Game impressions

[Dzen]

Hello everyone.
Finally alpha/beta is out and some of us already played it. But apparently I haven't found any feedback topic.
So my 5 cents in chronological order:
Settings. It would be nice if their meaning was explained. For example, I don't know what sRGB gamma conversion is supposed to do.
Character creation. Except currently missing options it looks fine. Second face has texture bug though, but that's for the bug thread.
Hotkeys for inventory, map and stats. I guess you remember about that, but still.
Esc key. Instantly closes the game. Only in current state I hope.
Save/load. I've found only qsave/qload, are you going to add other types in future?
Entering the building. Roofs of other buildings become black, looks strange. Is the rest of the map supposed to turn invisible or what?
Skill system. Looks fine. But what about social skills? You may not want to add 'persuasion' skill, but trading and other are common in such type of games.
Combat. Nice to see that they already try to show realistically looking combat, but there is a lot of work of course.
Wound system. Looks good even in current state.
Med skill. I guess it should be weakend. I was able to turn all my red wounds into yellow ones for 20 secs without any bondages.

[VariousArtist]

Just this: "Little by little, the swordman builds his stats."
Pretty annoying to run around and life as a vulture. Starting with stats at 1 is pretty annoying. Hope the char generation gets some option for some distributions points soon! =)

[Scab]

I'd advise everyone to read the "game design" and "FAQ" pages at http://www.lofigames.com , I of course can't be sure but I'd imagine the game is intended to be started at 1 in everything, judging from this:

At the start of the game, just about every NPC and enemy in the game is stronger than you. Your starting strength is that of a weak civilian. You have one character and a rusty sword and no money.

On a second note, starting at 1 really isn't a problem as it stands currently. The strongest character I've seen is a captain with 33ish stats, and I'm already at 10ish stats after about an hour and a half of continuous play (I'm not even trying very hard.) Not to mention the skillgain doesn't seem to scale yet, so I'd imagine I could be 30ish in another two hours.

[VariousArtist]

Thanks, sherlock, but I read the design notes. But that shouldnt prevent to offer feedback, right?

And my feedback is that a starting player is almost "forced" to play as vulture for a longer time. You dont start as "weakling" but as "weakest char in the game" and thats not a good gameplay decision, imo. Even when my char is weak there should be some chars that are either equal or even weaker than me.
"Free-roaming" should also allow to take other paths than that of a vulture.
And this just a feedback about the current state and not about any future features.

[conte]

I think that the gameplay is ok right now no prob with the "weaker" stats... I like hard games.

[Suta]

On that subject vulture is the only possible right now, but as the game develops more options will be available right from the start.
Getting a job, trading meager amount of goods, joining an army (perhaps as a mercenary), or being a bandit - to name a few.

[Scab]

Sorry Various, didn't realize you were commenting on the current state. I agree fully that there should be myriads of ways to play the game even from the very beginning.

[Qwibbles]

My first impressions have been fairly good. I can see the potential this game holds.

It would be nice if the travelling merchant paid me for protecting him but oh well
Also it would be nice if there was some sort of feature for the mobs to actually hit you whilst your running, because as of right now I don't think anybody can hit me if I run.

[TBFProgrammer]

The traveling merchants pay you in the loot they don't ever take from the other guys. Though it would be nice if they would:

a) Pay you the monetary pittance that your protection is worth
b) Wait for their other guards to heal up before moving

That way I wouldn't be playing the ranged medic so often.

I have watched a man who was carrying bandages and allowing his arm to fall off in order to keep up with the uncaring (and fully bandaged) merchant.

Anyways, part of the point of the game is that you start out as the weakling and there really is no need to change that.

[Dulahan]

I think it is fun, though currently trying to figure out a way to raise my attack stats, since so far only my defense is going up. And not fast at that. Though looting has me in good equipment at least! But it's just being a battlefield scavenger.

[SynysterOne]

If you don't like the meager skills you possess at the start, it's simple enough to modify them. If you want some modified starting stats, let me know, and I'll make a mod for varying start stats. I guess I should have done something like that instead of my 'godmode' one....But you guys have given me a lot of ideas for mods. Thanks! ^_^

[Dulahan]

I suppose I don't mind if I have the mod or not - I just want to know how to raise anything that isn't defense! Right now I'm at 12 defense, but can't ever even get in an attack. Let alone get the stat to rise. So only defense and medic ever gets raised. I can't seem to find anyplace to train or anything like that. Are we able to do anything on the Stats Screen either? Or just look at them?

[Captain Deathbeard]

defence skill goes up when you get hit or block an attack. So if you get your ass kicked, def goes up a lot. Attack skill goes up when you attack an enemy, so generally your def goes up first, then it gets used as a foundation to start fighting back and attk should catch up.

