Overall thoughts after completing normal difficulty.

[Mashee]

Sorry, semi long, several topics.

I've played once through on the first tier difficulty with no grinding which shows me as having played 14hrs, but in hind sight, I was REALLY slow. I did leave the game open while doing other things several times. Given EA and the winter-sale price I paid, I more than got my moneys worth even at this stage!

The game is incredibly fun. I really like that you've attempted some new ideas in the interface. For the most part you've retained a cohesive interface system accross the board with some really premium tooltips to make sense of it all without a tedious tutorial. The game pace is great. The super-slo-mo (with cool sound) instead of turn based or pure pause adds both a sense of urgency to combat, and reward upon success without going twitch. It's really fun!

Music:

Primo music. I've caught myself humming out-of-game a few times. I do remember one or two tunes thinking "this really sounds like native American music". It fits the viking theme regardless.

Graphics:

Super awesome all the way. I should have zoomed in more but strategy often desires a wide view. I'd love to be able to zoom out more to take screenshots of the overall map like the static view we get pre-mission. There are some fine details which probably should be more clear for gameplay mechanics. I'll go over those further down.

Story and setting:

Personally I have little to no interest in game stories. You've chosen a viking setting, but it could have just as easily been Space Marines or FloopyDoops and SchmoopyDoops. You haven't forced the narrative down our throats with unskippable cut scenes, terribad voice acting, or any such cutaway punishment. You presented the story in a way that was non-invasive to the player with the short narrative displays on the world map and pre-mission screen. The important mission information is summarised on the game-cards presented to you at each mission. That's primo' in my books. Well done on all fronts. I can't stress how well this was done. ps: zomgbutternutpotatocopter please fix the narrative spelling and grammatical errors! See bugs thread page 11,12,13.

Figurines:

Classes, Skills, Equipment, and Gameplay use:

There are hidden mechanics, xp, conditions, or stats that determine figurine level, when they're unlocked at the tavern, and when their special action cards become unlocked. Clarity on what is required to unlock their special skills isn't really indicated like it is for the special skills tokens. The special tokens clearly unlock one tier per "level", however figurine level is unclear other than colored bands at their base. Traditionally a known numeric level is indicated, but I can't argue it is actually needed here. Perhaps on the tooltips somewhere you could indicate the band-color-heirarchy. (I never even saw gold until I had completed the game, and only two characters achieved it.)

The figurine classes seem fine and mostly balanced, though the archer using volley sometimes felt like an orbiting space lazer, particularly when paired with Aesirs respite (cooldown reset). The barbarian (Brute) might play similarly, however my play style didn't put him or the Witch to much use partially because they're introduced once the player is already familiar with the earlier entries. I had difficulty justifying the barbarian with the way I played which was largely a lockdown style; warrior-shield-wall, spearman-imobilise, archer-volley(90% speed is INSANE), witch-curse-of-rot(stacked with archer-volley is bonkers) and leader-guy-shield-bash. For the most part all enemies were on lockdown, utterly destroyed by the archer and spearman at range, and fed into my grinder where they'd eat a shield bash if they got close. Without playing the two harder difficulties I can't really make any suggestions here, everything seemed cohesive.

Equipment scarcity and expense is a thing in this game, particularly on the first run through on Tier-1 difficulty. It works for the game, but it's not what I'm used to. Players like to upgrade stuff, no doubt. It appears as though some minor grinding may have been intended, though I did not need it at all on the first play through. I don't have a clear suggestion here... There's no real complaint, just a quirk.

edit: I'm playing T2 and the game is showering me in loot. ./sigh

Re: AOE vs single target skills. If the archer volley wasn't so incredibly good at decimating single targets I might have used AOE skills, however I never felt the need to. In most games AOE is mis-calculated by devs and usually overpowered, but I couldn't see that in my first pass. This view may have to be revised had I played the harder difficulties.

