Feedback and Ideas Welcome Thread - It's A Wipe!

Hello All,

Turning this thread into a bit of a State of the Game, as well as looking for ideas on how to improve it. If anyone has any feedback or ideas for improving the game, please let me know!

* Known Issues*

• Minor Issue - The mouse has some minor issues with not being bound to the game on multiple monitors. - Still investigating.

*Improvements/Enchancement suggestions*

• Display all loot drops, reduce the morale loss on duplicate items when they are also awarded on. Or, a general overhaul of the loot distrubution screens - Will review this for a future update.

• Add Epic Loot Quests/drops. - A cool idea, though this may be something for a future expansion or large update.

• Add More Raids, Classes, etc. - This may be something for a future expansion or large update.

• Add The Ability To Add User Generated Content (Raids basically) - A very cool idea, and something that I'll look into. There's a few big hurdles to this, so it probably won't be something we roll out that soon.

Edited by: ParodyGames

I only tried the demo so far obviously but what I would like to see is more options in the town like buying a castle for the guild or a horse (it doesn't need to have a function in game but maybe give the character a mood bonus). I'll give more feedback after the game is released and I get a chance to finish it. Whatever you do, keep up the humor in the game, it's a big plus.

Good suggestions and thank you for posting some feedback There are actually mounts you can buy, though they are on the next page of the listings. There is a revamp to the buy and use item UI's in the next build which should make it a bit easier to see. The new version should be up shortly with any luck. The Guil Hall is a good idea, and something that we'll look at adding.

I'm having fun with the demo and will most likely purchase this.

A few minor issues:
My desktop/native resolution is 1920x1080. If I play in this resolution everything renders perfect and smooth, and I can use a third-party "fake fullscreen" app to position the window and remove its borders. However, when I select fullscreen mode from within the game itself I wind up in some lower resolution and the fonts are rendered so terribly that I literally can't even make out my characters' remaining HP during a fight.

Also, while in fullscreen mode with multiple monitors the mouse isn't bounded to game. Hardly a show-stopper since there's not any edge scrolling or anything going on here, but it's become expected behavior while I'm in a fullscreen game and it seems odd to see the mouse floating around on my 2nd monitor from time to time.

Combat messages seem a bit cluttered mixed in as they are with the flavor text. I suggest something like "St4bM45ter tells the raid 'Sorry guys, had to deal with the pizza guy.'" possibly in a different color or window, might play a bit better than the current "St4bM45ter went afk this turn" format.

I'd like to see the actual morale numbers when distributing loot in addition to the smiley faces, it seems strange that I can see them before the fight and immediately after the distribution but not right then when I need the information.

Along those same lines, when I'm deciding on an action it might help to see some sort of counter above a character's head if they have a cast in progress, as this information rolls through the log rather quickly. Something like this might even already be there and I just never noticed it.. hardly critical

Again having a blast with this so far and glad I stumbled across it.

I'm glad that you are enjoying the game! I will add a note of caution, that at the moment the full game being distributed by Desura (as of 12 hours after release) is not the correct version. I've been trying to contact them, but I'm not sure how long it will be before the up to date build is available on here. Hopefully soon! I'll post a comment and update the description when that is fixed.

For wide screen, this was actually something that I've been meaning to address. In testing, we found that when switching to full screen it would keep the wide or non-wide formatting. However, if your monitor didn't support wide screen and you switched to full wide screen it would crash the game I'm going to go take a look at adding Full Wide Screen support in the next update, but I want to make sure that I get in a clear warning that if your monitor doesn't support Wide Screen format the game may exit.

Heh, as poor indie developers we didn't actually test using two monitors as neither of us actually have a dual screen set-up. But, thiss sound like a core engine issue so there may already be a community fix for this. I'll try to take a look and see if I can improve this functionality.

Thank you for the suggestion. It wouldn't be too big of a change to set flavor text as a separate color scheme. We'll take a look at it.

For Morale numbers, you should be able to hover over any of the morale icons and get a tool tip with the actual value

There is a casting timer display that appears over a characters head when they take their action. Though, if the text is going by too fast to read it might be hard to catch this as well. Maybe we can add something so when you use the View option in Combat people currently casting will have some sort of indicator to make it a bit clearer.

