My Detailed Feedback/Analysis (for now)

[Katzenhaft]

Alright so I just sent this feedback to the devs via the ingame option and I thought I should post it here aswell to spark some (hopefully helpful and civilized^^) discussion. Let me know what you think of the arguments below and what else you think could be done better and/or what could be added to the game for a better experience. x)

"First off, I'm a huge fan of They Are Billions and have spent hundreds of hours in that game. I think it's fair and balanced so here is what I think Age of Darkness needs:

1. Improved Farms should produce more food. One farm only generates enough food for two stone houses. It's way too low!

2. We need more room. Even when playing greedily, I always struggle to find enough room for houses and farms.

3. More means of defending our colony. All units become meaningless in the final wave because Crushers will oneshot all of them. The flame towers are only useful against small close-range enemies and stone walls barely last more than a couple seconds against crushers. The improved ballistas are the only things that really matter, and that sucks. We need more special units and buildings for defense. A REAL tank unit for example, that can withstand the attack of a crusher for at least more than 0.5 seconds. A heavy hitter capable of dealing more damage such as a gigantic catapult that can be manned, a huge and pwerfull melee unit or some kind of "armor breaker", and maybe some kind of super-tower that has alot of health and armor and can house alot more archers than just four (I'm thinking of up to 20). Perhaps some sort of... smaller keep. A mini-fortress you can build anywhere for alot of ressources.

4. Aelis seems rather underpowered compared to Edwin. While he is basically a walking nuke, killing entire hordes on his own, Aelis' special ability is... having 5 dudes for free. Her ultimate ability doesn't feel like it makes a difference and she has no other means of bringing anything to a fight except those 5 dudes. Meanwhile, Edwin is out there killing dozens of enemies (including stronger ones) in a single blow. I love Aelis and the rebellion and I'd love for her to be more useful.

That's all I can think of for now. Like I said I've played hundreds of hours of They Are Billions and really love that game. I'd say I'm fairly good at it and I think Age of Darkness could become just as good, if not better! Yet, I struggle to win a single game even on easy difficulty. Obviously I need to get better myself, but I still think the things I listed above are a major factor in why me and so many other experienced players are struggling to get a victory in this game. The new "armor" mechanic is fine if you ask me. It adds more challenge to the game. However: if the enemies, especially Crushers, are receiving such a huge, overpowered buff... then we also need something to counter it and make up for the incredible increase in difficulty. Like I mentioned: specialized units & buildings capable of handling an enemy with this much health and armor that also regenerates it's health back within seconds if not attacked constantly, and can also crush walls, towers and every currently existing unit within a matter of seconds.

I hope this wasn't too long and that someone's gonna take the time to read the detailed feedback of a fan of Age of Darkness and an experienced "survival RTS" gamer. x) Have a good day! <3"

[chancepaladin]

Publicado originalmente por Firestorm:

Publicado originalmente por Katzenhaft:

Well I just got to my first "final stand". I thought the last wave was already a tough one with those stupid 1.350 armor Crushers...

Final Stand always gets new people. You think you're doing good and then the game just goes "Surprise!" and crushes you.

Turns out you have to be doing better than you were to pass 5th wave because you need to start your Final Stand defenses before the 5th wave.

Unit pathfinding isn't great either, no.

Edwin is unplayable right now due to pathfinding. He stands there no matter what I do every engagement, even if I'm solely trying to navigate him around. He freezes up while the fights happen like he's locked up every-other-fight.

[Katzenhaft]

Publicado originalmente por chancepaladin:

Publicado originalmente por Firestorm:

Final Stand always gets new people. You think you're doing good and then the game just goes "Surprise!" and crushes you.

Turns out you have to be doing better than you were to pass 5th wave because you need to start your Final Stand defenses before the 5th wave.

Unit pathfinding isn't great either, no.

Edwin is unplayable right now due to pathfinding. He stands there no matter what I do every engagement, even if I'm solely trying to navigate him around. He freezes up while the fights happen like he's locked up every-other-fight.

I know that bug and already reported it. He freezes every time you use Crackfire. To unfreeze him, select only Edwin without any other units and right-click anywhere to make him move. That should do the trick.