Godly Cards

These mostly seem OK after your Dec 22 patch. Honestly I haven't tried them all. I've seen one complaint thread about having to cycle to the healing card which is a real thing, but I don't feel it's a flaw. I found lockdowns and the ability to cycle through my cheap-deck to be a priority. Some cards appear to be directly more expensive than others that do essentially the same thing. Curse of Old Age(2) and Ymirs Cage(4) are examples, or poison and fire aoe cards, but I guess that's the price you pay for stacking the same skills. Again, the requirements to unlock any given Godly Card is hidden from the player other than continuing to complete maps. Perhaps tooltip clarity on which level/map/mission needs to be completed would alleviate this. It is unclear if map secondary challenges are a requirement for card, or tavern unlocks etc.

Traps

I've seen a thread talking about enemy figurine pathing and traps. I agree with the premise that traps failing to ensnare or damage something that clearly has to go "over" that tile is frustrating. I took bear-trap throughout the entire game purely as a cheap deck-cycle card. Despite trying, I could not make it an effective tool other than dropping it in front of an obvious decoy figurine, then backing the figurine away after an enemy engaged at melee range. I guess that's valid...it's just frustrating when figurines hop over tiles that other games might track as having been walked upon in the pathing process. I don't feel this is a candidate that MUST be fixed, it's just a quirk that can be frustrating.

Map intro - cosmetic camera view

Map intro's do a cool camera pass showing key-elements and an overall view. I found these fly-by-views really cool. I've seen other players mention they'd like better camera control so they can do passes like this to take random screenshots while playing. That would be sweet. The existing camera controls are great for actual play, they just don't allow those wide zoomed back views for sweet board screenshots, or rotation around the horizontal plane. Perhaps the 3rd axis could be allowed with the right-click dragging.

Unique Map Mechanics

Most maps had some sort of unique mechanic. I particularly liked the alarm timer to encourage quick kills on "The Rescue" encounter. None of the other mechanics fell flat, but I felt the alarm timer was the most fun and challenging. "The gauntlet" subsection on the final map seemed to offer no challenge on Tier-1. I assumed there would be ambushes or more enemies or something. I just sent one lone figurine to the end to kill the one lone enemy, got the thing, and walked out (of the gauntlet). The frost giants were tough, but possibly not tough enough. Perhaps resistances to lockdowns need to be a thing. I had them perma-stunned and just destroyed them with my archer. I probably could have done the same with the Brute and stun lockdowns.

edit: After running Tier2, I'm convinced the gauntlet on the final map needs to be more difficult. An ambush on the way in and out, and x2 or x3 more opponents defending the orb would make more sense to me.

Difficulty: observations

Each map has independant difficulty unlocks. I played through only playing tier-1, once each, then progressing onto the next map. On my first play through I completed all secondary objectives on all maps. On two maps I had to try up to three times simply to get my character load-outs right. The rest were 1st-attempt-completions. I found the game to be challenging but EASY . Had I played higher difficulties on early unlocked maps; overall I feel the game would have been EASIER as late-game encounters would be a cake walk due to my overwhelming gear, tokens, and godly cards. Game difficulty is highly subjective. I'm just saying that I played the hardest means possible to complete the game on Tier 1 (one pass, Tier-1 only, no grinding), and found it moderately easy. Obviously this experience might be different for other players, and I'm sure tier-3 is quite hard. I don't have any suggestions here, only observations that indicate the game MIGHT be a little on the easy side. (though still rewarding and fun)

Difficulty: possible issues

Players might say "this map is too difficult at Tier-X", but context will almost always be omitted.

Sample Player (A): Attempting the final game map on tier-3, having only completed tier-1 on all previous maps. (and obviously completed T-2 on that final map to unlock T-3)
Sample Player (B): Trying Tier-3 on Map-1, after having only completed half the game on Tier1, yet going through T-2 on arguably the easiest map in the game.

These are radically different scenarios and every variant exists in between. As stated in "difficulty: observations", I attempted the most difficult path by making a bee-line for the end game with a single pass through Tier1 on each map and found it moderately easy.

The game may be "too easy" doing a complete pass through Tier-2 in the same manner after having done T1, and never giving the challenge a player might expect or hope for.

If difficulty is ONLY to be had by trying higher tiers of a map prematurely (that is, before attempting the next map in the narrative), then these HARD experiences will be FLEETING, as the rewards for doing so create a domino effect by making all future maps easier and easier to the point that challenge is lost. This is an effect of a grinding playstyle. It works for genuinely bad players...not so much for people who aren't quite so challenged by thinking...

