Gameplay Feedback Thread

[bngs_power.102]

1. I think Yarpen is overpowered from the point of fighting monsters because when he gets weapon artifacts he can charge it every turn and use it in every fight and win, I think Devs should add some kind of randomness to it, maybe to use it when the hero dice shows specific side, like it is done with Triss' spells. And add hero dices to increase the percentage of successes and for every success you can use different artifacts/spells/friends/signs.
2. Maybe Devs should restrict the development of characters by letting them choose the development cards at start of game and then after completing sidequest/quest/specific investigations, spend specific amount of VP/leads/proofs to be able to use "develop" action once, after killing a monster as a reward - all in all like it is done in other RPGs - level up after gaining XP.
3. Please add more information to tutorial on character's dices, its amount for specific characters and special abilities/sides.

 

[JavierMC]

Hello,

I've played around 12 games and I'd like to share my first reactions and some thoughts.
- My first reaction was to hover the mouse around, specially over the icons for the leads and proofs, because by that point I had already forgotten that you obtain proofs once you get enough leads. I expected some tooltip saying what they were or how to obtain them, but nothing.
- It took me a while to realize that the "head" icon in the cards was the coin icon on the lower panel.
- Likewise, it took me a few fights to realize that you can win or lose attack and defense separately. The new activity log makes it much easier now tho.
- After 10 or so games, I still don't know the difference between the wounds. Is it just the amount of rest you need to heal them? Maybe a tooltip when you hover the mouse over actions with wounds would help?
- I still don't know when I can rest. At first I thought you had to be at Duén Canell or Elladen, because they have a heart icon on the map.

- And the big one. While other players are playing I'd like to check my status and exchange rates. The turns take long enough that I forget, especially with 3 or 4 players, I'd like to check the current situation of a player while it's not their turn. I think, maybe clicking their icon on the top bar

View attachment 4962

could show the character panel, I mean this one

View attachment 4963

or maybe a new information panel, showing the amount of leads and proofs, coins and the exchange rates. And maybe wounds too? Maybe a reduced version of the panel we see during the player's turn at the bottom of the screen. I'd like more information to know the current situation of the game. I mean, we already see what they have during their turn so why not all the time?

But aside from all that I like the game. It's relaxing and interesting. I just wish people chose longer matches more often.

 

[tvjunkee]

Despite its many bugs (Beta is Beta) I'm really enjoying playing the game so far.
And it's just perfect for killing time in those economics courses.

 

[bastormonger]

Played some more games now, and am coming back with a couple of thoughts:

A ) I came to the conclusion that (as some have already suggested) it might really be a good idea to change the winning requirement from a number of quests to something else. As it is, the player drawing the quests worth more VP has a distinct advantage. Even though You do have to collect more leads to solve them, the extra work usually pays. In one game i only drew 8 and 10 VP cards and actually managed to win, but only because i rushed to the finish line, which I didn't really like as it kinda felt like being a spoilsport. I've been thinking about some ways to mend this:

1. As someone else suggested (can't remember who it was): You could set the number of turns: 10/20/30 turns instead of 1/3/5 quests

2. As I suggested: End the game not when the first player reached the goal, but when the last did. To reward quick players, You could give the ones who reached the goal opportunities to gain additional VP while the others are pursuing the Main quests. This could be additional, "inefficient" quests that yield only minor VP rewards and are dealt out to the players that have already achieved their quest goal instead of further main quests. This could encourage players to be quick, but also give players with low VP main quests a chance to compensate for their lack of VP.

In any case, I think that the game should encourage a "checking all the boxes" style of play, as opposed to rushing for victory. The one thing I like best about this game is that it is very relaxing, and seeing other players dash for the quest goal or, worse, being forced to do so oneself somewhat detracts from this.

B ) I've noticed that Geralt and Yarpen can roll or otherwise obtain "Eye"-results (which I take to be magic results). These don't seem to have any function at all. Is that something that's just not yet ready or am I just missing something?
The same goes for some blue investigation cards, which say something like "receive one blue lead for every ´Lodge of the sorceresses´ or ´Nilfgaardian´card You own - but I've never seen any of these. Do they even exist (yet)?

C ) I think that right now, the game is too battle-heavy. Maybe the characters should have not only a battle-dice set, but also a diplomacy and a magic dice set - so the red lead specialist (i.e. Geralt) would have the most combat dice, just like he has now, but fewer magic dice and hardly any diplomacy dice, according to his lead exchange rates, so Triss could rule at magic rolls and Dandelion on diplomacy rolls, while Yarpen would be more or less balanced.
In addition to combat encounters, there could be diplomatic and magical encounters, too, at which then Dandelion or Triss would be much better than, say, Geralt. They could be used as final quasi-fights when solving Main quests, much the same way as Geralt fights his final fights, but they could also emerge as a result of the war track advancing or other triggers, i.e. they could be an addition to the monster and foul fate markers on the map.

While diplomatic challenges would be just that, magical challenges could be related to the handling of magical phenomena (tapping power sources, patching up tears in the fabric of the universe...), or simply to lore. In that vein, where combat dice have swords and shields for attack/defense + some special results, diplomacy dice could have, f.ex. shaking hands for alliance-results, an eye with a lightning for intimidation results and so on (more ideas: mouth with snake tongue for slander results, shining armor for honor results etc.). Magic dice then could have a magic symbol for magic results and a book symbol for lore results (+ also some specials which I can't think of right now...).

D ) I somehow think that developing a character is too easy - maybe the "develop"-command should yield the cards in a locked condition and unlocking them should cost leads and/or Orens, so you can collect dev card just as easy as it is now, but when you want to improve Your abilities, You'll have to judge whether or not it is a good idea to spend the leads, slowing down Your investigation progress (the lead cost might be, in an abstract way, taken to mean that trails grow cold or opponents gain an information advantage while You are training, f.ex.)

I'm well aware that I'm suggesting some rather thorough changes, but maybe You'll want to take some of this into consideration - I really believe that some of my suggestions might help with the game balance and give it more diversity.

Anyway, great work You guys are doing on this game, keep it up

 

[Nunc.410]

Hi JavierMC,

I found most of your questions had easy solutions, so here's some quick replies!