[Clintus2]

Publicado originalmente por Katzenhaft:

The struggle for ressources, especially gold, is real. Right now I'm playing a map where I do feel comfortable about killing Crushers... but due to the unreliable gold income, I'm 100% sure I'll lose this one aswell. I'm spamming Catapults, Arbalests and Sentinels in hopes of engaging Crushers immediately and mowing them down and then move on to the next hot spot. Walls & flame towers will reliably handle the rest for me. But with 1 catapult costing way over 2k gold + ressources... and walls being just as expensive... I don't see myself building up enough defenses for the final wave unless their pathing is so weird that they end up attacking only the strongest choke-points. It would all be fine if Crushers weren't THIS strong... Armor shred feels very unreliable if you ask me. I've been watching armored enemies being attacked by my catapults and arbalests and sometimes it takes quite some time before the armor actually gets broken.

In it's current state, Age of Darkness is waaaaaaay harder than They Are Billions but not due to the general difficulty... but rather due to absolutely unbalanced economy. Not enough gold, not enough food, no T3 units/buildings... they made this game hard as it should be but forgot to give us the necessary tools to handle the situation.

In TAB, you expand your territory to strengthen your economy at the risk of being overrun more easily because you have to spread your defenses more widely. In AOD, you expand your territory to strengthen your economy but you won't actually get much from it... a patch of gold that can be mined for 300 gold with an improved quarry? Doesn't help much at all.

I also hope that we'll get some sort of motivation for beating the game over and over again. Part of the fun playing TAB was unlocking a totally new map. It looked different, played differently and had special rules that made some aspects harder and some easier. It was a nice goal to work towards to. Then came the achievements and after I beat every map several times, I went for those. Like beating a map with nothing but archers, or beating a map without building any new units. I like AOD and I think it has the potential to easily be as good as TAB, but it has a long way to go until it's there... starting with bug-fixing, the lack of food and gold, the lack of T3 units, buildings and better upgrade paths... and then new content. Unlockables, achievements... something to reward us for pushing our RTS-skills to the limits. x)

100% agree, well worded and completely correct. its the reason ive stopped playing and I really don't want to :-(

[RoaR]

make farms shape honeycomb and not circles, you will always waste space with circles.

[Crypto Gamer]

My feedback after 10 hours of 0.8 played on veteran.

I did not have any units or Edwin who gets stuck,might be my luck.Make sure to do not continue from a 0.71 save as it will have many bugs.

Nightmares getting"glitched frames"happens to me at almost every night likely happens to roaming nightmares only as they switch between roaming and attacking state and looks weird and buggy.

Problem is gold resource(gold veins)map generation which is still insane RNG.
Fully cleared map veteran with Vizargo found 2 gold veins,a small and medium.Slightly below 3k income before DN 5.(which killed my defences which previously was enough for horrific and likely even nightmare,due to armored crushers crushing them).

Fully cleared map on veteran with edwin+ units have+2 additional gold income malice,found 10 ish medium and large gold veins 13k+gold income and I can still build a few houses.With better treasury and house placement could have reached around 15k income.
Due to map RNG there is more than 10k+gold income difference,and Edwin obviusoly also has a bigger army,also found more stone as Edwin,Both fully map cleared on veteran.

More than 4 times the difference in goldincome due to map generational RNG-severly affecting game difficulty and fairness+balance factor.

In TAB or AOE 2 DE resource map RNG was/is 10000x more balanced.

So they rebalanced armor and health meaning,most players units have LESS health and armor,most nightmares like spitters bursters have MORE hp and now have huge armor too.
Almost every player unit got nerfed in someway,while almost every nightmare got buffed.

So currently normal 0.8 is about horrific on 0.71.

Good things about 0.8:(for me).

Pikeman is good and actually now useful,few units added,human collison is much better.
Armor makes singular units no longer viable(eg mass archer only. or mass soldier only for map clear.So mix of units now needed,still currently it is unbalanced due to many bugs especially target prioritiy.

Burning walls are actually useful.All static defences are much more useful due to their flames or shred support mixed with units.Triage center is much more useful and I used it a few times.

Hunter,implaer is still cost ineffective.

I like increased nightmare aggro and night raids but they are way too overtuned,they need a slight nerf which will still be much stronger than in 0.71

Overall I hope 0.81 will do some balance changes.

[Crypto Gamer]

Publicado originalmente por RoaR:

make farms shape honeycomb and not circles, you will always waste space with circles.

