Feedback on Game

[Palandus]

Played the demo thoroughly, and the final game about 5 hours now, and got all of Nordsfel complete (my progress didn't transfer from the demo >.>) and 1 quest of Durnstein done. In terms of levels, I just recently unlocked my 3rd perk point. So comments:

1. Best weapon is the spear by far. The bow doesn't have good range, attack speed, or damage, only being useful to help kill fliers. Though, once you unlock scarecrows you don't even need the bow. The sword is a total piece of crap. It has lower damage than the bow, lower range than the spear, slow attack speed, and its AOE attack is extremely short ranged.

2. Most perks aren't super useful. This wouldn't be an issue if we got more perk points, but with 2 most of the time, and just now getting 3, most perks will never get taken by players.

3. Most castle upgrades aren't super useful. If we could buy additional ones, later on, that would alleviate things, but for now, I'm always taking one specific upgrade every time, even for challenging quests.

4. Most melee units aren't great compared to spearmen. The fact that they slow their attackers, allows my towers and archers to whittle them down for longer, and so they are the best. Plus on mutators, the other types just don't survive long enough to do anything. Like against turtle + tiger, flails or knights get gibbed almost instantly.

5. Most ranged units aren't great compared to longbowmen. The fact that you can put them far out of the way, and remain useful, while taking out even the fliers, makes them the best unit. Crossbowmen might have higher damage, but the short-range means they have to be closer and so they often die more frequently. Hunters are totally not worth it, as they are melee range and spearmen are just plain better.

6. In terms of towers its Ballista or Iron Towers. Iron Towers are used in chokepoints and to deal with fliers. Otherwise its ballista as they one-shot weak foes, and make ogres / siege engines much less frightening. Hot oil towers, are too flimsy, their oil attack is too short range and Iron towers are just plain better. Sure wish I could have hot oil gatehouses though, as that is where the units go to attack.

7. I feel that levelling is too slow. I'm at the point where it takes either 3500 or 4000 points to gain the next level, and matches are only giving me 10,000 to 12,000 (even with mutators) and so its a grindy process to get the next perk/unit/whatever.

8. I feel like economy wise, we need more spots for houses. There is tons of empty space in both Nordsfel and Durnstein, to support this. Gold mines I feel are a bit poorly designed, because they are very expensive, hard to defend, and progressively produce less gold, and should be built early, but building them earlier makes them impossible to keep alive. Fields are way too flimsy without pumpkin patch perk. Also the amount of gold generated by enemies is pretty pitiful, so taking the snake mutator is often negligible in difficulty increase.

9. I feel that 10 seconds for revive is too long. And on mutators the king dies way too fast, so dying each round and waiting 10 seconds is miserable. Please reduce to 4 seconds.

10. We need more longterm progression, in addition to perks. Something like small upgrades to training time, player/unit damage and health, higher gold income from kills, etc... Some of the mutator combinations are right now, too hard... like the Durnstein Tiger (damage) + Dragon (move speed) combination.

[Sdaan]

Hello there Palandus!

Thank you for taking the time to write such a thorough feedback. It really matters and helps us polishing the game further! I forwarded this to the devs, so they'll see this. =)

Take care!

[Palandus]

Thanks for the reply! Not sure why I didn't receive a notification from Steam. Some more feedback, as I'm nearing the end of the demo (8/9 achievements; last one is to complete Frostee all 6 quests):

11. Way too few perk points. With all levels gained, you max out at 3 perks, and most perks aren't super desirable. And on the tougher quests, you have to be super picky with what you take.

12. Hot Oil Towers is not a well designed mechanic. As most towers aren't close enough to walls or chokepoints, they can never hit enemies with their oil. And once enemies do go for them, usually they come in such a big mob that they obliterate the tower in a few seconds. Again gatehouses with them would be perfect.

13. I think some more emergent gameplay would be nice. Like destroying those rolling spike balls of doom, should harm their allies too!

14. On Durnstein, many times enemies will bypass the the spike strip, and go up and around. In general, the top most path needs more defenses, especially on tiger + dragon, as I couldn't defend it and had to drag my forces back and stand near my keep.