- After 10 or so games, I still don't know the difference between the wounds. Is it just the amount of rest you need to heal them? Maybe a tooltip when you hover the mouse over actions with wounds would help?

The explanation for this shows up several times while you play the game, I had no problem understanding this as those explanations kept appearing. It's clear that "poison" means you need to spend more than the normal healing "charge", and when you clear the poison you will still be wounded, or in other words, a normal wound is 1 "charge" and the poison (severe) wound is 2, to clear an ability completely so as to let you use it again. What is unclear is that Rest gives you 2 "charges", not just 1 (so you can use it to clear 1 normal wound, wasting a "charge", or you can clear 2 normal wounds on different abilities or fully heal 1 poison wound on 1 ability).

- I still don't know when I can rest. At first I thought you had to be at Duén Canell or Elladen, because they have a heart icon on the map.

I don't think this is explained in the tutorial, but very easy to grasp once you try it once (again, the game tells you what happened in this situation). The heart means you get a free heal when you travel to that location, without having to use the ability. All characters have a Rest ability, which can never be wounded, but can have a foul fate put on it. Rest takes 1 action of your turn and therefore you can use this to heal and the hearts at locations are just a (strategic) bonus you can get.

While other players are playing I'd like to check my status and exchange rates.

I kind of agree with this one, since the information on this panel is quite important to make strategic decisions. However, you can currently just click on into precisely during the time you're waiting and not doing much, during the opponent's turn, to check theirs. And of course, you can also click yours during your turn right when you need to make decisions (even though you can't right at the first quest choice when the game starts). That should be enough in most cases.

Even though it's not put forward clearly enough in the game tutorials, it's not that hard to memorize. The trick and the best way to present this is to know that for all characters except Yarpen there's a main color: red for Geralt, blue for Triss, purple for Dandelion. This color is also their quest deck color and shows in several places, especially the character's figure on the actual map. That main color is the quest deck color not only to fit the character flavor better, but also because it is the best to convert leads into proof, at the rate of 3 for each - the other colors will always be 5 or 7. Both Triss and Dandelion have red as their worst, 7, so that way it's easy to understand what the 5 one is. Furthermore, blue and purple are ALWAYS next to each other on the scale (if blue is the lowest, purple is never the highest and vice-versa). All you need to know is how it works and the best/worst colors should be obvious to you.

For Yarpen, his color is yellow just to represent the fact he has 2 lowest colors, and has none that costs 7, but to compensate for that, the lowest cost 4 instead of 3, and then the other one at the usual 5. Once again, just by knowing how it works, all you have to memorize is that purple is his worst color.

 

[Nunc.410]

Nunc's Comprehensive Design Feedback

Long post, but I'm straight to the point in every issue and I think all are important to mention, hopefully making it interesting to read.

What immediately appealed to me in the game was the variety of quests and investigations as well as the strong effects that good fortunes and foul fates had on the game. I kept coming back for more, even though it took a long time to find players, and how difficult it was to understand what were the best decisions to make each turn. However, it was only about after my 4th game that I felt I REALLY understood what was happening and I REALLY wanted to play more. You have started a very interesting game here. I really want it to be as successful as it can be, and feel that, in its present state, it would disappoint many new players unnecessarily.

As I kept trying hard to understand the game, and winning or almost winning all games, I felt like I had valuable feedback on how to improve the game, for new players and in general. First impressions are really important, it's telling you how new players will see the game, and I realize some of this might not make sense to an experienced player or developer, but there are an important number of issues that new players will encounter before knowing how things work.

GENERAL/IMPORTANT PROBLEMS & SUGGESTIONS

- Enable more players to test as well introduce a SINGLE-PLAYER / SANDBOX mode, no need for you to develop AI, just make solo games possible, at least only during Beta for testing purposes, where the game finishes in the same way, when the main goals are completed. I'm not asking for offline mode, just a way to actually play the game when noone else is queueing. Quite a few players are waiting around or asking other players to leave if they to keep testing things, so they are already doing. Considering we have to click "Public game" at start, it seems you can make a new button there for solo. However, I'm guessing there's a priority to test the multiplayer and matchmaking systems so you don't want to put that in first, but please try and if then too few players are joining multiplayer, just remove it.

- There is no compensation for the disadvantage of not starting the game/turn first. Many times the player who starts his turn first can finish the goal first even if opponents do it on the same turn, and that will still count for a better result and place him as the winner of that game. This is a real problem because starting first has many advantages, like less obstacles on the map, and the ability to decide where to place more obstacles, which can make it worse for other players throughout the whole game. This is inherently based on randomness, and can be exploited by expert players which makes it unfair while a compensation system is missing from the game (and/or different score results where "finishing first when you started first" might count less).

- It would be useful if you could highlight the names of locations you have quests or investigations in. Looking at the map and trying to find the locations you need to go to is not as awesome as it could be, and can actually be unpleasant. If you have to do several quests and investigations, there should be a way to make it nicer to plan ahead which way you will go. Another important problem is that when picking quests you can't look at the map to see how far locations are between each other and decide on the most appropriate course of action. You are also not even able to click the "i" button to check your current character's resource change rates, especially important when you're given a choice between colors on those quests, which immediately puts new players at a disadvantage and confusing them for their first games until they're able to check that information and are able to remember some details for their next choices. Even then, since you can't actually check when you choose, you always have to guess, which to me feels awful!

TUTORIAL - GAMEPLAY FEATURES THAT NEED CLEARER AND BETTER EXPLANATION

- The tutorial introduces concepts in a fairly organized way, but there's too many features to remember. These days, people prefer to learn new games while playing them, not by reading a rulebook (of course, a lot of people prefer to read the rules first, but I don't feel it provides for the best experience especially in a computer game). A huge improvement would be to reduce the initial tutorial to the main concepts and win conditions, introducing their "logic" first (in general language) so that it's not so difficult to wrap your head around these new terms. After reducing that first tutorial, put as much as you can into a second tutorial, that simulates an actual game, walking you through how and when to use your abilities during a turn, what is on the map and how to interact with it in order to achieve objectives, what causes you to go into battle and how to prepare for it, etc. Highlight and use arrows as much as possible. This would be a lot more effective.

