Since this is my first post, let me say that I'm absolutely blown away by this game. I've been gaming since 1980 and I can say without question that you guys definitely understand the fundamentals of what makes a game "pop". Although it's been frustrating losing at certain points (and I'm still only around level 6-8 with six characters) I would much rather lose, learn something from it, and come back again to achieve a close victory than have the game treat me like I'm a "special person" who couldn't lose if I tried, and I hope the devs are able to maintain this vision when the temptation of greater short-term profits at the cost of long term success becomes a reality. Another thing that's important to me is that I don't want to feel like the devs are "protecting" me by dumbing down abilities in my favour. In another thread I saw someone saying that lunging strikes should be cancel-able to prevent the player from being forced to attack an ally. Well... That's how that ability works. You lunge, and then you attack a character. If you can lunge and then choose to not attack a character, the ability has been changed to coddle the player which is just lame and weak. I hope this kind of cheesiness doesn't make it into the game. I'd rather think "OK... If I use this ability, what risks are involved, and am I prepared to take those risks?", than "OK... I'll use this ability. Nothing bad will happen because the devs have worked hard to avoid making the player feel disappointed". Those thoughts aside, here are some ideas that I think will improve the game. Health should be above the character's head instead of at their base where it gets obscured when another character's in front of them. I know I can mouse over them to see their health but it interrupts the flow of gameplay and is irritating. That same health icon should also be at the bottom of the screen next to the character names. Being able to see if they're at full health at a glance of the icon colour would be invaluable. Enemy character bars are too dark. It looks like I'm not meant to be able to see them. Also, the individual bars need to be highlighted more clearly when mousing over an enemy. The whole character bar should become more clear, not just a one-pixel outline. Abilities attached to characters should show a representative icon (or just the picture from the card, but not displayed at an angle) above their head instead of a tiny, skewed, barely legible graphic of the card that can be obscured by other characters. I should be able to click a character's portrait at the bottom of the screen to cast spells on allies. Item graphics in inventory should show level requirement, rarity (maybe coloured borders), and the required tokens at a glance without needing to mouseover them, or have an option to enable this. The game loads before I can read the tips. Maybe show them after the game loaded instead? Trait cards should be played automatically and shown to the player at the start of the turn, saying "<player> plays <card>" and requiring a mouseclick to continue. If this isn't possible, they should be highlighted and pushed up in your hand and "You must play a trait" should be displayed more obviously (maybe in the middle of the screen), as it stunts the flow of gameplay as it is now. I feel like it could be much more of a "Hell yeah! I got a trait card!" moment than it currently is. Cards being removed from your hand should never have a "torn in two" animation. They should just be removed from your hand. It goes against the immersive feel of playing a board game (who really enjoys the feeling of having their cards pulled from their hand and torn up?). If an attack does no damage it shouldn't make the enemy yelp or show the damage graphic. It should just play the "failed" sound and maybe have some kind of graphic representing deflection. It looks kind of silly watching characters reeling and squealing after not being hurt at all. Healing Presence should be self castable, with only one heal to each character allowed per turn to prevent it from being overpowered. Volume options aren't applied until relog. Oh, and I'd also love to see what kind of custom cursors your art guys could up with. I dislike paying for F2P items but I can definitely see myself paying for a variety of custom cursors in this game. Free would be even better. Thanks again for an outstanding game that I'm sure will only get better. I'll continue posting my thoughts as they come to me.
I find this a thoughtful and well laid out first impressions post and it stimulates me to respond. Agreed Disagree in this specific instance - the card type is illogical and inconsistent in its current working and needs to be changed to make it more consistent - either so it becomes harder to use or easier, I dont mind Difficult one - clearer would be better, but over the head might be intrusive. Clearer indications on the character bar and clearer enemy bars (which you suggest below) would be best I feel. Agree 100% (and also at the top, on the enemy bars). Agree 100% Again I worry that would be intrusive - and a right click on the character immediately enhances them to be seen. Not a bad idea - but making one look to the board makes LoS issues clearer. If you cast on the character bar people will be asking for characters out of LoS to be greyed out or some similar assistance. Good ideas (although there is no level requirement - just the tokens I believe) and I think others have mentioned that the Devs have already conceded that inventory in general needs an overhaul. Hopefully good ideas like this will help guide their solution. Agreed - in fact a great idea, traits as they are, are fiddly and annoying and easily missed for a couple of frustrating clicks. Cards need to have some animation and sound effect to draw attention to their change in status (or people will miss it) - I dont mind the chosen one. Agreed - its confusing as it is. Agree with the first part (and its been brought up in other discussions), disagree with the second part - 4 pts of healing isnt overpowered - especially if it costs me 2 cards, 2 actions and the price of clustering all my people together. Gray
Thanks very much for your reply, Gray. I don't agree with all your counterpoints, but the only ones I very strongly disagree on are making the health icon more visible by putting it above or near the character's head, and representing attached cards by a small icon next to the health icon. The health icon becomes obscured so often that it's positioning is poorly decided in my opinion, and being able to see a simple, clear representation of attached cards is necessary for the same reason. It's a simple matter of persistent readability. At the very least, I'd love to see an option implemented to allow the player to place the health icon above each character's head as I honestly can't see how it would obscure anything.
I probably sound stupid, but . . . what's a "character bar"? As to the rest, it's great to get your input and Gray has already spoken to much of it. I'll just add two clarifications: Trait-playing can't be COMPLETELY automatic, because if you have multiple traits to play then you'll want to choose the order. Otherwise, yes, some greater visual aid will help. People have commented on how weird it is for "you must play a trait" to appear near the ENEMY'S hand, for one. (Does it still do that, or have I forgotten?) For tearing up cards . . . ah, look more closely! Your cards DO fly into your discard pile intact. You're likely referring to the magical regenerating "racial Move card," which is duplicated infinitely so you have a new copy every turn. They NEED a visual like "tearing" so that you can understand how much is and is not going into your discard pile. The same tearing effect applies in other situations as appropriate, namely character attachments and terrain attachments. If one card applies to multiple places (say, Cave In), then one tile gets the original card and the others get one that says "copy." When the effect ends, the original flies into your discard, and the magical copies get torn up.
It's the best way I could think of to describe the bars at the top of the screen that contain the enemy's cards and info. Thanks for explaining! That does actually make sense. Seeing my cards being ripped to shreds will no longer cause me emotional turmoil.
Yay! Now you can get back to seeing your characters be ripped to shreds and enjoying the emotional turmoil. Waitaminute . . .
