Close to 50hrs and having done the tour

[Patpat]

I think I've seen most but probably not everything the game has to offer in it's current state.
On the other end I am also sure that much details do not get noticed such as for instance the cuckoo clock being acurate looool.
I absolutely love the game and it's potential, and definitely it will be the indie GOTY for me ;)


A few observations & suggestions regarding the current state of the game, and I trust I will continue to evolve into even more of a masterpiece:

- Observation: I notice that many many forum issues are more about lack of understanding of the game mechanics rather than bugs and other issus, and probably a bit more hand holding would be required during tutorial.
- Observation: Many investigation parameters are not being used at all or below their full potential, such as: bank statements, blood group, writing style, and even phone tracing (explained as a tutorial option) I have never had to use this to solve any cases...
- Observation: Most people don't know how to use 'F1' properly, it is powerful yet mostly unknown.
- Observation: After so many hours in game I never ever had to rely on CCTV even once.
- Observation: 2 poles following many feedbacks: either easy or too hard, I think it mainly depends if one ges the game mechanics or not (yet).
- Observation: Known bug with "theft missions" if you load during the mission.
- Observation: Many find item quests, the item is just at the quest giver's place.....
- Suggestion: More murder case "templates", the ones that are there currently are great, we want more :)
- Suggestion: More side jobs templates, and also paradoxally those tend to be harder than the murder cases.
- Suggestion: More ways to spend money - you accmulate cash then what to do with it except buying a very large empty 30k penthouse and furnitures ?
- Suggestion: More social interactions, maybe romance etc, what to do with legacy ?
- Suggestion: Get the fridge working and not despawn food you put in there so quickly.
- Suggestion: Government DB is great for pinpointing suspects, initials etc, but having fingerprints in there kind of breaks the gameplay.
- Suggestion: You gotta be able to smoke in an alternative 80s noir setting :)

On that, I hope this finds it's way and wish you all a happy gaming !

[Binnie]

I have used blood type.

I had a 'go find person and do X' mission and all I knew about them was their first initial and blood type. Unfortunately, you solve this like 90% of the game, go to the government computer, look up those names and check the list and look for those people.

I agree with more side jobs, I think you should just get the person or the address or the work place. You want me to do something to a person, you should know who that person was... but then you have to do much more to complete it.

The murder cases are for putting together clues and finding people. The side jobs are for doing specific jobs that people pay you for. Though a "find out who ♥♥♥♥ on my door" case would be great where you get full access to their apartment and they want you to figure out who did a crime on them or stole from them or smashed their place up... Then mess that person up while masked.

I want more reason to use the CCTV's and they need to be fixed, there are a lot of times that a body is just dead forever once they die, even when you use the cameras.

I agree with not having fingerprints in the Gov crunchers. I think they should have a lot less info. Maybe only have fingerprints if the person has a record? And a printout of that record could be good?

I agree with more to do. Let me gamble a the gambling house. Add more games and more to do in the world. Maybe improve how the other NPC's live and interact with us? They could remember us if we don't wear a mask? But if you put on a mask people don't trust you or wont open the door at all or will call the cops? Actually I think mask system really improves this game.

Allow us to frame others?

Have more punishments for death or getting arrested. Social score for example should go down if you are caught and identified breaking laws?

You need a better inventory system IMO. Its too simplified to the point of almost being comical, just a lot of QoL changes need to happen in the game.

I agree with the OP. +1. Great game, great potential, and I look forward to where this goes.

[Binnie]

ALSO,

I think not getting caught should matter. I almost want a database on what your character has done (crime wise) and over time you need to get in and delete it before you start getting put up on wanted boards.

Almost how I wish the bounty hunting in this (arrest dangerous individual side job) stuff goes. I don't want to pick a thing and get a person to look up and go arrest... Just do a WANTED board. Its on the players to match physical descriptions and pictures and find them. And they should be on the run, hiding, laying low, and very dangerous if caught alone with the player or if the think the player is onto them at all. Some could be gang members that always stay in their gang. So now you need to find a way to separate them to arrest them.

I can go on and on. The potential for this game is wild. It is incredible what has been made.

[Aeolus]

Wait... you can look up fingerprints?!

[Tyrion Lannister]

I've used handwriting.. narrowed an arrest case to an apartment floor with three units, broke into each unit and compared the address book handwriting to the target's handwriting.

