Demo Feedback [Campaign]

[Chris]

This is pretty great! The artwork is especially stunning, perhaps the best I've ever seen in a turn-based game. I'm super-hyped in general to see someone make an actually good auto-battler at last.

A few comments—there are quite a few but it's because I really think the game is great and just needs some tweaks. Btw there were more questions where I asked about something then rooted around the UI a bit and found the answer!

1. I would have liked at least an intermediate level of zoom between close-up and far-out. If you can't do full linear zooming then a single mid-range zoom would be nice.

2. There is a LOT of lag after major actions such as battles that is a bit disconcerting at first.

3. I would like a dedicated re-organisation phase before each battle. It's too easy to forget to look at the enemy before I attack them: I want to attack them and be immediately taken to a positioning window (a bit like HoMM or Total War).

4. A health bar showing the health of the unit as a whole would be more useful than seeing health bars for individual entities within the unit. Also an indicator of how long it will take the unit to heal to full-strength.

5. For the tutorial, I feel that you shouldn't give me building cards until you've explained fully how I use them. It's fine to not explain it immediately, but just don't give me the cards either. Seeing the complexity available but not knowing what it means is the worst of both worlds.

6. Is there a key that can be consistently pressed to exit sub-windows such as the army planner? Esc just brings up the menu.

7. We can right-click units on the board to see their stats, but we can't do this for unit cards we are considering recruiting. It's at least as important to see the stats for recruitable units!

8. It would be useful to be able to cycle through locations (e.g. using Tab). Indeed, a full-blown screen showing a list and details of all cities would be a huge QoL improvement.

9. When I promote Hearthsworn to Honor Guard, it superimposes the graphic of Honor Guard entities onto the graphic of the Hearthsworn entities until I click out and back in to the army again.

10. We should be able to even out units of the same type so that they regain health evenly.

11. The option to see a faint grid outline on the army planner (and maybe even the battle map) would be nice.

12. It seems that when I ambush an enemy their units are in random disarray. This is fine in its way but I like to know where the enemy is going to be so that I can place my units accordingly.

13. Total War has an excellent feature in battles where friendly units have a small but bright gold marker underneath them and enemy units have a small but bright red marker underneath them. This makes it possible to identify groups of friendlies and enemies at a glance for using abilities. Given abilities like the main character's meteor attack, this feels like a pretty essential addition to this game.

14. The map doesn't make moving around it very clear with the forced straight lines and the lack of delineation of where boundaries are.

15. A trading mechanic, to swap between Gold, Building Material, and Divine Favor (at a small loss ofc) would be very useful. You could even theme them, like Gold to Divine Favor could be about donating money to the church.

16. Often when I start a battle the text of the cards doesn't appear until after I play one.

17. We should be able to play Build Up and other such cards from inside the city screen (army planner).

That's it for now! I've had to forcibly stop myself from playing to go get a very late lunch which I think is a good sign lol

[The_Jackal112]

Hey just wanted to add - that being able to pause with Space bar would be ideal

[The_Jackal112]

Also just encased I missed it - I could see where to see your current objectives

[The_Jackal112]

In agreement with the OP - 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 14 - fully agree with these great points listed above

[Skybreaker]

Hi there and thank you so much for your huge feedback.

1. Noted, let's see what might be possible.
2. Noted and we're investigating. However, most likely something for the final version of the game, not for the demo.
3. Has been brought up already, totally understandable, but first we have to check out, how this could be done in the game, without breaking anything.
4. Transparency when it comes to healing in general is on the list I've forwarded already, as this topic also came up quite often.
5. Please be assured that we will have a fully-fledged tutorial in the fully released game. The current tutorial will not be the final tutorial. ;)
6. Escape-button function and hotkeys have also been brought up and looked into.
7.+8. In general more insights for the players and QoLs to easier manage your kingdom. Also already noted to be forwarded :)
9. That's new, haven't seen this being reported so far. Is this always happening, or randomly? Do you have a screenshot to share, how this looks like? Thank you in advance.
10. Could you please share more details on that, as I am unsure, if I fully understand, what you mean by that. Thank you.
11. Could you also share some more details on that, what you exactly would like to see and how this might help the player in any kind of way? Thank you.
12. You can inspect opposing armies before you attack them, this will give you a clue, what you are up against.
13. So more visual additions, to separate friendly and opposing armies. Noted.
14. Not quite sure, what you mean by that. - Like, moving around similar to where armies could move or couldn't move?
15. Interesting, but could also impact balancing. But be assured in general and from all the feedback we have received and will receive during the demo, balancing is something we definitely dive into until full release.
16. This is also new to me, nevertheless noted.
17. Not quite sure, if and how this might work out, without confusing, but surely noted.

Thank you for your in-depth and huge feedback, really helpful. Please keep it up, have fun and enjoy.

@The_Jackal112
- Spacebar has been mentioned, as it is a classic in strategy games in general, already noted.
- Objectives are either listed on the right-side of the screen "e.g. "meet with hauser", as well as by the phoenix flying around, above the fog of war or certain areas. He is the waypoint where to head on the map.

Keep it up.

-cheers

[Chris]

I can't use Steam to share screenshots. I have joined your Discord and will post a thread in the ?-ask-the-team channel.

[Chris]

Hm apparently I can't use that channel to post screenshots either, only text. I'm at a bit of a loss: you're going to have to tell me where I can send you the screenshots you want!

EDIT: Never mind, I am uploading to imgbb and you can click the links.

