Game Design Issues

[Panagrammic]

Please use this thread for generic questions / issues about the game as a whole, including game balancing issues. Such as:

- I don't understand attunement.
- Dragons seem massively OP.
- (such and such power) clearly needs to be NERFED.

So on and so forth.

[iDolli]

I think this would be the right category so here goes >w< This is probably just a personal irk, but it would be very useful to be able to drag the cards in hand display/information display during a battle to allow us to see what we need to. It is so large and clunky in appearance, that to see half the screen I have to constantly scroll and drag the screen (Oh, to be able to move it to the left a bit, it would be amazing!). It would be very nice if we were able to reposition it in the same manner that we could move menus in zOMG! or even make it smaller! That is just my minor complaint with the design though, heh. sweatdrop

[KaylaGalela]

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This didn't really seem right to me. The game continued until both my opponent and I reached 6/6 portals in the same round. But the game did not end there. I was made to play one more round. I sent my units to where I wanted them to go, and this resulted in a battle being announced. Instead of taking me to fight the battle, I then saw the "you tied" ending screen.

One other thing that doesn't seem right is the resulting scores. If we tied, then why does my opponent get a victory reward of 293 while I get nothing?

[Elazar]

An explanation of what "Pinned" means and how it happens would be cool. It happens to me sometimes and I still only have a vague idea of how it happened since I wasn't able to study the board movements (pieces moved too fast for me to understand how it happened).

[Durithill the Black Blade]

I think there should be some kind of notification when a retreat fails. Twice now I've tried to retreat, and then my character just suddenly attacked instead and I thought it was a bug until I looked it up in the guide and saw that it's supposed to happen.

Also is the Flameborn "Defend" ability the same as what's listed as "Defender" under Kingdom of Avalon? Or is that a different ability?

And what does the Scout ability do? Like I get the Scout units are better at seeing things nearby, but how does the number affect that? Or does it do something completely different?

Edit: Also, it would be nice to be able to select which battle you want to act out so you don't get stuck fighting the 1 vs 1 battle while you have a 2 vs 4 battle going on somewhere else that you might be able to actually win if you could control it.

[Rayne the shadow wolf]

iDolli

I think this would be the right category so here goes >w< This is probably just a personal irk, but it would be very useful to be able to drag the cards in hand display/information display during a battle to allow us to see what we need to. It is so large and clunky in appearance, that to see half the screen I have to constantly scroll and drag the screen (Oh, to be able to move it to the left a bit, it would be amazing!). It would be very nice if we were able to reposition it in the same manner that we could move menus in zOMG! or even make it smaller! That is just my minor complaint with the design though, heh. sweatdrop

I second that motion it's big in the way of the screen we need to see what we are doing please smile

[Rayne the shadow wolf]

Durithill the Black Blade

Edit: Also, it would be nice to be able to select which battle you want to act out so you don't get stuck fighting the 1 vs 1 battle while you have a 2 vs 4 battle going on somewhere else that you might be able to actually win if you could control it.

I agree being able to choose which fight we control would be a massive key in our victory or loss of a battle.

[HCTotorro]

I agree with the screen positioning issue.
It's kind of bothersome to have to scroll the screen just to see where you should strategically place your units.

Also, like others have said, being able to choose which battle to play out when you have multiple encounters would be good.

Lastly, I don't know if I'm just delirious, but I didn't see any option in the settings to reduce the graphical quality of the game, which would be beneficial for users with lesser quality/older graphics cards.

[Red Kutai]

Rayne the shadow wolf

Durithill the Black Blade

Edit: Also, it would be nice to be able to select which battle you want to act out so you don't get stuck fighting the 1 vs 1 battle while you have a 2 vs 4 battle going on somewhere else that you might be able to actually win if you could control it.

I agree being able to choose which fight we control would be a massive key in our victory or loss of a battle.

I would guess the reason that's been avoided is so that the game can ensure that both players will be playing the same fight in multiplayer games - I'm not sure what the system would do after one player has resolved his fight, but his opponent hasn't yet. In a single-player game this isn't an issue, but it would be with multiple users involved.

