What I thought of the game.

[unmerged(484390)]

1. Get workers, get food and wood going.
2. Once you max the workers and food/wood income, turn the wood into gold.
3. Upgrade to get more dwarves.
4. Turn them into workers.
5. Keep making workers and farming wood and turning the wood into gold.

Turn 5 dwarves into military, upgrade them all the way to whatever using the infinite gold to buy the resources.

Dig straight down. If you spot enemy, pause, teleport the 5 military dwarves.

Result: 18 workers getting 20K wood every few minutes. I dont even need to mine for what I want. I exchanged wood into gold and bought what I need.

I basically did a bee line to the level 4 Dwarf spawner in every game I played, without ever mining down or around to get it. No exposure to danger. I didnt got attacked by anything, nothing went wrong at any point.
All I did was get workers, make minimum amount of food and everything else on wood. Turn that wood into gold, and upgrade the spawner, get more dwarves and turn them into workers and put them to gather more wood and turn said wood into gold. Use the infinite gold to buy everything else. With 18 workers on 3 6/6 fertilizers I was getting wood faster than I could turn into gold and spend it.


And the game lets you do that.

At least in Dwarf Fortress you get attacked/sieged and you dig down into unexpected areas. In this game, you see the interrogation marks... /facepalm.
I kept playing and hoping that a bunch of enemies would come and invade, destroy my walls, or something.

What about the teleport? Thats so bullshit. Enemies teleporting? Really? They cant pathfind to you, they teleport?

So I went to the custom game and set all the difficulty on hard, few resources, multiple events, no influence bonuses and so on. Started playing and did the optimal worker/wood/respawner upgrade strategy, and no enemy appeared, I basically went from weak, to infinite money, all researches, fully upgraded everything and the game let me do that... There was no need to spend resources on the "now", on "defense", there was no need to wall areas, no need to set traps, no need to explore or dig down. I just remained on the same little area farming wood and exchanging it for gold until I broke the game and stopped caring.

Back in Age of Empires, Starcraft, 10 years ago, the game didnt let you do that, because it sent enemies on your way, on your weak defended areas.

Now, what is the point of setting "safe mode" on the options? I mean, I wasnt playing safe mode, there was enemies, but... what is the point where they have interrogation marks telling you where they are?

All in all, its a great disappointment.
The voice overs were really bad. I didnt found anything hilarious or humorous on the game. The story was forgettable. The happyness was just a gimmick, 99% of the time I was running around with 1/xxxxxx happyness and it made no difference.

I feel like it was targetted to a child first gaming experiences. The whole thing felt like a tutorial all the time. My hope was that the custom game would add sandbox/organic elements to it, random enemy attacks and things like that. But all the time it felt like I was alone. In strategy games you have opponents that progress and you have to undermine them and keep the pace with them. In this game everything was too static. There was no challenge and there was no replayability.

It was a dumbed down experience. I mean, last week I beat Xcom on Impossible Ironman and went to their forums to complain basically about the same things. What is wrong with these games these days.


To fix this game, you basically have to remove the exchange window, remove the easy infinite farming of wood. People have to dig to get resources. Remove the interrogation marks. Let it just for the tutorial. If you dont, everything that dont have interrogation mark is pointless and even when you get there, it feels pointless as well, because its usually 1-3 lackluster enemies. There is no surprise. No risk. No danger.
Even if you fix those 2 above, it wont be worth caring, unless you add enemies that are digging, that destroy terrain, set traps, rush you, siege you, etc... Basically do what you should have done in the first place. Turn the static lifeless world into a living changing world regardless of the player actions.

It needs events, things happening, things that require player attention. I can safelly say that the major part of my interaction in this game was spamming the shift click to sell wood to get gold. If the game runs by itself on full automatic mode, then its not worth my interaction.

I do a few things in the first 5-10 minutes, then its just clicking on sell wood. Then it requires my attention on the end, just to dig down and teleport the soldiers to kill the enemies and thats about it for "A game of dwarves" woohoo...

Seriously people, I dont know what was your intention with this game, but its not good in anything.

 

[Vordus]

You know, you can use your own rules. None tells you to pause the game and teleport your dwarves, use your own rules. Just because you can use it doesnt mean you have too. But I guess people like you will never understand that because there is so many posts about this in every game out there.

 

[jedi72it]

So, if i understand you correctly, you just skipped all the "underground base construction", just to farm money....ok, you can do that, but why should all of us do the same?

Freedom to do things doesn't mean all the ways will be fun....

 

[Stauffenberg13]

The wood to gold thing sounds like an imbalance that should be fixed though. I haven't had the time to play the game yet more than doing the tutorials, so I'm just going by what the OP wrote on this issue. But, if it does work like that, that you can easily farm one resource and exchange into the resources you need, then it's just bad game design.

