QOL check-in

[Kevin]

Hey all,

With the next update, we're doing some housekeeping and going back over some old work. So far on the list:

• Add a merchant quest for the pet seller in Sal's story
• Make humanoid characters grunt and yell during combat
• Add an alternate boss for Rook's day 2

I'd love to know if there are any other things that you see as obviously missing or overly repetitive. I can't promise we'll address any one specific thing, but getting the player perspective really helps us direct our efforts.

[simonex93]

*grunts*

[pacovf]

Off the top of my head (not sure whether good or bad):

- special boon/banes/death loot for Nadan/Oolo

- special graphic effects for more status effects, like burn and stun already do. Static, Prune, Shield bash (stuff that reacts to you playing cards) especially come to mind

- the “death preview” icon changing colours depending on whether it’s an isolated fight, or part of a quest in which you’re not supposed to kill your target

- different guns for Rook

- compendium: add beasts. Coins too?

- have all burn damage apply at once, instead of as each enemy activates. Right now burn damage may not apply if a burning enemy dies from somebody else’s burn damage kills them first. Since the player doesn’t know activation order, this can make it hard to predict burn damage.

There might be other stuff too. Are you also looking into balance? Item prices, run scores, Rook coins, and a few upgrade choices could use some work. EDIT: I realise I’m not actually specifying what exactly could use some fixing, I could expand if you’re looking into balance too.

[ArtixBot]

For me:

- Boss art for Rook / Sal if you fight them in the special events would be cool. Also I feel Sal could use a buff when fighting her, especially given that you have Spark Baron backup.

- Card text cleanup. Something like (Whenever you draw this card, do <X>) could be (When drawn, do <X>), which cuts down on wordiness. Some cards have Heal with a keyword attached to it, some just have the "Heal" text without the keyword. Consistency with Expend and Destroy (why do cards like Blade Flash/Day Shift/Night Shift/Assorted Junk/ All the Elixir cards incepted by Bilebrokers use the Destroy keyword instead of Expend?).

- Better card text, especially when handling cards which either create a multi-stacked argument vs. creating new copies of an argument.

- An example: Rook's Seethe card adds a new Heated argument entirely when played (instead of adding additional stacks). However, Sal's Invective just adds a stacks to an existing Heated argument. Both cards say "Gain 1 Heated" but in fact have completely different effects, since Seethe creates extra arguments, and Invective just adds to an existing argument.

- For a negotiation example: Boosted Gruff says "Incept 2 Flustered." Double-Barreled Bounty Hunter says "Incept 2 Wanted!." But Boosted Gruff creates one argument that lasts two turns, while Double-Barreled Bounty Hunter instead creates two arguments.This is inconsistent and can definitely be confusing for new players.

- A way to see how much resolve an argument has before it gets deployed (Influence/Dominance have 2 resolve, while Bulldoze has 8 resolve -- but this doesn't get indicated anywhere until it gets played!)

- Nitpicking, but the Cautious/Overzealous status icons for Threekwa are a bit boring.

- When in combat, some visual indicator to tell if something is an innate condition, buff, or debuff, since the list of effects can get rather large.

In terms of suggestions:

- Moment of Weakness arguments (Rook Day 1 boss negotiation) are fine, but it'd be cool if Threekwa/Eonwe could get an argument to convert all of your Moments of Weakness into individual Vulnerability arguments.

- When you attack someone with Ricochet, a particle effect that starts from the attacked unit and flies towards the other hit unit.

- I have never found a use for Rook's "Compromise" card. Only three other Diplomacy cards truly rely on having more than one Influence (Pressure, Venture, Weight) -- while cards like Do Over, Final Favor, and Prominence just spend all your Influence anyways, which makes spending Influence to increase your Influence's resolve rather dubious.

- The bar in Rook's campaign is supposed to be a neutral ground, but the only people I ever see there are Jakes, Rise, and Pengemunt. Could Spark Barons be added as a spawn type to this location as well?

[pacovf]

I strongly agree with everything else you’ve said (thank you for writing it out so I won’t have to ), but compromise is fine. It could use a buff, for sure, and should be common instead of rare, but the concept itself is fine. Rook has trouble producing targeted composure on demand, and Influence has a base resolve of only 2, which means stacking influence is almost impossible for him. Compromise allows you to do that more easily. It’s better to have 2 less influence, than to have zero because it got destroyed. 

The actual problem is that Rook doesn’t have a lot of ways to actually capitalize on influence, beyond the first point (to maximise diplomacy cards damage). Realistically, only Prominence in combination with effects that reward gambling. Everything else is not worth the trouble.

