Feedback on Steam Next Fest Demo

[Palandus]

So, I like it, wishlisted and followed, and will play more of the demo if it stays up after the Fest, if not, then its a shame I found this at the tail end of the Fest. So it plays like a far improved version of Ancients I: Death Watch and although that game was grindy AF, I still liked it. Some comments thus far:

1. I think it would be better if we chose the class first, THEN the stats. Because then we have an idea of what stats we need to make the class work quite well. As it is, I had to look at the classes, decide on which I wanted, then go back to roll the stats.

It would be nice if we could lock one attribute, so that when we reroll, it stays at the value and the rest reroll. That way if I got 17 in agility, I could lock it in and try to get something high for the other attributes. As it is, the variance makes it nearly impossible to get 15+.

Or do like that old 3e character generation, where the program would roll 4d6, and remove the lowest dice.

2. The text font for item descriptions is quite small on my 1920x1080p monitor, so had difficulty deciding which items to craft as I couldn't see damage numbers or the like all that well.

3. Ingame it stated that some walls can be pushed. I'm familiar with Wolf3d or Legend of Grimrock, in terms of that, but do the walls have tell-tale signs that they can be pushed, because I didn't see anything, when that message popped up.

4. Found a locked chest. It would be nice if we could smash the lock open, and just raise enemy detection, if we ran out of lockpicks. Do it quietly and with finesse or smash it loudly.

5. Found a trap. Game said to hit J to jump. I hit it and nothing happened, and lost two of my party members. I quit that run there.

6. How do I use my Vestalis to heal out of combat? Or am I prevented from doing so?

7. I'm not a fan of enemy melee hitting my back row units, when I ahve front row units alive, when they lack a ranged weapon. Unless spears allow you to hit rear targets?

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Anywho, will try to find some more time today to play.

[Palandus]

Played some more, some further notes:

8. The attack calculation is borked or I'm doing something terribly wrong. I have two frontline warriors, one with attack 35, and the other with attack 55. I have a vestalist in the back with a trident and attack 0. The vestalis hits targets 70% of the time despite lacking the combat skill to use a trident. My two frontline warriors hit targets 30-40% of the time, despite using a weapon for their 3 weapon skill. I don't understand that. Both warriors have at least 12 agility and the vestalis is like 9 agility.

9. How do you restore stamina? Doesn't look like there is passive regeneration and no ability to sleep mid-dungeon (like in Ancients).

10. Found a secret wall, and didn't notice anything special about it.

11. Found an illusionary wall, and also didn't notice anything special about it.

12. Dual wielding appears broken. I had a gladiatrix with agility 17, strength 13 and perception 14, and two daggers. Could not hit basically anything most rounds. And when she did, I did at most 1-2 damage.

13. Not finding any scraps, to do crafting with. Finding plenty of weapons though.

14. Why does my guy have a 10 action point cost ability, when it only has 6 action points? How the heck am I ever to get to use that.

15. Yeah, I'm not liking the idea that my frontline warriors are being ignored and my rear units are constantly getting targeted by what appears to be enemies with no reach or ranged weapons. The whole point of me taking two frontline warriors was to force enemies to focus on them... but my squishy vestalis and elementalist (or w/e) are constantly getting attacked and nearly killed.

16. I think it would be good if secrets or illusionary areas, had lootables with 2-3 items inside.

17. Why would someone want the encounter rate to be high or low?

18. Why are different classes locked behind genders, when there is only two female classes?

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Will try to play some more and get back to you.

[Agent_Vealckowsky]

Nice illustrations and I surely appreciate the ancient roman setting, but the UI side of this game is just abhorrent. Mouse is essential to navigate and use menus anyway, why can't it be used to interact with game world objects as well, like wall buttons, chests, notes...? Also, there's no point of having dedicated keys for a lot of functions if the object can only be interacted in one way, like a locked chest - interacting with use key does nothing, so that key could be used to lockpick it, instead needing another key especially for that. Also, mouses have at least 2 buttons, which could be used for even more actions, like entering character inventory after right clicking the portrait, etc. - like in almost every game of that genre ever.