 

[City Builder]

I can agree with a couple things...

1. There really should be spawning mobs in the game for those that want to turn them on. Go even so far as to allow the player to decide when to trigger them to come rushing their kingdom to test out their defenses that they've set up, as well as a normal version where the mobs spawn on their own inside of areas that the player has already been to, for example when a player digs a tunnel and leaves it as bare dirt, then any of those tiles should have a chance to spawn an enemy mob, although it shouldn't go crazy with it and spawn an enemy from each and every tile every 10 seconds.

2. I have to agree with the voice overs. To be honest, what they remind me of is when I was still in my young tween years and my buddy and I would grab a cassette tape recorder and we would record our own "radio show". After we were done recording it we would play it back and truthfully, both of us would be laying on the floor laughing our butts off at how funny we were on the tape. Well years (maybe some 35 years) later I found an old TDK tape laying in a box in my garage so I dug out an old cassette tape player and gave it a listen thinking that it was likely some mix tape that I made back when I was like 12 years old or something. Turned out it was one of our "radio shows". I have to admit that it wasn't the least bit funny or hilarious as we thought it was 35+ years ago when we first made it and listened to it.

My point being that I have to wonder if whom ever did the voices overs for aGoD did them, and immediately listened to them and thought, "oh my God, that is so great, people are going to be rolling in laughter when they hear some of this in the game", but if they were to listen to it again in 10 years they might actually be thinking "what the hell were we thinking". For this I'm talking about the individual sentences that the individual dwarves speak from time to time depending on what triggered it.

As far as the "King and Prince" voices, they really should have just left them out all together. Everytime that I've gone into the campaign and hear the Prince say something to me, it's usually just something like 'Hey you, listen to me, i've got something important to say' and the real info is in text. IMO, you guys should have just left it without voices all together for the King, Prince and gotten a professional to do any sentences that the dwarves say from time to time. That part of the game I'd have to say is the least polished.

I won't comment on the rest of what the OP wrote as I too am a firm believer that when you find something that feels like an exploit, you can report it and hope it gets fixed/changed, and or you can not play in the same manner as what you were playing. I personally don't feel the need nor the desire to play the game where I mass out 20k wood, I don't have the same problem as the OP with that regard. To me the game is all about building things, underground things, structures of a sort and that's the way that I desire to play and do play. Although I really would like spawning enemy but only if I can trigger the spawnings myself so that I can test out my kingdom defenses.

 

[unmerged(323385)]

On the topic of voice overs:

We did not have in our budget to hire proffessional voice actors. We've done every voice by ourselves (with a little help of our friends). They are not as much made to be funny in the way City Builder expressed, but more in a "make AGoD more personal"-way. In the options menu there is a slider for "Voice" which can be turned down to 0 if preferred, and i can understand if some people want to do that. I do it myself in certain games (I'm looking at yyou Swampie in Simon the sorcerer 4!)

 

[unmerged(484390)]

Its not my fault for breaking the game.

I didnt used cheats or mods.

I played the version everyone is playing. I did my best to achieve the objectives designed and conceived by the developers. This game is not a sandbox, neither it provides tools or freedom to even attempt to touch the genre of "each game a new story" or "play your own adventure".

In this game there is only one way of playing it. In the campaign, the objective is whatever the objective the developer decided it would be.
Its not to build anything, its pointless to build anything on this game. There is no complexity or depth. No emergent story or adventure can be generated. There is no cause and consequence. There is no overworld persistency. There is no progression over time. Your game doesnt even belong to a persistent world.
"How do you build a roof?" "You select a bridge" Here is how competent on the building genre this game is. Its not to survive, because there is no design elements that make survival a goal or objective or anything remotelly challenging.
There is no strategy or tactics involved. What is the point of this game? It does not offer any replayability. It doesnt offer any surprise. Dragons dont come and destroy your settlements without roof. There is no interaction that can result in a story. You cant even fill a tile with soil. There is no possible way for a screw up to happen.

In this game there is no mental challenges. There is no marveling to unfolding of events. There is no appeal in getting stronger. There is not enough base for a city building appeal either. I dont see any appeal at all. How can you fail to satisfy any of the appeals. How much pleasure can you derive from making your own outpost, when the world and enemies are completelly static. Your whole experience is pointless, it becomes a vanity affair. Why be Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) when it provides no advantage and there is no incentive to do so. There is nothing worth doing in this game, nothing worth watching or paying attention too. Its like watching grass grow. Not even the combat is interesting. All dwarves are boring and without personality. How can you fail so much with this game?

Ultimatelly, without any challenge, what is the point of this game? What can it offer that other games dont offer much deeper and better?