- The VPs aren't actually more important than side quests, which also aren't more important than main quests. At the start of each game you and your opponents can pick 1, 3 or 5 , but for the first games I didn't even know that it meant MAIN QUESTS as the main goal for that game, which determines how long you'll spend playing that session. What "ends the game" is not the VP, it's the completed main quests. So, tell the player straight away what the real goal is, and that they'll be able to decide to do more or less side quests to get VPs, but that doing so can get in the way of ending the game, so that you need to balance the extra VPs you can get from side quests with how fast you or other players can finish the game by completing the required 1/3/5 main quests. This was unclear until at least the 3rd game for me.

- Leads converts into Proof at a rate determined differently for each hero. The "resource change rates" are tucked away in a small info bubble in a corner and never explained in the tutorial... You need to at least refer players to that "i" button next to each hero portrait for more details on this. The color is never presented as their figure color on the map or referring to their quest decks. It is especially confusing to realize what Yarpen's yellow color refers to. Therefore, I think an helpful introduction would be to mention first of all that HEROES HAVE A COLOR (as shown on their figure): even though they can pick cards of any color and get any leads, "their" color converts faster into proof. Then introduce all the "i" button details. This is vital information for your quest decisions, especially since it determines how fast you get to the main win condition in the game. I only realized this logic after my 2nd game was complete. For more information on how I was able, as a new player, to understand this system, check this post.

- War Track: possibly the most obscure feature. Since it has a specific UI that you never interact with, and the only concept you have is that something "advances the war track" you need to be clearly introduced to this in a concept tutorial. In addition, you can then explain how these show on the map: what exactly are those banners and medallions all about.

- Healing: possibly the easiest feature to explain, but given some confusing terms (explained further in this post), I still had to test it a few times to realize how it works. You simply need to tell players that a location with a heart will heal x1, and that the Rest button gives x2. And then that each poison costs x2 heal instead of x1 (this part is already explained when it happens, so you can keep it that way or give players the full picture straight away in tutorial).

- "Decks": what is all this about "drawing", "discarding" and "putting cards on the bottom of the deck"? You never really see any deck, or any card actually getting drawn from anywhere, the cards just pop into the screen. Players need to at least understand how many decks of cards there are in the game, how many cards are left in them and what happens to them, especially when they are simply not visible in the game and seem to appear and disappear all the time, so that all the traditional language of card drawing feels meaningless and superfluous in a game where there are no or not enough UI elements supporting that. After a while, you start realizing that "discarding" actually means "putting it back in the deck, where you can draw from again", and then start realizing where they go to and come from, but it's a complete mystery at first.

- Introduce the Chat button in the tutorial, possibly at the same time as the activity log.

MAP

- Map felt very small at first, and only when you understand the interactions does it feel like there's enough to do, but that takes a couple games.

- I don't remember reading that the 4 circles are simply room for all 4 players to be stationed in the same location at the same time. Also, I don't remember reading that the colors mean you get 1 proof of that type each time you arrive there. I was very confused at what the circles and colors meant when, again, it's very easy to explain once you're already looking at it in the game.

- I still don't know why some locations have gold/yellow borders around their circles and others don't. After quite a few games, that's pretty much the only thing that looks like it means something and yet I have absolutely no idea about.

- What is that winged monster in Mahakam doing? It gets in the way of understanding if you're going to fight it or not.

- When you click on the medallion to see enemies, it should tell you what region they are in. Sometimes they are just close to locations in 2 different regions, such as, for example, between Novigrad and Due'n Canell. It should also describe what is their difficulty, especially because it's not very easy to distinguish between bronze and gold frames.

INVESTIGATION CARDS

- A minor observation, but I feel these should be on the left side of the 3 decks instead of in the middle. This would be so that Investigations are right next to quests, since they often have tasks (you should just call them quests too instead of "tasks") in locations, just like quest cards. You might also even put quests and investigations together, separated from Good Fortune cards and Development cards which are circumstancial and not mostly based on locations, like quests are. During an actual game, you WILL want to play quests and investigations together, by planning your travels in the best possible way so as to benefit the most. Some Investigation cards, across different colors, also benefit from being done at the same time (with the same destination).

FOUL FATE/GOOD FORTUNE CARDS

- Foul Fate cards are NOT the same as Foul Fate tokens and ARE NOT THE OPPOSITE (no simple interaction) with Good Fortune Cards. Both these types of cards need to be explained and distinguished. It is especially confusing when the UI has a slot with the FATE label, with a split Good Fortune/Foul Fate icon on the slot, but you only actually put/save Good Fortune cards there! Even though some Good Fortune cards let you remove Foul Fate tokens, they are essentially much more than just the counter to them.

- In fact, the main way to remove Foul Fate tokens is by actually clicking on them, and the game doesn't make this clear enough as it only says it will make you draw another Foul Fate card, without mentioning that before you draw it, not only does the Foul Fate disappear (although you can get another from the new card), but you'll actually get to use the ability first anyway! This is extremely important! I didn't click the Foul Fate tokens for my first 3 games, thinking nothing would happen (that I'd draw a Foul Fate card while the skill still got locked), when in fact you can use them without a pre-requisite (Good Fortune cards are only a bonus way of dealing with Foul Fate tokens)! To prove how not intuitive this is, in one game I even saw a new player having almost all of his abilities with Foul Fate tokens and he didn't know what to do about them!

- When you draw a Foul Fate or Good Fortune card, at the top it will read "Select a card to play". This is quite misleading, since you are simply reading the card for the first time and not actually being asked to make a decision right then. This is troublesome when the card can actually be used at a later time and it gives the impression you are ALREADY using its effect when in fact it will be saved.

- When you put a Foul Fate token and a wound/heart symbol on the same ability, the Foul Fate token will not be visible at all even though it's still there. You need to either find a way to show both effects on the same ability or to prevent the possibility of stacking both effects on the same ability.

DEVELOPMENT/XP CARDS

- The Development system seems to have a lot of potential but quite lacking right now when compared to the other cards. You need to check if this design is really intended, where you can't "stack" on your hero the bonuses that the development cards give; you will only ever be able to use 1-2 of them per battle, and only if you get the special roll on the hero dice (which in my experience, happens less than half the time). In addition to its limited use, if you consider that at least Investigation and Good Fortune cards can also give Development cards, this drastically lowers the importance of the Development action during a turn, and I tend to only ever do it once early in each game and then never again (unless it's Triss, who has clear value, more on that below).

