Hello,
So i finally sunk more time into the game. I will share openly my thoughts and gripes.
These are some of the technical shortcomings that i’ve experienced:
- You can’t see resources location without pausing or selecting a structure to build and then it is shown.
It is a bigger problem in coop since you annoy your partner with brief pauses just to see where it is exactly.
- Maybe different vision schemes button next to the minimap, to be able to turn resource vision on and off.
Like the “Building Mode” button.
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The game is very slow paced, i understand it is balanced that way but some people are capable of playing faster, please add a speed slider to at least increase the speed to 10-25%, like the good old days when you create a game you can choose its pacing. (Slow-Medium-Fast)
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When $hit hits the fan and half of your town is on fire, it is really hard to put out fire. Not because it takes too long, but because sometime your units ignore it and you have to manually click on every single fire soruce.
- Add maybe some kind of an AOE command where you just tell the unit to go there and put out all the fires in the vicinity.
- The idea of getting swarmed works well in “They Are Billions” because we are talking about mindless zombies. In Conan it is weird when the whole wave attacks, dies off, and suddenly there is a catapult left and is attacking you all by itself.
- Some kind of a standard formation priority would be nice to see and it will make the game even more challenging and will force you to approach a specific unit combination in a specific way.
Right now they just blob, and eventually some units become dangerous just because they are covered in masses of cannon fodder, not because they are actually somewhat intelligent.
Which bring me to another point, it would be nice if we could select all of the units and be able to tell them to form a simple formation of, melee in the front, missile in the back. Easier to manage and prevent units from blobbing.
- Coop coloring is confusing, my color is green, my ally is blue. At the bottom right to check resources the button that shows my resources is red, and the ally resources button is represented by green.
-It is a small detail, but you know it is easy to confuse our brains, they are fairly limited.
It would be very welcomed if i could see my partners resources all the time somewhere else on screen which i could be able to toggle on or off.
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VOIP, yes i know we can use Discord, that is not very intuitive nor very comfortable. Having VOIP will eliminate the excuse of not using voice communication sometimes.
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Would be nice to be able to set a retreat position, and then have a general retreat button on every unit, similar to games like “Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II” i believe.
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The income “Icon Ticker” looks like a mobile game, it also slows down the game when it “Ticks” and all those icons float.
-Maybe have a general area where each icon appears once for each resource type you gain, or maybe at the bottom right where your storage is shown. Or remove it completely since you see the “Tick” timer and your actual storage right next to it.
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Unable to position gates without first positioning walls, even when between walls there are 3 squares that are perfectly fit to have a gate.
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Fire brazier require 5 squares of wall, so it can take the 3 in the middle. So instead of making brazier on the outer walls that are getting attacked i build it behind the towers instead. The problem is that there is some kind of an issue with walls appearing as properly attached to each other. So 5 squares of wall don’t create two round walls at each end and 3 flat straight walls in the middle. Instead it creates 3 or 4 round walls as if they are individual and are not connected to any wall, renders the brazier unable to be built there.
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Upgrading wooden walls to stone walls with precision is not comfortable. You can double click and it will select all the walls, but what if i want to upgrade only the outer walls? I either pause and click on each one, or Shift click on each one and then upgrade all of them together. Would be nice if it was possible to stretch the selection box with the Ctrl key or something and select multiple walls.
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Selling resources on market manually when you are already maxed on storage is a bit tedious and if you are busy elsewhere basically “costs” you money, would be nice if after resources hit cap the market would sell them automatically which each “Tick” that goes over capacity.
This is more or less what comes to mind for now, i will update as i feel required since i’m pretty sure i forgot a couple things.
Now i want to critic your production quality:
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Guys seriously please never do another day 1 DLC which is 1/3 of your hero roster, you hurt yourselves more than you can imagine, that greed isn’t worth it.
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Even “They Are Billions” had several environments when they launched into early access.
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Who ever put the music into the game from different sources, please normalize the volumes, i want to enjoy the soundtrack but there are a couple that are super quiet and suddenly bam trumpets and the whole shebang and it is super loud.
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Denuvo is already proven to cause performance problems, please consider getting rid of it. It was already said that if a person ain’t planning on buying your game they won’t buy it even with it being locked behind such a DRM. In fact there are quite a few people that won’t purchase because of that DRM, and we the ones that did support suffer from it.
5.The game needs better font for structure description, since the ones that are quite long are cramped and hard to read. Also need some UI scaling, it was mentioned by some users and rewarded you with a negative review because of it.
- Optimization, at level 20 in coop the game is just crazy laggy. Every catapult boulder hits the fps like crazy even though it didn’t destroy anything yet.
Now to things i would like to see in the game:
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To make each hero a bit more unique maybe introduce an extra tech research that gives an additional 3-5 units\structures\abilities etc. Since you are already charging money for one of them, at least make it a bit more interesting.
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Already mentioned it, more environments.
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PvP mode 1vs1 or 2vs2 similar to how Tower Defense maps worked in Warcraft 3. Where everyone defend against waves and with the left over money send waves at the enemies, or just compete head to head who ever lasts longer. Maybe a bit more similar to Tetris PvP, i know it sounds funny but i think more game modes will add a special flavor to your game.
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I’m not sure why you guys went completely the “They Are Billions” way and have no construction units, i imagine adding those now will severely alter the game balance. If you would consider adding them, that would be great since they could be used as another resource management aspect, and you could direct specific enemies to hunt them down and hinder your production.
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“They Are Billions” have “Ambient” workers that walk around, and make the Town feel “Alive”. This subject has been brought more than once on my stream. If you could add just calm citizens walking around and then them panicking and running around would add so much charm to the game. A lot of people say it feels barren.
Side note, “They Are Billions” actually using those “Ambient” workers as a mechanic, since when zombies reach facilities or their residents, they Zombify them and the attack gets fueled by the extra heads. -
Night and day cycle with some other weather effects could be very cool.
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Conan Exiles has indigenous life in each environment, that will make the world come to life in Conan Unconquered if you had more animals rather than just birds.
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Seeing animations in buildings would be nice, for example like an ox in the quarry similar to Stronghold series where you could see stuff being done. Or like a jester that is walking around doing silly stuff, all of these things just to add character to the game and bring the city to life.
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Units that can swim across, similar to the spiders that can move over elevated terrain. Maybe with that you can introduces moats as a defensive structure"trap".
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You have mountains and water ponds"rivers", i think having small holes and pits below the normal elevation would add some diversity to the terrain design as well.
I mean no disrespect, i want this game to succeed, and i don’t expect to get what i ask for.
Just to know that you as a developer saw my concerns and may or may not do something about it. Since it is not the first time invest my self into an RTS game that just grabs the cash and never looks back. Or start pumping DLC’s leaving core mechanics and features flawed with bugs for years. (Like Total War games)
That is all for now, thank you for your time.
Updates\Edits and Other users ideas:
- By SparrowHawk:
-A suggestion to make the “Standards” upgradeable, something along the lines of:
A) A well from which a couple of NPCs would automatically put out any fires nearby;
B) A shrine that would heal nearby units;
C) An overseer station which increases productivity in its radius.