That said, I'd still prefer to have players picking their own battles, but it would mean figuring out a decent workaround in multiplayer games. The obvious option is just dimming the button to conclude the fight until all fights are finished, but that's pretty boring for the player who finishes first. The only alternative I can think of is a 'priority' system, where each player takes turns picking which fight they'll both focus on - however, this changes the game dynamic a bit depending on how priority shifts (does it switch each round whether there's combat or not, or only after combat?), and might encourage players to force meaningless combat when they lack priority, and save the bigger fights for when they can control them. Personally, I'm not sure the combat system needs that much more complexity, but I suppose it's the kind of complexity that really isn't relevant unless you make it so... sweatdrop

[The Crazy Sapphire]

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I believe that the succubus needs to be NERFED. Holy cow she took out THREE of my dragons ALONE, with just her basic attack which did 50 damage each time and I kept missing half the time. The most damage I was able to do to her was 25 with my Clawfighter. The other two I had were Attuners, Wyrmtail Sages, who were doing 20 damage at most.

edit: okay, noticed she was a herald...but still

oh, and in the "easy" battle against demons. How is it easy when they have their hero out, and they have like 4/6 victory portals already attuned? I think if you're gonna classify it as "easy" you need to dumb down the computers a bit and not give them such strong troops right away. I can beat them, but as I move around to try and get more ground, they move in, so I have to move in to try and defend victory portals, but I don't have many troops to spread around. I got about 7 troops out and of course some would die in battle.

[Red Kutai]

I'm going to try to pull the Game Design elements out of my Tutorial critique so my apologies if these sound like repeats; however, I do intend to go into greater depth here than I did there, so I thought it would be worthwhile anyway.

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Pick Up Six

I really, really dislike there being more than 6 VPs on some maps. VPs may be the main win conditions, but I feel the game is about combat and territory control more than exploration - VP mechanics should reflect that. By limiting the game to 6 VPs overall, you force your opponent to go through you to end the game, which is interactive and exciting - as-is, I've lost many games (and won some, by accident) simply by stalling the board out with Units while I explore for one last VP. Being able to win by avoiding interaction isn't really fun for either player.

The issue here is that it would let games go long, if one player is playing very defensively. There appears to be a timer function already built-in (I assume that's the lemniscate at the top of the screen), and if it's a major problem then alternate win conditions could be imposed to force late-game aggression. Overall, I strongly feel the pros outweight the cons, unless playtesting has already shown this change to be somehow disasterous. sweatdrop

Home is Where the Hurt Is

Home Regions really need a garrison. In the first game I ever played, I mounted a massive 'alpha strike' against my opponent's Home Region on the final turn of the game - it wasn't actually guarded though, so the game ended without combat or any sort of fuss at all. Rather than that great "Aha, I won!" feeling we look for in a game, I got the "Oh, I won?" feeling that we generally seek to avoid. Now that I know better, I realise the climax of the game often comes several turns before it ends (if at all), which makes those last few turns more of a chore than a challenge.

The trouble with doing this is that it would need to scale with the gameplay - a set-value defense would likely be easy enough to walk over, but would also likely hinder aggressive strategies that seek to attack Home regions early. What you want is for the Home region to match the power the attacker is at, so that it's always a challenge but never insurmountable - even if it takes a few attacks to break through, it shouldn't feel completely out-of-reach.

My first thought in this regard was to have the garrison 'absorb' unused Mana; Mana would accumulate in the garrison, and its MaxHealth and Damage value would increase based on that. Essentially, the Garrison would be a "Row 3" Unit (and its stats may vary by faction - Kingdom would have higher Health and less damage, for example) that never moves from your Home Region. You could still place Units in front of it as defense, but even without them it would offer some defense of its own. Additionally, this would ease the feeling of 'wasting' Mana - no-one likes to be wasteful, and putting the excess to good use would feel better than having it disappear. Conversely, though, it would send a mixed message - especially to new players - who aren't sure whether they should be spending Mana on Units, or letting it go to their Garrison. Players who did would consistently lose games for doing something that the game 'encouraged', which doesn't feel good at all.

