Suggestions/Ideas and Fixes

[historynoah]

This is a repost from the discussion board because I realized I posted this on the wrong board.

First off, I want to say this game is pretty fantastic. I love the ideas already implemented and how this game is regularly updated. I hope the regular updates will continue with new content and bug fixes.
Now, I’ll move on to the issues in the game that I’ve experienced:
1. MAJOR Grammatical Issues – Though a lot of the events/stories are interesting, a good few of them have major grammatical issues. English is my native language, but some of the grammar has such big issues, that I don’t even know what an event/character is trying to say. Not only are there grammatical issues in the event/stories, but the grammar lacks consistence throughout the game. By that, I mean, events seem to lack a grammatical theme. I understand you guys want different characters to sound like their own original person, but the grammar still needs some consistency, so I can easily understand what an event is trying to convey. I’d hire someone with English as their native language and English as a college/university degree to look over the wording of the events implemented and ones that are going to be implemented, so they can correct these issues. It’s okay to make a peasant sound unread(uneducated), but you can do that while still using correct grammar to make it understandable. This brings me to my next point.

2. LACK of Character/Event Diversity – I’ve seen many of the same events and character dialogue over and over and over again from different characters all around the map. Even though you promote characters with their own unique background, all characters act the same. I’d suggest designating different regions of a map for different types of dialogue/events. Maybe the Faction to the North in the snow is rough and cold sounding when they speak. Maybe factions in the South are more educated and etiquette sounding. There also needs to be more dialogue and events in general, and I mean, a lot more. I know it might take time to put event into the game, but why not ask team members to make up their own event everyday as a makeshift dialogue/event for the game. The person that checks grammar can correct and edit what the team members come up with, and then you can put them into the game. If you want the game to be more interesting, have generated characters restricted to certain dialogue/actions that matches their region rather than having me get the event of a guy getting ready to spank a woman -and her going under the table- (which I’ve gotten a hundred times) all over the map and with every employer I’ve met. That makes me less interested in the generated characters in the game because I know they’ll all act the same, and do the same things, and talk the same way.

3. BATTLES – In some battles, I have different levels of elevation which affects my visibility of the enemy. While this is a great idea, the current “fog of war” being completely blacked out tiles, takes away from the atmosphere and strategy of the battle. I can’t see what level of elevation is under that black tile unless I send a unit there to find out. Even when I have a unit on that elevation, my other mercenaries still can’t see what that mercenary (which I just moved to that tile to be able to see from a high elevation) sees. Even when the my mercenaries are next to an enemy troop which is on a higher elevation, they still can’t see or attack unless they’re on that elevation too. It’s hard to explain, but I’ve had really awful battles because of this black tile feature. It takes away the immersion of the battle. I’d suggest making a clear overlay on those tiles that aren’t visible rather than black them out completely because I want to know what the battlefield looks like. Also, my mercenaries should be able to see what my other mercenaries see, so they can work together in a battle. I assure you, this will make battle immersion a hundred times better.

4. FACTIONS- As I said earlier, factions need to be more diverse. I’ve started three games and I have the same exact mentality from the same three factions in 2 of those games. The third game has two factions from the first two games. Even with the base mentality a faction has, characters from all those factions still act the same as one another. I keep on seeing the same banners too. What would save you some time and money is if you put a blank banner template out into the community and let the community make you banners kept on certain guidelines/rules. It just takes a little photoshop and implementation. I don’t know if this feature is implemented yet, but have the factions attack each other. You could have missions for the mercenary company to attack an enemy factions village or something like that.

5. MERCENARIES- Every game, you start with 3 main mercenaries. These mercenaries should all automatically have the loyal trait because they fought with each other for probably a long time before hand. I had an instance in one of my games where I didn’t pay attention to my food, and ran out. The MAIN CHARACTER left the company on the first day of having no food. I traveled for another 2 days and no one else left. That shouldn’t happen, especially not with the main 3 mercenaries. You should also add in a feature for when a character has been with the company for more than 100 days -or whatever number you think fits- where they should gain the loyal trait. It’s hard to keep a mercenary alive for that long in the first place. There should be more character development in general so that you grow attached to the characters you bring into the company. One last thing, I think would benefit the game, is that there should be other mercenary companies that compete with you to gain contracts.

I hope all this advice has helped. I can only hope that you guys will take the time to read all of this. Thanks for your time.

[Vereor Nox]

Just commenting on #1. The grammar in the game is perfect in relation to the era that the game takes place. If you are younger then I can understand the lack of medievil (middle-ages) literacy. Personally, I have not come across any quest dialogue that did not make sense to me. The spelling is on par and the the details short.

[McKing]

I agree with Nox about the grammar, it seems to be what i would expect from a medieval-age scenario – there were no public schools and complete literacy was not commonplace. And even today, when some people of my country from poor regions speak, it is really hard to understand, with different contractions and errors. I don’t have that difficulty in understanding, but i will pay more attention to see if it’s weird.

