Denzera's Game Commentary & Feature Requests (spoilers abound!)

Denzera

Loreseeker
Joined
24/08/2017
Messages
63
Just to add on to my other recent posts, I had some thoughts about the game and plot. And also a few minor suggestions that would make life easier.

Firstly the feature requests.

1. When you go to spend trait points, it asks you to confirm the spend. When you go to spend skill points, there is no confirmation. It's not that hard to accidentally spend your skill points, e.g. when getting two upgrades when you intended to pay for one, and nobody (particularly at low levels) wants to go pay to re-do all their skills. Might as well add a confirmation here.

2. As other people have suggested, the Bag of Holding ought to have a "close" button. It will often be necessary to switch between viewing your character's stats, your companion's equipment, and your bag of holding. It can be inconvenient, bordering on annoying, to have to close out of the entire inventory menu in order to get rid of the bag of holding - once you open it, there's no way back to the other screens. Just put a red "X" icon where the "open bag of holding" icon is at the bottom of the right half of the screen.

3. You should be able to give a Battle Order to Hirge to cast Heal Wounds, if you want her to heal you (if she's healed), or even if you just want her to be fully healed before a big battle. We've had separate conversations about being able to give battle orders about when and how much to use skills, but this one probably has the biggest impact out of all this group of situations.

4. I believe you start being able to sell pelts to the Varannari once you complete the quest for Deep-Shadow. After that, you should be able to sell pelts to Deep-Shadow, as you do any other Varannari Leader. If you've been accumulating a bunch to sell for cash, e.g. up at Wyvern Mountains, lugging them around with you forever is kinda a poor experience. Sure, maybe you run into them randomly, but you ought to at least have one consistent spot you can go if you're feeling hasty.

5. Saving up 10 hard-won Emeralds to give to Br'mee, and being promised "lore" but just getting experience for it, is a bit of a letdown. I'd suggest adding some plot-related content that gives more background as to the history of the minotaur kingdom, maybe at least for the first 3 such teaching sessions. I'd also say that 5K experience is way too low for the amount of work you put into getting those emeralds.

6. The game has numerous functional uses for emeralds, and small diamonds. There are a few functional uses for Rubies (Ancient Verses, and I vaguely recall one other). There ought to be something that Sapphires can do, other than just be sold. Given their relationship to the ice world, some sort of weapon or armor enchantment or a scroll that stuns/paralyzes might be a good choice, but there are lots of creative possibilities.

7. For the ground-floor computer in the Ark, the Data Pad is way too cleverly hidden. I'm a pretty thorough explorer in RPGs, and not having known about it in advance, I went and checked the computer even after the Oracle's second check-in. It seems in retrospect, unless you're actively carrying a Large Battery, the option to boot up the computer again won't even appear. It's really not obvious that there's anything more to do there unless you kinda already know it's there. I'd suggest that some clue be there, or that booting up the computer once (for info on the oracle) keeps it booted up (for the data pad later).

I have a bunch of other things that are more Wiki suggestions or notes than gameplay bugs or suggestions (e.g. Ahroun has a drop table, but other werewolves don't) - but I'll leave those to the Wiki forum.

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As to the gameplay:

- I found the Ark to be a step up from the Sunken Citadel, but with the benefit of Ashen gear and Adamantite weapons, it wasn't a real problem for my Rogue (once I learned to not be too cavalier about things). I wouldn't consider nerfing it, in case you were.

- I really enjoyed solving the Ark's keycard puzzle, the Citadel's puzzle

- The AI was particularly frustrating in two respects. Firstly, if a companion is standing somewhere that continually damages them (e.g. fire in Hellish Cave or Gorx Lair, but also if they're near safety in Wyverntail or something), and you're not actively leading them somewhere, and there's a nearby spot that won't damage them, they should go stand there.

- Secondly, there are situations where you're attacking an enemy from range, and a companion is attacking from melee, and the monster realizes you're there and tries to get at you - and may flit back and forth, perhaps top and bottom, trying to get around the companion, but never goes far enough to clear them and get a straight line to you. As a result, it seems to go into "blocked" status and may start turbo-regenerating even though it's an active battle. This seems to happen more with larger enemies who may take up more space than the average sprite - when it happened with Undermother it was a real bummer, but I've also seen it with dragons or even hill giants. I don't know what pathing algorithm you're using (I assume A*) but it maybe needs to take into account the monster's own width, or diagonal walking options, when trying to get somewhere. At least, it should require zero valid targets to hit before it goes into turbo-regen; if it's stuck against a door and could hit your companion but not you, then it should hit your companion.

- One of the most frustrating things that happened to me in the Ark was trying to get a second Physical Enhancement and having it kill me. There was no warning of any kind, and it wiped out hours of play carefully clearing the Reactor and main level. I don't mind surprises, I don't mind things that will kill you if you're not careful, but that seemed a little deus ex machina. "Oops, you die" does not give players the experience you're looking to give them. At least with Tol, you're kinda prepared for that as a possibility, and you certainly saved very recently so you won't lose much. I'd suggest a better warning on the physical enhancement thing, particularly after you've done it once.

- In the early game, I liked having a hireling who could round out my party, be a bit of a meat shield, etc. Not being able to heal them (other than Recovery) was a real pain, though, and the fact that they don't get above Lvl 7 means they're entirely useless throughout the game, just asking me if I want to pay oodles of cash to be an entirely useless sacrificial-lamb for me. If their level kept going up, and their damage/armor/resistance with it, I would certainly pay the extra cash to have the extra help. Doubly so if I could let them use potions.