Addressing that issue was my second idea, which is using deceased Units as a form of 'spirit guard' in one's Home Region - that way playing Units and engaging in Combat are doubly encouraged, and it eases the 'sting' of losing one of your strong Units (like a Herald) especially early on. The big issue here is that long games can have a lot of Units lost, and that could seriously convolute the battle in an unintended way - the biggest upside is that it would be really, really awesome. wink

EDIT: Some combination of the two might be possible, as well - where the Home Region automatically summons a number of your dead Units to its defense, based on the Mana its absorbed (starting with the strongest Units, and working its way down). This ameliorates most of the issues with both methods, and retains most of the benefits, at the cost of being a bit more complicated. However, since it's something that occurs automatically rather than relying on interaction, it should really only be as complicated as the player wants to make it.

EDIT EDIT: If those re-summons were permanent, this might actually serve as a come-from-behind feature; players would need to avoid attacking the Home Region needlessly, lest they give the opponent more Units with which to re-establish a board presence. That said, it seems almost a little unfair, and I think it would be possible to find other come-from-behind mechanics that don't.

Stable Compounds

The tutorial mentions that capturing VPs helps return stability to the area; I've not noticed whether this is actually the case in-game, but it should be. The Cataclysm mechanic can be fun and interesting in play, but when it negatively affects your ability to strategise (e.g. losing a Solitary bonus while defending because allies got Cataclysm'd together), it becomes a nuissance. Keeping the battlefield exciting is one thing, but even so I'd like to see some element of control.

Namely, I'd like to see VPs you've attuned exert an area of 'stability' on all your adjacent Captured Regions. That would encourage players to treat the VPs as a 'base' of sorts, around which they can safely establish forces and explore, while keeping the contested areas between VPs suitably random - indeed, you could push the Cataclysm mechanic even harder to better illustrate just how profound the Cataclysms' impact is, and just how important capturing VPs is (both in-game, and in-story).

The biggest issue is that it would make small maps a little more boring, since much of the space could be covered in stable zones - however, I think players naturally expect small maps to be simpler, and it would give an outlet for 'power gamers' who are seeking to minimise the inherent randomness of the game. Large maps would be less significantly affected, and those are the ones where Cataclysms can have the greatest impact anyway.

EDIT: This is really tangential, but have you considered using a word other than "Cataclysm" to describe this effect - I've typed it at least half-a-dozen times now, and for a game that will be discussed primarily in text, choosing a long term that many players can't naturally spell seems like a poor choice. Personally I tend to call them "roils" (a la Zendikar), "rifts" (a la Sci-Fi in general), or "'clysms" (which actually sounds pretty dumb), but it'd be nice if the game offered a unified 'slang' term to describe the phenomenon, just for the sake of communication. Helping players talk about your game is always a good idea. 3nodding

You Can 'Ttune a Mana Well, but You Can't 'Ttune a Fish

I've mentioned it in two separate Tutorial threads already, but I'll keep mentioning it 'til it's changed: stop using "attune" to refer to two obviously different mechanics. To "attune" a VP means to "capture the region in which it's located"; to "attune" a Mana Well means to "keep an Attuner in the region in which it's located". These are not even vaguely the same thing. Pick one to be "attune" (the verb is better suited to the VP mechanic than the Well mechanic), and find a new term for the other. Like, seriously. razz

It's worth noting that this poor use of the term is reflected by the fact that Mana Wells will show "Attuned by all" when you mouseover them - it's obviously not possible for something to be Mana-Well-attuned by both players, but the game doesn't seem to fully understand the difference. Mind you, this doesn't affect Mana or anything, but if even the game can't really keep the two straight, something is obviously wrong. sweatdrop

Cutting Classes

Honestly, I don't understand why the game bothers distinguishing between Regulars, Attuners, and Scouts - I would expect Attuner and Scout to be keywords (the latter of which appears to be), and all of them to simply be considered Units. You might retain the distinction as a subtype (e.g. "Unit -- Attuner" or "Unit -- Attuner Scout" ) just as a hint to new players as to how they should be used, but the game currently puts way too much emphasis on something that is not as simple as it tries to make it seem. It took me about a dozen games before I realised that one of my Scouts was actually an Attuner as well, because I checked the type on his icon and his keyword text, and Attuner showed up nowhere - if putting the name on the icon isn't going to help, it shouldn't be there. I'd prefer to have to look in one place - the text box - to see what I need to know.