+1

[VYM]

ROFLing@positive comments :D
0.8 is total ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ billshit with this new armor stuff. ONE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Crusher ♥♥♥♥♥♥ all my defense ALONE! And it was 8 great ballistas and 4 layers of top walls around each of 4 of them.
Not even saying about bulletproof Spitters with 50 armor and 400hp.
Developers are definitely ♥♥♥♥♥♥ in the head. No offense but it's truth.

[Katzenhaft]

I just scored my very first victory!!! ♥ All I can say is: catapults are amazing. x) I would've lost if it weren't for them. To be fair though, countless stone towers filled with arbalests also works extremely well. I should be able to pull it off without catapults aswell. Gonna try that with Aelis next. Go crazy on those towers and hunters... I'm happy now. x) It's still a mess with the economy, especially if you end up on a map that has next to no gold ores to harvest. But now I'm really motivated. All we now need is some gameplay tweaks, bug fixing and more content... and you've got yourself a worthy rival to They Are Billions. x)

[VYM]

Publicado originalmente por Katzenhaft:

I just scored my very first victory!!! ♥ All I can say is: catapults are amazing. x) I would've lost if it weren't for them. To be fair though, countless stone towers filled with arbalests also works extremely well. I should be able to pull it off without catapults aswell. Gonna try that with Aelis next. Go crazy on those towers and hunters... I'm happy now. x) It's still a mess with the economy, especially if you end up on a map that has next to no gold ores to harvest. But now I'm really motivated. All we now need is some gameplay tweaks, bug fixing and more content... and you've got yourself a worthy rival to They Are Billions. x)

OMG, sir, you are amazing!!! /sarcasm off
Next time try without cheats :D
Now please tell us how many houses you had, how many catapults you built and how many arbalests you spawned, because I don't believe a single word, because it ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
Why? Because 1 Crusher with new armor system literally ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up all base. And in final wave there are 20 of them, plus new Spitters with same ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of armor.
I just almost finished ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ EASY difficulty with 6 Crushers and dozen of Spitters left. Lost 6x4 great ballistas, dozen of catapults and impalers. I filled literally half of map with farms and houses.
Anyway:
- farms ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up
- warehouses ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up
- economy ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up
- armor system ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up
Bottom line - unplayable piece of ♥♥♥♥.
Cheers.

[Isalon]

If I have learned anything over the last several big patches, it's that the Devs don't actually care to make the game fun. They make it hard, just to punish the player. They make it hard for "difficulty" sake. There is no balance, there is only "How can we rob the player while making them smile and thank us for it?".
Unfortunately a lot of people choose to smile and say thank you.
The game had promise when it first released for early access, but the Devs have totally and completely lost sight of what's important: "Is the game fun?". The answer for those of us who were watching what they released and what they balanced is "no".
Before anyone lynches me for this, do your comment research. Many people believe the same as I do.
Or lynch me for it, I don't really care. I'm posting the comment and unsubscribing from the discussion :-) My only regret is the devs conned me into buying the game. I never should have done that. It held such promise.
Best of luck, everyone.

[Katzenhaft]

Publicado originalmente por vym:

Publicado originalmente por Katzenhaft:

I just scored my very first victory!!! ♥ All I can say is: catapults are amazing. x) I would've lost if it weren't for them. To be fair though, countless stone towers filled with arbalests also works extremely well. I should be able to pull it off without catapults aswell. Gonna try that with Aelis next. Go crazy on those towers and hunters... I'm happy now. x) It's still a mess with the economy, especially if you end up on a map that has next to no gold ores to harvest. But now I'm really motivated. All we now need is some gameplay tweaks, bug fixing and more content... and you've got yourself a worthy rival to They Are Billions. x)

OMG, sir, you are amazing!!! /sarcasm off
Next time try without cheats :D
Now please tell us how many houses you had, how many catapults you built and how many arbalests you spawned, because I don't believe a single word, because it ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
Why? Because 1 Crusher with new armor system literally ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up all base. And in final wave there are 20 of them, plus new Spitters with same ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of armor.
I just almost finished ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ EASY difficulty with 6 Crushers and dozen of Spitters left. Lost 6x4 great ballistas, dozen of catapults and impalers. I filled literally half of map with farms and houses.
Anyway:
- farms ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up
- warehouses ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up
- economy ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up
- armor system ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up
Bottom line - unplayable piece of ♥♥♥♥.
Cheers.

