Brief Feedback

[ToucanSafari]

Experience: Completed 2 veteran survival nights, and the entire campaign. Long time RTS player but not a consistent one (in recent years, the closest thing I've put hours into that could be called an RTS would be the Total War series), so I think my skillset is comparable to the average user looking to buy this game and may also represent flaws/issues others may see/want improved on.

Campaign:
Barebones, serves as a nice introduction to the world but is forgettable.
The only thing that really turned me off was the targeting issues with AI due to the amount of random walls in the game, but since the lifeblood of this game is survival mode where there are no enemy walls, I don't see a pressing need to change this.

I was disappointed that there were a few incredibly important mechanics to survival that were omitted from the campaign, like how the spawning system works (you need to include an objective where it's explicitly stated that these light sources or even people's LOS block nightmares from spawning).

Factions:
Too similar for my taste. It seems like Volatists try to break the mold a little bit, but they don't feel tremendously different. Give everyone unique units all the way around.

Order needs to lean into its tanky archetype
Rebellion needs to lean into its hit n run archetype
Volatists need to lean into its glass cannon archetype

Mechanics:

Armor: Needs to be reworked completely. Change it to something that's renewable in the field, give it a new name like 'resilience' or 'morale' or something (I can see lightbearers restoring this in the field). Nightmares have too many armor shredding monsters that make pikes/other armored units incredibly squishy making it too desirable to want to double down on ranged spam or units which eschew armor entirely.

Armor Shredding: Give it to melee units/siege engines only. Take it away from all ranged units except when garrisoned in towers and give it in spades to melee (why does an Order knight wielding a greatsword only shred 2 armor per hit compared to an arbalests 20?)

Emboldenment: Give it in an AOE around the death, OR make it a tangible resource (accumulation on death) I can spend to upgrade individual troops. Last hitting does not make sense in a game with AI controls as...fluid...as this one. It's near impossible to hit max emboldenment with sentinels because of this.

Research: flesh it out. Give each unit its own tech tree and make the choices matter (100% chance to not get horrified is a joke, so why is this even included? Same with the auto move haste on attack)
Give T1 melee order units the choice between 50% to block an attack vs 50% to double strike.
Give T1 Pikes the choice between a pinning strike (first enemy rooted to ground for 2 seconds) and an ability to garrison standard walls (giving them an active role from a supported position in defense)
Give T1 archers a poison reducing enemy damage dealt or a dot increasing damage taken.
Give order knights the choice between massive armor shred, massive resilience (any damage taken above a certain threshold gets reduced to 10%-20% of their max life, guaranteeing they last X amount of hits versus the most lethal nightmares), and an AoE armor restore in battle.

The goal here is you need to make research choices extremely different and unique. This will change strategy in how you use units instead of flat 10%/15%/25% bonuses.

Static progression: There needs to be a overarching resource that's accumulated from completing the campaign/survival nights that you can use to purchase static upgrades to every future game. Against the Storm does this well as an example.

Blessings: Please balance these. 15% construction time has never once saved me, but 25% emboldenment /every day my unit is alive/ is INCREDIBLE.

There is a lot that I hope changes in this game, as I like the foundation of it. I think it's worth it at the price point, but unfortunately it lacks a lot of replayability outside of people going for high scores.

[Cryptic]

I completely 100% agree with absolutely everything you said here.

One thing I would like to add on to this list though is the range of ranged units, specifically the ranged hero for the rebels and ballista towers. They are ridiculously low ranged and it really annoys the hell out of me.

Factions barely have any variability. They feel like clones of each other that somebody gave only minor token adjustments to to say that they were different.

Also, the co-op mode is way too rushed and there really needs to be more options for that. Give us an option in like 7 Day intervals or something if that makes the devs happy. But right now, 14 days is too little. You barely get enough iron for the final day and the match is already over. That, and it would be nice to actually build out more. Currently it feels like you are limited to such a small area in that time frame that it kind of just feels like I'm speed running missions with my buddy which is not what we want at all

[Jimmy Hunter]

Originally posted by Cryptic:

Currently it feels like you are limited to such a small area in that time frame that it kind of just feels like I'm speed running missions with my buddy which is not what we want at all

Honestly Co-op in AoD reminds me of the constant rush Co-op missions have in Starcraft II. It feels like they looked at the concept and then took the worst parts of it and said "Yep, this is fine". Just another in a long line of objectively bad choices tbh.

