Best things / Worst things

[Kevin]

I've been really enjoying your suggestion lists. I don't want to spill the beans on anything too early, but I have noticed that some of the suggestions that you guys have are eerily similar to our Top-secret List of Things to Come. Some days it's really hard to resist posting spoilerific screenshots from the animators' computers!We have a pretty small team working on this game, so there's a delicate balancing act between forging ahead with new features and stopping to refine existing features. Something that would be useful for us as we prioritize what to implement next is a list of what people think are the best and worst aspects of the current game. What do you spend most of your time doing when you play? What parts of the game do you dislike? Your feedback can help the team focus on what's most important!

[Toaster Fu]

Should that be posted in this thread or should we make a new one?

[Kevin]

Should that be posted in this thread or should we make a new one?

Here's fine!

[Vulturas]

I'll be honest. The game is lovely and the style is awesome. But the combat system is utterly terrible. The only way to win at combat in this game is have experience in damn micromanagement in RTS games. Move a bit somewhere, hit, move a bit somewhere, hit. It's mostly like kiting in most games, but a lot more harder and usually pretty low reward if you're going for the spiders. I don't know how to improve the combat, but it's pretty damn hard and unsatisfying.

[Draken]

You are missing the point. You should recruit the pigs as your body guards and let them fight for you.This is not a combat game. But a tool / resource unlocking game... unlock the pig houses and figure out how to recruit them, that's how you solve the problem.

[Vulturas]

But until you even get to meet pigs (depending on how lucky you get) you will need to fight and gather resources. You must fight in this game, there's no solution to not fighting unless you have dumb luck and find a pigman town/thing. It's best if you destroy spider lairs early, if you don't, T3's are a damn pain. And pigs are pretty disposable, and building a pig army is more dissatisfying, this game is about living in loneliness, not about being the french general of a pig bacontallion.

[Michael M]

More random danger. More scary monsters..Farms are too easy.. the ability to kill rabbits without a trap is too easy.. my biggest problem with the game becoming boring is once you set up farms, there's little else to do. It's easy mode survival..Which brings me to my second gripe.Pig entourage makes the game too easy.. place those farms near pigs and you can't really *DIE*.Oh.. anti-monster traps would be nice (monsters should roam more). : )

Edited September 17, 2012 by Michael M

[Em3rgency]

The only way to win at combat in this game is have experience in damn micromanagement in RTS games.

Its funny, I pretty much only play RTS games, with a few small exceptions, and I found the combat too easy Burned 3 spider nests with 1 fire and took on the 15-20 spider horde solo. Lots of running in circles, took a few hits, won in 5 minutes. Its all about timing. Their attack animation makes them stop in their tracks and if you move away in time it does not do damage.My main concern is the long trips back to base after a resource run. A magic teleportation mechanic with a long cooldown would be nice

[Vulturas]

And my point got proved!

[Mr.Pandastic]

Yeah, I'm not really a big fan of the pig entourage either. Perhaps you could only "bribe" them for a day? This way a player can decide for themselves whether or not it's worth using a bunch of meat everyday in order to keep their pig army. The only major gripe I have is that night time is a little boring.

Edited September 17, 2012 by Mr.Pandastic
Wanted to add something

[Vulturas]

Why not give them food constantly?

[Mr.Pandastic]

Well I would think once a day would be okay but do have a certain time interval in mind?

[Vulturas]

Hunger is a big factor in this game, they should get hungrier day by day up to a cap, the max cap being something once every 1-2 days would be awesome.Edit: why not a pig through and pigs eat when they want?

[Mr.Pandastic]

It'd be cool if pigs also had a natural enemy. An opponent that they cannot help you defeat. Maybe the Big Bad Wolf?

[Vulturas]

That would be silly if they added a story XD The pig town to have a pig chieftain that controls the pigmen. The pigs from that town can't join you unless you beat the Big Bad Vulf.

[Mr.Pandastic]

It would be pretty funny though. It would make life in a pig village more interesting if once in a while a super monster (The Big Bad Vulf) would come to attack the village to eat a pig or two. This would be a big factor in deciding whether or not a player wants to set up camp in a pig village. Sure, the pig village is one of the safest places to stay but there would the danger of being attacked by something very powerful every once in a while.

[Excess]

Right now, pigs have a basic hunger/health system in place. After a big fight, they start eating on their own whatever spider meat they see on the floor. Also, morsels. Also, fallen-in-battle comrades.Perhaps they'll work on that?

[Mr.Pandastic]

At the very least I hope there will be an option to disband your group of piggy companions. It's a bit annoying when you're going buffalo hunting but the little rascals eat up most of the food after a successful kill.

[Michael M]

Yeah, I'm not really a big fan of the pig entourage either. Perhaps you could only "bribe" them for a day? This way a player can decide for themselves whether or not it's worth using a bunch of meat everyday in order to keep their pig army. The only major gripe I have is that night time is a little boring.

