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drzampolit
08-26-2007, 05:43 AM
Allo Ubi, Zampolit again...

Ok several bugs I saw in the Demo...

Tutorial:
-Several Voice dialogs in the tutorial would stop mid-speak, then be unplayable even if you click the quest tab to resay.
-During gameplay it never really said how you buy/sell goods. Selling was kinda obvious, but took me forever to figure out I had to take my knight to an rival town near their storehouse to purchase. Perhaps good point to put in.
-In the main game, robbers didn't make too much sense to me. Might be descent to put something in the tutorial. I didn't know what the demand payment was until way later in a game when I had money to burn. But still not sure what "triggers" request for payment. I know the first doesn't start until you see them, but then is it a timed event..or each time you trot through their territory?

Graphics:
-Adjust shadows does not change their complexity / amount, but rather the antialiasing of them. Perhaps just my card, but my 1900xtx makes the shadows look really jaggy so it looks rediculous to have them on anything other than completely on or off
-Sometimes when moving units large distances, and you're at the "to" spot you can see the unit's icons appear with an "under the world" look.
-little hard to distinquish paths vs. roads. Perhap make "darker dirt" on the edges to help know which is which.
-Wall's bow wall(the part where on the crosswalk is higher on one side) always point into your city instead of out. So looks really silly since you don't defend into your city...and also if its a DMG calc it could be really bad cause you could only defend better vs. enemies in your city! hehe

Gameplay/Combat:
-Losing a territory with units on walls causes not only the walls to poof, but also any units on them. (Really bad because of next note!)
-I think territory management is really unbalanced/unfriendly/unfun. It really has no tactical value to just bumrush their outpost(or they yours) and then BOOM they/you loose everything. Units really don't mean much other than can you quickly kill those enemy on the outpost and occupy it. I think killing ALL dwellings THEN you can occupy would be more worthwile. Also walls should stay...would make a more interesting/realistic setting.
-Rival(friendly) towns do nothing to any enemy/robber units. OK, not going to believe they're just friendly with everyone because otherwise I'd expect the robbers/baddies to be friendly with me! Some UI aggro would make sense...cause enemy units can attack you in their town or go through it to reach you. And with the balance of the game's building/resourcing it just makes no sense
-Robbers never attak friendlytowns/enemys. I highly doubt they're always paid off...because as nasty as the evil town is, I doubt they'd let all those tents just chill in their prized areas.
-Enemys (lastly) never attack friendly/robbers...so why me?! *sniffle*
-Nature Spawns(enemy...wolves/bears) shouldn't respawn if you've killed them and there is a dwelling near. Otherwise you keep having a wolf spawn in the middle of the city! hah. That or make them have a "dwelling building" that needs to be destoryed.
-Swordsmen units seem to be worthless. Need to be a bit more dmging. They should be able to mow-through archer units...but they kill them just as fast as other melee.
-Knight usless in combat. Seems to be butter and everyone has butter knives(and goes after him first!)

Building/Harvesting:
-Building a bee/wheat and then 3 fields will keep one field always 100% but every time you hear "nothing to harvest" perhaps a 5second delay would be nice so they might see the wheat in front of them.
-I was building a wall once, and a deer was in the way, graphicaly it put a whole in the wall while building. But once built, it was gone. Just made me nervous!
-Would be nice to have a "storage is GETTING full" message. That way you can quickly ninja-build or sell to a rival city. Always said when too late
-Mines/quarries don't have enough places on the map and/or don't have enough in the mine. To build a force and conquer there isn't enough iron with current combat rules. To build up your town there isn't enough stone to upgrade and build defenses. (On a single mine of each)
-Having your church do its own sermons would be more useful than "whenever you kick the priest to talk" button. Having it as a steady steam of income in support of your taxes would make sense.
-Taxes, would be nice to have a 5-level taxation other than low-med-high. That just either makes everyone rich or poor. Would be nice ot have a "skim" of either direction.

UI:
-A way to speed/slow the hints on hovering would be nice.


Overall, I think this would be a GREAT game since I've always wanted a more "management" game, with a tactical part. (Civ just isn't it) I'd love to be in the beta, since I'm a soloer vs enviornment. i don't like multiplayer and just want to make sure that the game addresses my kind of play style. I know there is a lot of us who are like this, but never have a game built that can support us. Always seems to be multiplayer or nothing.

Cheers,
Zampolit

BTOG46
08-26-2007, 08:17 AM
Uhm, the demo is bugged and rushed out, mainly to appease those who couldn't get into the open beta. Blue Byte said there were some bugs in the demo that would be fixed beofore the game is released, ignore the bandits in the demo, unless you feel like killing them, the demands for money are just timed but they don't attack.
Graphics were ok on my X800pro.
Losing territory is what used to happen in the earlier Settlers games if a tower was destroyed, they took it out for Settlers 5 and now it's back in. You also fell victim to the mistake of building your walls facing the wrong way, an enemy can just stroll through the gates if you do that. The friendly towns are in fact neutral, they trade with the enemy as well as you, the robbers are just another set of enemy troops to fight. You use your swordsmen in conjunction with the archers, seperately they are easy to beat. Your Knight is a commander, and town leader, not a fighter.
The whole object of a town and resource management game is to do just that, manage the storehouse, keep an eye on things, don't just wait till you get a message that its full.
Don't hold sermons too often, it boosts morale, but while they're sitting in church, they aren't working.
Look at the tax controls again, the lower one is NO taxes, setting it there gets the rich buildings needed for promotion faster than taxing the town.
The open beta was mainly a multiplayer game, the released game will have a single player campaign as well as multiplayer. http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

drzampolit
08-26-2007, 12:41 PM
Not too worried, I totally understand beta's and Demos. Another way to catch things. But if no one speaks up, they may not be seen! Just trying to do my civic duty.

More stuff:

Graphicshttp://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_frown.gifgot screenshots this time)
-I destroyed the enemy castle, however it left all the chickens, dogs, and an old guy(think it was the apothecary guy) still standing around.
-Place a hunter shack near the enemy and it made the world even out, but also "pit" down. It was only graphicly, looking at certain angles.

Gameplay:
-Targeting seige weapons are a pain, especially when trying to hurry up and stop guarding them.
-Mercenary bowman are probably too powerful. 3 of the archers can take out a bear melee w/o dying?
-After huge battles, after I killed everything my archers kept making a mad dash towards my city. Was annoying, but eventually found the "stop" button. That worked...but not sure why the AI did that.
-HUGE PLEASE: With the respawning nature mobs, or anything really, if a sentry is in the tower have it attack them! Wolves would keep spawning and eating things, and the sentries just shot craps and drank mead watching them. Would be nice if they protected the area.


Tutorial:
-Might make worth adding in how to reinforce troops. I kept killing them off just to get fresh sets, then found that icon.