Thanks again for all the feedback and ideas! It will give us some stuff to look at for the next version

Yeah, there's definitely some wonkyness with the resolutions... the game opens in a tiny window but when I check the options 1920x1080 is still selected and I have to toggle it to something else and back. It also sometimes crashes when a fight starts looking like it's trying to change into full screen and throwing a "mode not supported" error. I figured most of this is on the fault of the Torque engine and my 2 monitor setup could be confusing it further. It's stable enough when I just quit messing with it.

I see the casting indicator now.. I'd definitely prefer if it hung around somehow.

I just got two pieces of the same cleric loot from one fight, but assigning the first piece made cleric #2 unhappy. I assume code-wise these are probably just one-offs in a loop but it might be worth your time to fiddle with this a bit.

One last thing, your forums page showed no forums existing until I created/activated an account. You should consider changing settings such that guest users can at least view the forums and/or create a public..a lot of people won't want to create yet another forum account just to check up on a game demo or see how well-supported it is.. as it stands it just looked kind of broken until I created an account or as if nothing had been configured yet.

Thank you for letting me know about the forums. I think I've fixed the guest access to allow for view only. It's been quite a while since I've been on there without having it auto log me in :o

I was able to reproduce and resolve the issue with it incorrectly not starting in 1920X1080 (or 1280x720) mode. I'm going to try to get a patch out for this early next week, along with any other quick fixes.

At what point is it crashing when the fight starts? After the little banner text comes down? What settings does this occur with? Not sure if this is fixed by the above chage I just made, but I would like to look into it further.

I'll see what I can do about a casting indicator. Maybe we can get in a nice visual indicator to show casting status a bit clearer.

Loot drops are randomly generated as they are awarded, but it would make sense if the morale loss was reduced on the person originally skipped. In my mind, you as the guild leader are just rattling off loot assignments. So, when someone else gets something first, it does offend the ego of those passed over. Still, if they get it right after it probably should soften that blow a bit. I'll take a look at tweaking things a bit

Is there a particular method to effectively using primary tank switching? I had expected it to allow switching between which tanks a mob attacks however right now it seems like a mob will focus on the first tank to attack it until either it or the tank is dead, even if primary roles are switched mid fight.

Also a bug at fight starts: When assigning primary targets for dps, if you adjust the priority list for one dps then switch to another dps to assign a target the two initial targets switched meld together on the selection screen

Screenshot:
Dropbox.com

Tanking is primarily about threat. The primary tank generates threat at a slightly boosted rate. You may need to take the former primary tank entierly off as tanking a mob for a turn or two for the new tank to build up enough threat. Gear also factors into this, as a better equipped tank will build threat at a greater rate overall. Granted, maybe when switching primaries the new primary should get a little initial boost to agro to help make it more effective. I'll take a pass through threat again when I get a chance.

The DPS screen is fixed in 1.01, which I will be uploading tonight. Though, it may take a day or two for Desura to approve and post it for people to download :/

Is there a way to view the "threat" a player has created?

Tanks traditionally have one or more means to force themselves to the top of a threatlist even if only for a short while. Perhaps offering an active ability for a tank to force a creature for a turn or to have the tank automatically use the ability rather than attacking if they're primary on a creature that is not targetting them would be helpful.

I have found switching a tank to dps does seem to drop their threat a lot faster (or let the other tank catch up faster) however that then can mess up healers properly targetting the now dps tank as they may be dedicated to tank healing. Of course that can all be changed mid game but with only one alteration per round it can make that sort of effort pointless (by the time things are reconfigured you need to switch tanks again)

Another bug:
It is no longer possible to view reasons for low morale for players outside of the loot assignment screen. Ie one cannot see if the person needs a break from raiding, needs to chat, wants to raid more, etc.

Edited by: apollobunny

There is currently no way to see threat numbers. I was going for a more pre-Omen style, like classic WoW or EQ where you have no clear threat indicator.

