Suggestions for the game.

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BooN
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue May 21, 2019 7:21 pm

Suggestions for the game.

Post by BooN » Tue May 21, 2019 10:54 pm

Hello, guys and girls!

I am excited about the game. I was replaying into the breach (ITB) since 27 feb 2018 i believe. I really appreciate the change of setting with Druidstone. I'd like to add something of my personal opinion.
I have a low end notebook and it periodically just shuts down to overheating, so i can't play in more than couple hours sessions. So. I'd wish the game autosaved like sometimes. Say, every 5-10 turns maybe if not every turn. Atm i have to restart the mission, lately tried to just manually "save and quit" but i don't know if it will work.
Now, undo movement works only unless i click on my other heroes. I wish it worked just like in ITB - unless any actual action point is used. I tend to missclick when the game freezes. And what happens if you accidently run near several enemies at once instead of shooting in the farthest one. You just die and you can't undo your move?
I wish i had no possibility to abuse that shade guy with Beyond grave ability (ressurecting those skeletons). Every time i meet him it feels challenging just to clear the map and to farm infinite experience and gold out of them. This kind of activity in games is something i sincerely enjoy doing, but in this case it affects the gameplay itself - it corrupts the pacing by letting you pull 1000+ exp and gold per mission. I've met Nuala this mission and it says i have somewhat over 1200 gold gathered by now and that is a shame. I feel compelled to do that since game lets me to. I wish those "summoned", replenishable minions had another drop table - say, with option to drop heart-heart-action-nothing rather than hearts-gold-action-nothing. And no exp after 3 spawns.. (or none at all instead of 3 exp per skull as of now). But having some kind of a challenge of such kind would be good for me (kill 100 enemies during one mission (over 9000 in my case?)) . :)
Another thing is AI should go for some barrels if they feel they are trapped. Or at least randomly run around just to mess a little with the player.
I'd like a challenge where you don't receive any damage on hard on all missions. I try to progress in game as slow as possible and i don't want it to end and today i am roughly halfway through. By now i guess every mission i've met could be played with no damage taken, but i am not completely sure (thinking about bees flying quite far) , cause i was not paying focusing on this. May someone test that? I just wish i had more time. :)
The last tip - maybe there should be a tip that offhand weapon is the one that is not used automatically. It is obvious, but it would help me, cause i went for the mission and learned it the hard way (did't want to restart tho).

I like the game a lot. Really. Good job guys.

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petri
Posts: 117
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 10:07 am

Re: Suggestions for the game.

Post by petri » Wed May 22, 2019 6:02 am

Thanks for the feedback! Improving the undo is on our todo list. We need to think about your suggestions.

BooN
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue May 21, 2019 7:21 pm

Re: Suggestions for the game.

Post by BooN » Wed May 22, 2019 6:59 pm

Suggestion for visuals.
Mostly I can't say for sure if I will use one movement point or two when there is a corner on the combat map (if i can walk diagonally) . I'd suggest to visually highlight the border grid with a kind of a special line in every occasion when there is a solid corner. I mean, not (only) when holding Alt but all the time.
Like,if there is a wall, then it has a black pointy borderline beneath it. If it is a swamp, then there is pointy dirty impurity up to the grid border.
It looks pretty now and i hope there is a way to make it more intuitive. Or it's just me. :)
Game is beautiful, i really don't want to sound like it is otherwise :) the game is so carefully hand crafted that i feel ashamed.

P.S. Really, showing it in the Alt overlay would be 100% enough, i'm sorry

BooN
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue May 21, 2019 7:21 pm

Re: Suggestions for the game.

Post by BooN » Sat May 25, 2019 1:20 pm

The more i think of the game, the more i like it :)

I wish there were some options either when you start the misson or when you start new game - to have some difficulty settings over hard. Always removable via esc menu. Let's say:
a) any creep has (a chance to spawn with) a cool name and corresponding attribute like sly/fast, fat/hairy, toothy, creepy/scary, armored words. Munchkin-like buffs. Such creeps would have one or several statistics tweaked.
This would improve replayability to some degree, but also would ramp up that difficulty and add up some versatility into the gameplay. Like.. I would highly appreciate that moment when you can't see a way to win. Whenever i showcase a game like Machinarium to a friend or a kid I do my best to take it myself as slow as possible. Having to leave a game for a night and go to sleep looking for a solution is a bless for me. At the moment druidstone lacks difficulty options to provide that;
b) creatures have +2 hp flat;
c) creatures up to two times have either 50% probability to ressurect on the same spot or call it's brethren in a random spot on the map delayed by one turn (like ITB).
d) It is even possible to mix "c)" up with player decisions like who (shido?) or what damage type (poison?) makes the final blow to make it even more complex, but I am not sure with it. Such a decision might stop creature from resurrection, yield self/team/enemies buffs/debuffs (move, piercing+self-damage, gain move 3 straight cells using 2 move points ect.), drop table influence, refresh ability, maintain consecutive streaks (or break peace/meditation turns streak).
e) add some "enemy scout" foes that do their own thing instead of attacking the player. Like, you can leave it be and deal with the consequences later or find a way to strike here and now. Say, some slow slug crosses the battlefiels during first few (3? 7?) turns and calls in massive reinforcements if it succeeds to borrow into the hole. You can have a reward in either case unless you finish the mission with either slug or any of reinforcements alive. A reward could be that steelface loot, gold, achievement (not a gem i'd say). However, it looks like it would need an independent mission to make and that is not quite something i wanted to suggest. You have already done a great job;

Apart from options of difficulty and since I've touched those new missions - i liked dark ritual so much! And there is a thought on it:
I wish we have a battle where you have to have 6 (10+ for me) cells occupied with someone alive (or bones to make it easier) in order to make progress. Finding like 8 heroes under your control is somewhat managable, but with teleporting, "charge" ability, bit of tanking and so on you can have a good time puzzling this out with not 8 but even more occupied cells in the same time. Can't hide my excitement with that Dark Ritual room with fun lever. Having such a room with 1) randomized (dropless) enemy spawn spots + 2) some (4/6/../12+) particual cells requirements to progress the mission + 3) maybe having a in-mission item chest to make such mission beatable via some expandable items hoarding each wave to have an option to use Akhn, call creeps twice in a row to flood the room with creeps rather than try your luck with enemy spawn spots over those where you already stand after another use of that randomizer lever (might have many uses withing the same turn) - that would be of great fun. I believe such an endgame feature is just not needed in druidstone. Sorry for the mess.. Just brainstorming..

Maybe, it would be cool for droppable action points to sometimes give an extra move as well.

I wish one of 3 summon shidos had 2 attack or 1 pierce. Or an ability to refrezh someone's non-once-per-deployment ability. This (Dash and) Swap within 1 tile could be a lifesaver too.

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