First Beta 1.03 Playthrough
I've had my first try of Beta 1.03 and so far I'm happy with the improvements. These improvements aren't too large to interfere with the base of the game, which I love, instead they've tightened certain gameplay mechanics and solved certain bugs. A promising start. You may not need it, but I've attached my player log and game saves as I noticed a couple of bugs. I've attached screenshots for the bugs, as well as thug location suggestions to further my points below. The rest of the notes are suggestions or personal analysis from gameplay, do forgive the points which have been repeated by other users but I felt I should include everything and all that comes to mind. Hope some of this helps, and please let me know if there are specific aspects of the game you want comments on for future posts (I am a bored unemployed Scottish boy needing to keep my brain going during this time).My playthrough was as Frankie Donovan, 10 Factions, 10 Neighbourhoods and Boss difficulty.
Bugs
- Neighbourhood label Municipal Pier error. Comes up as Municipal PI (screenshot provided)
- Two Brew mission wouldn’t progress even though I obtained a new brewery, still telling me to take other faction's brewery. Also when I did eventually take the brewery nothing happened (screenshots provided)
- Melee kill still glitching. Whether it's a fist, knife or bat, the killing blow is out of synch with the enemy's death or the enemy dies without being touched
Encouraging Improvements
- Love the new gun display
- Tougher and better looking thugs
- First stash much lower weapons, sometimes only health supplies
- Limited fast travel impedes extremely fast gameplay and better pacing
- First mission to get brewery was in large racket, properly challenging as thugs were much smarter and deadlier. Was killed on first try and had to strength up before taking it, that’s more like it!
- Fixed health potion, herbal remedy and bandages automatically healing character each turn without activating them...damn you
- Population limit notice, letting the player know there aren’t more customers in that neighbourhood. Had only worked that out over extended gameplay, helps new gamers understand the mechanics.
- Hidden safehouses is an excellent start to expanding faction rivalry
Improvement Still Needed
- Mob boss still too over powered. Health too high, mob bosses shouldn't be risking their lives so easily and without much risk from the beginning. Damage and accuracy too devastating at the start to feel like battles are rewarding. Would be better if marksmanship, health and other combat skills start low but improves with combat experience or notoriety
- Standard speed still too slow
- Varying speeds needed as fast travel has been limited and sometimes you don't want to expand but just want to watch your empire rake in the cash for improvements (I use developer tools to get this effect however I would enjoy it more if it was built into game)
- Controllable speed for battles too, time speed x2 works well and x4 works well for big battles
- Not enough thugs at stashes, one thug is not enough to create a challenge. Three to five would be more challenging and rewarding (Further suggestions in next section)
- Thugs need varying faces to match varying attires
- Shotguns are still too overpowered. I was able to kill five guys in one shot from various distances. Potentially have closer enemies take brunt of damage and further away guys in the shotgun spray take less damage. Shotgun blast should potentially include damaging friendly allies.
- Can shoot through walls taking away difficulty (I understand bullets can go through thin walls but maybe dampen damage)
- Obtained military issue armour from a stash box which was guarded by one thug, this was disappointing. I'm guessing that items randomly spawn, but is there a way to tier stashes into groups of low, medium and high random reward and connect that with the number of thugs assigned to the locations?
- Minor factions still too easy to blow over, there businesses should start with a base level of three or four security (further suggestions in next section)
- Strength needs to be balanced among factions; as you grow in strength your competitors should be rising with you. When you equip half decent weapons to two gangsters you're already miles ahead in strength. Enemy factions should automatically improve as you improve. You should never be miles ahead of the competition.
- Police still not a real threat
- Still a bit too easy to find safe houses on boss level
Random Ideas While Playing
- Your sets are beautifully made to have layered placement of thugs defending the stashes; for high reward stashes thugs could be blocking each alley entrance, surrounding the stash and behind various covers so that as soon as you attack they’re ready for a battle and in numbers. I've used one alley as an example with orange dots as potential locations depending on difficulty and reward (screenshots provided)
- Also to obtain the stash you potentially need to kill all thugs protecting the stash before you can open it, lock stash until completed
- Scottish gangster or mob boss would be cool. Ronald Kerr was a personal body guard to Al Capone and ran a section of his operation. But please don’t fuck up the voice over though, hire an actual Scottish person!
- Lack of racket names. This leads to all enemy faction businesses with generic racket names with no relevance or importance to faction, taking away from the immersion of the game. More random names in racket naming generator needed, and if possible connected to specific factions (I've started writing potential names which are historically and culturally pleasing, will post in suggestions soon)
- Ability to rename buildings at anytime
- New safe house interiors needed, maybe specific to bosses
- Al Capone and other larger gangs should have more rackets and more strength from the beginning. Very rarely have I seen Al Capone become strong in my play throughs because he's no different from the others (not realistic)
- Other factions need to take rackets quicker and not start wars lowering each other’s strength. War should be rare and when all factions are at major strength. Wars between factions that have eight rackets each is boring and counterproductive for business. Gangland wars in Chicago were infamous and bloody, but did not occur on mass until later on in the 1920s. Specific and calculated murders took place throughout, so potentially focus on war prevention, secret killings and expansion in first five years
- Minor factions need to have more in depth personalities, specific leaders and allied with so that they can help properly with war efforts. Minor gangs could be led by stronger recruitable gangsters, so when you recruit high end gangsters you also gain access to their minor faction. This also means you can wage war with these gangsters and trade just the same as the major factions. (I'm gonna put together a detailed suggestion for this one.)
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