Some Generic Feedback

Wow - impressive feedback! Puts my hodgepodge of posts to shame :)

I think the next early access / test release is due in the next few days with some major changes and new functionality. One of the things I've noticed about the guys developing this is that they do seem to make huge step changes with each major release and they do read and react to feedback so hopefully you'll find some of your points addressed.

I hadnt thought about the population 300 in real terms (I guess I'm too used to suspending disbelief) but it is a very good point and well made ... just wondering now if I should make a comment about the unrealistically hexagonal mountains :).

Thraxas

Hi Retek,

Thanks for all the feedback! I'll try to address a few of them :)

• "After a very short time I had to learn there's no way to cancel buildings/upgrades, so while upgrading my main settlement, my order to adjust tax rates got stuck behind the upgrade which could never finish, because I lacked the materials needed to finish. So I ended up making a second account, and created the majestic city of Dalor! I have to point out, that while with the first account I created on the site I could log into the game, with the second account which I have created within the game client, I could not log into the site, which is rather strange."

That's two issues in one. First, you should be able to remove any command by long pressing it in the queue. It's a temporary feature until we add proper drag & drop support to rearrange or drop commands from the queue.

On the other issue (the sign-on syncing problem between the site and the game): it's a bug that is randomly appearing for players. Derek (our server side guy) is currently investigating the problem.

• "It would be nice if we could shut down each farm/quarry/mine/castle/whatever individually, rather that having to meddle with the labour rates. This could save us a lot of trouble if we miscalculate the impact of adding a second mine or something. With this I don't mean that the upkeep costs would disappear too, just the workers wouldn't go there from somewhere else. Perhaps also let us decide for them individually if they work at full capacity or not."

It's an interesting idea. I can easily imagine it would be added at some point.

• "I found a visual bug when removing an Ecclesiastical Fief and replaced it with eg. a mine, the added viguor effect would stay displayed both on the tile and the player card, but it would not generate viguor."
   
• "This one's related to the first account I made, (this is the first account which I am posting this with). While trying to save my first city from eternal doom casued by the stuck queue, I ran into a strange problem: when I tried to demolish the mine or the quarry, the command just simply didn't go through... I clicked the cloud thingy and after the timer hit zero, the command disappeared from the queue, so I couldn't demolish those buildings. Strange."

Thanks for reporting them, I've added it to our to-do list to investigate.

• "When I played my first attempt, I was upgrading my main settlement (to tier 2), then while it was still upgrading I accidentally queued the same upgrade a second time. I expected that nothing would happen, but the village actually ended up on tier 3. Perhaps we shouldn't be able to queue the same upgrade twice."

It's a feature by design, the problem is with the unfinished hint texting. Players should be able to add multiple upgrade commands to the queue - that's the main point, to ease the micromanagement part - but the hint text on the card or the tile queue currently doesn't take other commands (supposed future states) into account when suggesting what'll happen. So when you added upgrade the second time, it should have insisted an upgrade on the "supposed future state" the first upgrade command would create and show "It'll upgrade your Settlement to Level 3", instead of showing "Upgrade to Level 2" two times.

You still got Level 3 at the end since the server already has the feature implemented, it can see what is supposed to happen and can run such commands accordingly (note: it also removed the price of Level 2, then Level 3, and not twice the Level 2 prices). Hints just couldn't follow this on the client yet. It's on our to-do list though as it's pretty confusing.

• "I found it rather strange that building/upgrading only removes the costs from the "wallet" after it's finished, rather than removing the full amount at the start (or perhaps removing a fraction of the cost with each tick, and then wouldn't progress further if there was not enough materials for the next tick)"

Yep, its an oversight in the implementation. It was meant to remove at the beginning (since the command doesn't even start being processed if you don't have the resources). However, we could also implement a continuous payment of fractions with works put on hold if/until the player can pay the next fraction. Pro and Con is the same thing: it would be easier to start something your economy is not prepared for.

• "Some tooltips when hovering over icons would be really helpful.
• It would be nice if there was a button on the tile cards bringing up a description of what the type of the tile does/affects rather than having to read into the website or loading screen tips.
• While playing the game I was under the impression I would be able to eventually expand my territory. I was sad to learn that it was not possible in the current release. Perhaps it would be nice if the game client told the player what features the release includes and what features are not yet in, as I'm sure a lot of players (including myself) skimmed over that part of the download page. This leads back to my previous suggestion of tooltips... the buttons of the unavailable features perhaps could say "coming soon"

I agree on the tooltips and it's on our to-do list. It's a bit more difficult than it sounds though as the game is playable on tablets too. There is no hovering there. We're trying to bring tooltips to all platforms at the same time as a unified system (the action to show tips don't have to be the same on all platforms though).

I also agree on that a couple major information should be presented on a more intuitive way - especially as like you just pointed out, the majority don't read articles or download instructions :) Opinions vary - even within the team - whether we should add disabled features with a "coming soon" tip or should leave them out altogether until they are added. Might also worth noting that not all planned feature has a UI element yet at all (so there are info we couldn't place in hints).

• "While looking at my neighbors' feudums I noticed that they are not all the same. Some had 2 mountains, some only had 1, some had 1 forests, some had 2... and one lucky bastard... he had 2 grasslands and a plains, allowing him to maintain 3 farms without one being on a hill.
  Of all this, though, my only concern is the swamp. They can't be built over, and they also don't scale with the amount of laborers like the forest does. I'd trade the 2 gold per tick for an extra farm any time. So please, don't bully us by putting us into such starting conditions!"

While it's not a factor yet, swamps are great natural barriers against invaders and in the distant future :), when we're past the first five big milestones (or when players upvote it's implementation), they'll be a lot more important as having swamps can unlock specific feudum states (which is kind of a lightweight combo system for creating specialized local economies).

It's also worth noting that it'll be less of a factor once you're able to a) claim more land b.) trade with others. Currently, we could tweak the "starting location" rules to avoid placing swamps into players' home region if its irritating for more players. But once at least one of those options is available, starting locations become less biased anyway (as currently it's made sure you can get all resource types in your home region, otherwise you'd be potentially stuck)

• "It would be nice if there was a random art option in the map maker, so instead of manually picking a different art each time, a random art would be used."

Added to the to-do list. :) Actual gameplay features and UX takes priority at the moment though (unless players will vote differently in the coming polls).

• This last one is probably just me, but... the population... I'm aware that it is harder to balance higher numbers, but it is kinda silly that a majestic tier 6 city gives home to a grand total of 300 people. Some sources say that Paris in the 1300's may have had a population of 300k! I know I could just imagine 3 extra zeros behind that 300, but still. (this is where I'd put my emoji... if I had one!)

I have to say we're already good in this regard. In Civilization, for example, you still have cities of 1-2-3-20 population! ;)

(by the way, at some point we tried to stick to the rule  1 population represents 1 medieval family in the system and as a result, we used less linear levels for population capacity of settlements and everything. But it just put an extra layer on everything - think workers or levy soldiers - that hasn't had any real benefit to any aspects of the game, so we let it go)