In current form it looks like the game intentionally tries to be the least accessible and not use intuitive control solutions that were established in dungeon crawlers as far back as in the 90's. Without a serious streamlining and accessibility pass for the controls, I couldn't be bothered to invest my time in it - playing it feels like a chore.

Game world is poorly constructed, with very little variation in textures, virtually no decorations, zero architectural variety and lots of pointless rooms. It feels like very basic randomly generated map. Also, the representation of enemies in the game world couldn't be more primitive. Timed encounters and glowing balls sitting idle in predefined locations was a workaround acceptable in old titles due to very limited technical capabilities of constructing the environment on legacy computers. There is really no valid excuse to use it now, and the idea of prancing right before a group of enemies portrayed as a ball all you want till you enter the right tile, without the possibility of even assessing what might the encounter consist of is just really silly.

There's a myriad of small things as well, jumping hinted by message doesn't work, every enemy is able to attack characters in back row even when portrayed as using short gladius, while player characters can't do the same, game randomly goes back to windowed mode even if fullscreen was turned on, there's no way of using usual healing spells outside of combat, etc.

I hope this demo is just a quick proof of concept, not a slice of actual game.

[Palandus]

Yeah... as I play more of it, I'm liking it less and less, and feeling less like this is for me. I didn't complete it, but I'm quite tired of this combat system, so I'm going to stop here before I start getting overly negative. Its still wishlisted and followed, but if things don't change, it won't be a buy from me.

19. The hint for picking locks is "P" which doesn't work. Main UI says it is "C".

20. What is the point of torches? it doesn't make things much more visible and doesn't reveal secret areas any better.

21. Either spears are overpowered, or all other weapons just plain suck, but, I equipped everyone with a trident or hasta, and now I can reliably hit enemies, for any character position. Swords, daggers, maces, twohanded variants, even ranged weapons all cannot hit reliably, even if they have +Attack on them. Only spears can hit enemies reliably.

22. What is the point of spellcasters, when they can't get any spell points to cast their spells?

23. What is the point of high action point abilities for the fighters when they never have enough action points?

24. Traps are far too deadly, blend into the ground, and you need party stamina to jump... which also doesn't regenerate at all.

25. You cannot buy torches, food, or lockpicks right now, so you often get shafted by mechanics as a result.

26. Enemy elites get cool abilities, like extra shock damage, but any item I've found is like only Fine quality and gives like +3 or 4 ATT and that is it.

27. Why is it that my frontline warriors can't hit the broad side of the barn with a sword or greatsword and require 5 AP to swing, but my two spellcasters with spears and no combat skill whatsoever, can easily hit foes and only need 3 AP to swing?

28. Chests and crates have terrible loot in them, and often is only vendor trash.

29. What is the point of most of the classes in the game? Rogue-types are super low health and low damage, and only marginally improve dungeon crawling, but one bad encoutner or a trap instant-kills them.

If we could force units to attack one unit, ie taunting / agro management in a MMO, then there may be valuable, but right now, any time I have rogue-types in the party they are a liability rather than an asset.

The same goes for casters, and never having spellpoints to cast anything and then are totally useless unless wielding spears.

And finally, what is the point of heavily armoring frontline fighters when they rarely get attacked.

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So, hopefully most of this gets fixed. If not, well, I wish you the best of luck.

[68k Studios]

Thank you guys for your feedbacks.
A little premise: this is the demo and the first dungeon is just the tutorial, so it's just to give you the idea of the final game and some mechanics are just sketched here.

