df_6qBtg&index=4

The battle where this bug happens begins at 47:17 in the video. At approximately 49:06 - 49:09 you can clearly see 2 trolls move onto the same tile already occupied by a warg rider unit.

Now that is one crowded tile!

Reply #21 from SorcererKing Forums Top

frog doesn't spend that much attention while he plays games.  did you see the first webcast?  hehe.  

 

i do want argue one point with ditoloco.  i am a proponent of the path-finding in tactical battles.  this discussion came up way back in FE too.  if you just un-strategically click on the monster to attack, i believe the unit should move to the farthest point away that still allows them to attack even if that means they do a big giant circle around the back side.  this is because it allows all the subsequent units a space to move to.  if you clicked on the monster and your unit moved to the closest available tile, then all your subsequent units would be blocked.

Reply #22 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Trojasmic, reply 21

i do want argue one point with ditoloco.  i am a proponent of the path-finding in tactical battles.  this discussion came up way back in FE too.  if you just un-strategically click on the monster to attack, i believe the unit should move to the farthest point away that still allows them to attack even if that means they do a big giant circle around the back side.  this is because it allows all the subsequent units a space to move to.  if you clicked on the monster and your unit moved to the closest available tile, then all your subsequent units would be blocked.

That's a good point - except when you have fights when you have only one unit on the battlefield, or one melee unit and lots archers, no other units are around anyway, or the attack is just a finisher...  

Besides I usually click on attack only if the position does not really matter, if the battle is hard and it does matter where unit stands then I move it manually.  

 

Reply #23 from SorcererKing Forums Top

These bugs are bugs I reported and took pictures of to report in early Legendary Heroes builds.

I hate to sound cynical, but is there not someone who combs through these forums for our bug feedback? Are we not being heard?... 

Reply #24 from Elemental Forums Top

Some of these bugs go back even further than LH.  Frogboy seemed surprised when someone posted that old bugs were still there in this version.  Time to fix as many of them are fixable I think, and then tell us if there are any that are problems with the engine itself (hopefully not too many).  But we'll have to see how it goes.  It is a bit disheartening, especially for the bugs that have been there since WoM or FE.

Reply #25 from SorcererKing Forums Top


I think there are three possibilities:

 

1. Someone is telling Brad the bugs are fixed or are not an issue and he takes their word for it.

2. SD just doesn't view the bugs as a big deal

3. Those bugs are "on the list" to be fixed, but keep on being placed at the end of the line in favor of more serious bugs.