What I was thinking of doing was when you manually reassign a primary tank, he does an automatic taunt and gains some additonal threat on that target. Making it an activated command would be a little more punishing, because it would require and additional round (switching tanks then telling them to taunt). And, yes, switching a tank to DPS will cause him to generate threat at a much lower rate. As noted before, taking him off of the target entierly should also drop his threat a bit quicker.

You should be able to click on the blue Morale text from View Guild Members or Daily Chat to see the detailed information. Where else were you viewing this information before? I'm guessing I may have taken the tool tip off when redesigning one of the menus... But, where else would you like the info presented? I can always take a look at adding (or readding it).

Okay, getting back to coding 1.01 so I can get it out to everyone

I'll double check on the morale information. I seem to recall it functioning as a tool tip when mousing over the player name or morale icon but it is also possible I just imagined it. However...it would be nice to have that information easily accessible.

I have also noticed that warriors even while in DPS mode have their AoE threat occurring. This causes a bit of problems when fighting multiple creatures where I intend to only have one functional tank and I plan on just having the warrior dps that fight. I've actually had my dps warrior effectively obtain aggro even if not directly attacking said creature.

As I said, let me know what screens you think they might be helpful on and we can look at adding them

I took a quick look while I was working on the 1.01 fixes and they shouldn't be gaining AOE threat when in DPS mode. I'll double check tomorrow to make sure I didn't miss something (always possible, which is how a lot of these things happen in the first place

Edited by: ParodyGames

Tried the 1.62 demo. Screen modes still unstable. The new wide mode looks good. I save as default, quit, reload.. widescreen again, woot.

Load my save up... BAM back in windowed mode. Set up my fight, change mode back to fullscreen, start combat and crash with a "TorqueGameBuilder process was forced to terminate" type message.

Possibly something screen-size related is being read from my save game rather than globally?

Options are saved per into Save game files under the theory that a couple people might play on the same computer and want different settings. The Save As Default just sets it as the base value when loading and starting a new game.

Do you remember exactly where it crashed? Was it moving from the raid row assignment to the fight opening sequence? When you were confirming the turns order? Somewhere in between those things? Crashes that I can't seem to reproduce annoy me to no end, and I would like to try to track down the problem.

hello and thank a lot for this game! I just begin a new game now, but i have one question :

can we recruit all members we want?
If we recruit few they will be happy (with a lot of loot) but if they are too much unhappy that is?

it will be good if u make a popularity system for the guild, which can unlock some new class, players with better skills or perks.
Because there is only the gearscore who make the guild evolve, if i understand well.
Maybe add a lvl to characters, and a popularity lvl for the all guild , will be more complex, but more rich game?

Thank you for trying out the game Yes, you can recruit all the members that you want... from the population of raiders looking for a guild. If you recruit more than the number that you can take on a raid, you will be force to have people sit out. If they don't get to raid enough, they may get unhappy. Of course, some people get unhappy if they are forced to raid constantly... so it may work out It can add a bit more for you to manage as the leader if you do recruit everyone.

Thank you for the suggestions It does come down to a matter of time, money (at least where anything involving new art is usually concerned), and interest. Right now, we are trying to focus on fixing any bugs that people find... and making any minor enhancements that aren't going to take too long for us to whip up. We may look at adding bigger things in the future once we've gotten all of the initial kinks worked out.

[Bug] Insect Temple - Prophet Dung-Beetle (unkillable)

Step 1) Fight starts as expected, when he gets down to 3,000 hp he splits. Kill the split mobs and he reforms at 3,000 life....all good so far
Step 2) Get him down to 2,000 he splits again, kill the 3 mobs, he reforms at 3,000 life....he just healed himself 1,000
Step 3) Repeat step 2

It's an infinite loop making him unbeatable.

[Request] - Morale adjustments
It seems near impossible to keep morale managed. I realize this is a key point of the game however there are far too few ways to improve morale to keep things balanced

a) Items cost a significant amount of money but only provide a few morale points
b) "Spending the day chatting with..." slightly increases moral with one person but the majority of the guild will lose morale. In addition this feature will not necessarily make a player stop "Feeling neglected..."
c) Taking the night off does tend to raise morale for the raiders across the board...but it's only by 1 and can only be done a few times before it starts dropping again from restless players players...