[Skybreaker]

Hi there, sure thing, but why can't you share screenshots here on steam?
I'm happy to help you with that as well, if you like :)

-cheers

[Chris]

More detailed responses with screenshots.

9. Bestow Knighthood Visual Bug

• Here is my army before I play Bestow Knighthood: https://ibb.co/pR7FP9N
  
• Here is my army after I play Bestow Knighthood: https://ibb.co/2FXcMG3
  
• Here is the unit's appearance in isolation: https://ibb.co/X45tfLj

This happens every time I play Bestow Knighthood, without exception.

10. Ability to even out units
Imagine I have two units of Hearthsworn. Unit One has taken no damage and so has all 16 combatants remaining. Unit Two has taken 50% damage and so has only 8 combatants remaining. If the units repair at 10% per turn, it will take me 5 turns (50%/10%) to repair my army.
What I want to do is be able to even out the two units so that both have 12 combatants in. That is, when I click this mooted “even out” button 4 units will move from Unit One to Unit Two. Now each is at 75% health and it will only take me 3 turns (25%/10%, rounded up) to repair my army.
Is that clear? This is a long-standing gripe of Total War players that we can't do this with units of the same type lol.

11. Grid outline in Army Planner
Sometimes there is a faint grid outline visible in the Army Planner: https://ibb.co/pR7FP9N. This appears and persists after you select a card or unit to move on the map.
However upon first entering the Army Planner there is no grid visible: https://ibb.co/9YqTBQ1. I would like at least the option for the grid to be there at all times. This would help me visualise and plan my army positioning without having to pretend to move a unit to get the grid to show up.

12. Previewing disarrayed (marching) armies
When an enemy army is in full order, I can carefully plan my positioning to ensure that I match my anti-cavalry units against the enemy cavalry, my anti-infantry units against the enemy infantry, etc. But when an enemy army is in disarray (marching), while it is advantageous to be able to attack them somewhat from behind, its order is randomised. So even though I have the strategic advantage over them, I cannot carefully match my units against theirs to ensure I win the Rock-Paper-Scissors mini-contests. Does this make more sense now?

13. Unit markers in combat
To be clear, this is what the kind of thing I am asking for looks like in Total War: https://ibb.co/6J9QK51. You can see that each combatant has a small bright marker underneath them. This aids the player in targeting spells such as meteor attacks.

14. Impassable terrain visibility
Hauser is able to move here: https://ibb.co/vxSVMjt
Hauser is not able to move here: https://ibb.co/VYYWtYV
I understand that technically part of his thick movement line clipped through the edge of the mountain in the second pic, blocking his move. But this is not clearly visible on the map.
In most strategy games the army simply path-finds the shortest route around the obstacle (a bit like units do in-combat). I imagine you have not done that because you feel it is too complex to program.
But several times I have moved my army to a waypoint, thinking I could then attack my target, only to find that an indiscernible corner of impassable terrain was clipping through the very edge of my path. This is a mildly frustrating experience for the player. If you can think of a way to solve the problem, even if just by making the boundaries of impassable terrain more visible, that would be a help.

16. Card text not appearing
Fwiw this only started happening after a couple of hours of play. Early-game it did not happen, nor did it happen on starting a new game today. Perhaps it is a memory leak of some kind.

17. Playing city-building cards inside the planner
You can see that the city-building cards (in this case Realmbuilder, fourth from the left) are clearly visible in my hand in the planner screen. I can even hover over it to see what it does: https://ibb.co/2tYQy4g. But I cannot actually play the card on this city while I am looking at the city! Instead I have to click out of the city and then left-click back onto the army that is in the city and then drag the card to the city that I was already in the screen of but couldn't play the card on! To me this was very confusing, and I don't think that being able to play city cards on a city when you are looking at that city would confuse anyone lol.

New comment 18. Let us skip cinematics / cutscenes, *especially* the rather long opening one. This will add to replayability and also with reloading saves.

[Skybreaker]

Once again, many thanks for you in-depth response to you already quite detailed feedback:
10. Yep, definitely needs to be looked into. Thank you for the requested screenshots.
11. Need to double-check that, if this is always the case, or just in certain occasions. Once again big thank you for your screenshots and clarification.
12. Now I got it, thanks for that. Will add to the list.
13. Thank you for the updated info, got it.
14. Pathfinding is a beast, no matter the game, so fine-tuning and tweaking already in our backlog
16. Got it, seems rare, but have to look into it nevertheless. If there are more details popping up, feel free to share.
17. As mentioned, already noted, however, I cannot make any promises if this will be possible in the final version of the game. And nothing high-prio, more a nice-to-have QoL feature
18. Has been brought up already and has been forwareded. :)

Once again, big thank you and please keep it up! Good stuff, very helpful.

-cheers

[Chris]

You're welcome! Good luck with the continued development. I'm looking forward to playing the full game.

[Skybreaker]

Thank you so much, and if you're interested, today in around 1.5 hours, we will have an exclusive dev-livestream, broadcasted here on steam. Please feel free to come by and watch the devs playing the demo, also providing tips and tricks and happy to answer some questions.

See you there ;)

-cheers

[Chris]

I saw that advertised on the Discord but I have plans. Will it be available to watch anywhere after the livestream is finished? Do you have a channel on Rumble, Odysee, or any other video site for example?

[Skybreaker]

Tomorrow, same time you would have another opportunity. ;)
Otherwise, we want to record it and push it e.g. on YouTube or also as pre-recorded session in the steam broadcast, early next week.
Still worth a watch, but without the opportunity to get in touch directly with the people hands-deep into the game. Then you will have once again to talk to me. :P

-cheers