T

Its developers responsability that they created a game dynamic in wich players can power up safely and indefinitelly in all playthroughs, campaign or custom.

Its not an occult strategy. Its something fairly obvious and straight forward.

Its developers responsability to have designed the game and decided consciously that there would be interrogation marks showing where the enemies/quest progression is. Its not like players can "NOT SEE" it. There is no option to remove it. So everyone playing the game will experience the interrogation marks side effects that ruin the experience.

Its developers responsability to have designed the game and decided consciously that players can generate infinite amounts of wood, fast and easily and use said wood as currency, UNDERMINING the whole point of the game. Wich is digging for resources.

This is the kind of thing that tells you all you need to know about the competence of the people involved in this game.

"Oh, you can always not use it, you know..." When I get blamed for choosing the most efficient methods and options at my disposal, methods and options that were designed and added consciously into the game.

Its developers responsability when designing a game, to analyse the different ways, choices and methods he is turning available to the players and to make sure that none of those will ultimatelly bypass or undermine the intended experience, difficulty or balance for the game.

Developers must be in control and assume the responsability.

The above design decisions however conscious they were, caused effects: rendered different methods of playing the game pointless, the whole experience became unfun and unchallenging, and rendered the longevity of it null, because it deemed the game unworthy of playing again.

 

[unmerged(450655)]

Its not my fault for breaking the game.

I didnt used cheats or mods.

I played the version everyone is playing. I did my best to achieve the objectives designed and conceived by the developers. This game is not a sandbox, neither it provides tools or freedom to even attempt to touch the genre of "each game a new story" or "play your own adventure".

In this game there is only one way of playing it. In the campaign, the objective is whatever the objective the developer decided it would be.
Its not to build anything, its pointless to build anything on this game. There is no complexity or depth. No emergent story or adventure can be generated. There is no cause and consequence. There is no overworld persistency. There is no progression over time. Your game doesnt even belong to a persistent world.
"How do you build a roof?" "You select a bridge" Here is how competent on the building genre this game is. Its not to survive, because there is no design elements that make survival a goal or objective or anything remotelly challenging.
There is no strategy or tactics involved. What is the point of this game? It does not offer any replayability. It doesnt offer any surprise. Dragons dont come and destroy your settlements without roof. There is no interaction that can result in a story. You cant even fill a tile with soil. There is no possible way for a screw up to happen.

In this game there is no mental challenges. There is no marveling to unfolding of events. There is no appeal in getting stronger. There is not enough base for a city building appeal either. I dont see any appeal at all. How can you fail to satisfy any of the appeals. How much pleasure can you derive from making your own outpost, when the world and enemies are completelly static. Your whole experience is pointless, it becomes a vanity affair. Why be Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) when it provides no advantage and there is no incentive to do so. There is nothing worth doing in this game, nothing worth watching or paying attention too. Its like watching grass grow. Not even the combat is interesting. All dwarves are boring and without personality. How can you fail so much with this game?

Ultimatelly, without any challenge, what is the point of this game? What can it offer that other games dont offer much deeper and better?

T

Its developers responsability that they created a game dynamic in wich players can power up safely and indefinitelly in all playthroughs, campaign or custom.

Its not an occult strategy. Its something fairly obvious and straight forward.

Its developers responsability to have designed the game and decided consciously that there would be interrogation marks showing where the enemies/quest progression is. Its not like players can "NOT SEE" it. There is no option to remove it. So everyone playing the game will experience the interrogation marks side effects that ruin the experience.

Its developers responsability to have designed the game and decided consciously that players can generate infinite amounts of wood, fast and easily and use said wood as currency, UNDERMINING the whole point of the game. Wich is digging for resources.

This is the kind of thing that tells you all you need to know about the competence of the people involved in this game.

"Oh, you can always not use it, you know..." When I get blamed for choosing the most efficient methods and options at my disposal, methods and options that were designed and added consciously into the game.

Its developers responsability when designing a game, to analyse the different ways, choices and methods he is turning available to the players and to make sure that none of those will ultimatelly bypass or undermine the intended experience, difficulty or balance for the game.

Developers must be in control and assume the responsability.

The above design decisions however conscious they were, caused effects: rendered different methods of playing the game pointless, the whole experience became unfun and unchallenging, and rendered the longevity of it null, because it deemed the game unworthy of playing again.

Even though I understand you concerns I have to say it is just the wrong game for you. You clearly are looking for a challenging game which this game is not. I personally would have liked much more simulation features, like storage rooms where the food is actually stored, different foods instead of just food, attacking goblins instead of just finding caves with them ect.

But at the moment I think the main fun in this game is to build thinks which are not really "in the game" like for example I build in one of my games a graveyard. There is no reason to do this but it makes fun.

