QCF Design Community

Ok, so I've finally started the final throught sweep through the game in order to enjoy all the stuff that was brought in since last time. This will be the "rambling notes" thread where I write stuff down as it comes. I hope noone takes me opening a thread like this the wrong way and any comments are much appriciated. I will make notes which I think are important in red to let any dev's reading easily identify what I consider more than rambling (EDIT - turned out i listed complaints in red, and likes in green, oh well - a condense-them-up will be coming). As usual, I mean well, and if ignoring all this makes anyone's life easier by all means do so.

So first batch:

1) The intro level- I'm talking about the "cave" where you run a guard through. Was it ever discussed between the devs and the community? It has always struck me as a bit placeholdery, quite a bit "in medias res" and all that. I know sticking a tutorial in there might annoy old players who allready know stuff, but I'm sort of sure that another solution could be more beneficial. If it were a choice between "Hide in the cave" and "Skip it in manner X" where hiding in the cave would simply let you start with a bit more gold would be pretty nice. Just an idea, and that map could merit a discussion. Or nor. By this popint we've estableshed that the game is deep and unintuitive in quite few respects, thrusting players into a "wtf am I suppsed to do" situation might not be the best idea and it introduces the sensation stone among other things and probably leaves people thinking it WAS the tutorial so they skip the actual ones (there was a tendency). Anywho, sorry for long first note, been a while coming...

Like - the new graphics, the banners for toasts, the hands, the advisor and all that. Very nice and the text looks much easier to swallow down when we have a face to attach it to. Also, there might be one too many text box where you get congratulated. There's a lot of text in short sucession, and "there's one too many here" thought ran through my head. Doesn't have to mean anything. EDIT: this is when the advisor is first intorduced and you are conratualted for building the fighters guild)

Adventuring permit tutorilal - "Excellent non-decision!" Ok, so it's a nice little interface intro. Doesn't let me powergame by choosing the dungeons but I guess that was never ment to be a feature. It used to be easier with the old map instead of the new graphical interface, bit it's an understandable tradeoff. (EDIT: noticed later that there are hints to dungeon contents in the sidebar itself)

??? - There doesn't seem to be an indicator explaining the conversion mechanics in the first of the 3 intro dungeons I went into with the fighter. The only indicator so far was the sensation stone in the first cave TM, and, well, the fact that there are redundant glyphs but maybe some hand holding in this resepect might be ok? Just saying...

Like - The whole graphics/advisor/hands thing is doing a great job of guiding me to play the game and building up my confidence in whoever made it. This is probably the first time I'm not in the least bit inclined to try to think my way around just about anything on screen but am in fact pleased by letting the game take me along. Big thumbs up!

Like - The advizor's short summaries on classess when you are choosing the second guild to build are very nice.

Related idea - Maybe an advisor icon on the right side sidebar to see what he thinks about stuff to enable this?

A make-it-tidy-idea - I know there's a no-new-content policy and stuff, but there are 4 inital classes and the tutorial dungeons are sort of designed to fit the fighter-thef-wizard bias leaving the priest as the odd man out. And I know adding a 4th one would be trouble with the graphics in the kingdom. But maybe you could make the very first one a "chase them out of the settlement" fighter thing, and the 3 dungeons be a priest-wizard-thief thing and all that. Just a thought, might even be a good one.

Next 3 allready copied into the Codex thread but:

!!! - There is no indication in the game that there IS a codex. It took me a while to discover it on the new profile (I didn't play since it was added so I didn't know it was there!) It should probably be the first thing the advisor points out, that he's making notes of anythign you find!

??? - Also, the entry for Wheytwut being a hacked wonnafy can be confusing because you can in fact unlock it before you unlock wonnafyt. Maybe a different flavour for the glyph?

The inacessible codex entries - are a bit unsatisfying since you know there are markers for them but no clue whatsoever what they are supposed to be there for. They're bossess and gods, but maybe they should be organized differently and only appear once you actually unlock any of them with the advisor telling you a new category has been unlocked?

