Need a Better Tutorial and other basic Fixes.

[SP2244]

First off have to say the graphics are good, the overall tactical combat seem good, ability to buff your units, board size, etc. In the big picture I really respect what they are trying to do with this game and the depth (semi-implemented).

However, the name of the game is to make money, which the many failed game companies never realized, hence they made a game for the needs of say 10% of the base (hard core fans) while ignoring the needs of the other 90%, hence a game not as well received as it should have been given the effort in design. This is clearly one of those type games!! The project manager of this game has failed completely in my opinion in making a game that will appeal to the other 90%.

I am on my 2nd game since the 1st ended because ran out of gold as many keep saying is a real issue with this game. Of course that 10% Hard Core fans will say , no you just needed to go North to this key spot and move your tower , and build this unit, make this ruin, do xyz .... a recipe for success in gold. This is now how a game should play ... you should not have to go online and learn the exploits of game because the balance mechanic on gold is so poor on upkeep, instead fix it .... 90% of all 4x or games like this, might have issues with gold in beginning, but should quickly not be the focus of survival ... but in this game, without knowing the tricks and recipe you are completely screwed to fail early. You have to spend money to make money in this game (make units or upkeep for some). It is one of the worse games for gold management I have ever seen.

The tutorial needs to be improved for the 90% , I am on week 32 and still not clear how win the game, I guess you have to kill the circle mages, etc. Where in the game does it clearly list your objectives to win? Maybe I am missing it, but not seeing it.... so I go online and seems killing all the circle mages, etc. I have already been over like 90% of map, killed one circle mage (death), but not sure if I screwed up already by not killing at least 2. Then again , read the recipe online, people say kill the red mage early game because if you kill any other first, he will get stronger and be impossible later - sure loss. Again, this is poor design, I am being once again forced to follow a recipe for success vs. enjoy exploring the game and having tactical battles on my timing. And in the books of spells, etc. , what I thought was an art picture, was actually an accept button to move forward in extending rooms in tower, not always clear in this game what you are supposed to be doing next. However the shameful thing is if you screw up and wait too long on some improvements you are screwed later because the enemy is optimizing at very fast rate, some expansion are necessary to get specific spell , ruin, unit to have any change against say circle mage blue. The 10% love this, but these are the people that also seem to have plenty of time to go online and research it, so know the recipe... and since winning is more important than fun, they just do the recipe, then say I beat the game. The developers need to make a game for us who have real jobs and other responsibilities, we play games for fun, we don't have time to research online before play, or learn all our mistakes at week 32 after investing 25 hours only to find out in week 5 you should of done XYZ, so you lose, start over ..... the other 90% just quit and move on to better game. And are less likely to buy your product in future......

The movement must be improved, your avg. group of 5 or 6 is too limited in movement such take forever to move across board if have to go to a point ..... but here we go again, the 10%, oh you need this unit, this ruin makes you go faster, then develop these 3 spells when combine make your whole group go faster .... see here we go again! I used a trainer to increase my distance moved, 3x, wow , what an improvement in moving and getting things, now my miner does not take 3 turns to get to a gold pile to mine, etc. It does not help me in combat, but sure makes the game faster pace (simple fix, but doubt they will).

Then the combat against circle mages is insanely scripted of what you need to win the fight and even when in game must kill to win endgame.... you better know the recipe or dead before you start. I did my 1st every circle mage fight, I loaded up all my heroes , full stacks, I think was 6 units each, most level 2 with 1-2 3's in each stack. One by one I went in to fight, one by one he wiped the floor with my people. My goal was to use all the other stacks to kill units, so when my final attack happen I would at least have a fair fight! Well, I did win, but it killed all my units and left with just my one main character alive! How is that even close to being balanced!? (it was week 31 or so). Now I go online and find out for that mage you have to get all this type of unit and cast these 3 spells and blah blah blah ... again scripted. This game is not a tactical or strategy game , it is scripted game you win by researching online before every key fight..... find the exploit so you can say won !! I love some of these 10% who say the game is easy on HARD .... I tell you what, bet $1000, if took that person, who claims superior strategy and put them across some HS chess champion and played say 10 games, their chance of winning just 1 would be zero... so much for you are master strategist because you learned how to recipe on Hard. LOL And for the 10% who will attack me on this, I am winning like 95% of all my other combat battles and very leveled up, so hence I do understand the mechanics of the combat, else I would not be winning so much.

The good news , everything about this game can easily be improved for the 90% while keeping the game super hard for those who love recipe win solutions only !! Fix the Gold Upkeep, Movement, Better balance in combat based on what difficulty choose to play at. The 10% will *itch about this because only they can claim victory... LOL Yet this does not even impact them because they would never play at lower difficulty setting anyway. If I choose Normal than it should never take 5 stacks to kill a circle mage no matter what, maybe 3 would be max on normal. On next level down 2 stacks, easiest 50-50 chance with 1 stack of standard mix of level 2s leveled up semi high. Now that would be a more balance game that would quickly appeal to the other 90%!