 

[powers]

Some people primarily just like to build things though. The "fun" element that is missing for you, is most definitely there for many other players. Many people are too busy building and not devising a strategy simply to expose balance issues.

Not everyone wants exactly what you want, that doesn't make them an incompetent developer just because the game isn't exactly to your tastes.

I think you raise some good points and some of these ideas will surely be introduced over time but to try and discredit the developer's competence is overly harsh.

 

[grumphie]

what were you expecting for a €10 game thats jsut out? a fully balanced game that offers great challenges and requires you to powergame?

NOPE.avi

this is a game wher eyou build, have fun, build a dwarfen fortress capable of sustaining itself and is as far as i can tell nto designed to give a great challenge. sure, it could use some improvement(like respawning enemies, no teleporting for enemies but them capable of expanding a bit on their own, the ability to refill tiles), but i.e. that wood-food thingy isnt that unbalanced, unless you want it to. i can generally survive and thrive with 3 workers working at them 24/7 and have enough recources to nice things and feed my dwarves. if you overdo certain things in most games(liek enchanting+alchemy in skyrim) it gets unbalanced. point is, in a sandboxy game where you can do about the hell you want(even in campaign objectives are very wide. you need to do X, and can do that how you want, and about half the quests are voluntary).

 

[Lillarpy]

Hi Interesting2 and thank you for your perspective.

A Game of Dwarfs is what you make it to be. It is a sandbox game! You can build great halls in the honor of your favorite dwarf, You can build a trap-filled dungeon and watch Enemies be slaughtered, etc.

I understand what you are saying and agree with you to some degree. A Game of Dwarfs is admittedly not a Game that stands up against power-gaming very well.

What I like with AGoD right now is it is a good start for us to develop upon. We have thrown it out there to get a community-feel and I can assure you we are active in picking up the Community-feel. And just with our Current System I think we could quickly design a custom game which you would enjoy using only most of your own input.

A Custom Game, you start only with a square room with the spawning pool, throne, and a food table. Question-Marks on Event rooms is turned off. Teleport on Enemies are turned off, but traps also have a much higher "reload". Hemfort is still available(Trading resources) but more expensive. Deeper you Go the harder the enemies are but also where the resources are. Add some form of Invasion-Threat and make researching cost resources.

What do you think? This is just an foundation for feedback and discussion btw and no promise as of future ad on to the game. We want to keep the discussion alive than we take decisions upon that what to add later.

Kudos to beat Xcom on Impossible Ironman btw.

 

[Pandadan]

I more or less agree; being able to convert unlimited resource -> money -> limited resource feels exploitive. While there's no one forcing us to use it, it's so hard to resist such an obviously optimal strategy! I'd like to see a checkbox to disable wood-selling.

Likewise, an option to disable the advance warning of rooms (at least, in sandbox mode) would be good. As it is, after a couple awkward misadventures with teleporting monsters, it's incredibly straightforward to prepare an optimal defense when breaching a new room.

Alternately, monsters that dig their own tunnels or attack from the surface would be a nice twist to shake things up.

 

[Darkwing88]

People enjoyed minecraft singleplayer for 10$ when there was barely any crafting and only 4 types of mobs. You always can "break" games. Im going to restrain myself and "roleplay" as in dont make invunerable fortress or farm wood with 80% of population.

Im counting a bit they will add more challenge for players that seek them - I would love to especially see lava/water and invasions of goblins.

I like voices

 

[jedi72it]

Hi Interesting2 and thank you for your perspective.

A Game of Dwarfs is what you make it to be. It is a sandbox game! You can build great halls in the honor of your favorite dwarf, You can build a trap-filled dungeon and watch Enemies be slaughtered, etc.

I understand what you are saying and agree with you to some degree. A Game of Dwarfs is admittedly not a Game that stands up against power-gaming very well.

What I like with AGoD right now is it is a good start for us to develop upon. We have thrown it out there to get a community-feel and I can assure you we are active in picking up the Community-feel. And just with our Current System I think we could quickly design a custom game which you would enjoy using only most of your own input.

A Custom Game, you start only with a square room with the spawning pool, throne, and a food table. Question-Marks on Event rooms is turned off. Teleport on Enemies are turned off, but traps also have a much higher "reload". Hemfort is still available(Trading resources) but more expensive. Deeper you Go the harder the enemies are but also where the resources are. Add some form of Invasion-Threat and make researching cost resources.

What do you think? This is just an foundation for feedback and discussion btw and no promise as of future ad on to the game. We want to keep the discussion alive than we take decisions upon that what to add later.

Kudos to beat Xcom on Impossible Ironman btw.