15. On Durnstein you can't teleport down to the lowest mine. It would also be better if when you enter a mine, the game pauses, and lets you choose your destination.

16. A lot of the perks aren't well designed either. The king is typically very squishy (even when taking castle upgrades to improve their health) and only useful as a support role, that is highly mobile and does guerrila strikes. Many perks are thus not going to be taken, as they either make you slower, or they directly harm the rest of your base. Power Towers is an interesting idea, but it prevents you from being mobile, and that is often your greatest strength.

17. Frostee really needs some spike strips, to slow down the fast-movers. Its going to be a royal pain to get some of the quests on Frostee. If at all.

18. Frostee really proves that we need an extra set of strategic orders to give units. Like patrol points or guard points.

Patrol would be they'd go back and forth between two points and deviate a bit to go attack things and then go back to their route.

Guard is like hold ground, but they deviate a little bit from their location and then go back. Great for melee units that you want to guard a chokepoint, but be able to move a bit to grab fast movers that try to maneuver around them.

I wouldn't get rid of hold ground, as that is very useful for archer types to hold ground in a highly defensible spot.

19. Maybe remove hot oil tower and build it into Iron Plate tower. That way it would have strong defense and when people got close, they'd get roasted.

Replace the hot oil tower, with a magical frost tower. Targets hit by its icy bolts, are slowed significantly. Great for quests with the dragon active.

20. Remove the healing tower. Its range isn't good, doesn't scale well on harder quests, and without offensives, it is often a waste of a tower. If you really want to keep it, turn it into a healing pillar, and strategically place them as an additional build type on the map, and then have them as a chokepoint to heal your units.

Replace the healing tower with a magical fire tower. Shoots a fireball at medium range, with explosive flaming radius. Great for dealing with groups of foes, or slow moving heavy units.

Probably more stuff, but will wait for the next update (or whenever I complete all of Frostsee).

[Palandus]

Some more notes:

21. Give us the ability to change the units produced by a barracks/archery range. Often early waves need certain units, that may not be as good late game. So being able to say change their type afterwards, might be nice. Could set it as an option at final upgrade; two gold to change the type of unit generated.

22. Same idea, but for towers. Early game, you might want more defensive towers (ie Iron Plates), but late game need Ballistas. Especially on Frostee map.

23. Amount of gold you collect on the final wave, isn't counted on the score screen. So any economy buildings leftover don't improve your score. Nor does % of base survived.

24. Enemy crossbowmen have greater range than your crossbowmen. Pretty unfair.

25. Enemy fliers on Frostee can attack my crossbowmen but they can't hit them back. Pretty unfair. Only longbowmen can hit the fliers first.

26. Berserks are only useful against siege weapons. They die way too fast against everything else, are quite slow, but if you don't field them in Frostee, the battering rams totally wreck your defenses. And with the broken building challenge active, you just can't afford that, but the number of enemy archers in frostee, you really need Knights.

27. We could really use spike strips right along the edge of a wall, to slow down attackers, or at least damage the ones that make it.

28. It might be nice to create moats, which allow us to funnel enemies down killboxes. So a bridge starts the moat, and each section of it costs 1 gold.

29. Barricades might be nice for a way to create small protective spots, to put archers into.

30. Being able to hold space, while holding shift. So that when we grab units, we only grab one type. So if you have several types in a large ball of units, grab your first unit and then it only grabs units of that type.

Both Durnstein and Frostee has the problem where initial spawns of units at the start of a wave, are bunched up with other units, so this would solve a lot of things.

[Sdaan]

Wow! Thank YOU, again, for such a thorough feedback. We can really feel you played the game!

As usual, I forwarded this to the devs. The game just released, so there's a lot of balancing and polishing to do, from all the feedback and suggestions we got.

Thank you for your dedication and for taking the time to writing all of this!
We'll do our best to deliver the best possible experience to you. =)

Take care!

[Palandus]

No problem. Happy to help.

Some of the quests of Frostee have been giving me grief, lost a couple of times, so I'm not sure its even possible to complete it with current content. I'm 3/6 quests completed.

Otherwise, look forward to what the future holds for the title.

[Lyle]

i almost beat 6/6 on Frostee with turn 1 fire arrow archers. (Boss had like 2 bars left when my keep fell) Troops were out of place.

[Palandus]

The one quest I'm dreading is the one with the sword. It is so hard to kill things with it and the early waves either need high damage (ie bow) or speed (ie spear).

[Xulu]

The healing tower is sometimes OP. Keep the option, can see it being used strategically and/or in later levels.

Second the ability to more easily pick units of a certain type out of a ball.

Also, the fire archers are great on Frostee. Flails and Beserkers are terrible though.

[♥♥♥♥ Goblin]

Good points, I agree with them all and hope to see devs implement them!

[Palandus]

I'm at 5/6 Frostee quests. Have the skull, tiger, and crumbling building left to do. The bow/sword ones require you to take the Mount Perk, as its the only thing that provides sufficient damage early game to handle threats. Pity it doesn't aggro units you damage.

Some more feedback:

31. Break all the perks into 3 categories = Civilian, Military, and King. Allow you to take perks in each category, so effectively, you'd have 9 perks active, but only 3 in each category, at the end game of unlocks. The perks in each of the new categories are:

(1) Civilian = Royal Mint, Pumpkin Fields, Architect's Council, Castle Blueprints, Big Harbors, Faster Research, Healing Spirits, Treasure Hunter, and Indestructible Mines.
(2) Military = Arcane Towers, Castle Fortifications, Gladiator School, Elite Warriors, Archery Drills, Fortified Houses, Ice Magic, Melee Resistance, and Ranged Resistance.
(3) King = Heavy Armor, Ring of Resurrection, Gods Lotion, War Horse, Glass Cannon, Commander Mode, Power Tower, and Warrior Mode

32. Make changes as follows to the two weak weapons; Bow and Sword:
-> Bow = Activated ability unleashes a close-range multishot hitting multiple targets, instead of dagger stab.
-> Sword = Always attacks in a sweep in front of the player, hitting moderate number of enemies. Activation, unleashes a whirlwind strike allowing you to constantly hit targets over 2 seconds, and while doing so cannot be hit yourself, hitting targets at range of current AOE attack.

33. Buff up weaker perks. Here are my suggestions:
(1) Civilian:
-> Royal Mint = Earn extra gold per castle tier and +1 more gold for every 2, level 2 houses built, multiplied by castle tier (tier 1 X1, tier 2 X2, so effectively its +1 gold per level 2 house)

-> Architect's Council = Unlocks all build locations, but also unlocks a few additional build locations only available with the perk active.

-> Castle Blueprints = Walls and Towers have more health. Castle upgrade cost is halved (rounded up). So 4 and 10 cost.

-> Big Harbors = +2 boats per harbor and build 2 boats per round, so that if you lose a harbor, it takes less time to rebuild the fleet.

-> Faster Research = Research starts with 1 day completed already. Halves the research cost, rounded up.

-> Healing Spirits = All healing effects on you and to allies are improved. Severely increases range of healing by healing tower and increases the radius of healing for allies if you take Commander's Aura (or w/e) at castle 3.

-> Treasure Hunter = Triples the amount of gold found on killed monsters. Gives you 40 gold on the morning before the last battle.

-> Indestructible Mines = Mines cannot be destroyed. They also now produce a minimum of 3 gold, instead of 1.

=====

(2) Military:
-> Castle Fortifications = The castle has more health, attacks more frequent and has better range. Each castle tier improves attack range significantly and slows targets hit by its arrows.

-> Gladiator School = All units are trained faster but barracks cost more to build. Additionally, the first 5 seconds after the unit is created, they move 200% faster, allowing them to return to battle faster.

-> Elite Warriors = All units have more health, but take longer to train. Elite units also has a 20% chance to critically hit, dealing +50% damage.

-> Archery Drills = All units have greater range with their attacks and they attack faster.

=====

(3) King:
-> Heavy Armor = King has significantly more health, but horse moves slower. There is a 10% chance that a hit is ignored and the king takes no damage.

-> Ring of Resurrection = You are granted one single faster resurrection per night. All further resurrections, have their time reduced by 50%.

-> War Horse = Riding over units deals damage to them and now aggros those hit. You also move faster.

-> Glass Cannon = Your damage is increased but you take more damage. The king now has a 20% chance to critically hit, dealing +50% damage.

-> Power Tower = All towers within range of this effect, fire significantly faster. The higher the castle upgrade, the larger the radius. Starts out small affecting only one tower, but later may affect multiple towers.

-> Warrior Mode = Your weapon becomes more powerful each night, but all your buildings and units do less damage. The cooldown on your special ability is reduced by 50%.

=====

34. Prevent the boss on Frostsee, from dumping units in the center point of the lake, bypassing all defenses. Simply because my melee units are all over the map, and so are my archers, and I prioritize ballista towers for max damage against boss, and on both the two hard quests I did (sword and bow quests) I nearly lost my castle despite my best efforts. I didn't lose any of my gates, but the dump of units in the center, totally screws with things.

35. We need more than one mine on Frostsee. Put it on the other side of the map, to allow us to quickly go back and forth. That would also help a lot with the boss fight.

36. It would be nice if we had more than one pallisade mini fort on the map for frostsee. Perhaps on the other side of the lake, where the boss often dumps units, and three large waves of siege engines appear at different points. Or maybe have more towers near the gatehouse by the archer range.

37. For the crumbling building "affix" could structures rebuilt after 2 days be at full health? Because right now they start at 33%, when they get rebuilt.

38. For any ability of the king that deals damage, directly or indirectly by the king, have it aggro units. So running over them with your horse, aggros them to you.

=====

Now to try to get the last quest done. Ugh, this one is going to suck. Slow revive time on killed units, enemies deal increased damage and structures don't fully heal and take 2 days to rebuild.

[Palandus]

Ok, got the last quest. Yeah that sucked hard. So have all achievements.

Some final feedback while I wait for balance tweaks and such:

39. When the boss appears on Frostsee, please make it so that no one tries to attack it. Why? Well all my ballista towers waste their shots and all my archers leave their positions to go for it, even before they know where it will go. And as the ballistas take a while to reload, wasting their first shot, means that when the boss can be hurt, they are still reloading.

40. There needs to be some better defensive spots next to the far right harbor. In my game, it got destroyed 4 times, despite my best efforts. And with the crumbling building affix active it meant that the moment it got rebuilt at 33% hp, that round it got blown up again.

41. You can only use the blacksmith 3 times. So even if you have faster research active, you can't get a 4th or more upgrades.

42. The boss never dumps enemies near the bottom of the lake. Thus the pallisade fort or that lone tower gets ignored.

43. God of Death really sucks as an affix. 21 seconds of resurrection time for the king and all units take a bit more than 2x longer to respawn. Even with Elite Warriors, most of my units were dying on the last quest. And those darn crossbowmen on the last quest, killed my king 3 times.

[( ﾟ ヮﾟ) Kitty!]

Since there's so much feedback here already I'll just post this here instead of making a new thread:
1. Please add a toggle button for sprinting. I find that I nearly always want to be sprinting, especially on Durststein, and having to hold down the button for 98% of the gameplay is not ideal, Obviously when you are damaged the sprint won't work but as soon as you heal up it should automatically go back to sprinting as long as you still have it toggled on. The only times I don't want to be sprinting are when I'm slowly kiting away from enemies and want to stay just out of range while using the spear on them, and for those occasions it is more ideal to have the sprint on a button press on a toggle, so having both a toggle and while a button is being held gives us the option to do both.

2. Not sure if this is a bug or intended, but I noticed on Frostsee if you stand where the sea creature is about to pop up it's possible to end up standing on its head, which will then lift you up into the air and your passive and active melee attacks stop being able to hit it while you're standing on its head. You can simply walk off and when you're back on the ground again you can damage it as normal so it doesn't break the game, but it didn't seem intended behaviour for that to happen.

3. On Durststein during the second to last wave where the 12 big guys come from the Northeast spawn, if you have a wall and two towers behind the wall built there they'll sometimes try to path around the top of the wall and one of them is able to hit the tower behind the wall without breaking down the wall first. The attacks on the tower don't even damage the wall so I know it's not just an AOE splash attack damaging both, they are specifically targeting the tower and bypassing the wall. I don't think they can fit through the gap, but they seem to be able to hit the tower through it. Again this does not seem like intended behaviour, possibly just adjust the terrain so they can't reach around the wall.

4. Please make it easier to tell exactly what each unit does, both for allies and enemies. For example the ranger unit says it's good against monsters, but I can't see which enemies are even categorised as monsters, and I don't know how much of a bonus rangers would get against them. So it's really hard to make decisions about whether or not to even use them. Maybe you don't want this to be the kind of game where people calculate the exact damage and HP numbers of everything to minmax it, it seems like players are encouraged to experiment and use trial and error instead, but some minor details would be nice so I at least know which enemies to use the rangers against to experiment with the trial and error in a little less haphazard manner.

There's a lot of other good points here already, I don't necessarily agree with them all but a lot of it's just down to preference so I won't argue against anything. Mainly a lot of the perks not really being viable in normal gameplay let alone in the challenges. Possibly if there were some varied maps, such as a map where there's fewer or no barracks or archery range spots would give the perks that buff the king much more value, or a map with lots of towers so you take perks that buff towers. Or just have entirely different game modes or challenges, such as beating a map using only towers or with no towers, or by only using your king. I think these would need to be designed a bit differently to accommodate these playstyles, but it's a shame to see all this perk variety go to waste. Some niche where they're useful would be nice.
The only viable weapon is the spear. In fact using either of the other weapons is just another handicap for the challenges, maybe that's intentional but at least give the other weapons a niche to fill. For example the sword which specialises in AOE damage isn't even good on the one map where AOE damage might come in handy (Frostsee), because it simply doesn't do enough damage to the swarms of small enemies to kill them quickly, and you're still better off with the spear.

Overall I think it's a great game so far, keep up the good work.

[RabidRat]

I hope the devs don't listen to the words "Palandus (Bone)" completely, since I also completed the entire game 100% and found it to be quite easy actually.
I disagree with some of your theses, namely:
1. The sword and bow have their advantages, I personally used them even more often than the spear many times. For example, I want to get a mine on the second turn in Frostee and I need a sword to fight back, and later on the last wave, the sword helps a lot if I gather in HP.
2. It's common in games that perks you don't use can be used by someone else. More perk points will greatly simplify an already easy game (no mutatars).
It may be worth adding a mutator that makes it possible to take an additional perk, but the debuff should also be very strong.
3. I used all the perk options, choosing them for different weapons and maps, as for me they all can be useful.
4. I disagree, flails are great in Frostee.
5. I gave up on archers as soon as I unlocked all ranged options, I almost always use fire archers and hunters.
6. Again, I use a completely different tactic, I put 3-5 fire towers, they are good for killing the minutiae of the last Frostee event, for the boss I put only a couple of balistas.
7. If you want to close the game at 100%, then the upgrade is even quite fast, I closed all the content in the game in 12 hours, and everything was upgraded in 8-10 hours.
8. There are not so many houses, it's true, but there should be a balance in everything, maybe it's worth adding a few houses to some maps. The mines are made specifically for a quick start, they are very helpful to start the "snowball", and then you have other income (harbors or fields).
The snake modifier is very annoying on some maps, as a quick start is the key to success in this game.
9. 4 sec would be very short, I would add a separate perk to that if you need it.
Usually you either die and this is a restart, or everything is under control and without you, 10 seconds is the best thing for your mistake to be critical.
10. Such improvements are best implemented in the improvement of buildings. Damage + movement is not the most difficult, try to pass on the Serpent + Wasp, they slow down the start very much, because of which you do not have enough resources later.
11. I would rework the perk system to make it as difficult as possible (for casual players). It is worth making more perk points, but then the cost of perks should be different, but then you need to calculate the balance well so that strong perks are not cheap.
For example: you have 10 perk points, and all perks are not worth 1 point, but 1-4 points, and you can take 4 + 4 + 2, or something like 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 2 + 3.
12. If you combine them, then there will be an OP, maybe they just need to add a little hp. They still feel good now.
13. Maybe.
14. I defended him very easily, with ranged combat and sometimes a couple of spearmen right in the gate.
15. You can teleport twice, I can easily teleport there. In my opinion - the choice in the pause will slow down the gameplay a lot.
16. King's HP has a separate perk that helps a lot in close combat, you have to sacrifice something, either mobility or HP.
17. All quests are pretty easy if you go through this map a couple of times and remember the movement of opponents.
18. As for me, the patrol is not needed, but the guards will help a lot. It is necessary that you choose a zone in which the troops can move, so they will not go far and will hold the position all together, and not one at a time, as is done now.
19. In ↑12↑ I wrote about this, then the tower will be too OP. The developers, I think, will come up with new towers themselves if they want.
20. The healing tower is sometimes very useful, I would increase its range or make it in the form of a pylon that constantly regenerates HP around it.
21. I think that the developer didn't think about it initially, as for me, problems only appear on the first playthrough or when you forgot something, otherwise I would not add it.
22. ↑21↑.
23. I have not tracked this, if this is true, then this should be corrected for honesty.
24. Balance. Enemies do not put towers, although they could, there is so much space (just kidding).
25. Hunters.
26. They open quite late, I never had time to test them.
27. I think this can be done for the next wall upgrade (in the future) or as a separate perk.
28. Same as ↑27↑.
29. Perhaps it is worth making a separate type of tower (or modifying, for example, a healing one) on which you can land a ranged battle.
30. Very useful, but maybe you should do it on another button.
31. I think this will spoil the gameplay for some players (who want, for example, to take 3 perks for the king), I would leave the opportunity to take any perks, but reworked their cost, I wrote about this in detail in ↑11↑ paragraph.
32. I don't think it's worth reworking them much, perhaps buffing the sword a little, but no more.
33. Some of your ideas are really good, but some make me feel bad (: .
34. This is a very good skill test (other than playing it for the first time, there you really experience horror), I would leave everything as it is, but add a mark for where the boss will appear next time, so that it would be easier for new players and those who do not remember.
35. Maybe, but it seems to me that this will greatly simplify the economy in the beginning, which will be too strong in the future.
36. I don't think you need another fort, if you add one, then you need to increase the economy, as they say in ↑35↑ point, but then you need to increase the number of opponents.
37. Maybe worth it.
38. I don't know, because I don't use it.
39. I completely agree, you need to make him "invisible" to the entire army until he becomes vulnerable.
40. For me, it broke 1-2 times for a complete passage on different weapons, mostly flying ones break it, so at some point I got used to it and began to actively protect it and the breakdowns decreased to 0-1 times. Just be careful.
41. I would add the possibility of a 4th upgrade in the forge to the research acceleration perk.
42. The upper part of the fort takes on about half of the opponents on the right. I agree with the lonely tower, it is quite useless.
43. This mutator is quite strong, but only on the last wave, since it is very long, on all other waves there are no problems from it for the army. 20 seconds of respawn is very annoying, I agree, but I wouldn't change this mutator, you just need to be more careful.

I agree with "( ﾟ ヮﾟ) Kitty!", but I think we should wait for new maps, hopefully with a variety of buildings, rather than "two barracks for melee and ranged".
There is very little information in the game, you need a separate book with all the enemies, their stats (it is possible without them), types and weaknesses. When you select a map, I would like to see information that is on this map: buildings, enemies, so that it is easier to understand without memorizing each map.
About "3.", yes they can go around the wall and go to hit the base, this needs to be fixed.

[Palandus]

Gotta love the types that come in and complain on useful feedback, and say the game is too easy, so that the feedback doesn't get implemented and only some people can enjoy the game. And they don't even bother to provide counter points of what they think is good/bad, just that my feedback is bad. Gotta love that.

Well I've 100% the game, so if it turns into another dumpster fire because they tried too hard to appeal to the hardcore players, its fine. But, if the hardcore players are saying its so easy, why don't they play with 4 affixes on at a time. That would surely make it harder.

[RabidRat]

I just said that I disagree with you, with my answer I gave my feedback to the developer so that he had several points of view on the same things. I literally parsed your feedback and wrote counterarguments to everything I disagree with and suggested changing the perk system.
I cleared Frostee with a sword and 4 affixes and it wasn't that hard. Today I found a lunatic on Youtube who went through the desert with a 39033 score with 6 affixes and I only got 14500 with 4, this guy knows exactly what he is doing.