- Still in the tutorial, explain all the different symbols for these cards: "charging" the card is one thing that you can do with an action during a turn, you can have more than one charge on each card but you can only use one of it per battle, and even then it still depends on whether you got the other symbol; the hero dice roll symbol that determines whether you get to use a Development card that battle is different than actually charging the card, it only appears on the dice used at the start of a battle, and it's that symbol that will then get converted to ALL the symbols of attack and defense that the card exchanges for it. Again, this is all hard to understand at first, you simply need to explain how it interacts in a clearer way so that you know how it is used before you see it happening (which straight way prevents spending actions cluelessly getting too many development cards or charging too much/little).

- Even after a few games, I'm still unsure what it means to have a "face up" or "top up" Development cards: what difference does it make and how could they be otherwise?

BATTLES/ENEMIES

- At the start of battles, the rolling dice are too difficult to see, sometimes they even land on top of each other. Physics are nice and all, but the current version doesn't add enough immersion game for me, it's not fun or exciting, just a nuisance. Sometimes I count the dice and think I have a certain amount to spend, but, after the roll, the full results are presented with some other dice that I couldn't see clearly before. When the dice of the roll are mostly visible and not annoying, it's still always a bit of a waste of time waiting for them, since you'll get the result afterward anyway. So, please make the rolling dice easier and/or more awesome to see. I'm sure you can add more effects and put them mostly on the center of the screen so that you can really see what is happening and it "feels" better.
- When placing the dice, the whole UI feels very unfinished. First of all, the ROLL DICE button is still visible after you already rolled, which is a bug (and has already confused me thinking the game had freezed). You need to be told that all the results need to be placed before you can continue and, better yet, you should have a button that automatically places all the dice you have available in the right place for you. It's very slow to have to put each dice one by one, and it's even worse when you already know you won't be able to win and just want to exit the battle, because you are being forced to make choices that really won't matter at all. There is no progression to combat, only a 1 time decision, placing dice should reflect this. Combat is, in practice, finished once you've made decisions and put available on the table all the dice you could. Dragging or double-clicking each dice is not interesting gameplay because it gets in the way. You don't need to do it one by one since there is nothing that happens each time and you can make all decisions BEFORE starting to place any of them. It's also prone to waste time and frustrating mistakes such as misclicking. The flavor it might have loses value because it affects gameplay negatively. Waiting times are already quite long, doing anything that speeds up each part of the turn that doesn't need to be there is a safe bet. You're never told about double-clicking in the tutorial and I think all the in-game references are to "dragging", which is also confusing - new players will waste time and make more mistakes, experienced players are being told to "drag" and they know they should "double-click".

- You should be able to put the dice back out, because currently if you make a mistake (if you want to convert 1 attack into defense for example), you can't go back and correct even though you didn't click on End yet.

- The aftermath of battles gives insufficient indication about what happened. If you actually win on either attack or defence, it still produces the same sound given to defeat in both of them.

- Striga is insane, at 6/5. But I guess that being the first main monster you see in introduction cinematic to the very first game, she deserves to be "special"... Still, I haven't yet found a way to beat her, even with all Development Cards, unless I used (on Triss) Amulet of Power 2 times in the same battle, along with a lucky hero dice roll, using 3 preparation charges. But if I had used up 2 charges on the Amulet before, Striga was unbeatable (and you can't charge the Amulet, which makes sense to me, or it would be too powerful).

CHARACTER BALANCE

- The differences between characters can be extremely confusing, which is part of why people want to see what opponents are doing and seeing how they compare. So far those differences also don't seem balanced, they are just different and possibly will need tuning. We need to be told what the philosophy design between these differences is, because it's a very bad experience when you have no clue what you're doing, if it will be any good and if you're being effective or not.

- Yarpen might be imbalanced in his resource change rate when the other characters can't avoid picking their worst (7) color for leads (Yarpen's total cost for 1 Proof of each color is 13, other characters need 15). It has indeed happened to me (on Triss) that both of my first quests had the worst proof (red, 7) as a requirement in both of their main quests. So, I needed 10 leads and had to play against an opponent that either needed 8 or just 6, almost half of mine. He finished the game very fast. This places characters at a serious disadvantage for entirely random reasons that are still based on card design. Please make sure that they aren't put into that severe situation.

- Yarpen could also become the favored class considering his 2 additional wound slots and very strong weapons. However, his Command ability sounds interesting, with the choice between companions, but in execution seems quite lacking, I almost never use it for the same reason as I do on other characters, for combat. If this is intended, again, please let us know what your thoughts are (it would be understandable if the point is that he has some default bonuses that should get him through combat without Development cards, then I would prefer that it was established that those are the trade-offs in place for him (I love dwarves as much as anyone else, but I want a balanced game).

- Triss has an overall clear and rewarding system for her XP/Development cards: your hero ability gives a charge to any single Development card and you can pick one of them to use each battle, if you get the dice roll. This is a fine system. However, Triss cards are lacking in number (only 8 total), variety and combinations: there's cards that give you 2 of attack or defense, which is strictly worse than the card that gives 4 for the same cost. Therefore, better combinations and tradeoffs should be available so that one isn't the clear winner, unless you wish to keep the ability to use up the charge on the worst card but never charge it again once you have access to the better one, since you can put multiple charges on the same card.

- Geralt is constantly put into battle (as part of the battle-oriented red investigation cards, but it gets tiresome) and Dandelion seems to have really weak development cards, most consisting of a single bonus to either defense or attack. At least both Dandelion and Triss have development cards that are exactly the same (doing the same for the exact same cost, being the same type, only thing that changes is the name), like Meteor and Alzur's Thunder...

Last updated: 7/August/2014

 

[Geisterkarle]

I just played my first game and so it's a "noob" feedback, but maybe it helps.

First was, that I didn't understand anything Yes, I read the tutorial. But maybe you need to give better examples, how something works and what the heck you are doing! I figured it out, after the other player left (sad ) and I could click around for myself a little bit.
I didn't find out, how you win ... I read something about the amount of quests you do. But where do you put this in? Before the game started, there was something about 30min - 3h play or something like that. Does that mean how many quests you have to do?? Also I didn't click on anything, it just started (the same with character selection). Is this planed? Maybe give a countdown that the game choses itself what you are playing, if you are not reacting in the necessary time frame!