Lingering on something - The sensation stone in the first cave TM creates a codex entry, and it's a relatively obscure item which a player isn't likely to find again any time soon. And the codex fills up with stuff you better get familliar with soonish. I understand there needed to be a way to point conversion as a mechanic out right away, but I really whish there was better way to do this for all the reasons I've listed in various entries...

Appology - Found the conversion tutorial signboard in the third dungeon I entered. Well, I supposed it'd be there somewhere, but well, at least I've documented an experience you can have. This is why I make a rambling thread like this first and concise-it-up in a later thread. Sorry about it all.

Advisor thing - There were 2 instances so far where Advisor was too pushy. Minor most likely, but still noticable. One was when I completed something and he railroaded me towards my next run which ment I had to go back to upgrade something, and the other was with the banker quest. He gave me no time to look at my kingdom and see what's in there (the whole banker quest set up a cascade of stuff which took a while, and if I wanted to say upgrade the blacksmith I had to go back or possibly just click through all that fast to do what I wanted to do). Anywho, the other thing is if you follow up on his instructions you lock yourself out of the "exploit Hobbler while it still gives rewards" perk. I don't know how you guys feel about it at all, and the pro thing is to actually avoid Hobbler like the plague until the PQI to get 500 gold out of evey possible badge and class in there, but there might be times when the advisor could simply be a corner of the screen popup that you click on for advice on what to do next.

Like The Wonnafyt codex entry.

!!! - a bunch of codex stuff I wrote in the codex thread.

!!! - I had NO CLUE you could left click on the monsters and I've been playing for an hour and did 4 dungeons (tutorial ones). This would've been huge if I were a new player!

Like - The dudebro dwarven emissary introduction was very nice. It's also a nice way to introduce them, much better than it used to be. Also for the Hippy elf girl

Related small flavour nitpick - The bankers move into the kingdom after you defeat two of their own! And the elves and dvarwes moved in after helping them. It makes sense, but is just begging for a joke along the lines of you creating work opportunities by efficently downsizing the company or something.

Color coded toast banners - I'm liking them a lot.

Toast structural issue - The "new quest unlocked" banners opening up on the adventurig map thing is a bit bad. Thing is that two runs in a row I've been left with nothing happening in the kingdom that would allow me to formulate a plan, but then when I clicked on the adventure button - BAM! New quest unlocked! I thouhgt about it and its like this - what the game wants you to do is hit the "adventure" button, but it tells you this in a majestic way AFTER you hit the adventure button. Just saying in case there's more of this stuff.

Related idea - Maybe have the "Beginner Brigade" be announced on the kingdom screen, possibly by the advisor, and then all the directional quests which unlock simmultaneously with it pop up on the adventuring map screen. If there's such a thing as an Exporation "guild adviser" with a portrait simmilar to the kingdom advisor and the taxidermist, he'd be a good guy to introduce the directions and all that. Just saying.

Found the "right click on the monsters to find the info" hint... - in the actual tutorial by actively looking for it explicitly. Really, I knew it'd be somewhere, but the structure of the very beginning and the realtive obscurity of the actual tutorials has just caused me, a veteran out to explore all the new content and be strung along by the new advisor system to find this important bit of info rather late. This game needs a proper tutorial (a non obscure one), and the experience can seriously be hurt by misleading people with the whole current intro thing, but I'm sure you guys know that allready. It could've been said in less worda alltogather but still, there you have it, it's an actual issue

Tutorial/Puzzle system Otherwise it's good and I'm glad it's there and I'm especially liking the sidebar system that lets you select puzzles and all that. Having to die to the first goat might be a bit misleading, though, but that topic leads to unnecessary disscussions.

In fact - simply substitiuting the curent intro cave sequence for it in some way would probably work out really fine. Lampshade all the hints as written in an ancient runes or somesuch. It's easy to complete and actually introduces you to stuff in a meaningfull way. IDK. Your caravan got cornered and the only way out was into a Moria like Tut'Oriel dungeon and fighting your way through it led you to the spot where you can found your kingdom and all that...