That would be a Good Start for an Invasion/Dynamic challenge.
I will surely try that

 

[Ferizo]

The way I see it, this game has a lot of potential depending on where the devs decide to go with it. But that doesn't mean that it sucks the way it is now. On the contrary, I think this is one of the better "dungeon" games that came out as of late. Maybe not on the scale of in-depth challenge, but sure as hell on the scale of just fun and aesthetics (and I'm usually not a fan of dwarves). It's one thing to nitpick at what seems to be a game-breaking exploit, but it's a bit harsh to say it was a conscious and purposive design by the devs. Even if they decide to leave it in there it doesn't devalue the game in any way or at least it shouldn't.

Of course people are going to say you don't need to use it even if it's most efficient. Just because there are cheats available on other games doesn't mean you have to use them just because they're more 'efficient' - and I'm not talking about hacks or trainers, but actual cheats/codes/passwords game developers put consciously into their game. "But this is not a cheat, it's in the game itself" - Well, that makes it all the better doesn't it.. meaning the devs may have overlooked it or didn't thought it was such a big deal. How many games are out there which came out filled with bugs and exploits that were game-breaking. *cough* Diablo 3 *cough* I'm just saying.. if that's your argument there are plenty of other games much more costly with similar issues, most of which get remedied. While we're at it, we may as well talk about Minecraft... same problem: why build a flourishing castle/village if you can build a 4x4 cube with a farm patch and survive for an eternity. Yeah it has mods.. but mods are made by the community not the devs own design. If you play it vanilla without any mods, it gets pretty dull unless you're into building aesthetics etc. How is that not the same with aGoD? If anything it's much better in my opinion.

As said before, clearly this doesn't seem to be the game for you (or at least not yet) if all you want is to finish the game and praise yourself for having completed a difficult challenge. But I think for the price you're paying/paid there shouldn't be anything to complain about. Of course it's in your right to do so, but why bother if all you're doing is stir up the community who otherwise enjoys the game by taking a pick at the devs. It's good to see it from your perspective and know that such an exploit exists.. but just because I know it's there now doesn't mean I'm going to use it myself because why would I purposely take away my own fun?

I'm going to leave it with this because I would just keep repeating what I've already said if I decide to go further.

I'm sorry this game doesn't meet your expectations (yet), but not everyone thinks the same way.
There are plenty of games out there if what you seek is a challenge. Dark Souls for instance fits the bill.

 

[unmerged(484390)]

Cutting trees for wood and planting trees on the surface.
Having a limited "caravan" that trade goods is ok too.



Things I was expecting, hoping until the last moment for this game.


I think the Surface aspect of it left a lot to be desired.

If this wants to be a "building sandbox", then it must allow me to build a Fortress/Tower/Castle on the Surface with everything Im entitled too.
Its missing the placing/creating/filling tiles with soil/wood/iron/whatever. Its missing the building floor/ceiling aspect. The "build bridge" is not quite the same thing. I cant really pave the bridge with stone, neither can I use said bridge tile to close the ceiling of defensive walls. Why cant I build a multiple layered tower? Is this is a building game, then how come it was left out? Such a good opportunity.
When people build towers shaped like fallic symbols, you can say your game succeeded as a sandbox building game.


I can do that in Gnomoria, I can do that in Dwarf Fortress and see things graphically with Stone Sense.

On the Surface, it lacks a lot of things.

It lacks wild animals roaming. It gives a negative impression of being limited in a tiny square, a sandbox. This is bad. You want the edges of the "square" to feel organic. Enemies, Animals, NPCs, must be able to come and go from the Edges of the Squared area. Maybe having a road or a river or a montain in there.

Having a few wolves on the start of the game is not nearly enough.

You need trees and fruits and plants to harvest.

On the "custom" game, you need a persistent, overworld, "meta-game". Just like in the campaign, but randomly generated as well. From the square where the player is located, it has to have neighbors, ally races, or enemy races. Those must interact with the game somehow. The player and the game the player is playing is not an island. It breaks immersion to know that nothing will happen. This spawning of things on the surface must be varied, the events must make sense, must have a measure of autonomy from player actions, but also must allow player interaction. There might be a war between goblins and orcs tribes on the surface of the game on top of the custom dwarven base. The player might take sides, the player might bunker down. The player might be sieged by both. They might make siege weapons and attack the defensive walls the player made. The player might have to deal with the goblins. The enemy might start building outside, or start digging in paralel to the player, trying to breach the dwarf rooms from the side.

Dragons might come and breath fire on the surface trees, plants and crops.

The player might deal diplomatically with everything, try to escape by digging deeper, abandoning the area with a caravan and starting again on another area on the overworld. It needs persistency, continuity, consistency. Everything needs to be linked organically. Thats a sandbox. Dozens of different events must occur randomly, each having its follow up events and consequences from action or omission from the player.