@Bonegrinder

1- I'll consider this suggestion, thanks
2- I'll try to fix this issue
3- Depends. In this case, you can look on the ground (there are some bricks in that point)
4- Great suggestion
5- I'm sorry, I forgot to change the hint. I'm going to fix it in the next update.
6- Open the exploration menu (Esc), and select the Vestalis. You can see the Exploration Skill "Herbal Medicine" under hers portrait. Note that when you are outside of a combat you can only use Exploration Skill.
7- The chance of being targeted by an enemy depends on the row and the courage value of the character. Without going into too much detail, 1st row has 3x more chance of being hit than 2nd row (excluding Courage mods)
8- I will check the values, but consider that every 10 points of difference between attack and defense changes the value to hit by 1 by rolling 1d20.
9- Eat food
10- There is a chest with a fine object behind it.
11- Same as above. Is the tutorial dungeon, don't expect a +8 sword :D
12- ATK value is significantly decreased if you use two weapons. You'll be able to unlock passive skills in the future to compensate this decrease, but a low level character with two weapons equipped is going to miss a lot of attacks
13- You have to destroy unused weapons
14- If its an unlocked skill, consider that most description are just sketched. If it is a skill that you have unlocked, please tell me what skill it is and I will fix this issue
15- Check point 7
16- Sure but, as I've said, this is the tutorial dungeon.
17- If you need to farm, you can increase it
18- There were no female murmillo or retiarius or samnis in the ancient Rome, and any female gladiator was called "gladiatrix". Same thing goes for the Vestalis, that were only women.
19- Check 5, sorry again
20- To better see traps, for example
21- There is no difference in the chance to hit between any weapon (beside magical weapons).
22- Drink the Divine Potion to recover SP
23- check 14
24- You can throw a stone on a trap to trigger it from the distance
25- You can buy before entering a dungeon
26- You can randomly find Magic or even Rare items in the first dungeon as well. But remember that is the tutorial dungeon.
27- I will explain better the combat mechanics, but it's probably just an impression
28- Check 11
29- Low level characters are pretty similar to each other. But when they progress, each class will take a really different path.

I hope I have clarified your doubts. Thanks again for the suggestions.

@Agent_Vealckowsky
I will surely improve the UI, thanks for your suggestions.

[Palandus]

Thanks for the reply, some notes:

1 to 2] Fair enough.

3] I found bricks near another spot, and hunted all over that area and didn't find a secret. It was near the elite group guarding the red key I think.

4 to 5] Fair enough.

6] Okay I'll check that out.

7] Sounds very counter-intuitive. Also how do you track who is being the most courageous and what attribute modifies it the most? If it is Constitution... well that might explain why my mage and healer got targeted so much, because they both had a good Constitution roll of 16.

8] Every 10? Ouch. So that +4 ATT on a fine weapon is essentially worthless unless you have 36 ATT before it, and now brings it up to 40. I'd rather it be a 1 to 1 ratio, personally, so if that means severely reducing values, then so be it. Because in D&D +1 attack means just that on a 1d20 roll. Its clear, concise, and doesn't require the player think too much on basic things.

What do you mean with Defense vs Attack? Does that mean an enemy with 60 Defense, and a character with 35 Attack, effectively has -3 to their d20 roll? If that is the case, that would definitely explain my terrible hit to miss ratio of my frontline fighters.

9] What food? I found some Ambrosia stuff, but it says it for reviving people. And its not like I can buy it in town, when that vendor is disabled in the demo.

10 + 11] My apologies. I meant the wall itself. The wall didn't give any tell tale signs that it was pushable or illusionary. Like say grooves in the floor indicating its pushable, or a hazy mist covers the wall, that is hard to see, but there, indicating an illusion.

12] Fair Enough.

13] Oh. That would explain that then.

14] I think its the Miramula (or w/e) guy who is big and tough or the Samsen (or w/e) the big berserker guy, that has the ability. One of the two has a shield breaker ability for 5 or 6 AP and the other has this icon for like a "sweeping motion" for 10 AP.

15] Fair enough.

16] The game doesn't do a good job explaining that it is a tutorial dungeon. Especially as enemy encounters come decently often and traps are brutally dangerous. Usually tutorials you can't die in, unless you know that going into a game (ie Dark Souls you know you will probably die in the tutorial)

17] But you only get Xp and a few smattering of coins. You never find gear, food, lockpicks, etc... from combat encounters which a lot of 90s crawlers did do. In fact the common way to get loot was from combat encounters.

18] Technically true. But, there also wasn't the undead, magic, or dungeon delving in ancient Rome either. So if you are able to bend things to make them work, why not for female roles too?