Ok, enough for now, but I guess I wanted to give a bit of a detailed experience with the beginning and I'll surely condense it for the concise version. If anyone's reading, what would be the good point to stop and concise up the notes for the "very early game?" Anyone who'd like a clarification of what I ment by an obscure note? Any thoughts in general?

More notes:

Gate Scroll in Challenge Dungeons - I suppose it's supposed to appear in the very next dungeon after you beat the bankers or something. I suppose the same thing also happens with the philosopher's stone and another quest. I report this every time even though I suppose it keeps appearing untill you pick it up, but if the stone appears in a challenge which has actual shops (are there any?) it's just... IDK unnecessary. Ultimately IDK and I suppose noone ever had the time to code what needs to be coded to prevent it and the stone turning up in challenges because it's so minor, but hey, it always gets the jump on me.

Challenges ??? - resolved, keeping note for my own sake - Maybe the advisor points you towards challenges at some point, but I've simply decided to pick a few up before I do the directional quests or the begginners brigade. Puzzles got mentioned in no uncertain way, challenges haven't been introduced to me yet. Putting this down in case they somehow don't... Who knows which playthrough I'm going through and at times I still have no clue about what the intended progression through the game is supposed to be (EDIT - advizor clued me in to the challenges after either the first directional dungeon, the first market quest or finding the gnomes and halflings which I did all at the same time. Seems legit I guess).

Bezar - The story is becoming more and more engaging and I like it! Being told stuff by "people" is awesome and the artist is really bringing out the best in writing. Moar!

Alternative Early Game - is great and beats the main one by a mile. It's strange coming form a vet (you'd think I'd praise a way to skip as much as I can), but I'd personally much preffer the second one. The "unlock only if you die" thing is the problem because dieing is not a solid enough indicator you're not doing well in the game That was always a problem in the beta - you could sucessfully not die for months and still not have a clue about features, interactions and mechanics... I get the intensions and all but I've allready written too much and it's a simple issue.

Fighred out an Advizor issue When advisor fires up you can't click on other things. Figured it out when it took me 10 clicks to close the game after a mission. This makes him seem pushy at points when you had a plan and have to wait click through the exposition (migh cause impatient people to click through him when he's saying important stuff). Anywho, toast/exposition cascade taking over your game is a small bit of unfun.

Red Flashes - When I'm about to die from the next hit the borders of the screen flash red. This makes me instinctively move the mouse away from the monster. I suppose right clicking it lets me study it, but the whole thing is very irritating. Not working for me, might be just me.

Mele hit effects graphics in dungeon - i like them Especially how they add nice meaning to the ability icons for different monster and player stirikes (magic damage, and all that).

Missclick protection - is protecting me from missclicks. Yay! Two of my greatest foes, the Unity Bug and My Own Dumb Self have yet to put me in peril. The MODS is trying but the failsafes are working!

The Right-Click select !!! - Is bloody genious and I'm loving it. No more hotkey-mouse-twitchy-fingers-deathtrap for me!

Cheeky - dat badge.

Unstoppable badge graphic - I can't figure this one's graphic out. Looks like a misshapen wax red skull...

<3 the new Northern Desert - The addition of the second boss makes it the perfect place to do the first bazaar buyout quest without much hassle. For a vet, but probably for a noob as well unless he knows about spamming IMAWAL and ENDISWAL. Anyway, very pleasant.

And more:

Advisor on the god challenges - just putting it down, but I've unlocked mystera and her puzzle pack but not a peep from the advisor. The green "New puzzle pack: Mytera" toast came up, but it looks like something I'd advise people about and use the advisor time for giving a small tidbit of lore about the god in question. For all I know a religious advisor portrait is on it's way allready for this (fingers crossed for an exploration advisor who could tell you stuff about the directions, too ^^)

Hello Halflings no.2 puzzle - Had me looking up the answer. I think I got stuck on it the last time too. This is just a note to self. I got Halfling no.3 on my own eventually.

Gnomes No.3 - also had me looking for a walkthrough. The hints were fine, but I was being stupid. I had trouble with Gnomes No.1, too, untill it clicked.