[Perogi]

I've had several cases where you start with a phone number and have to trace it. To the point where I'd make the call from the same building everytime so the router would always be unlocked lol
I've also never used CCTV outside the pre-made murder, nor handwriting, blood group, or bank statements. Also any kind of time has never been relevant to me, time of death or phone call times or anything.
I agree that fingerprints in the government database are OP. You can solve almost half the cases in the game just by looking up people in the relevant citizens address book and matching the fingerprint. For theft recoveries I think this is the only way to solve them. Plus there's usually a computer in city hall that you can freely use in a public area. Might be less OP if you could only access government database in a restricted area and there was some risk involved.

I have a suggestion actually: Adding things that passcodes could be. IE passcode is the first 4 digits of account number on bank statement, or the first 4 digits of credit card number or something. Or the first/last digits of own phone number or best friends phone number.

Another cool thing would be leveraging the ingame dating app more. I used it as a possible lead in one murder but it was a dead end. But as far as I could tell, the V-Mail saying the citizen was matched with someone was an actual person. Interestingly, the murderer and the murder victim matched with the exact same unemployed dude on the dating app lol.

[Chris]

I personally used CCTV a lot, it makes solving murders really easy (either i see the killer entering the victim's apartment or I ask neighbours if they saw anyone suspicious and then check the footage for potential killers).

I agree that murders are actually one of the easiest jobs, because once you learn all the "templates" (co-worker killer, lipstick killer, etc.), you don't really have to do much investigating. Like you said, we need more murder types.


The government database is indeed pretty overpowered. Once you find someone's name, you can just go to city hall to get almost all information you need (including fingerprints) instead of having to go to their apartment/workplace. I'd say the problem is that accessing the database is extremely easy. If it was much harder to access (for example being in a highly secure area, or perhaps paying 500 crows for temporary access or something) would give you more incentive to find the information yourself.

Mission payouts are indeed very high currently. Perhaps having to pay rent would make the game a bit harder, but it would be annoying if you lost your apartment due to losing money somehow and missing rent payments. Also, lockpick kits and codebreakers are extremely cheap. I think increasing their price to around 500-1000 crows would not be a bad idea.

But overall, this game is awesome, even though it is still in early access. I'm excited to see how it will improve with future updates.

[Patpat]

I like the idea to pay to use the gov db, also the rent pressure.
I think that once you have one or two proven methods to solve cases you will mostly succeed using that method and the game doesn't force you to use other methods, like cctv, bank statements etc...
Also the game becomes easier the more you play in a city as you gain more & more info about basically evetyone you meet. Maybe it would be good also to have some timer on what the character does remember about ppl ?

[Isabelle]

Originally posted by Patpat:

I like the idea to pay to use the gov db, also the rent pressure.
I think that once you have one or two proven methods to solve cases you will mostly succeed using that method and the game doesn't force you to use other methods, like cctv, bank statements etc...
Also the game becomes easier the more you play in a city as you gain more & more info about basically evetyone you meet. Maybe it would be good also to have some timer on what the character does remember about ppl ?

Dont use gov db in your playthroughs it makes it a lot more fun

[Chris]

Originally posted by Patpat:

I like the idea to pay to use the gov db, also the rent pressure.
I think that once you have one or two proven methods to solve cases you will mostly succeed using that method and the game doesn't force you to use other methods, like cctv, bank statements etc...
Also the game becomes easier the more you play in a city as you gain more & more info about basically evetyone you meet. Maybe it would be good also to have some timer on what the character does remember about ppl ?

Exactly, when I just started the game, it felt like there were so many possible leads I had to explore in order to find the murderer. But now that I am familiar with the game, I just use the easiest method that I know works well and catch the killer easily. It would be interesting if there was a murder template where the only clue would be bank statements (so no fingerprints, no CCTV, killer not in adress book).

Another template that crossed my mind was unintentional murder. What if a burglar broke into a wealthy person's apartment in order to steal something valuable but ended up accidentally murdering the apartment owner when they were discovered? Perhaps you would have to track down what the expensive item was (using bank statements) and try to find where the burglar sold it. The burglar would not be in the adress book of the victim obviously. Just an idea, there are so many possibilities...

I also agree about the player character's superhuman memory. Perhaps on higher difficulties, the game should only keep track of last 30 citizens or something.

[Mat - allansianadventurer]

Not understanding the mechanics is my main issue with the game. I don't know what I'm allowed or not allowed to do or what I can do or how to do the things I want to do.

[EliteForceQc]

For now my bigest suggestion is pretty simple. Killer dont run their way to their victim. Sound stupid but it happen a lot i spot the killer on is way, when is not rainning outside. I dont mind resolving a murder in less that 2 minutes. But recently im on a speedrun. I have 3 murders, put back a back is about 6 minutes to resolve at 100%.