Additionally, this gives options like making the Attuner keyword variable - existing Attuners would have Attuner 10; Guardian of the Plith (if I understand his effect correctly) would have Attuner 4; more expensive Attuners could have higher values, to allow players to keep improving even after all Mana Wells are captured. One of the current problems the game faces is that there is a limit to the total Mana on the map at any one time - after a point, gaining any more requires your enemy having less, meaning the game hits its dramatic climax way too early. Allowing yourself to put small Attuner effects on 'Regulars' would allow Aggro strategies that don't give up combat prowess for Mana, while larger Attuner effects would allow control and ramp strategies to run more large, splashy effects at the cost of less early board presence. And again, the basic game is unchanged because starter decks can still primarily retain the Attuner 10 characters they have, if you'd like.

Get Well Soon, Card

I legitimately don't understand why I'm using "cards" to battle. Is this something akin to the Yu-Gi-Oh anime, where physical cards actually turn into combatants, or what? I understand that the mechanics are based on card games, but even Magic: the Gathering would never have called its spells "cards" unless you were physically holding something that was undeniably a "card" while playing them. As evidence, Magic: the Gathering Tactics (a game stylistically very similar to HoC) refers to them as 'spells' and 'spellbooks' rather than 'cards' and 'decks'. Really, unless there's a good reason I'm plugging Mana into a card to summon my warriors, there's no sense in calling it that.

Pick Your Battles

Others have mentioned it, but it's worth repeating: it feels weird that you can't decide what battles to focus on. Watching my one Attuner getting unceremoniously crushed by two expensive Regulars seems ridiculous when I've got a fight on the other side of the map I actually want to see. I think I know the reason for this, but I think it would be worth it to discuss workarounds - there are enough mechanics already that make a player feel helpless (which isn't always bad, of course), but this is probably the one that feels the worst.

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The other bit I wanted to cover was involving the Unit mechanics, but with only access to Flameborn it's a little hard for me to comment on how anything else actually plays. Additionally, since we have access to a limited array of cards, some of those comments may be more about the specific cards those abilities appear on, than the abilities themselves. Nonetheless, my impressions:

Flameborn Abilities

• Flight 2 - Unless you're going to have Flight 3, take the number off. This ability makes the most sense - I think - when presented in contrast to the bonus move a Unit gets for moving over Captured Regions; since these Units fly over that space, they get that bonus movement regardless of what's below them. If you want a scalable speed boost, I'd make a seprate keyword for it that better illustrates speed.
  
  Also, I'd like to see this one spread to all Factions - including Angels for Avalon would not only appeal to Led Zeppelin fans everywhere, it would give obvious big, splashy, impressive characters for adherents of that faction to rally around. Apart from that, falconry and griffins and such would feel at home there.
  
  
• Solitary # - I was so excited about this effect when I read it; when I played with it, it felt anemic. The presence of the abilitiy tells you that you would rather them be alone, but mathematics says otherwise - it's usually never the 'right' choice to intentionally use the ability, because multiple Units are just so much stronger. I'd probably remove the Accuracy part of the effect, since it forces those Units to have really low natural Accuracy to work, reduce their base Health considerably (making them more of a 'glass cannon'), and let the Solitary buff make them comparable to multiple Units at or below their cost.
  
  What I like about it is that it encourages aggressive play - since you can't keep your Units together, you naturally want to spread out constantly. Ironically, this also makes it a defensive ability - Solitary Units will often be left in otherwise unguarded territories rather than taken into a large strike force. This ability on its own really 'sells' the Flameborn as a race of Dragons, and got me excited to play them - I'd like to see it pushed more, probably to the exclusion of Defender.
  