God Advisor - Sure hope there is one or there is one coming, I got Earthmother and still no peep.

Southern Swamp - I'm curious whether anything was done to it, plant density, monsters, anything...

Trapped Chests - still have no graphics. Might seem like a waste of space note, but I'm sort of trying to predict the next or next few changelogs ^^

The bosskill animation - might be too grandiose. I've missed a couple of things I've been saving for after the bossfight like subdungeons and the philosopher stone. It prompted me to click on the throphy and gtfo. Might be just me, since it's designed to obscure the throphy so you don't click on it, I suppose. It gives a sense of finality i suppose

Red screen flashes analysis bit - this keeps irritating me and I'm tryign to figure out exactly why, where and how since I'm sure it's not just me being an obsessive moron. I catch myself rushing to right-click a monster and quickly move the mouse to avoid the agressive red flash. I got into a habit of doing it like that, but the puzzle packs are, well unplayable is a harsh word, but the ease of thinking things through and doing math and comparing targets and stuff is made more difficult by the flash. I think it would be slightly better if it just reddend the borders without the expand-and-contract movement (it's really agressive). Anywho, all the other failsafes have kept me from misclicking myself to death and are awesome, this one is causeing me physical discomfort.

New Monster: Wraith description never fails to make me I guess i have a thing for the blackadderesque combinations of officious and pompous english with outright vulgarity.

Berserker - did I just realize it or is it not true, but since Bererke has more expensive spells and Mystera rewards mana usage he actually has a decent piety gain with her? (Oh, and I decided to go with Purple for stuff and tricks I've learned or realized for the first time and are gameplay related).

!!! Pactmaker subdungeon - I've unlocked Mystera and Earthmother and I went to the Eastern Tundra with the Priest and ran into the Packmaker subdungeon. It wasn't walled off completely, and once I touched it I got stuck with the Scolars Pact. Darvin and me discussed it to death the last time around and listed a number of things why the pactmaker subdungeon is terrible and now it's worse than it was. The list:

- The open desert clashes with most flavours in the game
- There is no gain from it (well, if you still get another one I guess it's ok, but in case you don't then it's a subdungeonless run - now the gain is even less)
- Getting stuck with a random pact while new players are discovering gods messess up piety calculations and can and has before made people weary of experimenting with gods (pactmaker can setup punishments you can not see coming even if you're pro since you'll always chose a pact and know it)
- It appears 3 times and can mess up runs 2 times
- Walling it off completely placed it nicely into "explore it after the boss" teritory where it couldn't mess up runs at least, but if it isn't walled off anymore then it's back to where it was

Darvin explained it even better but I can't remember where the thread is. I'm reiterating it because there was a point between developments where this was the only and the bigges "game progression" complaint from pretty much everybody who cared to speak on the subject. I'm amazed you guys kept it like this for this long (unless it was time constraints that prevented you from fixing it). If I wasn't so mellowed out by all the nice advisor stuff and general improvements (and not tired from previous clashes) I'd be really upset and in utter disbelief over this.

Maybe you guys DID do something with it and I've yet to notice, but just seeing it happen to me again made my hair stand on end. Anyway, it surprised me because I was expecting that GG was scripted and that it appears after 3 gods and not 2. God, I really hope you guys get around to finally changing that place... EDIT: Found GG as well, so it spawns in addition to the other ones, but it just has too many flaws. I bet you I forget I have the pact on and get myself punished by GG by the end of this run...

Slow effect graphic - The small one in the corner that's supposed to let you see at a glace that a monster has been slowed, it doesn't show very well in the snow backgroung (for example Eastern Tundra).

"H" first appearance - very nice, liked it a lot.

New ones!

Goat Glade Unlock - - Happened after I've unlocked Taurog and completed all directional dungeons with the 4 basic classess. I don't have the wizard tower or the alchemist upgraded and everything else is lvl 2. I don't have the 3000 for the goat glade, either and I'll hold it off for now, but now I know when it unlocks. Or should I unlock it and see how it plays with the early kingdom? Hmmmm...