Good luck guys, these are just observations... I don't believe that this is a game-breaking issue...it's just something that you will have to deal with, at the very least in the forums under the guise of "this is too hard" threads. Balancing and making game changes due to such threads will be highly volatile to the game itself due to the scenarios mentioned. By example: I've seen a complaint about the defend-map stating that 20 waves was too much, or too difficult, or whatever. I personally disagree. The time spent on that map felt like any other, but the CONTEXT of that players level of grinding, equipment, and play style are utterly unknown. How can they possibly make any statement about the state of that level or game mechanics without taking those factors into account??

I'll comment again after having made a pass through T-2 as a single-pass.

edit: I still feel the difficulty is on the easy side after having completed Tier2. I think it would be about right with plenty of failures and/or several figurine deaths and a win condition if I played without the archer.

Suggested (cosmetic, non fundamental) changes:

Targetting:

The outline thickness for a selected target, including ranged-attack-tile-outlines desperately needs to be BOLDER. The outline of your intended mouse-over target, or ranged-tiles is simply too petite'. Vikings don't do petite.

Screen Cycle Buttons

In the Merchant or Outfitter screens, many threads exist where people THINK that unequiping their gear has resulted in it going missing and they justifiably RAGE. The left-right-inventory-cycle buttons are NOT OBVIOUS enough. 1) They're kinda small, and 2) They simply need to PULSE with a glowing-fade-in-fade-out when they are AVAILABLE, especially when no pages exist, then suddenly there are multiple pages due to unequiping items.

HUD

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1249671668

The persistent system menu at the top left is unnecessary, particularly during a mission. ESC is default for every PC game, ever, for all time. Other mediums have similar buttons. I have actually seen a game that literally says "press esc for menu" across the middle of the HUD 100% of the time while playing, it cannot be removed. A button on the screen is essentially the same thing. It's redundant clutter. The current gold tally mouse-over below the sytem button is arguably irrelevant during a mission also. I can think of a rare scenario where a penny-pincher will decide to "continue" or "finish" a mission based on an intended merchant purchase, but overall I'm not sold that it needs to be persistent on the screen.

Mission objective cards are obscured in the top right of the map narrative in this screenshot. I'm unsure why. They look cool, but they're utterly redundant fluff if they're not readable. I'm going to assume you intend, or intended to bring them to front-of-view on a mouse-over. In their current state they are annoying and don't work as the user perceives. (imagine the user waving the mouse over them, clicking them, trying to work out why they look like interaction objects that don't work.... )

edit: OK I understand they have a wax-seal mark on them if that objective is complete on the selected difficulty setting. My observation still stands that they look like an interraction object, and the fact that the user knows there's text back there only enforces my original assessment.

Camera

Camera control during actual play is excellent. Allowing the 3rd axis of rotation around the horizontal plane would be nice though. (pitch, not yaw)

I noticed your main menu/foyer camera seems to instant-jump to each menu section despite these not being actual separate loaded screens. (Merchant, outfitter etc). This would looks really sweeeet if it fast-panned between sections when clicking on the buttons at the bottom of the screen. Man I love that main menu music.

Moar Levels:

You could ship it as-is, but you will get some feedback-blowback. A wild guess off the top of my head would be at least two to four more locations, and dual-modes for those and any existing locations that don't have dual missions. I'm guessing you've already got these under your belts at some stage of testing. Current content is really really close to feeling fully fleshed out, but borderline for single-pass players.

misc bugs:

Already outlined in the bugs thread page 11,12,13, inc narrative typo dissasters. Hard crash with Spear Wall is a clear priority. I noticed today another player mentioned the merchant issue and not being able to cycle through their figurines. Displayed weapon damage in the Merch prolly needs priority after that.

