Some thoughts and feedback after playing for a couple hours

Hey WW, Glad you're enjoying the game!  :)

I'll talk about some of these...

 

The default map is one of original 'Tiny' maps, made before Minor Races were in proper,  so unfortunately there's only 1 to find. Play 'Mountain Pass' or 'Oasis' for more, though you'll still have to go hunting

Heroes are hand placed on some maps, randomly generated on others. You'll certainly find them eventually, but a big point of iteration will be the random placement of objects on the map. We'll want to make sure you find them before the Doomstay Counter ticks up too far.




Our latest leaning has been to make as many abilities 'active', and in some cases we may go too far, but balancing that out will be part of the fun of the Beta process.

OK, back to work. Thanks again for the great feedback! 

Active abilities can be great and fun, but the issue is that you can only have so many on each unit before they tend to get in each other's way. Also, they usually use up a turn, and for some abilities, it could be counterproductive.

 

I am already playing on Oasis. Found a minor (finally), but it didn't want to join me, saying that Stardock didn't want them to .

If there are any active abilities that aren't worth your turn then we'll need to beef them up or prune them out

Let us know what abilities suck...I'd love to talk through their usefulness!

Mhhh, for instance, the "Protect" ability is barely even situational in my estimation. Losing a hero's action for a turn to give a +50% defense isn't all that much worth it. In fact, even if it gave +100%, it'd still not be all that useful, I'd say.

Seconding the protect ability feeling underpowered. at least in the early and mid game.

I sort of agree about the protect ability. It's a good idea, but could it be a flat bonus - say +15 - so that early game it makes a strong difference? Doubling 5 defense isn't that big a deal.

The rest of the active abilities, though, I think are just great. Rain of arrows for archers, cleave for soldiers, it adds tactical options and makes even vanilla units capable of dishing out damage if you maneuver well enough.

Couldn't use pikemen because metal was completely MIA in my game, alas.

We were thinking about making Tandis' buffs more of a 'Army General' variety, turning Protect into an bonus to every friendly on the battlefield and adding one more 'Buff All' ability (giving a boost to attack, init, or some fire/cold/lighting defense) to his tree. 

I like the sound of that.

Is there a 'Commander' class in SK? If not some of the Commander's (from LH) Leader-type buffs and abilities might be an interesting sub-tree for the warrior.

Ever thought of giving the warrior a 'tackle' ability, that lets him knock units prone (give it a big cooldown, once-a-battle ability)?

 

How many units are unique to each Sovereign?

 

Is it always Tandis that you'll get? Or are there other sons?

Here's another issue I have - a balance concern. Pikemen are a almost straight upgrade of soldiers - the special abilities of soldiers don't make up for the stat increase pikemen get. Once I build barracks, there's no reason not to build only pikemen if I have the metal, especially with the limited army size. Since they both cost 1 logistics, soldiers lose their usefulness.

A counter to this would be to make them slightly cheaper, cost no logistics, and reduce their power even more. Make them weaker and disposable, and only have an opportunity cost both in time and army space (which isn't nothing).

If soldiers had the 'defender' trait instead of cleave, that would keep them useful but also make them worthwhile to include with pikemen.

Or instead of "bash". I never use that ability, there's never a situation in which it is all that useful.

Pikemen are pretty awesome. I got one pretty early in a quest and it made monster bashing a lot easier.

Well, I've just realized that resources (iron, horses) didn't work like in FE/LH, so it's not that big of a deal that pikemen are strictly better than soldiers because you can only have so many at once.

Two issues though:

-Iron doesn't seem to be any more common than horses, and riders are strictly better than pikemen. They have slightly less defense but more attack, more HPs, more combat speed, more moves, and abilities that are arguably better in almost any circumstances. Riders do take slightly longer to train, but it's not so much of an issue because unit turnover isn't that big, and considering the distances units have to cross to join their armies, the limiting factor isn't so much training time as transport time. Right now, riders feel like they need to cost 2 logistics, or mounts need to be much more rare (and iron more common)

-Related to that last one: not enough strong enemy riders. There are some riders, but they're weak enough that it doesn't feel like pikemen would really make a difference. If a third of the enemies were *strong* riders, then pikemen would suddenly become much more interesting.

I have to agree on wanting more passives. 

 

PREEMPTIVE APOLOGY FOR TRYING TO USE SHAKESPEARES LANGUAGE CORRECTLY!

So far i love Sorcerer King (not a big deal since i previously loved WoM, FE and LH as well...BIG FAN!). Something i noticed this far enjoying the beta: fighting feels a litte slowpaced for me. I would make the moving and attacking/defending animations a Little bit faster (maybe 20%).

Talking about animations, i personally loved the blocking animations there were since Fallen Encantress, they were very nicely done. I always felt they could be shown more often, since even being attacked by an enemy with very low attack resulted in at least 1 damage Point received if not dogded.

Suggestion: since i believe you will make awesome blocking animations for Sorcerer King as well, why not rename "defense" into "armor" (since it's used to calculate the received damage), "dogde" into "defense" and when your unit is able to save from being hit Play randomly the Evasion Animation or the blocking Animation? 

That would have made sense for me in FE and LH as well, thinking about how shields gave dodge Bonus. Why would a heavy Piece of forged steel in my Hand make it easier for me to dodge?

Cheers

By parrying. Weapon deflects blow, allowing you to avoid the killing force of the strike, or in a sense 'dodge' it.