The fix to this game is so easy ... and if was done before released , likely would have been much better received by the 90% ! Learn from Pathfinder, their kingdom management was a disaster in 1st game, only the 10% loved it...... they decided to listen to the 90%, fixed it, and offered one of the best dial in difficulty and game options I have ever seen - EXCELLENT !! So I rage quit the 1st few times played and then read article about how they changed it (year later).... now one of my favorite series , and the 2nd Pathfinder Kingmaker is even better !! Well except act 4, if played know what talking about ... but again excellent difficulty options, appeals to whole spectrum - can't wait to buy their next game!

[Kaysoky]

Originally posted by SP2244:

However, the name of the game is to make money, which the many failed game companies never realized, hence they made a game for the needs of say 10% of the base (hard core fans) while ignoring the needs of the other 90%, hence a game not as well received as it should have been given the effort in design. This is clearly one of those type games!! The project manager of this game has failed completely in my opinion in making a game that will appeal to the other 90%.

You probably have the numbers flipped around here. In this case, a strategy game is aimed at people that like strategy games. And in strategy games, you overcome difficulty by learning and strategizing. So by having these nifty strategies, the game is catering to the majority of the game's audience.

Originally posted by SP2244:

It is one of the worse games for gold management I have ever seen.

Have to disagree here. It is one of the more innovative approaches I have seen. There is clear intent in how they've designed the economy to force the player to move around. And this greatly affects the flow of the game in meaningful ways.

Originally posted by SP2244:

I am on my 2nd game since the 1st ended because ran out of gold

This is hardly unexpected. In my experience, I played 4 games (all less than 10 weeks) before I learned enough to actually push to victory (at 26 weeks).

Originally posted by SP2244:

The fix to this game is so easy ... and if was done before released , likely would have been much better received by the 90% !

Did you have any actual suggestions here? I saw a bunch of difficulty complaints and complaints about online braggarts, but nothing to actually change.

[sandman25dcsss]

People should play games as recommended before complaining. If you play as alchemist (first class) on explorer level (recommended by game for first playthrough), the gold issue does not exist.
If you still haven't completed tower quest at week 30, something is wrong with your desire to read or follow quests. My longest game was week 20 except one game where I intentionally avoided the win to explore everything and even then I stopped it at week 26 because I explored all map killing all units and completing all quests, there was nothing left to do at this point.

[LeftPaw]

Op is spot on with the tutorial. For a beginner it is very confusing and had me waste a lot of time trying to discover how to play the game from other means. Some of it is also incorrect leading to even more confusion.
My friendly advice for the dev's would be for them to revisit the tutorial and give it a bit more love. The tutorial is the first taste a new player will get of the game and can put many people off, meaning refunding before they get a chance to discover what a brilliant game this is.

Not only that but the story is delt out to you as if it were a secret never to be told. It starts of alright and then goes into hibernation, meaning you are doing stuff without any reason for doing said stuff. Quests seem to have nothing to do with the story and have you wondering 'why am I doing this?'
Tutorial needs to be rewritten and the story needs to flow along with the game and not play catch up.

[ARJohnGassmann]

The tutorial could be improved, yes.
When it comes to the gold economy however, I quite like what the Devs did here actually - everything is focussed on being a *wizard*. You'll never get super rich in terms of gold (exception: you are earthmaster and can thus reset mine exploitation + are lucky to find the Mentalism spellpage that lets you turn any unit into a follower -> this combo can make you super rich, but you won't have anything to actually spend the money on if every unit is a follower ^^).
You can always become super rich in terms of mana however, and you can discover plenty of ways to increase your army strength with magic instead of gold, and also convert mana into gold (the latter is also not hidden in any way but rather a standard spell that you can always research very early).
You also don't need to look up strats but can rather approach the game a little bit more like a roguelike instead of a standard 4X game - a roguelike because every run increases your knowledge about the game (city locations and most landmarks are fixed and the same in every run), so you can focus on learning as much as possible in one run, start over and apply your knowledge to become better / more efficient, and repeat until you've found a winning strategy.
This might not be to everyone's taste, sure, but I certainly like this take on the 4X genre very much (especially the strong focus on magic / mana) and I think it's more than 10% of the buyers that like it as well. I hope it stays so that gold is very limited and you need to work with your magical abilities to compensate.

[sandman25dcsss]

Becoming super rich is possible without reset mine exploration (never used the spell) and without follower either
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2945032806

[Freankh]

How can I put 2 armies together?

[State Line Crosser]

Originally posted by Freankh:

How can I put 2 armies together?

So long as you have stack size for it you just need to move them onto the other. If you are talking about sandman's picture, he is a late game necromancer there so he has max stack size.

[Freankh]

Originally posted by State Line Crosser:

Originally posted by Freankh:

How can I put 2 armies together?

So long as you have stack size for it you just need to move them onto the other. If you are talking about sandman's picture, he is a late game necromancer there so he has max stack size.

I don´t get it. Started the game yesterday, no necromancer. An army can have 4 units and one leader? But I cn only add a troup, if one field is empty. I cannot exchange troups between 2 armys, which really sucks. I also cannot have more than 4.

[Freankh]

I also don´t know, how to heal armys on the field, through resting.

[State Line Crosser]

Originally posted by Freankh:

I don´t get it. Started the game yesterday, no necromancer. An army can have 4 units and one leader? But I cn only add a troup, if one field is empty. I cannot exchange troups between 2 armys, which really sucks. I also cannot have more than 4.

Ok, so you need to know a few things. You cannot move more troops in than you have slots. If you have a hero unit in both armies they will refuse to combine (you can't have two heros in a group).

If you need to do more complex swaps you can click on the movement icon under the units card to control just that unit and have it exit the stack. It can be a little cumbersome but you will get used to it.

Stack size is related to your mastery level and your tower rooms/extensions. You will get more as you progress through the game.

Originally posted by Freankh:

I also don´t know, how to heal armys on the field, through resting.

Mortal units will heal automatically every day. You can augment this with certain upgrades and spells. Otherwise their is a basic spell, aid, to increase their healing and several others in some schools.

[SP2244]

Originally posted by sandman25dcsss:

People should play games as recommended before complaining. If you play as alchemist (first class) on explorer level (recommended by game for first playthrough), the gold issue does not exist.
If you still haven't completed tower quest at week 30, something is wrong with your desire to read or follow quests. My longest game was week 20 except one game where I intentionally avoided the win to explore everything and even then I stopped it at week 26 because I explored all map killing all units and completing all quests, there was nothing left to do at this point.

Sandman you clearly work for company or Pivot, you have been on all my various post in multiple subject , and every time you come out strong for game no matter the facts.... nice, try , buy clearly you have been exposed!

[SP2244]

Originally posted by LeftPaw:

Op is spot on with the tutorial. For a beginner it is very confusing and had me waste a lot of time trying to discover how to play the game from other means. Some of it is also incorrect leading to even more confusion.
My friendly advice for the dev's would be for them to revisit the tutorial and give it a bit more love. The tutorial is the first taste a new player will get of the game and can put many people off, meaning refunding before they get a chance to discover what a brilliant game this is.

Not only that but the story is delt out to you as if it were a secret never to be told. It starts of alright and then goes into hibernation, meaning you are doing stuff without any reason for doing said stuff. Quests seem to have nothing to do with the story and have you wondering 'why am I doing this?'
Tutorial needs to be rewritten and the story needs to flow along with the game and not play catch up.

Exactly!

[sandman25dcsss]

Originally posted by SP2244:

Originally posted by sandman25dcsss:

People should play games as recommended before complaining. If you play as alchemist (first class) on explorer level (recommended by game for first playthrough), the gold issue does not exist.
If you still haven't completed tower quest at week 30, something is wrong with your desire to read or follow quests. My longest game was week 20 except one game where I intentionally avoided the win to explore everything and even then I stopped it at week 26 because I explored all map killing all units and completing all quests, there was nothing left to do at this point.

Sandman you clearly work for company or Pivot, you have been on all my various post in multiple subject , and every time you come out strong for game no matter the facts.... nice, try , buy clearly you have been exposed!

What are you talking about? I lost my first game (I selected balanced difficulty thinking my experience with similar games would help, lol) and then spent first hundred of hours playing on explorer and story mode. Now I have 250 hours and play on impossible only, I have won all primary schools already and know enough to give basic advices. You would know the game well by this point too, if you spent time on playing the game instead of blaming me, lol

[CalvinHobbes]

Originally posted by sandman25dcsss:

Originally posted by SP2244:

Sandman you clearly work for company or Pivot, you have been on all my various post in multiple subject , and every time you come out strong for game no matter the facts.... nice, try , buy clearly you have been exposed!

What are you talking about? I lost my first game (I selected balanced difficulty thinking my experience with similar games would help, lol) and then spent first hundred of hours playing on explorer and story mode. Now I have 250 hours and play on impossible only, I have won all primary schools already and know enough to give basic advices. You would know the game well by this point too, if you spent time on playing the game instead of blaming me, lol

I feel like I would have to play 100 hours on explorer mode to understand enough of the game to possibly win it, even on that low level of difficulty. Not because the computer AI is good, it isn't, the difficulty comes from the developers not explaining their game properly in the tutorial.

[sandman25dcsss]

Originally posted by malcolmmackay224:

Originally posted by sandman25dcsss:

What are you talking about? I lost my first game (I selected balanced difficulty thinking my experience with similar games would help, lol) and then spent first hundred of hours playing on explorer and story mode. Now I have 250 hours and play on impossible only, I have won all primary schools already and know enough to give basic advices. You would know the game well by this point too, if you spent time on playing the game instead of blaming me, lol

I feel like I would have to play 100 hours on explorer mode to understand enough of the game to possibly win it, even on that low level of difficulty. Not because the computer AI is good, it isn't, the difficulty comes from the developers not explaining their game properly in the tutorial.

Tutorials are fine IMHO. I wanted to see location of cities, their rewards, spells, units. Winning the game on story mode was really easy, I autoresolved almost all battles.