[SynysterOne]

If you can't seem to build your attack up because you are constantly defending.
1. Try getting more squad members, if they take the hate, you can focus on attacking.
2. Lure hostiles to town guards and run around until only the guards are being hit. Then try and get in some attacks before the guards kill them all.

[toaster Assassin]

The game has great potential.(Good game)
As for the game play it is not so bad, but I seem to have a habit of getting my @$$ handed to me. The weaker stats does fulfill the concept of "a game where you are not the chosen one". Basically, your character is "born" right there and has nothing (not even shoes) so it is up to you to shape your character. As far as the scavenger aspect, unless you have a group or if the enemy is traveling in low numbers you will have to be a scavenger until you can stand on your own.


You start out as a nobody and you eventually find ways to make a name for yourself,you cant really fight because your character does not know how (because they were literally "just born" and have no previous teachings (i.e. no starting class like warrior, thief or hunter class, just a man).

I just realized that when there is a horde of bandits you can lure them away from the group one at a time, its very hard but each unit has their own detection radius.

[P-Cat]

The game has great potential.(Good game)
As for the game play it is not so bad, but I seem to have a habit of getting my @$$ handed to me. The weaker stats does fulfill the concept of "a game where you are not the chosen one". Basically, your character is "born" right there and has nothing (not even shoes) so it is up to you to shape your character. As far as the scavenger aspect, unless you have a group or if the enemy is traveling in low numbers you will have to be a scavenger until you can stand on your own.


You start out as a nobody and you eventually find ways to make a name for yourself,you cant really fight because your character does not know how (because they were literally "just born" and have no previous teachings (i.e. no starting class like warrior, thief or hunter class, just a man).

I definitely like the idea of starting the game off weak, but I don't think you should start with 1's in everything. I think this is the kind of game where you like to assume that your character was doing something all their lives before the game starts. So I think that instead of starting the character off as "completely inept at everything" a better methodology would be to start them off as "inept at pretty much everything, but mediocre at at least something".

I think Mount and Blade handled that kind of thing pretty well, where it asked you some vague questions about your character's past, and gave you a handful of starting skills based on them, while still leaving you pretty terrible in the grand scheme of things.

[lordbok]

Yea, choosing a back story would be great idea so that you can have some skills in some stuff, Also adding more skill selection would be nice, like like people have said, social skills, passive skills, range skills, melee skills, industry skills etc guile (stealth) skills.

[SynysterOne]

Yea, choosing a back story would be great idea so that you can have some skills in some stuff, Also adding more skill selection would be nice, like like people have said, social skills, passive skills, range skills, melee skills, industry skills etc guile (stealth) skills.

If you want backstories, I can do it as a mod. Just request it in the mod forums.
It would be very simple. Install mod for the backstory you wanted. Wouldn't be able to bring up a menu or anything, you'd just start out with higher stats in certain things.

[Pladas]

The game isn't done enough for me to give any accurate feedback, anything I dislike, like or think needs changing probably will/won't/already in the works already. But the feedback is,

the game is awesome and broken. You're working on engine and crash fixes, so it's not big deal. But obviously character growth/stats aren't really quite working. I love the idea of being the worst swordsman in the world and slowly growing to become a powerful slayer of hundreds, and it works to some degree. But I played 2 hour and got all my stats to twenty, with the best gear the game has to offer. So slowing that progression/stretching it out more would be cool. Admittedly, with all twenties and best gear I still struggle against 3 dust bandits, which is great. It's very nice to have a game that treats increasing enemy groups as a threat. I'd love to see more done to make it harder to defend against attacks from all sides, but like I said, I understand it's still coming.

Vulturing is dumb, I mean. It's fine my character resorts to picking bodies but when leading 3 groups of bandits into an empire group then looting their dead captain (or running more groups in) leads to me instantly having the best gear, I'm worried that progression will always be a joke.

That being said, I'm really looking forward to seeing the game elements develop, grow and improve. Fighting with my own massive army, or as a lowly soldier and working my way up to the badass ranks gets me all sorts of giddy.

[HamSpanker]

Just this: "Little by little, the swordman builds his stats."
Pretty annoying to run around and life as a vulture. Starting with stats at 1 is pretty annoying. Hope the char generation gets some option for some distributions points soon! =)

No.
You shall not start out as some badass killing 5 bandits alone, it is unrealistic and ruins it all.
Think about it! You started as 1 guy, with 1 in all stats, and where are you now, 20 hours later into the game? You hopefully have a health and skilled squad and is now taking down bandits alone without being a "vulture". And you know what? YOU accomplished it. It would take away a lot of the game if you from the get go is powerful. I like it more realistic, where i slowly hone my skills, slowly climb the ladder of success and one day I am controlling a mighty factio !