Suggestions and a Few Bugs

[grantthejester]

First I would like to say that I've been waiting for a game like this for quite some time, It someone simultaneously gave me a sense of overwhelming nostalgia and was intriguing with great graphics and immersive gameplay. I'm glad that the DEV team is actually taking time to read all these suggestions too, it makes me not regret getting an early access copy.


Bugs first:

When assigning villagers I somehow have one stuck somehwere, I can see the full extent of my "unemployed" villagers but when I attempt to assign all of them the assignments go red as if I don't have enough, so I always have one unemployed villager, no idea where that person is. I also ended up with people dying of thirst because even though I assigned workers to the bottler, they were perpetually stuck in transit somewhere, it would be nice to be able to either sort the villagers by assignment or click on their little icons from their assigned buidling to see where they've gotten to.

Stone walls. I've attempted to completely surround my village in stone walls and I have no about five sections which are stuck at 50% completion which I can neither destroy or cancel, and apparently my villagers cannot finish building. I cannot destroy them with any of my conventional means, it always seems to happen when I'm constructing a zigzag style wall across a diagonal.

Even when I've designated available resources close by, the villagers seem to randomly venture to farther more dangerous resources for no reason other than they seem to want to.

I have used the ressurect spell multiple times and never, not once seen anyone resurrected.

What do you guys have against right clicking? Right clicking does nothing and it seems like a waste of one of the most common control mechanics.

Suggestions

First one's a big one and I don't care if you guys don't implement any of the others, but please please allow for multi screen gameplay. It would be amazing to be able to have a second window which I could assign to my other monitor which has all the efficiency, map, and other informations always displayed. And if I opened up that mode, then all those buttons would disappear from the gameplay window!

There should be a way to traverse water, create bridges, or other ways to extend ones influence across large bodies of water. In my latest village there is an island nearby, but just out of reach. I've attempted to use earthquake and the meteors to generate a sort of land bridge, but that is slow and tedious.

There should be an info button in each building's GUI which reminds me what the hell it does and it's description. Having to go through the build menu to find that information is tedious. It would also be great to have a glossary of sorts.

So I'm a god, and god's need followers. I would like to see a temple available as a building. The temple designates worshipers and the more "prayers" or sacrifices, the more my overall manna stores could be. For a god my powers seem awfully stagnant. It would be great to be able to upgrade them, or even start out with a handful of simple powers, and as my following grows, so does my adept control over the elements. Maybe at some point there would be an option to upgrade the temple and choose a speciality, which unlocks more of a specific power, whether its destruction, or agriculture, or weather or whatever.

Prometheus brought humans fire, what else could a god bring to his people. Maybe as things are unlocked, certain technologies or concepts are unlocked that you "give" to your people so that they can advance slowly.

Maybe a band of cultists that worship a competing god. And then we have a goal, eliminate the opposing worshippers and diminish other god's power.

I'd like to see the minimap tied to the events log, so that I could mouse over an event, and it would be highlighted on the map. The ressurection spell would be a lot more useful if I could actually find the people I mean to resurrect.

More houseing options please. And allow buildings to use each other's pathway buffer zone. There is no need to have two spaces in between each house when I really only need one, and I don't need to have a mess of a honeycomb of paths. People should be able to live in more things than just shacks and I should be able to organize them better than I currently can. Ideally a fountain should be the same footprint has a large house so that they can be grouped together modularly into their own neat collectives.

Please please please refine storage options. The effective resource to space ratios are in my view completely skewed. Either allow storage facilities to be upgraded so that they can accomodate more things, or allow other options like underground cellars, or grain silos, or granaries, or water-towers, aqueducts, or reserviors to store things. Half of the resources I have at my disposal are just sitting on the map because at some point I realized its more practical space-wise than utilizing storage.

An automatic rebuilding feature would be great. Maybe assign a village maintenance crew or something but structures should be reserved on the map unless I say otherwise. If a gate or a wall gets destroyed, that should automatically get rebuilt when they have the resources (or no longer under attack) without having to have me nitpick each and every link of fence.

Rangers and Explorers. Right now there is no incentives to have villagers leave the safety of the village, and there could be so much more depth and atmosphere from allowing rangers to train and explore new resources, abandoned buildings, or mystic structures. Maybe uncover ancient relics, and that gives the opportunity to integrate some sort of story or enhanced worldbuilding features or narrative.

Water is confusing how it works, it seems meaningless as a barrier, if monsters and villagers can simply walke across deep water. It seems that it would be an effective deterant from monsters and a strategic fortification, but thats not how it works. Maybe some consistency, its also unclear if there's saltwater or fresh water, or what?

Defences are lacking some basic staples: Moats, spiked or flooded, traps, manned gates and walls, manned towers, etc.

Are all monsters single squares, I was expecting some giants, or yeti's in the winter, or maybe a hellhound or two, but everything, including slimes were single monsters. More monster variety would be enthralling. I don't know how flying monsters would work, but that could be an interesting dynamic. Monsters seem pretty single minded, but I don't think they would all have the same motivations. Maybe ghosts attack essence, zombies attack people, gremlins or goblins attack gems or crystals or steal resources. There could even be larger monsters which conduct periodic raids on your village. Maybe a winged monster that abducts villagers once a season and there needs to be a way to go rescue them from it's lair. There was one moment where the monsters were restless and I was in the process of altering my fenceline so that I could add in a gate. Every monster on the map suddenly knew about that one hole and funneled single file into my village. It makes sense for certain monsters to use certain senses to find villagers, are zombies attracted to noises of building and light? Are ghosts and specters attracted to magic, to wolved scout walls and look for openings. Maybe some monsters that behave like ants, while others behave differently, but having every monster on the map suddently exploit one weakness in my defenses did not make any sense.

Weather and the seasons seem to have no effect on monsters, their speed or their types. Theres no logical reason that if the winter is so cold all the water is frozen that a slime is still able to get around, it would freeze as well, but while slimes are frozen, slower larger snowier creatures plague the landscape. Perhaps in reference to the suggestion about about worshipers, you could scale the enemies with the level of power the player has, so that larger more formidable monsters are released the more powers and tech one possesses.

There's no clothing, winter coats and clothing seem like a necessity I mean, what are the three necessities, Food & Water, Clothing, and Shelter. One seems missing.

The seasons should have more effects than just the villagers temp and harvest abilities. Snow should turn the ground white, and limit the speed which holes are dug, or resources are cleared. There should also be melted sections next to large fires. Fires should encourage people to congregate around them and converse, but now they seem to have no purpose. Spring should bring on a rate of accelerated growth and births, Fall an accelerated harvest.

I've seen this suggested before, but the pathway upgrading system needs a complete overhaul. It's tedious and needs to feel more automated. I've seen devs responding to other suggestions of designating patrol areas for soldiers as too controlling, yet I have to dictate each and every square of path five times over. It should be that the player suggests the paths, and when available resources show up, the waymakers just improve those pathways.

Desirablilty seems like it would be a big thing, but has no effect on anything I can see, I'm not sure why such care was taken to build a desirabilty overlay when it doesnt do anything or effect anything.

The village seems to be missing any cultural aspects, whether its education, music, theatre, worship, festivals, dances, or any sort of entertainment. A festival that happens on a full moon for instance could be a great way to bolster morale and give all villagers either a productivity or a reproductivity boost.

Thanks,
Grant

[...👑 JOST AMMAN 👑...]

Wow! What a wall of text!

You've made some nice suggestions there IMO, but it's also evident you completely lack a more thorough knowledge of the game... so many wrong assumptions, so many things you say that don't work in a way when most of them already do (for the most part).

You're also missing how some game mechanics work and since you don't understand them you think you found a bug... I suggest you play more and read more the forums before reporting nonexistent bugs. :-/

I'm not trolling, mind you, I'm just informing you that many of the faults you see actually need a deeper knowledge of the game to be understood (and overcome).

I don't have the time (or energy) right now to nitpick each and every point to explain in detail.
I hope I'll find the time in the next few week days. :-|

Anyway, as I said, there's also a bunch of very nice suggestions in there, I hope Ray (the one and only dev) reads this and picks the best ones for some future release. :-]

[grantthejester]

Hey, I'll be the first one to admit that I don't know things, but I would say that its really on the game to have not informed me of how it is "supposed" to work. One would assume that the game should attempt to educate me to that effect and I shouldn't have to pour through forums and to find that information. Whether it's built into the tips or whatever.

[EldVarg]

The tips/tutorials are far lacking, as this game is only a prerelease. More info will be added in future after game becomes more stable/full release. You always have to focus at something. If you focus at adding info about things, and later on changes them, it is time spent in vain.

[Rayvolution]

*Cracks knuckles*

Originally posted by grantthejester:

First I would like to say that I've been waiting for a game like this for quite some time, It someone simultaneously gave me a sense of overwhelming nostalgia and was intriguing with great graphics and immersive gameplay. I'm glad that the DEV team is actually taking time to read all these suggestions too, it makes me not regret getting an early access copy.

Glad you're enjoying it! ;)

Originally posted by grantthejester:

When assigning villagers I somehow have one stuck somehwere, I can see the full extent of my "unemployed" villagers but when I attempt to assign all of them the assignments go red as if I don't have enough, so I always have one unemployed villager, no idea where that person is. I also ended up with people dying of thirst because even though I assigned workers to the bottler, they were perpetually stuck in transit somewhere, it would be nice to be able to either sort the villagers by assignment or click on their little icons from their assigned buidling to see where they've gotten to.

How long was the villager not assigned? Sometimes they might just be sleeping at home. In some rare cases they can also be trapped in the terrain (eg: The forest grew in around them by dumb bad luck).

But there is a known bug that can also cause this, that is causing idle villagers to not take a job. It's extremely rare, and I'm still trying to find the cause. But if you can find the problem-villager you can usually use the grab spell on him and then drop him, and it'll reset his AI.

Originally posted by grantthejester:

Stone walls. I've attempted to completely surround my village in stone walls and I have no about five sections which are stuck at 50% completion which I can neither destroy or cancel, and apparently my villagers cannot finish building. I cannot destroy them with any of my conventional means, it always seems to happen when I'm constructing a zigzag style wall across a diagonal.

This isn't a bug, but admittedly annoying. The walls ended up out of range of the village before you completed them (likely, because of the other walls being built first).

Originally posted by grantthejester:

Even when I've designated available resources close by, the villagers seem to randomly venture to farther more dangerous resources for no reason other than they seem to want to.

The workers select the closest place to harvest relative to the worker. So if the worker is on the other side of town for whatever reason, and you have work selected over there, they'll try to harvest it first. Once they make their way back to their work building they'll start working nearby that location.

Originally posted by grantthejester:

I have used the ressurect spell multiple times and never, not once seen anyone resurrected.

Use it on ghosts during full moons, not specters or zombies or fallen villager's corpses. :)

Originally posted by grantthejester:

What do you guys have against right clicking? Right clicking does nothing and it seems like a waste of one of the most common control mechanics.

Right click-and-hold moves the map around, it makes using it for anything else in the game quite difficult. But it is used for several GUI functions (Mostly, in sandbox mode)

Originally posted by grantthejester:

First one's a big one and I don't care if you guys don't implement any of the others, but please please allow for multi screen gameplay. It would be amazing to be able to have a second window which I could assign to my other monitor which has all the efficiency, map, and other informations always displayed. And if I opened up that mode, then all those buttons would disappear from the gameplay window!

This would be great, but what you're suggesting is a fundamental overhaul of the entire GUI and the way the game window is rendered. Not an easy task. :)

Originally posted by grantthejester:

There should be a way to traverse water, create bridges, or other ways to extend ones influence across large bodies of water. In my latest village there is an island nearby, but just out of reach. I've attempted to use earthquake and the meteors to generate a sort of land bridge, but that is slow and tedious.

Bridges are planned, but you can use the destroy terrain tool (Bottom right of the GUI) and make land bridges.

Originally posted by grantthejester:

There should be an info button in each building's GUI which reminds me what the hell it does and it's description. Having to go through the build menu to find that information is tedious. It would also be great to have a glossary of sorts.

I'd like to see the minimap tied to the events log, so that I could mouse over an event, and it would be highlighted on the map. The ressurection spell would be a lot more useful if I could actually find the people I mean to resurrect.

Agreed and planned for the next GUI revamp. But I think you're misunderstanding how resurrect works, there would be no event triggers. Ghosts simply appear at night randomly, and you zap one with the resurrect spell to bring them back. But they don't pop up on the minimap, by design. :)

Originally posted by grantthejester:

So I'm a god, and god's need followers. I would like to see a temple available as a building. The temple designates worshipers and the more "prayers" or sacrifices, the more my overall manna stores could be. For a god my powers seem awfully stagnant. It would be great to be able to upgrade them, or even start out with a handful of simple powers, and as my following grows, so does my adept control over the elements. Maybe at some point there would be an option to upgrade the temple and choose a speciality, which unlocks more of a specific power, whether its destruction, or agriculture, or weather or whatever.

Prometheus brought humans fire, what else could a god bring to his people. Maybe as things are unlocked, certain technologies or concepts are unlocked that you "give" to your people so that they can advance slowly.

Maybe a band of cultists that worship a competing god. And then we have a goal, eliminate the opposing worshippers and diminish other god's power.

All of these are great ideas, and something similar is already planned. But one thing at a time. :)

Originally posted by grantthejester:

More houseing options please. And allow buildings to use each other's pathway buffer zone. There is no need to have two spaces in between each house when I really only need one, and I don't need to have a mess of a honeycomb of paths. People should be able to live in more things than just shacks and I should be able to organize them better than I currently can. Ideally a fountain should be the same footprint has a large house so that they can be grouped together modularly into their own neat collectives.

Housing is getting completely fundamentally overhauled in InDev 29. But that 2 tile buffer zone will likely always be there, due to how the game engine works. Two buildings can never overlap, that includes the walkways around each building.

Roads themselves will get an upgrade in the future though, so those "honeycomb" roads will merge together into larger 2-wide roads, etc.

Originally posted by grantthejester:

Please please please refine storage options. The effective resource to space ratios are in my view completely skewed. Either allow storage facilities to be upgraded so that they can accomodate more things, or allow other options like underground cellars, or grain silos, or granaries, or water-towers, aqueducts, or reserviors to store things. Half of the resources I have at my disposal are just sitting on the map because at some point I realized its more practical space-wise than utilizing storage.

Storage upgrades is another thing coming in InDev 29. ;)

Originally posted by grantthejester:

An automatic rebuilding feature would be great. Maybe assign a village maintenance crew or something but structures should be reserved on the map unless I say otherwise. If a gate or a wall gets destroyed, that should automatically get rebuilt when they have the resources (or no longer under attack) without having to have me nitpick each and every link of fence.

Have to be careful with this one. But I have been considering automatic rebuilding for walls. But, for other buildings it could cause many small problems that may annoy the player in the long run.

Originally posted by grantthejester:

Rangers and Explorers. Right now there is no incentives to have villagers leave the safety of the village, and there could be so much more depth and atmosphere from allowing rangers to train and explore new resources, abandoned buildings, or mystic structures. Maybe uncover ancient relics, and that gives the opportunity to integrate some sort of story or enhanced worldbuilding features or narrative.

Defences are lacking some basic staples: Moats, spiked or flooded, traps, manned gates and walls, manned towers, etc.

Are all monsters single squares, I was expecting some giants, or yeti's in the winter, or maybe a hellhound or two, but everything, including slimes were single monsters. More monster variety would be enthralling. I don't know how flying monsters would work, but that could be an interesting dynamic. Monsters seem pretty single minded, but I don't think they would all have the same motivations. Maybe ghosts attack essence, zombies attack people, gremlins or goblins attack gems or crystals or steal resources. There could even be larger monsters which conduct periodic raids on your village. Maybe a winged monster that abducts villagers once a season and there needs to be a way to go rescue them from it's lair. There was one moment where the monsters were restless and I was in the process of altering my fenceline so that I could add in a gate. Every monster on the map suddenly knew about that one hole and funneled single file into my village. It makes sense for certain monsters to use certain senses to find villagers, are zombies attracted to noises of building and light? Are ghosts and specters attracted to magic, to wolved scout walls and look for openings. Maybe some monsters that behave like ants, while others behave differently, but having every monster on the map suddently exploit one weakness in my defenses did not make any sense.

Weather and the seasons seem to have no effect on monsters, their speed or their types. Theres no logical reason that if the winter is so cold all the water is frozen that a slime is still able to get around, it would freeze as well, but while slimes are frozen, slower larger snowier creatures plague the landscape. Perhaps in reference to the suggestion about about worshipers, you could scale the enemies with the level of power the player has, so that larger more formidable monsters are released the more powers and tech one possesses.

There's no clothing, winter coats and clothing seem like a necessity I mean, what are the three necessities, Food & Water, Clothing, and Shelter. One seems missing.

The seasons should have more effects than just the villagers temp and harvest abilities. Snow should turn the ground white, and limit the speed which holes are dug, or resources are cleared. There should also be melted sections next to large fires. Fires should encourage people to congregate around them and converse, but now they seem to have no purpose. Spring should bring on a rate of accelerated growth and births, Fall an accelerated harvest.

The village seems to be missing any cultural aspects, whether its education, music, theatre, worship, festivals, dances, or any sort of entertainment. A festival that happens on a full moon for instance could be a great way to bolster morale and give all villagers either a productivity or a reproductivity boost.

All in good time. A lot of these sound like a fun idea (Or something like them is planned already). But, I can only work on one thing at a time. :)

Originally posted by grantthejester:

Water is confusing how it works, it seems meaningless as a barrier, if monsters and villagers can simply walke across deep water. It seems that it would be an effective deterant from monsters and a strategic fortification, but thats not how it works. Maybe some consistency, its also unclear if there's saltwater or fresh water, or what?

Water is water, there are not different types right now. It does slow monsters down though, you can use it carefully in conjunction with towers and wall mazes to keep the monsters away from your defenses as long as possible while you shoot at them.

Fire Elementals also can not cross them. But, using too much water could encourage them to blast through your walls somewhere else where you're not protected by a water barrier.

Originally posted by grantthejester:

Desirablilty seems like it would be a big thing, but has no effect on anything I can see, I'm not sure why such care was taken to build a desirabilty overlay when it doesnt do anything or effect anything.

It's primary purpose is to decide where villagers prefer to idle at. If you unassigned all your workers, you'd find them almost all hovering around your highest desirability areas after a few minutes. Beyond that, it does not do much right now. It may tie into happiness later.

[...👑 JOST AMMAN 👑...]

Originally posted by Rayvolution:

*Cracks knuckles*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_hNk5QclHE

Thanks! I was too tired/busy to reply lol