19] Fair enough.

20] Really? I didn't notice them any easier. In fact, it made it harder to notice them, and walked on one by accident, because it made the entire floor shiny, hiding the trap trigger. Maybe that is just my graphical settings on highest though...

21] Well I had higher miss chance with the 1h sword and 2h sword for my frontline fighters than when I equipped them both with Tridents. Then they started hitting consistently. Could be cognitive bias though.

22] I used up all 3. How do I get more of them? A resting command in the dungeon would allow for restoring mana, if you wanted to implement it.

23] Fair enough.

24] Keep forgetting about that option. Also kind of weird how a trigger plate that is meant to trigger on a heavy human sized object could be triggered by a rock. You'd think dungeon rats would be bigger and they'd set off the traps then....

25] Buy from whom? The guy that makes swords and armor doesn't make food or torches. I clicked the arrows nothing happened.

26] Fair enough.

27] The lack of accuracy maybe, but the AP cost is definitely different between weapon types.

28] Fair enough.

29] Hrmm. Well that is difficult to see when the game is capped at 3,000 xp, so the impression is they all play the same. Plus when do they level up, as I got a few to 1,000 xp.

Clarified some, yes. Others not so much.

[68k Studios]

Scattered info:
-Courage is one of the Mastery (check the status of the character for more details).
-Before entering the dungeon, on the world map, on the right side you can buy stuff and hire a mercenary.
-There are some spots that will refill your Divine Potion. Anyway, the game is designed with the idea that you have to manage divine potions and resources to reach the end of the level. That's why you don't have a rest option.
-Enemies can actually drop items (food, lockpick, etc). They may left a bag on the floor when they die, probably you didn't notice it.

Anyway, it seems that the enemies targeting the back row is a little confusing. I will try to make it more clear in the future ;)

[Cipher Stormwolf]

A: I hope you will touch up on the design of the dungeons, currently its just boring walls.
How about having jailcells to the side, or a sewer running through, or a collapsed ceiling?

B: You could tie some of these dungeon-tiles into what type of enemy spawns there

> and how they behave!

C: If there is an open ceiling winged creatures could start flying, making them unable to block, but harder to hit in melee. Or water monsters could submerge and shorter weapons would have trouble hitting, while longer swords or spears could hit them and lightning magic would hit guaranteed, with high crit-chance

D: Legendary items arent much different then the lesser types, do you plan on adding unique items with special effects that others dont have?

E: It would be nice to have backgrounds for character creation, similar to what is there. Example: The character could be a farmhand and get a bonus to str and con, or a young lad who wants to help but doesnt get much boosts because he is young and inexperienced.
The system you have now is a little weird as it combines backgrounds and traits.
It would be more interesting, in my opinion, if you could split it into backgrounds and traits.
You could add negative traits that can heal, like "malnourished" or "a wound" which decrease stats but give some points to spend on positive traits. Of course it would need to be balanced

F: The UI really needs a rework, perhaps you could also add an option to make a note about a character, like "will dualwield once leveled up enough / +1 str planned". Also I might have missed it, but where do you see what class you chose for a character?

[68k Studios]

@Cipher Stormwolf

A: Absolutely, you will find more variety in the full game
B: mmm I don't like this idea too much, sorry
C: Yes, there will be different monsters with different abilities (like flying)
D: Yes, I'm planning to also add Artifact-type weapons, with non-randomly generated stats and unique powers
E: I don't know, I'll think about it
F: I'm working on this too ;)

[Cipher Stormwolf]

Originally posted by 68k Studios:

@Cipher Stormwolf

A: Absolutely, you will find more variety in the full game
B: mmm I don't like this idea too much, sorry
C: Yes, there will be different monsters with different abilities (like flying)
D: Yes, I'm planning to also add Artifact-type weapons, with non-randomly generated stats and unique powers
E: I don't know, I'll think about it
F: I'm working on this too ;)

Good to hear. Of course I am just giving ideas, you are the one to decide! Aslong as the final product is enjoyable and replayable I will be happy!