Night time is boring because more scary stuff needs to come out at night. : )

[Agnosticus]

The things that bother me the most apart from the lack of content as of yet:

-really awkward interacting with almost anything in the woods, because of trees obscuring the target

-the performance in deep woods (?) drops very low on my end

-as already mention by others: there's really not much to do during the night. i'm trying to save crafting, farming and researching for the night, but that doesn't always help to keep away the boredom

-despite the games name starving is getting irrelevant far too Soon for my taste. Maybe you could implement that after eating the same kind of food for a certain period, it doesn't saturate well enough, so you have to switch between different dishes

-sometimes the game won't let me eat for a short time (RMB and if you click with the food on the char)

-and the pig/tentacle issue (mentioned before by someone) has to be sorted out, btw it works with spiders too

-maybe you could get a more creative way of reseaching things rather than this science machine

but me and a friend of mine like the game very much, the art style is great, so is the music and it's mostly smooth as hell

also please keep the dark and sinister way of things with the additional content, it really suits well!

thx for this fine game!

Edited September 17, 2012 by Agnosticus

[Excess]

[...] trees obscuring the target

Unless someone comes up with a really clever way of dealing with that issue, we'll have to keep changing the camera angle with the left and right arrows keys.

-the performance in deep woods (?) drops very low on my end

This happens to a lot of people. Perhaps prolonging the life circle of trees may decrease the CPU usage used to calculate in which state each individual tree should be?

[...] not much to do during the night.

Perhaps the tent shouldn't only heal you, but "fast-forward" time until the sun rises.

[...] starving is getting irrelevant far too Soon for my taste.

I feel the same way. Magical meat farms shouldn't exist, it's way too easy.

-sometimes the game won't let me eat for a short time

This happens to me from time to time, and I've found that moving a little bit with the WASD keys will "unfreeze" all the actions. Don't know why it happens but it is a tad annoying.

-and the pig/tentacle issue [...]

VERY annoying. At least, they should be able to fight back. I crave for spiketacle meat ಠ_ಠ

-maybe you could get a more creative way of reseaching things rather than this science machine

I dislike how the science machine works too, but haven't thought of a better way yet. Wanna brainstorm an alternative with me?

[sam135]

But until you even get to meet pigs (depending on how lucky you get) you will need to fight and gather resources. You must fight in this game, there's no solution to not fighting unless you have dumb luck and find a pigman town/thing. It's best if you destroy spider lairs early, if you don't, T3's are a damn pain. And pigs are pretty disposable, and building a pig army is more dissatisfying, this game is about living in loneliness, not about being the french general of a pig bacontallion.

use torches and run you have to think about surviving and not dieing as health is too valuable to loose or just get the armor and go mad with an axe

[Mr.Pandastic]

While the night time is boring at the moment, I don't think a fast forward option is a good idea. I would just like to see a bit more action as darkness should be an ever prevalent source of danger. People have already suggested things such as spider raids or more monsters in general.

[Ajnayon]

I dislike how the science machine works too, but haven't thought of a better way yet. Wanna brainstorm an alternative with me?

Incorporate different methods of research. For instance, some things make sense that you could research with the machine, but perhaps magic would be only obtainable with a cauldron that spawns in a particular part of the world (thinking the swamp here) or meat products would have to be bought (like blueprints) from the pigmen. Break up the item research between areas, and you encourage exploring and survival methods using few items while increasing the game's difficulty at the same time.Edit: Another thing that occurred to me is that you could have certain items craftable ONLY in a particular place, i.e. next to/through the proposed cauldron item or whatever system/item would be placed in the pigmen village. This would encourage players to not be able to set up camp as easily if they want the more advanced items. Edited September 17, 2012 by Ajnayon

[jopollo]

I really like the pigs, but there does need to be more challenge. I like the idea that if you don't feed them often enough, they stop following you. That way, you're limited to either constantly hunting/farming or only keeping a few at a time. I would also like to see something that scares them away and forces you to go it alone.To make the farms more challenging, maybe you have to add more manure after every few harvests? Eventually the ground is no good and you have to make a new farm altogether? If you plant right by a pig town, they will eat it before you have a chance? For that matter, maybe there is something that wanders around and eats your crops wherever they are, so you have to balance guarding your farms and gathering other resources.I'm also pretty frustrated by the spiketacles. I just want to kill them!I love the idea that certain things only work in some parts of the map. You can only make an effigy next to a "Here lies Wilson" grave! I also love the idea I read somewhere of incorporating seasons/weather. Bad weather comes in and no crops grow for a while, or you have to stay by the fire all day to stay warm, or there's a drought and you have to find one of those bottomless pools to get some water. That way you have to plan ahead, you can't just rely on your camp all the time. Stockpile or your screwed.As far as most of my time: for the first few days I get established, clear out the local spiders, gather the basics. Then I spend a few days just collecting tons of resources and stockpiling. For a few days I'll recruit pigs and hunt beefalo so I have tons of meat. Then I go on a quest to find and kill every spider on the map. Then dig up all the graves. Then there is nothing left to do, so I start forest fires and eventually start over.

Edited September 17, 2012 by jopollo