[Cryptic]

Originally posted by Jimmy Hunter:

Originally posted by Cryptic:

Currently it feels like you are limited to such a small area in that time frame that it kind of just feels like I'm speed running missions with my buddy which is not what we want at all

Honestly Co-op in AoD reminds me of the constant rush Co-op missions have in Starcraft II. It feels like they looked at the concept and then took the worst parts of it and said "Yep, this is fine". Just another in a long line of objectively bad choices tbh.

agreed

[Cryptic]

the 14 day max in coop needs to be increased to 20 at least. would be so much better

[Crypto Gamer]

Coop simply could be customizable more including longer days or slower crystals.

Armor shred for Arbalest is fine as they have less DPS than an Archer and cost a lot.
I think high-attack-speed pikemen have more shred per second for a much cheaper price.

Melee is much cheaper and they do not need expensive towers.

That said Sentinel could get 1 food cost.

The order could get a very slight gold cost increase and shred buffed to 4.

Triage Center can restore armor, but I would not mind a unit that can heal back armor on the field in Exchange for crap or no attacks. So a support unit.


Back then when they did armor system in 0.8 I simply suggested dmg scalars as they are much easier to balance and are used by almost every RTS game.

Some use dmg scalar % some use bonus dmg againts certain armor types. (Eg.AOE2, SC2).

Even Command and Conquer Tiberian Dawn from 1995 had dmg scalar %.

Eg. Riflemen did 25% damage to tanks, but 100% of infantry, and flame throwers did a lot of dmg % to wood buildings less to concrete armor buildings, much less to tanks.

But likely too late to change the system, and in that sense AOD has a kinda unique armor system.
AOD is MUCH more balanced than it was in 0.8 where the Rebellion veteran was like order nightmare difficulty.......


15% construction time could be buffed to 25%.

Crystal gets revealed 1 day earlier and could be buffed to 1.5 or 2 days earlier.

25% emboldened a day is strong if you get it early, on coop mode it is likely much weaker due to shorter time. Useless for the green faction.


The game could get a Tier 3 building "Academy".


Units can go inside and for a price specialize in some roles.

Buidling can unlock special tree for dark crystal cost and then each building can be upgrade to that role for a very small cost.

Eg. Soldier now has two swords, higher dps,less tanky.
Soldier now has a mace has a small shred. less dps than default better againts low armored units

Default archer can use flaming arrows once unlocked.

Archer has acid arrows that deal dot dmg including dot armor dmg. In small numbers good.

Archer has magic arrows and does no shred including in towers but magic dmg ignores armor.

Reload time increased to 3 seconds. Better againts armor, but worse againts unarmored or already shredded units.

Arbalest has a piercing crossbow and can now hit 2 units but attack speed is slower by 15% and shred is down to 20.

Grand Ballisa Giant bolt mode bolt now does 100 dmg and 100 shreds with a chance to stun but can no longer do AOE dmg.It becomes an anti-Elite, crusher, spitter defender.

Grand Below Tower: Molten lava dmg reduced to the old values with 4 fire dot but enemies burning from the tower now take 25% more shred dmg from all sources.

These are just made-up ideas done in 10 mins at 3:30. (should go to sleep....)


Also in wave defence survival games you are rushing to clear the map on higher difficulties this is the norm.
You are under time pressure to get enough eco to finish the final wave.

[ToucanSafari]

bump

[Tricking Trapster]

I'm going to give them some time to fix issues first, and add new stuff later. I do agree that each faction should be a bit more unique than it is right now. Perhaps some kind of faction buff depending on the hero? Edwin's units dealing more damage while Merek's have more armor or something. Maybe the Rebel factions have their units cost a little bit less or get more sight/attack range. Volatists could interact with horrified a bit more. Maybe have horrified do what Embolden does for other factions but it disappears during the day? Unsure. Slight variations in the basic units would be neat as well. It's a little distracting how each faction uses the exact same basic archer and the Order and Rebels use the exact same soldier. Making them more unique would also open up more defensive and offensive strategies in coop.