Uh-oh with Cheeky badge - This might be cultural but if cheeky is the only badge you get it looks like the game is taunting you. Being subjected to a mooning by the game feels like opposite of achievement I'm not being too serious, it's just a thought.

The Tavern - I keep finding myself looking for the "Adventure" button and having to press the little "X" in the corner (it's also a bit to the right off the edge of the screen) is unintuitive and I keep forgetting. I took me 3 days to remember I'm supposed to click on the Tavern (or that it is indeed there) so my suggestion is to put a small crossed swords or a map icon to the building simmillar to the stars that you get if you have an empty locker slot.

Quests - Having the menu and the codex in the same spot, and one different from the buildings you get into a habit of clicking on is not working out for me so far (it will come in handy to be able to acess them from the menu later when PQI kicks in and I start forgetting which quest I'm on, I know) But being able to acess the quests and/or the advisor to see what he has to say about stuff from the kingdom screen would be interesting.

Codex God entries - are not very, err, pregledne (can't think of the english word). User friendly? They are uneven, and leafign through the thing is a bit cumbersome. I know it'd be work, but if the gods could have a panel with all of them where you could click to open up the one you're looking for and go back to the "menu" it would be worlds better in my oppinion. Glyphs could also benefit from this, especially ones with several uses that could be unlocked with use simmillar to the likes and dislikes of gods.

Confused about quest rewards - ok, so last time the whole "Heros Helm takes too much gold investment in the kingdom to unlock and is more suitable to being unlocked earler before there's way better alternatives unlocked" situation was finaly acknowledged and supposedly sorted out (I was in fact looking forward to using it un the early mid game for once and held of challenges for this express purpose). So Crystal Ball was moved to be the reward for the "all 3rd tier classes in den of danger" quest which is fine by me, and the piercing wand was moved to be the doubledoom quest reward which is also fine by me - not to mention that doubledoom unlocks after the second generation so I actually don't have to "remember" it exists at all which is again fine by me. But where is the Hero's Helm? In Grimm's Grotto? Got to check, but it's not what I would've done (which doesn't have to mean anything, really, but occasionaly it does)...

Slayer wand - You can blast the sir Thrawn vampire in the "dark knight" subdungeon with the slayer wand and get out without wasting any resources on him. And since he's the same level as you it's nice to do it really late. Hmmm, this might open possibilities elsewhere, can anyone say "Hitball"? Anywho, I sort of always lug a Slayer wand around anyway unless I'm going for late kingdom foolishness with the Bear Mace or specifics with the RBS.

Potential building upgrades - Right now the game only tells me that I can upgrade something if I have enough money for it. It'd be nice if greyed out and immobile little "upgrade me" arrows stuck around even if you don't have money, so you can sort of know what to work towards. This coulples with the quests being in the rarely acessed by me menu and the new quests unlocking on the adventuring screen which regualrly creates a sense of "what now?".

Converting Taurog's Gear - Takes away 10% attack. Considering you get 5% wehn you pick it up, and considering that it has a more than decent conversion rate, this is good to know. Probably.

Playing the game without rushing the challenges - is pretty nice and novel for me. I'm doing the easiey runs and quests, but it's pleasantly challenging and nice. Not sure what it'd look like to a newbie.

The elven boots that you find on a Zombie in the graveyard subdungeon - make for a surprisingly potent early locker item. I knew this before, but someone who isn't a (by this point probably exasperated) dev might be reading this stuff and find the hint usefull.

Embarrassing Tinker Scumming Accident no.1 - I just wanted to make a rather embarassed note about my first tinker scum run in the game (I remembered I forgot to drink the Orc tea after killing the druid so I just thought I'd nip back with the tinker to pick them up), but I ran into the Pactmaker again. Now I'm embarassed about feeling glad I tinker scummed that one up instead of running into it on a regular run (this is telling of how godawfull it is). However...