When it came to the plot, there were many aspects of the plot that I found confusing. I don't imagine that a solo developer is going to turn out something worthy of SquareSoft, but plot is really important to my enjoyment of an RPG. While you want to leave a little suspense, or room to use unfinished plot points to drive a sequel, sometimes they can border on plot holes. For example:

- Zuz'sare never explains what help she was trying to give to the other people, how she was trying to grow out of just being an antagonistic Mirmek. You're never given much motivation (and certainly there's no gameplay impact) to buy her argument and save her. Perhaps you could add a dialogue option to explain that further, and if you do spare her, have it impact the people of Fogas and Nivarian in some ongoing fashion. I imagine your list of possible future content expansions imagines a role for her, I'm just saying that this felt very incomplete, despite being presented as playable content.

- the Oracle's story about the destructive landing of the Ark mentions people bailing out onto the other continent. It is suggestive, but not dispositive, that these survivors are the people who became the Forsaken, who have since been looking to return to their home planet. I'd make that clear during the final debate, or perhaps in dialogue with Amarisa or something. At the very least it throws into doubt the idea that the old continent was destroyed by Horrors, rather than a descending crowd of Muud'ari.

- If you choose to kill Zuz'sare and let the Undermother off easy, what she informs you as to Tremadan's lie does not line up with your later knowledge that you are Muud'ari. There is no explanation of why he would lie to you about the spell's requirements, or why the knowledge that it was a lie suddenly clarifies your origins. You just suddenly get a new option during the debate (and, I guess, its ending points).

- When you go to the main computer to insert the Control Module, there ought to be some dialogue with the Oracle there, at the very least it should be him (her?) telling you "OK, I'll start the launch sequence, but I'll need you to buy a little time!". This is a moment of great drama and teamwork, we could play it up a little more.

- I found the ending sequence to be a huge letdown. The graphic image that gets dropped in, followed by you ending up in the Cape or New Garand, just feels disproportionate to the significance of what you've done and all the work you put in to get there. There ought to at least be a cut scene or something. Can't we roll the credits? Have an escape sequence a la Metroid? Leave a plot teaser for the future? Maybe you have plans to expand this, and that's fine, but right now "one full-screen image, plus you can't go back to the upper deck" really feels insufficient.

- Someone - maybe the Oracle, maybe Amarisa, maybe Valeran or Lady Calenda if they survive - ought to tell you what likely became of the Magister and any others who went through the Deep Gate. There's kind of very little explanation of what the Forsaken expected to happen to them when they entered the gate. The plot treats that as some Thing That's Happening, which you have to stop, but you never really learn their motivation. Pathos matters as to emotional investment.

- "The Eleven" are mentioned in the quest (three vs eleven), and mentioned in your dialogue with Tol I believe, and maybe elsewhere - but they are never defined, much less given a backstory. Is it that the People worship The Three, and the nobles worship The Eleven? Maybe it's a future plot point you're intending, but right now it's confusing whenever you encounter it.

- While we're on the subject, the nature of what godly powers The Three (okay, Four) stumbled upon is really left unsaid. We're unable to go meet Thelume in the cathedral. Tremadan describes their adventuring and ascent, and of course Tol gives more background, before Magister talks of them dismissively. But why would the Forsaken be contemptuous of them, knowing they found great power? Do they affect the mortal world still? How? It's suggested that they found this power on the current continent, not in the old Kingdoms, so resolution in the present game might well be appropriate. If the procession through the game is supposed to gradually reveal its world's secrets, this is a major plot area that is still vague even at the end of the game.

- Plus, why is the city of Nivarian named after, presumably, Nivaria, but it's Thelume who remains in the cathedral? I might put some statues of the three in one of the big temples, with some backstory on each of them in their inscriptions.

Hope that helps, David. Great game, can't wait to help out more on the wiki and see where you take things next.
 

Cuckoorex

New Member
Joined
09/03/2017
Messages
266
I like your suggestions a lot. I would say that for me, battle orders being more specific would be a HUGE improvement over the current set of options. I want to be able to tell Hirge something like "Only use magic for healing, unless an enemy is stronger than me." because right now she fires up Arbeno's Might for every little goblin that we come across, and ultimately she burns through all her mana on a pretty useless gesture because once you get past a certain level you're going to be able to kill pretty much any goblins before she even completes the spell. On the other hand, if I'm facing a Boss I would want her to boost herself and help out.
 

Denzera

Loreseeker
Joined
24/08/2017
Messages
63
*bump*. All but #6 on my list should be easy changes, and I really don't think they'd be controversial in any respect.

The notes about plot are more to suggest a re-think on certain dialogue areas (and the monster/hireling AI). But basically, if these are easy tweaks, I think they'll greatly improve enjoyment by removing frustration-creating moments for players, without sacrificing anything.
 

DavidBVal

Developer
Staff member
Administrator
Joined
28/02/2015
Messages
7,427
After current update 1.2 is completed, I'll consider some of those. However, things that seem easy may not be... one of the drawbacks of starting the translations while the game was in development is that now I'm very hesitant to alter dialogues unless it's really important to do so, for instance. But lots of useful ideas here, thanks for sharing.
 

p4ran0id

Staff member
Moderator
Joined
27/01/2017
Messages
2,063
About 1. I think it's better to make it like that:
If you go to sklill/traits interface, you can spend and take the available points back. Only when you exit that interface the points are saved and can't be edited any longer.
 

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