Enemies found when digging must make sense. The areas found currently make no sense, because the rooms are tiny and are completelly segregated from any other entrance, air or water passage. It makes no sense to have the current small pockets of tiles with 1-3 enemies that the game calls "events". If the players find goblins, it must not be 1-3. Even if the player finds 1-3, they must not be standing still. They must be doing their own thing, with their own AI. It must have a full cave with a full tribe of Goblins/Orcs/Gremlins whatever. Spiders must fight the Goblins, and if Goblins are from different tribes they have to relate each other through some diplomacy, either fighting each other, or trading or having alliances.

This game had nothing of the sort. Even simple things like having dis/incentives to building on surface, like ocasional Dragon flybys with fire breath attacks.

The mages, for instance. They are intelligent in the lore/setting. But in the game, they dont have any AI, or role that matches its intelligence on the lore. For example, If there is Mages on deep levels, the least the player can expect is traps and the mage being aware of the Dwarves. Mages should send minions to attack the players, like in any strategy game. Minions should bash doors/walls and even dig under the base, build stairs, destroy stairs, wall up areas. Thats the minimum one can expect from the AI in a realistic encounter. It might be offensive, defensive, it might try to run away to fight back later on. It might call for help. It might even just storm through the player base ignoring the dwarves. It might sneak in and steal or sabotage things.

When the Dwarves start digging deep, its also a disappointment. One of the huge expectations of this sort of game, from Motherload, Dwarf Fortress, Gnomoria, Terraria, etc, is what sort of beasts/demons can you find the deeper you go. Still on this game, its a huge let down. There is nothing really Epic to fight. There isnt an interesting combat mechanic. If the Dwarves gets his ass kicked, they dont communicate any effect caused upon them. The enemies have no subjective interests, they dont have their goals, they dont have their own agenda. They are just standing still waiting for the player, at wich point once spotted they attack/teleport to the player. Wich makes no sense that everything teleports. Its ok, if its a magical being, but spiders and goblins?


See the problem? This game is missing EVERYTHING.
You dont have the joy of defending. You dont have the joy of strategizing. You dont have the joy of seing nature go its course and see a story unfolds. You dont have the joy of making your own goals/objectives because nothing has meaning, a history, a future, persistency, relation with other things.

"OH, you are playing the game wrong!"

"Why u no roleplay?"

The game doesnt give you anything to work with. Things dont make sense on themselves with shallowness of it. Like, the 1-3 enemies on this mini pockets of hermetically isolated "events" with the interrogation marks. They are just clones of other goblins with different numbers on top of their heads. They have no motives, no personalities, no values, no agendas, no relations, they are there just to be killed. Why were they there? How did they got there? How did they managed to live? Its too much effort to even attempt to make sense and roleplay and accept the bland/shallowness of this game.

Do people seriously get satisfied with playing "Barbie" on this game? Making "a nice room for my dwarves"? Playing it like "The Sims" in their heads? Can you even give a name to all your dwarves? There is no detail information to them. Do you have to invent everything. What sort of satisfaction to you get to order these mindless drones from doing anything? Why do you have the objectives that you have on the game? What do you expect to achieve doing what you do?

The game doesnt help me justify any time spent on it. What is the point of "building the perfect defensive room with traps" IF NOTHING WILL EVER POSSIBLY ATTACK YOU? If its to be "OCD" I can do that in my imaginations and have much more fun, because you cant even compared the imagination/creativity to what the game simulates.

Its not about just having a monster spawner. It must make sense. It must be able to create a connection with the story, past/present/future. Towers fall because Towers fall. Dragons attack because Dragons attack is ok. But you must have an identity. The game must aknowledge your past actions. You killed a Dragon, or you lost a limb fighting a Dragon and now you fear Dragons.

Everything is too shortcutted. "Ale Tree", "Respawner", "Teleport", "Move objects, "spawn bridges out of thin air", this whole "infinite wood tree". There are too many corners cut. Instead of giving identity and sense and interconnecting things, it became disjointed, a big blurred thing.

You know how oil is created? Methane from microorganisms mixed hidrocarbonets at high temperature and pressure at the center of the earth. They say its "fossile fuel" from "dead animals", thats bullshit, to sell the idea that its going to end and just to get prices high. But the nature replenishes oil steadily, based on the depth of the oil field, the deepest fields replenish first. A geologist that knows his stuff knows that. Now, If you are developer, the expert on your area/game/genre, you ought to know what is it that you are working with. So you see, the problem is not "add toogleable option to remove interrogation marks" or "add monsters spawners on a timely basis". That is bandaid on a severed limb. This game needs to properly simulate the experience of a group of dwarves stablishing their kingdom, and right now its not doing it. I think this game is missing that essence. It feels like a bunch of things stitched together without knowledge of why these things are there, or why they will/wont work. Its like the developers had no idea of the genre (their area of expertise). It feels like missing the mark, not comercially, but on concept. Do you know what is it that people want or like in this genre of games? What is it that you guys were trying to do with this game? It didnt exceeded at anything or shaped into anything specific or of note.