Well let's see... around 700 population... 20-30 catapults spread across the choke points... and around 50-60 arbalests spread across those same choke points aswell... there was a max of 4 catapults + 12 arbalests per line of defense, all set to target the strongest enemies. I had like 4 warehouses and my gold income was around 3700. Not that good at all compared to some other players here such as Crypto Gamer, who I believe has a screenshot where he was 20.000+ gold and 10.000+ gold income. ;o It's a matter of micro management + knowing where they'll attack the most. I sold half my defenses in places where nothing was attacking so I can reinforce the important points.

It's the same story as with TAB. Nothing against your complaints, this game DOES need a crap ton of fixes for almost every aspect of the game in order to become a "good game", but at the same time people tend to complain way more than they should. You're playing a hardcore game, so act like it. People complain about TAB's difficulty to this day and how unbalanced it is, when it is very well balanced and beatable in every way imaginable. Age of Darkness is neither unfair nor impossible. It just requires alot of attention and focus. Imagine if enemies would infect your population like they do in TAB... AOD is actually quite easy compared to that. The only thing that keeps you from winning is the final stand itself and all you gotta do is prepare for that as best as you can under the RNG circumstances of the map generator. Expanding your colony is 10 times easier in this game than it is in TAB and you also get a free Warcraft 3 style hero to clear the map... sure economy sucks but hey, at least everything else is much, much easier.

Bottom line: the game is neither impossible nor unbeatable. Just badly balanced. You have to adapt and then it will work out. ;) With enugh micro- and macro management and a general idea of whats important, you'll be fine.

[Katzenhaft]

Publicado originalmente por Isalon:

If I have learned anything over the last several big patches, it's that the Devs don't actually care to make the game fun. They make it hard, just to punish the player. They make it hard for "difficulty" sake. There is no balance, there is only "How can we rob the player while making them smile and thank us for it?".
Unfortunately a lot of people choose to smile and say thank you.
The game had promise when it first released for early access, but the Devs have totally and completely lost sight of what's important: "Is the game fun?". The answer for those of us who were watching what they released and what they balanced is "no".
Before anyone lynches me for this, do your comment research. Many people believe the same as I do.
Or lynch me for it, I don't really care. I'm posting the comment and unsubscribing from the discussion :-) My only regret is the devs conned me into buying the game. I never should have done that. It held such promise.
Best of luck, everyone.

I don't care if you're gonna read this or not. But you're invested enough into this game to make such posts after all so you most likely will. :p

It's easy to blame the devs for everything these days. Everyone feels entitled and privileged because they have a voice they can cry with on the internet, especially social media. Problem is, you're a customer. Not some kind of VIP super star guest in a hotel. You bought a game that's meant to be hard as hell and you should expect said game to be hard as hell. Is it balanced? Hell no. TAB is way more optimized and far, far easier. Is it bug-free? Oh god no! There are so many bugs at this point... you might aswell call this game Starship Troopers if you catch my cold. Is this game polished? Not nearly enough. No voice lines for units/buildings being under attack offscreen, the minimap is completely pointless unless you expand it, death nights cause an awkward, unskippable "cutscene" that annoys the hell out of me every time because it makes me sit there and watch a damn crystal pop off for the 10.765.229th time, and there is literally NO music for the last stand! After the last death night, everything goes silent. Part of what made TAB so rememberable was it's music. That epic title theme, the intense swam theme and the apocalyptic final wave theme... AOD instead decides to go completely silent and it bugs me alot. There is no atmosphere. It doesn't FEEL like this is your last stand, it feels like someone just forgot to put the music file into the game and decided to not tell anyone about it. xD

Anyway, we're not smiling submisisvely and masochistically while saying "thank you". We're just (insert giga chad meme here) average survival RTS enjoyers that fell in love with They Are Billions are yearning for more games like it. I bought this game because I WANTED it to be difficult. I wanted that feeling again of having a "final boss game" that I lost after getting better and better at TAB. I wanted to feel like "omg how am I supposed to win this?!" again to get that incredibly satisfying feeling again when I finally make progress and start scoring more victories. x) I went crazy (emotionally) after I finally won my first survival map in TAB after 54 hours. It felt so good! And I had almost the same feeling yesterday when I won my first survival map in Age of Darkness after 36 hours. But that doesn't mean that the player base is happy with the current state of the game. Hell I could spend hours on a list of things that need to be fixed and more hours on a list of things that SHOULD be added to the game. But I'm not an entitled brat and I don't think that game developers should kneel down before my wallet and do whatever I tell them to just so they can cater their games to my specific tastes. I'm a customer amongst thousands and all I can realistically hope for is for my feedback to be heard and considered. I'll play this game anyway because I'm a sucker for RTS in general and even more so when it adds a survival element to the game without going the easy PvP route and instead putting it's focus on PvE singleplayer action.