The other problem is the aforementioned issue that Rook is bad at generating composure, especially without a 2 composure coin. Jargon and uh Distract (is that the name?) are both very good, but that’s about it. Special shoutout to his starting composure cards, which are absolutely terrible even after upgrading.

[RageLeague]

There are some ideas that I have to flesh things out a bit more:

• There's nothing currently to do at the company store or the cafeteria in rook's story. To change that, you can make the cafeteria like a bar, but it serves food instead of drinks(provides healing and increase relationship at the cost of money and a bloated card), and make the company store sell work-related stuff.
• Make more quests for minor factions for sal's story. Currently, there's only one quest for the Hesh faction for sal's story, and there is not a lot of variety in quests in general. There's only 2 choices for Rook's 2nd night quest, and there is little variety.
• Flesh out the Bilebroker faction more. Currently there's only 2 bilebrokers(with the recent change of the bilebroker bogger to the bogger faction), one of which is Ximmon, who only appears in special events. That leaves Leesha as the only regular bilebroker, and she is guarenteed to spawn in the Better Living Chemist shop and the trade secret side quest for Rook. Wish that we get more bilebrokers.
• Add bio to characters. There are bios for many people that get added early on, but the characters that got added later don't have any bio at all. All of spark barons, rise, and boggers don't have any bio.

Something that I also want the game to have is cross-character support. For example, currently, all of Sal's mechanics technically can work with Rook, but not all Rook's mechanics can work with Sal. I understand that the devs probably want unique feel to each characters, but making the mechanics work for all characters can allow things like making a mutator that allows cards from other characters to spawn in a game. It doesn't have to be 1 to 1. It can be a replacement effect, like instead of gaining charges for sal, it gives her a temporary status that boosts the max damage of her damage. The same thing could apply to social boons and banes as well. Bogger clobber's boon doesn't do anything for sal right now because sal can't gain charges.

[matshazi]

1) Protagonist skins that match the factions in their story

2) Ability to recruit any friendly companions at inns and shops (including the hesh priests/templars, they are badass)

3) Ability to recruit more than 1 companion at a time (and keep them in reserve during battles if more than 3)

4) Choosing which companion/pet stays in reserve during battle

[Dagar]

"Real" QoL:

- make the "flee" button in fights and negotiations more noticeable. I only saw that I could stop a negotiation in my fourth or fifth attempt. You could also add a suggestion text for that if your Health or Resolve drop to a certain level.

- If you have the option to destroy a card, add an additional confirmation prompt for that. I as a not very experienced player will check my deck(s) before to see what card I want to get rid of, also checking the upgrades. I once mixed the card overview window with the destroy window ( because the look identical) and accidentally purged a key card of my deck.

- Checking cards for upgrades sometimes functions with a right click and sometimes with clicking at the card and then clicking a "view upgrades" button. See if it is viable to consolidate that to one coherent input method, because it can be confusing for new players.

Other:

- Fix the Admiralty faction card that improvises two negotiation card and plays them together. Or explain better what it does, because I had several instances where parts of the effects would not trigger.

[TF3]

19 hours ago, matshazi said:

1) Protagonist skins that match the factions in their story

I heavily second this. Would love to see Sal in Spree or Admiralty colors, and Rook in Baron or Rise.

Some other things I would love to see in Sal's Campaign are alternate ending cutscenes and maybe some extra cutscenes if you do the Hesh and Rise outposts. Currently, even if you deliberately attempt to piss off Oolo or Nadan and fail or betray their request to attack the other faction, Day 5 forces an increase in their relationship with us and the ending cutscene detailing their epilogue has them being successful despite their goals not being accomplished. We could have Nadan trying to rule his criminal empire only for the Admiralty to crack down on him because Oolo's still alive in the shadows or him never giving up on his vendetta and wasting resources because Sal failed to cover up the fact that she let Oolo go and now Nadan only cares to finish the job. And Oolo could probably be stuck in her current position, forever treated a pawn if Nadan's dead, or have her dead set on trying to capture him if he's escaped.

The Hesh outpost iirc specifically has one of the characters saying they have plans that would unfold during the Auction. Not only does that have zero current impact on Day 5, they dont even get an ending cutscene detailing what they did. They should get one if you finished the mission and have access to their base. Would also be nice if they got a cutscene if you betrayed them and gave the Spark back to the Barons or just failed the quest because the Luminari cant stand detours. Same thing goes with the Rise, would like to have a cutscene if you have it available to you on day 5, and an alternate cutscene if you betrayed them or otherwise failed the quest.