People were talking about the voice overs. Why is that I remember the cues of my units voices in many old strategy games to this day, but this one felt uninspired? Even when Im drunk with my friends we manage to make better impersonations of dwarves than the ones in the game or maybe thats just me. The ones in the game feel like the people doing the voices were sad, or tired, or not motivated or didnt understood what was it they had to roleplay.

 

[jedi72it]

Interesting2, i knew that, you are an engineer/science expert....

every time i play with someone like you, they always try to disrupt my "casual fun" because you naturally tend to "optimize" every single aspect of the game.

And your last post demonstrate this....you simply WANT....well... THE perfect strategy/managerial game we all dream about.....

I say only this, let's help and support the devs here, who are willing to explore with us ways to expand this already very nice game.

 

[Darkwing88]

Look - it was done in what timeframe like a year? do you know how much you can get done in a year when doing game from scratch?
I cant believe how much they have done so far.

Sit back, enjoy, write suggestions that arent wall of texts and im quite sure devs at some point will implement some of them if community will request it hard enough.
They love this game - relax.


On a sidenote - i would love to see more complex overworld and some diplomatic relations or even ability to re-settle in another area.

 

[powers]

Cutting trees for wood and planting trees on the surface.
Having a limited "caravan" that trade goods is ok too.



Things I was expecting, hoping until the last moment for this game.


I think the Surface aspect of it left a lot to be desired.

If this wants to be a "building sandbox", then it must allow me to build a Fortress/Tower/Castle on the Surface with everything Im entitled too.
Its missing the placing/creating/filling tiles with soil/wood/iron/whatever. Its missing the building floor/ceiling aspect. The "build bridge" is not quite the same thing. I cant really pave the bridge with stone, neither can I use said bridge tile to close the ceiling of defensive walls. Why cant I build a multiple layered tower? Is this is a building game, then how come it was left out? Such a good opportunity.
When people build towers shaped like fallic symbols, you can say your game succeeded as a sandbox building game.


I can do that in Gnomoria, I can do that in Dwarf Fortress and see things graphically with Stone Sense.

On the Surface, it lacks a lot of things.

It lacks wild animals roaming. It gives a negative impression of being limited in a tiny square, a sandbox. This is bad. You want the edges of the "square" to feel organic. Enemies, Animals, NPCs, must be able to come and go from the Edges of the Squared area. Maybe having a road or a river or a montain in there.

Having a few wolves on the start of the game is not nearly enough.

You need trees and fruits and plants to harvest.

On the "custom" game, you need a persistent, overworld, "meta-game". Just like in the campaign, but randomly generated as well. From the square where the player is located, it has to have neighbors, ally races, or enemy races. Those must interact with the game somehow. The player and the game the player is playing is not an island. It breaks immersion to know that nothing will happen. This spawning of things on the surface must be varied, the events must make sense, must have a measure of autonomy from player actions, but also must allow player interaction. There might be a war between goblins and orcs tribes on the surface of the game on top of the custom dwarven base. The player might take sides, the player might bunker down. The player might be sieged by both. They might make siege weapons and attack the defensive walls the player made. The player might have to deal with the goblins. The enemy might start building outside, or start digging in paralel to the player, trying to breach the dwarf rooms from the side.

Dragons might come and breath fire on the surface trees, plants and crops.

The player might deal diplomatically with everything, try to escape by digging deeper, abandoning the area with a caravan and starting again on another area on the overworld. It needs persistency, continuity, consistency. Everything needs to be linked organically. Thats a sandbox. Dozens of different events must occur randomly, each having its follow up events and consequences from action or omission from the player.

Enemies found when digging must make sense. The areas found currently make no sense, because the rooms are tiny and are completelly segregated from any other entrance, air or water passage. It makes no sense to have the current small pockets of tiles with 1-3 enemies that the game calls "events". If the players find goblins, it must not be 1-3. Even if the player finds 1-3, they must not be standing still. They must be doing their own thing, with their own AI. It must have a full cave with a full tribe of Goblins/Orcs/Gremlins whatever. Spiders must fight the Goblins, and if Goblins are from different tribes they have to relate each other through some diplomacy, either fighting each other, or trading or having alliances.

This game had nothing of the sort. Even simple things like having dis/incentives to building on surface, like ocasional Dragon flybys with fire breath attacks.