The dice were rolling all around the screen ... and were nearly blocked by everything. could we have them more in the middle?
And could we just "stop" a fight? Yeah, I only have 3 sword and I need 4 to win; why do I still have to drag+drop them? Just let me give up and save time! Or at least give me a "double-click" option to put them in. The D+D sometimes was more left and right... but maybe 20 years of working a mouse is not enough for this game and is "slippery by design"

The development cards were quite the same for the most part. Maybe we could get more variation in there. And is there a limit? I had 8 cards at one time. At this point it gets quite "boring" to scroll through all of them. Maybe limit this to 5 or something that you really have to choose, what you have available!
Also I got a development card "Amulet of Power", and I couldn't "prepare" it. Could I see more clearly, that I have to use the starting tokens and can't "upgrade" it back if I get such a card?

So far for a first feedback! Will play along!

 

[yohh]

you already can "double-click", and the number of dvp cards is because this is a beta (same thing for others type of cards).

 

[Pirie]

The beta is pretty "ok" in the point of performance. But it is pretty fun tho. What I really want as fast as possible is something like a "reconnect" button. Because when you have a disconnect (which could happen serveral times) a reconnect function would be great. Just imagine you choose a match that need like 90 minutes, you are on your last quest and get a disconnect and can't reconnect. This would be pretty annoying!

 

[Rafal_Jaki]

Nunc's Comprehensive Design Feedback

Long post, but I'm straight to the point in every issue and I think all are important to mention, hopefully making it interesting to read.

What immediately appealed to me in the game was the variety of quests and investigations as well as the strong effects that good fortunes and foul fates had on the game. I kept coming back for more, even though it took a long time to find players, and how difficult it was to understand what were the best decisions to make each turn. However, it was only about after my 4th game that I felt I REALLY understood what was happening and I REALLY wanted to play more. You have started a very interesting game here. I really want it to be as successful as it can be, and feel that, in its present state, it would disappoint many new players unnecessarily.

As I kept trying hard to understand the game, and winning or almost winning all games, I felt like I had valuable feedback on how to improve the game, for new players and in general. First impressions are really important, it's telling you how new players will see the game, and I realize some of this might not make sense to an experienced player or developer, but there are an important number of issues that new players will encounter before knowing how things work.

GENERAL/IMPORTANT PROBLEMS & SUGGESTIONS

- Enable more players to test as well introduce a SINGLE-PLAYER / SANDBOX mode, no need for you to develop AI, just make solo games possible, at least only during Beta for testing purposes, where the game finishes in the same way, when the main goals are completed. I'm not asking for offline mode, just a way to actually play the game when noone else is queueing. Quite a few players are waiting around or asking other players to leave if they to keep testing things, so they are already doing. Considering we have to click "Public game" at start, it seems you can make a new button there for solo. However, I'm guessing there's a priority to test the multiplayer and matchmaking systems so you don't want to put that in first, but please try and if then too few players are joining multiplayer, just remove it.

The final game will have a single player mode

- There is no compensation for the disadvantage of not starting the game/turn first. Many times the player who starts his turn first can finish the goal first even if opponents do it on the same turn, and that will still count for a better result and place him as the winner of that game. This is a real problem because starting first has many advantages, like less obstacles on the map, and the ability to decide where to place more obstacles, which can make it worse for other players throughout the whole game. This is inherently based on randomness, and can be exploited by expert players which makes it unfair while a compensation system is missing from the game (and/or different score results where "finishing first when you started first" might count less).

You always have the last turn after someone finishes the required quest number. This make the advantage even out.

- It would be useful if you could highlight the names of locations you have quests or investigations in. Looking at the map and trying to find the locations you need to go to is not as awesome as it could be, and can actually be unpleasant. If you have to do several quests and investigations, there should be a way to make it nicer to plan ahead which way you will go. Another important problem is that when picking quests you can't look at the map to see how far locations are between each other and decide on the most appropriate course of action. You are also not even able to click the "i" button to check your current character's resource change rates, especially important when you're given a choice between colors on those quests, which immediately puts new players at a disadvantage and confusing them for their first games until they're able to check that information and are able to remember some details for their next choices. Even then, since you can't actually check when you choose, you always have to guess, which to me feels awful!

Many thanks about the suggestion for the location and quests - we will think about how to do it.
We will make a button to see the map when choosing the quest. As for the "i" we will work on that as well.

TUTORIAL - GAMEPLAY FEATURES THAT NEED CLEARER AND BETTER EXPLANATION

- The tutorial introduces concepts in a fairly organized way, but there's too many features to remember. These days, people prefer to learn new games while playing them, not by reading a rulebook (of course, a lot of people prefer to read the rules first, but I don't feel it provides for the best experience especially in a computer game). A huge improvement would be to reduce the initial tutorial to the main concepts and win conditions, introducing their "logic" first (in general language) so that it's not so difficult to wrap your head around these new terms. After reducing that first tutorial, put as much as you can into a second tutorial, that simulates an actual game, walking you through how and when to use your abilities during a turn, what is on the map and how to interact with it in order to achieve objectives, what causes you to go into battle and how to prepare for it, etc. Highlight and use arrows as much as possible. This would be a lot more effective.

We are working on a new interactive tutorial.

- The VPs aren't actually more important than side quests, which also aren't more important than main quests. At the start of each game you and your opponents can pick 1, 3 or 5 , but for the first games I didn't even know that it meant MAIN QUESTS as the main goal for that game, which determines how long you'll spend playing that session. What "ends the game" is not the VP, it's the completed main quests. So, tell the player straight away what the real goal is, and that they'll be able to decide to do more or less side quests to get VPs, but that doing so can get in the way of ending the game, so that you need to balance the extra VPs you can get from side quests with how fast you or other players can finish the game by completing the required 1/3/5 main quests. This was unclear until at least the 3rd game for me.

We clearly state the the Quest requirement is connected to gameplay time not anything else We also explain that in the tutorial - but we will introduce it in a different way when the new tutorial will be online.