Subdungeons with wildly off-theme tileset - I noticed this Pactmaker subdungeon had the snow tileset and I liked the fact that it has different tilesets but it got the snow one in the middle of the west (just like the desert one in the east!). Could it at least mach the tileset of the map it appears in for starters? (This also goes for the glowing orange lava filled Transmuter subdungeon from last time around if it wasn't changed - the only map where it works is magma mines, everywhere else it's an eyesore). Also...

Subdungeons that appear almost as large if not larger and deffinitely less claustrophobic than the level you descend from are disorienting and break immersion. Sure, they can be fanciful and psychodelic but they work really badly with cramped maps and can cause a "wtf is this" jolt of unease and/or annoyance when you descend. Claustrophobic ones are ok in this regard.

Pendragon Subdungeon blackspace distribution is really weird and also sticks out in "breaks the suspension of disbelief" kind of way.

Embarrassing Tinker Scumming Accident no.2 - And now I accidentaly unearthed Binlor while trying to find those Orcs that I missed (in case finding them unlock a quest or something)... Oops

There outght to be a way - to punish people for tinker scumming too hard A subdungeon with a bunch of thives who beat you up and browbeat you into revealing your locker combinations so that when you return to the kingdom you find someone nicked your stuff ^^ Yes, this is me, "Mr. I wouldn't take stuff out of the locker to save my grandma" suggesting it.

Furthermore... - a bunch of pure hazard subdungeons might be a good idea on it's own. Sure, it might cause people to become scared of subdungeons or restart runs if they run into one, but wth, if I were a dev I'd be really tempted ^^

X God worshipper status - might be a good thing to add to the list of status effects so you could see who you are worshipping at a glance (also for screenshots). I know the portrait area is getting crowded but hey, I actually looked at it expecting it'd be there and it wasn't and thought it would be nice.

Awesome run no.1 - I ran into the Drac subdungeon as a lvl2 monk in eastern tundra and the bastard lowered my HP to 1. I wondered about restarting, and then about all I've said about the hazard subdungeons and decided to deal with it And, boy, did I ever Pulled every trick in the book that my ulock status allowed and beat it. Very satisfying. There ought to be more of these hazard subdungeons, not necessarily as nasty as this one.

Changelog prediciton attempt No.2 - I wonder if the "not allowed to talk about" thing the devs are working on has anythign to do with the dungeon run end screen?

@Jay: Yeah, probably. Well, I'd still enjoy seeing one which would spawn if you pick too much tinker in a sucession, and spawn in addition to the regular one with the thieves who beat you up ^^ As an idea. Wasn't too serious with all that, I'm just documenting my reactions to stuff in the game for now in case something important crops up or happens again and stuff. Will prune the "wouldnt it be nice" half-serious stuff for the condensed version, but do comment on whatever you want. As long as you're reading them and find some too obscure, please do point them out - I smetimes make the notes so obscure that even I don't know what I was talking about

Oh and the Drac one worked because it locks you in. It's extremely unpleasant in general, though and this must be the first time I actually didn't mind it (it used to be bugged in a way that would let you exit before you get punished and that's one bug I didn't report forever).

Further on:

Soko Trolls - Are causing me trouble this time around. Curious, last time I remember only being stuck on the pt.3 a usual, but this time I had to restart a few others a few times. This note is for my own sake.

Taurog's Puzzle Pack - found nothing wrong with it and the last one had me thinking but was ultimately solveable. No clue what it looks like to a newbie.

Mystera Puzzle Pack !!! - the second one was confusing me a bit, but the hints in both packs have so far been great in both function and flavor, and figuring the final puzzle out was extremely gratifying. Also, that final Mysteria puzzle is just pure awesome (allthough I can't immagine what it looks like to a newbie).

On the topic of the codex and the tavern, I like your idea for the tavern, but to make the codex more obvious and accessible, what about making it replace the green Adventure! button?

Frankly, I totally agree with the pactmaker subdungeons, but the issue has been raised before and doesn't show any signs of changing.

On the (amusing) topic of painful subdungeons, it would be an interesting idea for a thief prep to add some nasty and very beneficial subdungeons to the randomized mix.