I, like many others in this forum, just hope that AOD will receive it's much needed improvements in form of fixes, patches and content updates. I wanna see this game become better just like I saw TAB get better and better over time after buying it in early access. People complained about TAB's devs aswell and they still do to this day... but no matter what you think of them, they still put out a great game and I hope it will be the same story for Age of Darkness. x)

[Dan]

Crushers stacking on your walls and power fisting them into next century. RIP

[Katzenhaft]

Publicado originalmente por TFK Dan:

Crushers stacking on your walls and power fisting them into next century. RIP

Siege weapons with +AOE and stun upgrade aswell as lots of towers filled with hunters/arbalests and you're good. Focus fire on the crushers with those and let ballistas and flame towers deal with the masses.

[VYM]

Publicado originalmente por Katzenhaft:

Publicado originalmente por vym:

OMG, sir, you are amazing!!! /sarcasm off
Next time try without cheats :D
Now please tell us how many houses you had, how many catapults you built and how many arbalests you spawned, because I don't believe a single word, because it ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
Why? Because 1 Crusher with new armor system literally ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up all base. And in final wave there are 20 of them, plus new Spitters with same ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of armor.
I just almost finished ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ EASY difficulty with 6 Crushers and dozen of Spitters left. Lost 6x4 great ballistas, dozen of catapults and impalers. I filled literally half of map with farms and houses.
Anyway:
- farms ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up
- warehouses ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up
- economy ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up
- armor system ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up
Bottom line - unplayable piece of ♥♥♥♥.
Cheers.

Well let's see... around 700 population... 20-30 catapults spread across the choke points... and around 50-60 arbalests spread across those same choke points aswell... there was a max of 4 catapults + 12 arbalests per line of defense, all set to target the strongest enemies. I had like 4 warehouses and my gold income was around 3700. Not that good at all compared to some other players here such as Crypto Gamer, who I believe has a screenshot where he was 20.000+ gold and 10.000+ gold income. ;o It's a matter of micro management + knowing where they'll attack the most. I sold half my defenses in places where nothing was attacking so I can reinforce the important points.

It's the same story as with TAB. Nothing against your complaints, this game DOES need a crap ton of fixes for almost every aspect of the game in order to become a "good game", but at the same time people tend to complain way more than they should. You're playing a hardcore game, so act like it. People complain about TAB's difficulty to this day and how unbalanced it is, when it is very well balanced and beatable in every way imaginable. Age of Darkness is neither unfair nor impossible. It just requires alot of attention and focus. Imagine if enemies would infect your population like they do in TAB... AOD is actually quite easy compared to that. The only thing that keeps you from winning is the final stand itself and all you gotta do is prepare for that as best as you can under the RNG circumstances of the map generator. Expanding your colony is 10 times easier in this game than it is in TAB and you also get a free Warcraft 3 style hero to clear the map... sure economy sucks but hey, at least everything else is much, much easier.

Bottom line: the game is neither impossible nor unbeatable. Just badly balanced. You have to adapt and then it will work out. ;) With enugh micro- and macro management and a general idea of whats important, you'll be fine.

No offense, I don't believe a single word about your victory and here is why:
- if you are very lucky with base location you will get 3 directions final wave. If not - 4-5 directions
- your "20-30 catapults and 50-60 arbalests or 4 catapults + 12 arbalests per line of defense" (your words) is absolutely nothing. At least in game I AM playing now. My 8 great ballistas, 6 catapults and 40 archers(10 towersx4 archer inside of each) with top upgrades (stun for catapults and fire for archers) were ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ steam rolled by 2 Crushers with almost full health bars
- but! if you are playing 0.7 then it pretty sure a victory. But still no if your defense lines are without great ballistas.
Anyway is just my experience. No offense.