- Leads converts into Proof at a rate determined differently for each hero. The "resource change rates" are tucked away in a small info bubble in a corner and never explained in the tutorial... You need to at least refer players to that "i" button next to each hero portrait for more details on this. The color is never presented as their figure color on the map or referring to their quest decks. It is especially confusing to realize what Yarpen's yellow color refers to. Therefore, I think an helpful introduction would be to mention first of all that HEROES HAVE A COLOR (as shown on their figure): even though they can pick cards of any color and get any leads, "their" color converts faster into proof. Then introduce all the "i" button details. This is vital information for your quest decisions, especially since it determines how fast you get to the main win condition in the game. I only realized this logic after my 2nd game was complete. For more information on how I was able, as a new player, to understand this system, check this post.

The new tutorial will show that in a more organized way.

- War Track: possibly the most obscure feature. Since it has a specific UI that you never interact with, and the only concept you have is that something "advances the war track" you need to be clearly introduced to this in a concept tutorial. In addition, you can then explain how these show on the map: what exactly are those banners and medallions all about.

This is explained in the current tutorial (we add this after an update a while back).

- Healing: possibly the easiest feature to explain, but given some confusing terms (explained further in this post), I still had to test it a few times to realize how it works. You simply need to tell players that a location with a heart will heal x1, and that the Rest button gives x2. And then that each poison costs x2 heal instead of x1 (this part is already explained when it happens, so you can keep it that way or give players the full picture straight away in tutorial).

We will explain better in the new tutorial.

- "Decks": what is all this about "drawing", "discarding" and "putting cards on the bottom of the deck"? You never really see any deck, or any card actually getting drawn from anywhere, the cards just pop into the screen. Players need to at least understand how many decks of cards there are in the game, how many cards are left in them and what happens to them, especially when they are simply not visible in the game and seem to appear and disappear all the time, so that all the traditional language of card drawing feels meaningless and superfluous in a game where there are no or not enough UI elements supporting that. After a while, you start realizing that "discarding" actually means "putting it back in the deck, where you can draw from again", and then start realizing where they go to and come from, but it's a complete mystery at first.

We will try to improve on this.

- Introduce the Chat button in the tutorial, possibly at the same time as the activity log.

Yes - new tutorial

MAP

- Map felt very small at first, and only when you understand the interactions does it feel like there's enough to do, but that takes a couple games.

- I don't remember reading that the 4 circles are simply room for all 4 players to be stationed in the same location at the same time. Also, I don't remember reading that the colors mean you get 1 proof of that type each time you arrive there. I was very confused at what the circles and colors meant when, again, it's very easy to explain once you're already looking at it in the game.

It was explained but we will make sure that it is clear in the new tutorial.

- I still don't know why some locations have gold/yellow borders around their circles and others don't. After quite a few games, that's pretty much the only thing that looks like it means something and yet I have absolutely no idea about.

It was just a visual thing - the gold ones a important location in the Lore the silver a lesser ones. No gameplay attached to that other then the silver ones are less rewarding.

- What is that winged monster in Mahakam doing? It gets in the way of understanding if you're going to fight it or not.

Again just visuals

- When you click on the medallion to see enemies, it should tell you what region they are in. Sometimes they are just close to locations in 2 different regions, such as, for example, between Novigrad and Due'n Canell. It should also describe what is their difficulty, especially because it's not very easy to distinguish between bronze and gold frames.

Noted

INVESTIGATION CARDS

- A minor observation, but I feel these should be on the left side of the 3 decks instead of in the middle. This would be so that Investigations are right next to quests, since they often have tasks (you should just call them quests too instead of "tasks") in locations, just like quest cards. You might also even put quests and investigations together, separated from Good Fortune cards and Development cards which are circumstancial and not mostly based on locations, like quests are. During an actual game, you WILL want to play quests and investigations together, by planning your travels in the best possible way so as to benefit the most. Some Investigation cards, across different colors, also benefit from being done at the same time (with the same destination).

Interesting observation Will talk think about that.

FOUL FATE/GOOD FORTUNE CARDS

- Foul Fate cards are NOT the same as Foul Fate tokens and ARE NOT THE OPPOSITE (no simple interaction) with Good Fortune Cards. Both these types of cards need to be explained and distinguished. It is especially confusing when the UI has a slot with the FATE label, with a split Good Fortune/Foul Fate icon on the slot, but you only actually put/save Good Fortune cards there! Even though some Good Fortune cards let you remove Foul Fate tokens, they are essentially much more than just the counter to them.

There are FF cards that stay with you so that slots if the Good fortune and FF as well. Please remember that we will be bringing more cards to the beta as it progresses.

- In fact, the main way to remove Foul Fate tokens is by actually clicking on them, and the game doesn't make this clear enough as it only says it will make you draw another Foul Fate card, without mentioning that before you draw it, not only does the Foul Fate disappear (although you can get another from the new card), but you'll actually get to use the ability first anyway! This is extremely important! I didn't click the Foul Fate tokens for my first 3 games, thinking nothing would happen (that I'd draw a Foul Fate card while the skill still got locked), when in fact you can use them without a pre-requisite (Good Fortune cards are only a bonus way of dealing with Foul Fate tokens)! To prove how not intuitive this is, in one game I even saw a new player having almost all of his abilities with Foul Fate tokens and he didn't know what to do about them!

Noted - new tutorial

- When you draw a Foul Fate or Good Fortune card, at the top it will read "Select a card to play". This is quite misleading, since you are simply reading the card for the first time and not actually being asked to make a decision right then. This is troublesome when the card can actually be used at a later time and it gives the impression you are ALREADY using its effect when in fact it will be saved.

Noted.

- When you put a Foul Fate token and a wound/heart symbol on the same ability, the Foul Fate token will not be visible at all even though it's still there. You need to either find a way to show both effects on the same ability or to prevent the possibility of stacking both effects on the same ability.

We will do a split icon (just like GF and FF).

DEVELOPMENT/XP CARDS

- The Development system seems to have a lot of potential but quite lacking right now when compared to the other cards. You need to check if this design is really intended, where you can't "stack" on your hero the bonuses that the development cards give; you will only ever be able to use 1-2 of them per battle, and only if you get the special roll on the hero dice (which in my experience, happens less than half the time). In addition to its limited use, if you consider that at least Investigation and Good Fortune cards can also give Development cards, this drastically lowers the importance of the Development action during a turn, and I tend to only ever do it once early in each game and then never again (unless it's Triss, who has clear value, more on that below).