So a few suggestions:

1) Make morale boosting items droppable in raids. Low level ones common and more expensive ones rarer or only possible at end bosses.
2) Make the "spend a day chatting with..." morale boost be much more effective than it is if the person "Feels neglected". I'm thinking 2-3x what it currently is...and ensure they no longer feel neglected for at least a few days
3) Give a raid wide morale boost upon completing a dungeon that is scalable based on the dungeon vs. average gearscore levels. The morale boost should be significant...say +10 upon a moderately difficult dungeon and average gearscore. This makes raiding succesfully a core component to keeping the guild happy.
4) Morale loss from giving an item to another player when another player could have potentially used it should have a modifier based on the gearscore difference between the awarded player's old and new item. For example if I bring on a new cleric starting with base items and I get a gearscore 20 item. My other clerics should be far less jealous if they're currently sporting a gearscore 17-19 item in that slot making upgrading new players somewhat feasible.

The Prophet Dung-Beetle mechanics are working appropriately. I tested it a couple of days ago to verify. That set of raids is one of the harder and more mechanic driven ones. Granted, the fight after that one was not working appropriately until the current release (1.02). There's also a thread on the official forums discussing how to beat this fight, though no one has posted the answer publicly. I do know that a couple people have figured it out

Balancing morale is one of the trickier aspects of the game. Especially on modes other than PVE! Not getting too into the math or morale, but a lot of the things you are suggesting are in fact already in place. Perhaps not to as high a degree as you are suggesting, but a lot of these things do get taken into account when calculating morale loss. I can take another look at the numbers when I have some time. Though, raiders can be a whiny bunch

Morale items as loot is a good idea. They were added after the initial loot tables for gear was already done, and didn't really get looked at for inclusion after the fact (other than orbs, but those were there before morale items). I can take a look at shaving a few percent off some items to add them as rare raid rewards.

Thank you for playing the game and making suggestions on how to improve it!

I bought this a couple days ago and like it a lot.
I have a problem with the Prophet Dung Beetle fight though. The games freezes halfway into the fight (between round 15 and 20). I tried this fight three times so far and it happened everytime.

#Edit
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Same goes for the dragon whelps. The game (again around turn 15+) freezes at the end of the turn. So I can't complete either of these raids.
I tried to reinstall but it didn't solve the problem
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Otherwise I'm quite happy with the game itself.
As a suggestion, I'd like to see a minor change to the combat log. A different text colour for enemy attacks. That would make it easier to track what the enemy does.

Additionally, maybe for a larger update/expansion, different speccs for every class.
Like a tank and dps warrior (there's gear for both allready)
for Wizard Fire ( like it is now, plus burn damage over time) and Ice (faster casttime, less base damage, chance to freeze target, increased crit bonus damage)
Clerik get's a tank specc, (allready wears shield), perhaps with low hp but large shield spells
Cast DPS specc for druid
and so on. I think you get the idea.

Bard definetely needs a redo though. The small random buffs paired with very low damage output isn't worth it. Even if I get the right buffs at the right time (which usually isn't the case), the buffs are too small to compensate for his dps.

Edited by: Dheyjin

Posted a small update to try to address the freezing issue. Let me know if it works any better for you.

Thank you for the suggestions! It's mainly a matter of having next to no free time right now to work on things I've had a small enhancement started for a month or so now that I haven't gotten a chance to really finish.

Dheyjin wrote: I
I have a problem with the Prophet Dung Beetle fight though. The games freezes halfway into the fight (between round 15 and 20). I tried this fight three times so far and it happened everytime.

i have same problem.=(

reaper771386499338 wrote:

Dheyjin wrote: I
I have a problem with the Prophet Dung Beetle fight though. The games freezes halfway into the fight (between round 15 and 20). I tried this fight three times so far and it happened everytime.

i have same problem.=(

Which version are you using? There may be an update you will need to download to address that issue.

i played in 1.08 version. right now update to 1.09 may be it helps:D

just tried to kill prophet in 1.09 game still freeze:(

If you could, send a detailed description of when it is freezing during the fight to support@iawgame.com . At worst, I can try to send you debug files and you can send me the logs to try to figure out why it is hanging for you.