  
• Fold # - I'm not sure what this means, as I don't think it's contained in the starter deck, but it sounds like it encourages you to run your Units into areas which are about to Cataclysm. If that's the case, I love it; I'm often tempted to throw my guys into nearby Cataclysms just to see where they wind up, but I know there's no real point to it. Anything that rewards leaving yourself up to chance sounds marvelous to me; it's certainly not for everyone, but a few Units with these effects (enough to build a deck around), especially smaller aggressive ones are a great idea.
  
  The one thing I'd consider is making this a Veteran-esque permanent boost - the Unit gets permanently stronger by subjecting itself to chaos, which allows the player to actively seek out Cataclysms early on as a strategy, rather than just hoping they'll send him where he needs to go the whole game.
  
  
• Mountain # - Again, I'm not sure this came up; I feel like I saw it once, but can't remember specifically. If abilities like this are going to exist, it seems that every Faction should get one (Hellspawn do as well, I think), and the terrain types should be clearly marked (probably by a tooltip-like indicator, when you mouseover them). I honestly couldn't have told you which areas were 'mountains', and there are times I've suspected this element was removed altogether.
  
  That said, I don't know how much this adds - you can't control the positioning of land types, so without a complement of effects that make Mountains, there's no way to actively synergise your Mountain-dwellers. I like what the effect is trying to do - evoke the feeling of a mean old dragon who lives in a cave - but I don't think it's really pulling its weight.
  
  
• AoE effects - Based on the starter decks, this seems like less of a focus than 'Increasing own attack power', which appears on the Herald and 12-Mana Regular; I wouldn't have noticed it was a theme, really, because it doesn't appear on the common guys. That said, I got excited about it when I saw it as one of the Units' specials, so it does have some splash factor going for it.
  
  That said, it rarely played out as well as it felt like it would - you rarely encounter more than 2 enemies, and it's difficult to coordinate AoEs; often when I'd try, my other fighters would wind up killing off targets before the attack resolved. I get the feeling that AoE attacks want to be high-damage, explosive effects (with large cooldowns), rather than trying to disperse normal damage over several enemies; that way, even if it does only hit one, it doesn't feel like a waste.
  
  
• Fear - I didn't see much of this one either, as I think it's reserved for high-level guys; again, we'd need to see it at lower tiers as well, to recognise it as part of the Flameborn repertoire. As a very wise man likes to say, "if it's not at common, it's not your theme". Because of the Health clause in this effect, it should be easy to throw on some aggressive little guys, with no lasting impact on the game.
  
  Also, "Fear" should be "Frighten" - having fear means you're scared of something. Magic switched to the Intimidate keyword for precisely this reason; additionally, "Frighten" is more evocative (to me at least) of the "Frightful Presence" D&D ability (which was common for Dragons), which is what this wants to evoke. All that said, I'm not sure how much weight this pulls because it didn't show up much; it seems a bit unwieldy to me, but again I like where it's trying to do.
  
  
• Defender - This isn't listed as Flameborn, but it appears on some Units in the starter deck; probably a late addition. As I've mentioned, I think Solitary can fill the defensive role for Flameborn on its own, and Defender was often hard to notice in action. Personally, I think the most evocative function for a "Defender" keyword would be "If this Unit hasn't moved this turn, it gets +X" - it doesn't feel defensive when I move a Unit into an area where I know combat is about to occur, but under the current definition it counts. I'd prefer Defenders to be the ones you 'set and forget', which also has the benefit of reducing the number of moving parts a player needs to worry about.

Non-Flameborn Abilities

• Veteran - This is really cool; whoever thought of this is just brilliant. It captures the feeling, the flavour, and everything else that Avalon seems to stand for. It really is just a beautiful, elegant design. Indeed, I'd be interested in seeing each Faction getting a Veteran-esque growth ability that reflects their goals - I've mentioned the Cataclysm-based one for Flameborn, but I've yet to think of a great design for Hellspawn. I'll get back to you. razz
  
  
• Armor - The most obvious issue is that this doesn't seem comparable to other effects; Armor 5, for instance, seems a lot better than Solitary 5. This means that it'll look weak, compared to what other Units get, because "Armor 5" and "Solitary 10" would be more comparable values. Toward that end, I'd consider making Armor something along the lines of, "Prevent the first # damage this Unit takes each combat" - basically Armor would be extra Health that refills every battle.Of course, this makes it a bit difficult for to make progress against Armored characters over the course of several battles, but then Avalon's advantage is supposed to be in drawn-out, defensive engagements. I'm not really confident in that change, but I'd be interested to see how it plays.