The XP cards are about 50% content in the BETA right now - there are way more coming and with more variety.

- Still in the tutorial, explain all the different symbols for these cards: "charging" the card is one thing that you can do with an action during a turn, you can have more than one charge on each card but you can only use one of it per battle, and even then it still depends on whether you got the other symbol; the hero dice roll symbol that determines whether you get to use a Development card that battle is different than actually charging the card, it only appears on the dice used at the start of a battle, and it's that symbol that will then get converted to ALL the symbols of attack and defense that the card exchanges for it. Again, this is all hard to understand at first, you simply need to explain how it interacts in a clearer way so that you know how it is used before you see it happening (which straight way prevents spending actions cluelessly getting too many development cards or charging too much/little).

Noted - new tutorial

- Even after a few games, I'm still unsure what it means to have a "face up" or "top up" Development cards: what difference does it make and how could they be otherwise?

??

BATTLES/ENEMIES

- At the start of battles, the rolling dice are too difficult to see, sometimes they even land on top of each other. Physics are nice and all, but the current version doesn't add enough immersion game for me, it's not fun or exciting, just a nuisance. Sometimes I count the dice and think I have a certain amount to spend, but, after the roll, the full results are presented with some other dice that I couldn't see clearly before. When the dice of the roll are mostly visible and not annoying, it's still always a bit of a waste of time waiting for them, since you'll get the result afterward anyway. So, please make the rolling dice easier and/or more awesome to see. I'm sure you can add more effects and put them mostly on the center of the screen so that you can really see what is happening and it "feels" better.
- When placing the dice, the whole UI feels very unfinished. First of all, the ROLL DICE button is still visible after you already rolled, which is a bug (and has already confused me thinking the game had freezed). You need to be told that all the results need to be placed before you can continue and, better yet, you should have a button that automatically places all the dice you have available in the right place for you. It's very slow to have to put each dice one by one, and it's even worse when you already know you won't be able to win and just want to exit the battle, because you are being forced to make choices that really won't matter at all.

I like the system that we have in place now but as pointed out there are things that we can and will improve.

- You should be able to drag the dice back out and change your selection, because currently if you make a mistake (if you want to turn 1 attack into defense for example), you can't go back and correct even though you didn't click on End yet.

Noted.

- The aftermath of battles gives insufficient indication about what happened. If you actually win on either attack or defence, it still produces the same sound given to defeat in both of them.

Noted.

- Striga is insane, at 6/5. But I guess that being the first main monster you see in introduction cinematic to the very first game, she deserves to be "special"... Still, I haven't yet found a way to beat her, even with all Development Cards, unless I used (on Triss) Amulet of Power 2 times in the same battle, along with a lucky hero dice roll, using 3 preparation charges. But if I had used up 2 charges on the Amulet before, Striga was unbeatable (and you can't charge the Amulet, which makes sense to me, or it would be too powerful).

As mentioned new XP cards will be implemented and she is suppose to be super tough but with a indication that you can of course win.

CHARACTER BALANCE

- The differences between characters can be extremely confusing, which is part of why people want to see what opponents are doing and seeing how they compare. So far those differences also don't seem balanced, they are just different and possibly will need tuning. We need to be told what the philosophy design between these differences is, because it's a very bad experience when you have no clue what you're doing, if it will be any good and if you're being effective or not.

This touches upon the balance which will be improved when we implement all the cards and also tweak the existing ones.

- Yarpen might be imbalanced in his resource change rate when the other characters can't avoid picking their worst (7) color for leads (Yarpen's total cost for 1 Proof of each color is 13, other characters need 15). It has indeed happened to me (on Triss) that both of my first quests had the worst proof (red, 7) as a requirement in both of their main quests. So, I needed 10 leads and had to play against an opponent that either needed 8 or just 6, almost half of mine. He finished the game very fast. This places characters at a serious disadvantage for entirely random reasons that are still based on card design. Please make sure that they aren't put into that severe situation.

Yarpen is a special case and after all the cards I'm convinced that we have the right balance for all the characters.

- Yarpen could also become the favored class considering his 2 additional wound slots and very strong weapons. However, his Command ability sounds interesting, with the choice between companions, but in execution seems quite lacking, I almost never use it for the same reason as I do on other characters, for combat. If this is intended, again, please let us know what your thoughts are (it would be understandable if the point is that he has some default bonuses that should get him through combat without Development cards, then I would prefer that it was established that those are the trade-offs in place for him (I love dwarves as much as anyone else, but I want a balanced game).

Every character encourages a different style - Yarpen special action is very useful - you just need to see all the cards

- Triss has an overall clear and rewarding system for her XP/Development cards: your hero ability gives a charge to any single Development card and you can pick one of them to use each battle, if you get the dice roll. This is a fine system. However, Triss cards are lacking in number (only 8 total), variety and combinations: there's cards that give you 2 of attack or defense, which is strictly worse than the card that gives 4 for the same cost. Therefore, better combinations and tradeoffs should be available so that one isn't the clear winner, unless you wish to keep the ability to use up the charge on the worst card but never charge it again once you have access to the better one, since you can put multiple charges on the same card.

Again - new XP cards to come

- Geralt is constantly put into battle (as part of the battle-oriented red investigation cards, but it gets tiresome) and Dandelion seems to have really weak development cards, most consisting of a single bonus to either defense or attack. At least both Dandelion and Triss have development cards that are exactly the same (doing the same for the exact same cost, being the same type, only thing that changes is the name), like Meteor and Alzur's Thunder...

Again - new XP cards to come

Many thanks for taking the time for this long post We read all of players posts and we appreciate all feedback even if we dont answer to that directly.

Last updated: 31/July/2014

 

[NorthernXY.291]

2 gold for Dandy isn't enough when he constantly needs money in order to buy fighters then on top of that sometimes he needs it to finish a quest.

Gold doesn't really mean much to the other players, so Dandy is the only one who really cares about getting robbed, which he can only defend himself against buy spending gold.

 

[bngs_power.102]

Please add a lore description to XP cards (friends, spells, signs, artifacts) to add more immersion like it is done with other cards. Maybe some quotes from the books.