[historynoah]

First off, I want to say that I’m an honors student pursuing a master’s in psychology. Writing papers is more than common in my field. Though my own post lacks some grammatical consistency, it is because I am passionate about where I want this game to go, and I didn’t take the time to look at my own grammar. Take in mind, I did say grammatical issues and not vocabulary. You may not have encountered these issues, but I have. If the developers truly want everyone in the game to sound medieval, then they would use old English (e.g. Thou, Wilt, Doth, etc.). On the contrary, they sound like the modern youtuber playing a medieval game. By that, I mean, they use modern language and a lot of cussing (which kinda sucks in my opinion). This is counteracted by old sounding peasantry talk, which takes away the grammatical consistency. I’ve encountered run-on sentences, misplaced/no commas, and maybe even a fragment. Some of these sentences are understandable after rereading, but I don’t want to have to reread them. The uneducated dialogue encountered in the game isn’t very readable at times. I like how they talk all uneducated sounding, but the actual grammar (periods, commas, and sentence structure) could use some work. There’s a way to make people sound uneducated without using wrong punctuation. I’d like to ask if you looked at my other points. I don’t want to assume you didn’t read them, but I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the other points I tried to convey.

[Weis]

The grammar is fine.

[Vereor Nox]

@historynoah

I was not insulting your education or your ability to write, please re-read my comment. A lot of young kids play games and they do not fully understand the concept. This makes it easy to misinterpret the game and request fixes that do not need to be addressed.

[historynoah]

Yeah, I gotcha. I’m sorry, bro. It’s easy to get defensive in this day and age, and it’s easy to get passionate about opinions too :D I probably should of been less zealous about the grammar thing.. haha… or I should’ve put the grammar thing at the bottom of my list of suggestions. I’m still curious as to what you think of the other suggestions written (setting aside the whole grammar thing).

[Meeky]

On “a few”:

They’re using “a” to say 1, and “a few” to mean 2-3 or 2-4 or something like that. The reason for this is simple:

To leave you guessing how many bandit leaders / necromancers / orc warriors you’re fighting exactly.

If they said “a couple” and THEN said “a few,” it’d mean you’d have a more precise knowledge of how many enemies you’re fighting. A little mystery goes a long way in making you reconsider your attack (such as is that “a few” Necromancers 2 or 3?), which I personally think is a good thing.

Heroes of Might and Magic does this a lot, too, including the vaunted #3. Hell, I think “1” enemy counts as “a few” in their games. It’s to keep you guessing / keep you on your toes.

Main character-related stuff:

There is no main character.

On Shakespearean English:

Yeah, that’s just unnecessary.

Notes on event diversity, character diversity, factions, and battles:

These are way better points. We’re in an early stage of the game where things aren’t entirely fleshed out – thus the Early Access tag. Some of the things you mentioned are definitely weak points in the game as of right now. The fog of war issue, the suggest to diversify the way people talk in different regions – that’s good stuff. I think you’re onto something. Honestly, I could see the fog of war being black and unexplored for some maps, such as enemy encampments and dungeons and such, but should we really have that for EVERY map? Wouldn’t a simple foggy overlay be better for some battles?

Those weak points are also on the “to-do” list for the devs, definitely, but these sort of suggestions can give them something to think about, certainly.

On grammar:

There’s a few spelling errors to be found throughout the game, and there are a few punctuation problems… but by and large the developers have done very well. But in-character dialogue in this game is often meant to reflect a character’s education, and I find all the dialogue easily understandable. Not sure where you’re having difficulty.

I’ve actually thought of volunteering to sift through stuff to find actual mistakes before. There ARE a few areas the spelling and punctuation could be fixed, as said. But they’re not incredibly common.

[historynoah]

Yeah. Don’t worry. I’m not in a total support of old English dialogue. I’m just pointing out that if the devs really wanted the characters to sound like their time, they would use that sort of dialogue. I know there isn’t really a main character but the game starts you off as if there is one. The battle in the beginning and the tutorial events lead you to believe there is some sort of leader. They should at least do the loyal trait thing with the first three mercenaries. I’m glad to hear feedback on some of the other points I made. The black tiles fog of war could also be changed so that when a mercenary sees from a higher elevation, it reveals what the surrounding area in the map looks like.

[Wargasm]

Meeky wrote:

On “a few”:
They’re using “a” to say 1, and “a few” to mean 2-3 or 2-4 or something like that. The reason for this is simple:

To leave you guessing how many bandit leaders / necromancers / orc warriors you’re fighting exactly.

If they said “a couple” and THEN said “a few,” it’d mean you’d have a more precise knowledge of how many enemies you’re fighting. A little mystery goes a long way in making you reconsider your attack (such as is that “a few” Necromancers 2 or 3?), which I personally think is a good thing.

This was aimed at an entirely different post. I agree it would be a good idea to keep you guessing and on your toes. My point, however, it that it is always 2 and never 3 or 4, and thus all uncertainty is eliminated after a short spell of play.

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