Thoughts and Critiques after more than 100 hours.

[Marsdreamer]

Been a long time fan of this game since it first hit Steam’s Early Access and I’ve logged over 100 hours, 25 of which have been since the release of the last Beta before launch. While I think the game is the best it’s ever been, there are still some things that could be addressed to make the overall experience better.

Deliberate obfuscation and tactics games do not go hand in hand and there’s a lot of that in this game. Particularly with hiring of your Mercenaries, the player should be able to see what traits are on a specific character before hiring, if not all *at least* one. Hell, if you need to make it cost gold and call it an Interview. This is particularly silly when you’re potentially spending 5,000 – 10,000 gold to hire a single mercenary. All it makes me do is hire them, check their stats and if they’re bad I reload the save game and try someone else or wait until another character is available. When it takes an hour or two to make enough coins to hire late game mercs it’s just not worth it to “suck it up” and deal with potentially crippling negative traits.

Leading into this the UI needs some tweaking in battles. As frequent tactical combat game player, having all the information available to you at all times is key. While the hover over popups are usually fluid enough, there really needs to be a side bar showing my mercenary’s armor values, HP, morale, and status affects. Using the “Always show health bars” option just clutters the screen, looks awful, and generally causes eye fatigue. In line with this, why can’t I see what the status effects do on enemies? I haven’t memorized every single injury and what they do, so it would be helpful to know what a broken arm does Vs. a punctured shoulder when I injure enemies.

Questing / Loot. The contracts are generally OK and do their job well enough. Sometimes there’s a lot of wordy text that doesn’t explicitly state what you’re doing, leading me to just accept the terms and read the bullet points to see what I’m actually supposed to do before finally accepting or rejecting the contract. Really what I want is a way to track rumors without having to just remember what the innkeeper said. Overall the rumor system is kinda a weird way of gambling in which you just spend 22 gold over and over again until you hear something good. But when you hear something good, there should be some sort of journal, log, or marking on your map of at least the general vicinity of where you’re looking. This is particularly needed when hunting down Famed items.

Speaking of Famed items. They’re awesome have amazing artwork and are a fun addition to the game making your brothers stand out, but holy shit are the drop rates atrocious. I get that they should be rare, but (for example) I have been searching for a Famed Helmet for over 150 days on my current campaign for the Ambition quest. I’ve never even seen one. I spent 100 days just looking for any famed item and I spent it off in the boonies tearing down every camp, fort, and cave I came across. Even if the drop rate isn’t altered, that ambition needs to be reworked so that it is a set of quests where you track rumors and find those famed items as a guarantee, even if they’re low level, because god knows how much longer I will spend chasing a Helmet.

Bugs. I recognize that this is Beta patch, so hopefully the crashes will get ironed out, but there’s one specific bug with Goblins that’s not game breaking, but at best a little frustrating. Basically, for the Direwolf Riders the morale or status effects don’t carry over after one of them has died. I’m not entirely sure if injuries do, but stuns and breaking morale doesn’t. For example, if you stun a Rider and then “Kill” him such that either he or the wolf spawns, the stun evaporates and they get their turn back. Additionally, if they are breaking morale and you kill one, the wolf or goblin left over won’t necessarily also be breaking, which is a bit counter intuitive. This actually happened where at the end of a tough fight I took the first life off of the breaking Rider, it died, spawned a goblin who then wasn’t breaking and turned around to kill one of my Mercs.

Overall, like I said, I think the game is good and deserves a lot of high praise, but there are a few minor quality of life things that I think would smooth out the experience and just generally make the game more enjoyable.

Thanks for reading,
–Mars

[ERICdb]

Marsdreamer wrote:

Particularly with hiring of your Mercenaries, the player should be able to see what traits are on a specific character before hiring, if not all *at least* one. Hell, if you need to make it cost gold and call it an Interview.

I agree with this. I’ve seen some people in this forum come up with similar ideas so it would seem a common issue. I’d also like to have a means to check for some of those stats. The thing with the price is that usually mercs cost more depending on their gear, and so if you are looking for talent you are also paying for potentially useless or outclassed equipment.

Marsdreamer wrote:

Leading into this the UI needs some tweaking in battles. As frequent tactical combat game player, having all the information available to you at all times is key. … there really needs to be a side bar showing my mercenary’s armor values, HP, morale, and status affects. … it would be helpful to know what a broken arm does Vs. a punctured shoulder when I injure enemies.

I have to agree with you also on this. I understand that too much info in plain sight actually gamifies a fairly enjoyable artistic experience, but not knowing what abilities and status actually do can ruin your game quickly.

Marsdreamer wrote:

Questing / Loot. Sometimes there’s a lot of wordy text that doesn’t explicitly state what you’re doing, leading me to just accept the terms and read the bullet points to see what I’m actually supposed to do before finally accepting or rejecting the contract.

This. I generally like the writing in the game since its quite flavourful, but sometimes it seems that my employers are reluctant to give me the most important bit of information. Maybe some bold text emphasising the real deal or direct mentions of the problem. Sometimes I wish for a plain: Orcs. Southwest. 2000 if killed.

Marsdreamer wrote:

Really what I want is a way to track rumors without having to just remember what the innkeeper said. Overall the rumor system is kinda a weird way of gambling in which you just spend 22 gold over and over again until you hear something good. But when you hear something good, there should be some sort of journal, log, or marking on your map of at least the general vicinity of where you’re looking. This is particularly needed when hunting down Famed items.

This has also been suggested and it seems to be both a good quality of life improvement and a flavorful addition. I would do the writing down myself but time is limited.

Marsdreamer wrote:

Speaking of Famed items. They’re awesome have amazing artwork and are a fun addition to the game making your brothers stand out, but holy shit are the drop rates atrocious. Even if the drop rate isn’t altered, that ambition needs to be reworked so that it is a set of quests where you track rumors and find those famed items as a guarantee, even if they’re low level, because god knows how much longer I will spend chasing a Helmet.

Right now I’ve played 110 days in one save and 93 days in another save, and haven’t been able to see any of them. I know they exist and people speak of them in whispers and reverence, but most of my men think they are just myths.

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