The mages, for instance. They are intelligent in the lore/setting. But in the game, they dont have any AI, or role that matches its intelligence on the lore. For example, If there is Mages on deep levels, the least the player can expect is traps and the mage being aware of the Dwarves. Mages should send minions to attack the players, like in any strategy game. Minions should bash doors/walls and even dig under the base, build stairs, destroy stairs, wall up areas. Thats the minimum one can expect from the AI in a realistic encounter. It might be offensive, defensive, it might try to run away to fight back later on. It might call for help. It might even just storm through the player base ignoring the dwarves. It might sneak in and steal or sabotage things.

When the Dwarves start digging deep, its also a disappointment. One of the huge expectations of this sort of game, from Motherload, Dwarf Fortress, Gnomoria, Terraria, etc, is what sort of beasts/demons can you find the deeper you go. Still on this game, its a huge let down. There is nothing really Epic to fight. There isnt an interesting combat mechanic. If the Dwarves gets his ass kicked, they dont communicate any effect caused upon them. The enemies have no subjective interests, they dont have their goals, they dont have their own agenda. They are just standing still waiting for the player, at wich point once spotted they attack/teleport to the player. Wich makes no sense that everything teleports. Its ok, if its a magical being, but spiders and goblins?


See the problem? This game is missing EVERYTHING.
You dont have the joy of defending. You dont have the joy of strategizing. You dont have the joy of seing nature go its course and see a story unfolds. You dont have the joy of making your own goals/objectives because nothing has meaning, a history, a future, persistency, relation with other things.

"OH, you are playing the game wrong!"

"Why u no roleplay?"

The game doesnt give you anything to work with. Things dont make sense on themselves with shallowness of it. Like, the 1-3 enemies on this mini pockets of hermetically isolated "events" with the interrogation marks. They are just clones of other goblins with different numbers on top of their heads. They have no motives, no personalities, no values, no agendas, no relations, they are there just to be killed. Why were they there? How did they got there? How did they managed to live? Its too much effort to even attempt to make sense and roleplay and accept the bland/shallowness of this game.

Do people seriously get satisfied with playing "Barbie" on this game? Making "a nice room for my dwarves"? Playing it like "The Sims" in their heads? Can you even give a name to all your dwarves? There is no detail information to them. Do you have to invent everything. What sort of satisfaction to you get to order these mindless drones from doing anything? Why do you have the objectives that you have on the game? What do you expect to achieve doing what you do?

The game doesnt help me justify any time spent on it. What is the point of "building the perfect defensive room with traps" IF NOTHING WILL EVER POSSIBLY ATTACK YOU? If its to be "OCD" I can do that in my imaginations and have much more fun, because you cant even compared the imagination/creativity to what the game simulates.

Its not about just having a monster spawner. It must make sense. It must be able to create a connection with the story, past/present/future. Towers fall because Towers fall. Dragons attack because Dragons attack is ok. But you must have an identity. The game must aknowledge your past actions. You killed a Dragon, or you lost a limb fighting a Dragon and now you fear Dragons.

Everything is too shortcutted. "Ale Tree", "Respawner", "Teleport", "Move objects, "spawn bridges out of thin air", this whole "infinite wood tree". There are too many corners cut. Instead of giving identity and sense and interconnecting things, it became disjointed, a big blurred thing.

You know how oil is created? Methane from microorganisms mixed hidrocarbonets at high temperature and pressure at the center of the earth. They say its "fossile fuel" from "dead animals", thats bullshit, to sell the idea that its going to end and just to get prices high. But the nature replenishes oil steadily, based on the depth of the oil field, the deepest fields replenish first. A geologist that knows his stuff knows that. Now, If you are developer, the expert on your area/game/genre, you ought to know what is it that you are working with. So you see, the problem is not "add toogleable option to remove interrogation marks" or "add monsters spawners on a timely basis". That is bandaid on a severed limb. This game needs to properly simulate the experience of a group of dwarves stablishing their kingdom, and right now its not doing it. I think this game is missing that essence. It feels like a bunch of things stitched together without knowledge of why these things are there, or why they will/wont work. Its like the developers had no idea of the genre (their area of expertise). It feels like missing the mark, not comercially, but on concept. Do you know what is it that people want or like in this genre of games? What is it that you guys were trying to do with this game? It didnt exceeded at anything or shaped into anything specific or of note.

People were talking about the voice overs. Why is that I remember the cues of my units voices in many old strategy games to this day, but this one felt uninspired? Even when Im drunk with my friends we manage to make better impersonations of dwarves than the ones in the game or maybe thats just me. The ones in the game feel like the people doing the voices were sad, or tired, or not motivated or didnt understood what was it they had to roleplay.

And Zeal...find a solution for peace in the Middle East while you're at it.

 

[Xerkis]

And Zeal...find a solution for peace in the Middle East while you're at it.

:rofl: