Issues and comments from some hours of play

[Akhorahil]

*** 1. Pausing ***

1a. The game should start paused in base!

1b. Clicking the missions button at the map table unpauses the game. This is not okay.

1c. Space Bar should pause/unpause the game - this is a standard interface in these kinds of games.

1d. New Mission or World Event should pause the game. You fast froward until it happens, then it pauses.

*** 2. Arms & Ammo ***

2a. How does the BAR weigh 3 kg?! Historical weight was 7-9 kg depending on version.

2b. Why does a 9mm Parabellum round for a Sten gum have a different weight form a 9mm Parabellum round for a Luger? It's the same round!

2c. Okay, so I realize that once again this is a gameplay issue, but it seems downright silly that you can run out of ammo for a Luger (9 mm parabellum) while you still have bunches of 9 mm Parabellum for your Sten gun. It's THE SAME ROUND! At least allow some kind of conversion between them. Same thing with the 7.92 mm of the this BAR and the Mausers.

2d. Is a beret really a "French 2 Helmet". It will also be completely useless as it has a weight but no effect. Either remove the wight to make it purely cosmetic, or add some small bonus (perhaps to morale for looking cool?)

2e. The staffing of the machine-gun seems a bit silly. While it makes sense to have two people on it, that would be as gunner and loader, not as two people running back and forth to use it!

2f. It would be a lot more useful if a magazine displayed its actual weight instead of the weight per bullet!

2g. I was moving weapons, and suddenly my BAR just disappeared from the inventory! This happens if you drag-select a new weapon, have the other hovering, and clickon teh wapons tab in the armory. It's easily reproduced every time.

2h. When equipping for combat, there's an AP track displayed (presumably to keep track of the model's AP and see how weight affects it?). But apart from teh first model, this displays completely wrong, between 0 and 2 (and I think it's actually wrong for the first as well).

2i. Weapons should automatically be reloaded between missions. Instead I have to do it manually at the Armory screen (easiest to just change rifle).

2j. Why does the Cover marker occasionally turn red? One imagines it's because there something wrong it it, but I can't see what it would be in most situations.

2k. So far, heavy weapons have been absolute garbage for me, barely able to hit anything even with att Heavy Gunner upgrades and all points dumped into Dex. Meanwhile, the Sniper tears everything apart! The balance seems highly questionable. Perhaps teh problem is the lack of a Suppression mechanic that the BAR and Bren could be better at? But I can't use them for anything as is - just giving the heavies rifles for now.

*** 3. Combat ***

3a. Weapons have *ridiculously* short range. You should have a chance at hitting someone with a mauser at 300 m, not be out of range at 21! I realize this is a gameplay consideration, but seriously! Work with accuracy instead if you want to limit ranges for weapons that should go hundreds of meters.

3b. It kills the game for me that everyone is so resilient to damage. Getting shot _once_ is usually really bad - it breaks my suspension of disbelief that you have to pump three to five rounds into a soldier before he goes down. These are unarmored humans, not X-Com critters! Similarly, easy in-combat healing is silly - first aid kits make sense as a way to keep injured people from getting _worse_, not as insta-healing! Even stepping on a mine is merely very unpleasant!

Partisan warfare should be dangerous and unpleasant. It should not be about putting round after round into a German until he finally topples over.

One thing that would help is if perhaps you differentiated between proper hits (doing harsh damage) and grazing hits/splinters. That way, cover could also be made better (increasing the chance of grazes).

3c. The game should probably either distinguish between soft and hard cover, or have destructible cover. Trees are _not_ the optimal cover.

3d. It's kinda weird that mines trigger on exiting a square, not entering it. I tried to mine an obvious spot, but the enemy just walked in there and continued to fight freely from the position!

3e. I'm assuming this is in the dev pipeline, but Hunker should have a visible effect, such as actually hunkering.

3f. The game would really benefit from a Suppression mechanic. After all, that's the primary use of an MG, and absolutely basic infantry tactic - suppress and advance or suppress and flank.

3g. I'm not sure how I plant a mine in secret on top of a bridge? They should probably not be available for AP mines.

3h Not sure, but there seems to be something wrong with Overwatch. It sometimes doesn't trigger on enemies I can definitely see - tehy can run up, shoot, and run back without getting attacked. (I really like that you can get two overwatch shots in if you have the AP, though!). This creates the weird situation where I can't do anything to stop that soldier from popping out and shooting me. One time, a German even walked up and shot at me while I had Overwatch but didn't firewd!

3i. A mix of possible injuries would be cool!

3j. Using the MG gives you no XP? That feels strange.

3k. When loading teh game in covert mode, the indicators for enemy spotting disappear

3l. Please remember what speed I set forthe enemy between turnsinstead of defaulting to slowest every time.

3m. Please allow melee on the diagonal. It's _impossible_ to get a sneak kill if an enemy is facing in a diagonal direction, because there simply is no yellow square adjacent!

3n. Please don't reset squad selection every time I exit the screen. Save and use the last squad selection instead.

3o. When two patrollers move together, they sometimes walk into each other. This usually sorts itself out after 5-60 seconds of bumping, but looks ridiculous.

3rp "Enemy body has been found" flashes forever when it happens and the enemy turn never ends. I had to force-quit the game (seriously, allow using Esc when the enemy turn is ongoing, because they seem to have multiple ways of getting stuck).

*** 4. Base ***

4a. It would make more sense if you couldn't insta-build building and building upgrades and they imnstead went into a production queue, with speed affected by how many projects you have at once.

4b. I'm trying to build a Shooting Range, but building it is greyed out even though I have the resources and presumably the correct spot. No idea why.

4c. Same thing with a Hospital

4d. The Building Management button in the Barracks randomly disappeared for me. Loading the game fixed that.

4e. In the Armory, the regular spot says I have heating active, but when I look at armorer, it's always crossed out.

*** 5. Language ***

5a. It keeps bugging me that you call an individual partisan a "Unit". A unit is by definition a group, not a single dude!

[Akhorahil]

I realize it's a balance issue, but it feels like a sick joke when I cut down hordes of heavily armed Germans and walk around in storage and ammo dumbs, or sacks and sacks of what is presumably meal, but can't loot *anything* from them, not one damned thing.

Also, shouldn't I be able to gather at least wood and gravel from about my camp? I'm experiencing a serious gravel shortage. :-)

EDIT: just found someone to loot... is there a way to see this?

[Akhorahil]

Sometimes, doors make noises even with all sound turned off using Master Volume.

[Akhorahil]

I don't understand why I can sometimes make a knife takedown and sometimes it instread becomes a non-fatal melee bash that then triggers the alarm. I just took down one with a knife, then tried to take down the next one (knife-armed here as well) with a second, but that just became a bash. I reloaded and used the troopers in teh opposite order, but once again only got a takedown with the first.

Am I limited to one takedown per turn in total, or what's the trick here? EDIT: Not sure why, but it worked after I saved and loaded between stabs. This is either a bug with the regular attempt or in saving, I think.

EDIT: I have no idea what's going on, but I walked up to the back of the enemy, got the "fist" symol, moved a step back and then forwards again, and now I got the knife symbol for a takedown. Not a clue what's happening.

[Akhorahil]

Saving and loading clears out any bodies. Since bodies can be both detected (bad) and occasionally looted (good), this is a problem.

[Centurion Developments]

Thanks a lof for your feedback. We have made some notes here. Just a quick answers for some of the points. You cant build some of the buildings because its locked for the demo. And there should be a text saying not available in the demo. As for the melee fight. If you have a knife, you are using it automatically. Because its much better than attack with back of your gun. So maybe thats why you cant attack with a knife. Because you dont have it. Please check it. If you have the knife and cant use it anyway, please let us know. And you can see lootable stuff with pressing left ALT. Hopefully these quick answers help. Thanks again for your feedback.