 

[Nunc.410]

you already can "double-click", and the number of dvp cards is because this is a beta (same thing for others type of cards).

Edited on main post with additional reasons. Basically it doesn't matter whether you drag or double-click, you still don't have any need to do it one by one since you can make all decisions about which dice you'll have available before starting to place them.

To say that something is lacking in beta is why we're here for, if you assume "this will get fixed because it's beta" and never mention it, that may be assuming too much and not help the improvement process.

 

[Nunc.410]

The final game will have a single player mode

With more players coming into the game, I suppose it will be enough (and important) to test as multiplayer. Sandbox was an extreme suggestion just for beta since there were so few players currently. If you change games to end automatically when only 1 player is left, then I wouldn't be able to check things out as much as I have, so in a way sandbox might still be useful.

You always have the last turn after someone finishes the required quest number. This make the advantage even out.

I feel this doesn't address 2 main issues: 1) you still went first throughout the whole game, placing obstacles and having more control over the board, for example; 2) even if you actually also complete the same necessary main quests that turn, I think you'll still be ranked below someone who finished first (the "finished first" is described at the end panel as a win condition, it seems).

This is explained in the current tutorial (we add this after an update a while back).

I still feel the War Track's unique UI can be very confusing for new players and it's mostly ignored by the rest. You can't really have any control over it, especially because when asked to make a decision that "advances the War Track", you don't know what kind of consequence it might have. I was thinking it is more clear in the current tutorial but one additional suggestion to make it actually relevant: put the current state of the War Track always on the map (could be on a corner), for you to know what is next, even several advancements ahead, and use that more strategically. If you don't go that far, at least make the current War Track animation more clear, with an indicator of what changed, since it's so brief you don't really know what happened. But I really feel the War Track could be a lot more meaningful if it was always on the map - especially because its features already are there too (the bad fate banners and enemy count icons)! Also, I was confused if each region had it's own War Track or if the same cycle would apply to any region the player would be on.

It was just a visual thing - the gold ones a important location in the Lore the silver a lesser ones. No gameplay attached to that other then the silver ones are less rewarding.

Would be interesting to see the important locations in the Lore reflected in gameplay elements somehow! Maybe you can think of something cool to add? Maybe a sharper distinction between how rewarding it is to go there compared to the other locations. Of course, making it clear that the special borders on the map don't mean more than that, on the tutorial, would always help making it clear what to expect.

??

The "face up/top up a Development Card" thing is one of the options that appears on Yarpen's Command ability, but I'm not sure if it also appears on quests. The card's name is Paulie Dahlberg ("Top up 2 Development Cards that you own."). I find it quite confusing, as if it assumes that there is a system in place where you are getting benefits from the cards that are on top of your Development stack, which would explain why you'd want to change their order. I don't know about how that works, but definitely something to look into along with the other types of instructions that refer to decks (drawing, discarding, etc) to make sure it's consistent. This is something that I'll have to check more thoroughly, especially once most of the other cards are added. (Edit: was able to test it again, and "top up" is the same as giving 2 development cards a "charge", and you can choose which ones. It's still confusing because to "top" something, to me anyway, means to fill it to its maximum, but here you really can just keep charging them up; so it's a consistent system, even more powerful than I was able to check before, but unclear terms to refer to it).

I like the system that we have in place now but as pointed out there are things that we can and will improve.

Someone said they felt it was fine that you could just double-click on the dice instead of dragging, so I edited it a bit further: There is no progression to combat, only a 1 time decision, placing dice should reflect this. Combat is, in practice, finished once you've made decisions and put available on the table all the dice you could. Dragging or double-clicking each dice is not interesting gameplay because it gets in the way. You don't need to do it one by one since there is nothing that happens each time and you can make all decisions BEFORE starting to place any of them. It's also prone to waste time and frustrating mistakes such as misclicking. The flavor it might have loses value because it affects gameplay negatively. Waiting times are already quite long, doing anything that speeds up each part of the turn that doesn't need to be there is a safe bet. You're never told about double-clicking in the tutorial and I think all the in-game references are to "dragging", which is also confusing - new players will waste time and make more mistakes, experienced players are being told to "drag" and they know they should "double-click".

Many thanks for taking the time for this long post

Thank you so much for the reply and letting us know the feedback is seriously taken into consideration. Wishing the best for the development of the game, I can say I'm very excited and hopeful about the new tutorial and cards!

 

[Hronic]

1) ability to play the game alone - although there won't be a "winner" you are able to understand the game, I can't do that while playing with 3 other people who are experienced know where to click and pushing me to make moves faster
2)Ability to minimaze the game, and when my turn comes it will automatically maximize, with automatic sound off & on
3)some more tutorial in game? i put cursor about anything and i'd like to see some kind of description .....

 

[d_wing]

So, after having played for some hours, here are my 2 cents:
- the initial tutorial is not helping at all;
- we should be able to see our own details( quests, etc.) when other players are playing;
- tips would be appreciated;

Other than that, I only found a bug where the game stopped responding when I opened other people's main quest cards.

Thanks for the invite, will try to play some more

 

[Rincewind-Langner]

Hi All,

I think it would be helpful if you had a pop up text box giving more information when you hover over an icon; or even just the name of what it is.

Thanks

 

[Rafal_Jaki]

Hi All,

I think it would be helpful if you had a pop up text box giving more information when you hover over an icon; or even just the name of what it is.

Thanks

We are working on that

 

[Ekul876]

I'm not sure if this has been said before but i think it would be nice if you could roll the dice yourself like in the previous games instead of pressing a button.

 

[Maikuboy]

I'm sure that everything i'm saying has been said before, but the more the better. And i know many features are coming. Just saying what i want most focus on.

- The interactive nature in the gameplay between players should be improved greatly.
- TOOLTIPS
- Some minigame while waiting. Even better, a pvp-minigame where the waiting players can battle with each other. For example each player needs to click a cube and roll it into opponents pile of destructible objects.
- The winner should be determened by more factors than the score. For example the battles won, money owned or given for wellfare, the amount of death tolkens created by the player (which is bad).

Otherwise an absolutely beautiful game with smoothing music and great basic game mechanics. I also have to point out my love for the cards and how each has wonderful art and story written all over it and isn't just a typical "+1 red clue" card. Helps the world and quests feel much more alive.