Advertising

Literally every single one of your negative review bombs that I read from a quick browse have been from surreal pious stances claiming that the game SHOULD be turn based, or full-pause mode based on who knows what imaginary experience they think they have, or simply because they think the game looks like a board game. These people literally ignored your game advertising and presumed they knew what your game was supposed to be more clearly than you do. It is not reasonable for any person to believe that they find the game too fast, and are unable to make clear tactical descisions or control their characters. These are flagrant lies. It's mind boggling. But advertising plays a huge role in who picks up a game. Make it MORE CLEAR in your game summary, as a primary factor, that this game is REAL-TIME with a SLOW-MODE feature for a fantastic sense of combat urgency, yet still allowing ample time for tactics and planning. I know it already says those things, but it needs to be more prominent to avoid review-bombs from ruining a genuinely top-shelf game that could easily go onto the front page of Steam as a "best selling" title. Ignore those who are flippant about "not buying the game because it's not turn based". These people weren't buying the game anyway. Half baked pressure from flippant minorities to change the fundamentals of the game will destroy it. They are always loud, and utterly lacking in tangible examples within the existing game mechanics. That's just the nature of complaints vs praise. (Particularly in EA, which is brutal for reviews) Statistics have well and truly established that.

3d print wishlist:

I don't have a 3d printer, but always feel like if I did, that I'd print out various game characters, items, and figures from my fav games. Some day dudes are going to include ready-to-print files with their game. ;-)

Thanks!

Thanks for a great game guys!! I really enjoyed it. A tiny bit more content, then a DLC or expansion pack will put this game right at the top for sure! People absolutely gobble up the extras (in the form of good ratings) if the prices or packaging is reasonable. Even late original game content packaged as an expansion for free hits home runs. (provided buyers have a reasonable expectation to see it in a tangible short timeframe)

ps: I originally wasn't going to, but I think I'll take a stab at another pass on the next difficulty.

[Wartile]

Hello Mashee,

Thank you for all the feedback! We have a lot from you to sort through after your recently Wartile frenzy!

I will address some of the design points here, and I've made note of a slew of bugs you've reported  

As for the Story and writing;
we agree that we need to be more on point with spelling errors. Our issue here, mostly stems from the fact that the game (in the initial design phases) was originally intended to contain much less story, which meant we didn't have a setup where we could easily read through and locate these early on.
This is something we're improving and hopefully with our new efforts and with you, our community's reports, we will fix this quickly!

Level up system
We agree that the “level up” system is not a very highlighted system. The system is a quite simple experience gain system from defeating enemy figurines. The only visual representation is the level up animation (present both in the game when it happens and in the reward scene) and the effect is unlocking token slots and new abilities.

We have planned improvements on the stat card, to show the level in addition to other improvements (health tracker, etc.).

Archer
You have certainly found a way to really exploit the Archer! We’ve shortly answered this in another thread, but for new readers; we understand that the Archer is strong, but it’s also a character that requires more micromanagement and skill to properly use. And players used to games with quick reactions and use of hotkeys (say MOBAs), will be able to use the Archer much more effectively :)

Godly Cards
As for your feedback on godly cards, we’re working on improvements to feedback on what is unlocked on what map. Having to cycle through the deck is intended design to encourage people to play with multiple cards and not have the same solution for every problem.

We also agree that traps don’t feel particularly consistent in its current iteration. Fixing this is a slightly larger change, as we would have to work on feedback to avoid it becoming frustrating. We have discussed solutions, but do not have any concrete plans yet on when or if it should be fixed yet.

Difficulty
You are certainly correct in that a large part of the game challenge is based on loadout setup and how you prepare for challenges before going into them. This means that the more experience you have, the easier the game becomes - making it very difficult to balance around as some players pick up on these aspects of the game really quickly (say your Archer tricks), whereas others play much more reactively.

In the same pass as we’re currently doing on Godly Card rewards, we are working on a system to better feedback the difficulties of each map compared to each other. This should help players to decide when to play a map at a certain difficulty.

UI
We’re constantly working on feedback issues and have multiple in the works. We appreciate you pointing these things out as well! We agree with most of your comments and are adding things to our to-do list accordingly.
Specifically, the part with camera panning between menus, was actually how it worked in the past. However, players (and ourselves) quickly realized that it being instant just felt better after playing for longer periods. We could possibly add it back as an option, but we’re not sure it actually adds a whole lot.

Advertising
Don’t worry, we’re not making game decisions based on people who read it's not turn-based, and complaints without ever trying the game :) We’re making decisions based on the feedback we’re receiving from our active player base.

Again, thank you for the immense amount of feedback! We certainly appreciate that you are taking the time to write this up!