[Akhorahil]

Originally posted by Centurion Developments:

Thanks a lof for your feedback. We have made some notes here. Just a quick answers for some of the points. You cant build some of the buildings because its locked for the demo. And there should be a text saying not available in the demo. As for the melee fight. If you have a knife, you are using it automatically. Because its much better than attack with back of your gun. So maybe thats why you cant attack with a knife. Because you dont have it. Please check it. If you have the knife and cant use it anyway, please let us know. And you can see lootable stuff with pressing left ALT. Hopefully these quick answers help. Thanks again for your feedback.

I do have a knife - but it seems that it only sometimes is active in some way, and sometimes the Fist symbol is generated instead.

[Centurion Developments]

Hmm thats really strange. We must take a look deeper into this.

[Akhorahil]

Originally posted by Centurion Developments:

Hmm thats really strange. We must take a look deeper into this.

I tried to find various ways around it, and even managed two takedowns a couple of times, but I couldn't make sense of how.

Note that this specifically happened when I tried to take down two opponents in quick sequence.

(Stealth killing is _super_ hard in this game, and tricky even when save-scumming. Lots of action points and emerging hidden from a building once the enemy has walked past are both very useful. It's far, FAR harder to take down a two-man patrol as they will often cover each others' dead sight angles.)

[Akhorahil]

Originally posted by Akhorahil:

Sometimes, doors make noises even with all sound turned off using Master Volume.

Also, you get soft ambient sounds like birdsong even when all the sound settings have been pulled down to nothing.

[Akhorahil]

Can guards hear troops sneaking about in their yellow area? I had one guard who stood still in a position with his back covered by a truck for 10+ turns, until I grew tired of it and tried to sneak up a Commando with a throwing dagger. The next turn, the guard turned around and shot me. Is this correct behaviour (it wants to check the yellow area if something's happened there) or the game cheating? EDIT: This doesn't seem to happen all of the time, at least.

Oh, and got the "Body Found" infinite loop again - you MUST fix this, it hangs the game completely. Not sure if it happens 100% of the time, but it has for me. EDIT: it even creates absurdly long (possibly infinite?) loading times when trying to load the Autosave, making it even worse.

[Akhorahil]

Have you considered making diagonal movement cost 3AP per square instead of 2? This is a lot closer to actual distances (1.41).

[Akhorahil]

On occassion (so far it has involved bodies and sneaking), loading times when loading the game become extremely long (might eventually resolve, I'm not waiting around after five minutes). This is a _massive_ problem.

[Centurion Developments]

Originally posted by Akhorahil:

Can guards hear troops sneaking about in their yellow area? I had one guard who stood still in a position with his back covered by a truck for 10+ turns, until I grew tired of it and tried to sneak up a Commando with a throwing dagger. The next turn, the guard turned around and shot me. Is this correct behaviour (it wants to check the yellow area if something's happened there) or the game cheating? EDIT: This doesn't seem to happen all of the time, at least.

Oh, and got the "Body Found" infinite loop again - you MUST fix this, it hangs the game completely. Not sure if it happens 100% of the time, but it has for me. EDIT: it even creates absurdly long (possibly infinite?) loading times when trying to load the Autosave, making it even worse.

When exactly happens this body found infinite loop? We must check this out.

[Akhorahil]

Originally posted by Centurion Developments:

When exactly happens this body found infinite loop? We must check this out.

It triggers on a body being found. Then you get an unending sequence of "body found", "unit detected", "lost sight of enemy unit" and so on, that never resolves (or perhaps it does after 15 minutes, didn't wait that long.

I've had it both times bodies have been found so far, so it doesn't seem hard to get. Both times in the SS assassination mission, which does seem far less stable than the others for whatever reason.

[Akhorahil]

The sneaking game could be made interesting if patrols moved less randomly, so that you could find a pattern. Right now, it's super difficult as they will turn around at any random moment and you need a lot of walls and covers to keep from being detected. It's essentially impossible without save-scumming.