My biggest issue with the abilities is that none of them really tell me - really scream at me - what each Faction is trying to achieve. Avalon wants order and justice; it should have keywords to reflect that, like "target can't attack next turn" or "gets +X against enemies that dealt this Unit damage this turn". The game guide and trailer seem unclear about what the Hellspawn want - the guide says to conquer other worlds, while the trailer says "only destruction". Same goes for the Flameborn, who want "power" in the trailer, and to speed up apocalypse (chaos, perhaps?) in the Guide. Figuring out what each Faction is trying to achieve and making abilities that reflect that is key to making the gameplay and concept feel holistic; and doing that is key to rewarding players who are attracted to the game based on the concept. I picked the Flameborn tribe because of the trailer, which described them as seeking power, which I interpreted as wanting to rule over the other Factions (whereas Avalon wanted order/justice and Hellspawn wanted death/destruction) - I'd like to see abilities which represent the dragons as prideful and vain, as though they honestly believe they have the natural right to rule every plane, and fully intend to enforce that. Solitary did some work to strike that arrogance note (which is why I liked it so much initially), but I think it could really stand to be hit a lot harder in every Faction, currently...

[SaintTape]

The fight mechanics are clunky. You have to select so many options to even get an attack to work. 'Do you want to do this? Select the unit. Select an enemy. Select the attack. Are you sure? Go back? End your turn?' It should be made much simpler, as close to a point and shoot system as possible. No one wants to spend 10 minutes in a mini battle.

Speaking of battles, I find myself unable to choose which battle I control per round. This is very annoying, as I would prefer to choose the ones where the stakes are higher. I played a game where the game-winning battle was fought in a computer-controlled fight, and I ended up controlling where my peon beat up the enemy's peon. Would it be so difficult to be able to play all the fights? Perhaps make it an option?

The ability to only 'undo' one move per round is incredibly prohibitive, especially in something that requires tactics like this. Perhaps I want to undo moving my Scout earlier in the round because I now know my Regular can't reach the piece of the grid he would be in.

The bottom menu is gigantic and unwieldy. It takes up 1/3 of the screen when it's up, and when you minimize it to see the map, you need to be able to use it as well! I would suggest maybe a slimmer, more streamlined menu, and then allow attack options and explanations of attacks as a hover function over the individual character.

Speaking of character, I find myself having trouble distinguishing my characters on the field. Paired with the inability to scroll elsewhere on the map, I often find myself having to cycle through the three or four identical units in the side bar before finding a specific one, because there is no differentiation.

I would love to see an expansion on the card game aspect. Do I get new cards ever? Can I customize my deck? One of the most important things about a TCG is the customizability, so each player can have their own style. Do you cram your deck full of high damage knights, or rely on the speed of your scouts? Do you prefer defenses or are you all-out offensive? Without that kind of thing, calling the system TCG-based is a lie.

Finally, MOAR STORYLINE PLEASE.

[Durithill the Black Blade]

Oh, in addition to being able to select which battle(s) to play out, it would be nice to see which units are engaged in those battles. Since the round plays out so quickly, it's almost impossible to keep track of where everything moves by the time it goes to the battle screen. Sure, you make think you know where your units are, but then suddenly half of the units you were moving to one battle got cataclysmed into another, half your units got pinned in one area, the other half moved to an area that was supposed to be a battle but suddenly the units aren't there anymore, etc. Plus it makes it much easier to determine whether you want to flee from a battle instead of fight. After all, the numbers alone aren't a good approximation of strength. Perhaps you see a 2 vs 2 battle on your map so you fight it, but then after the battle resolves you see you lost because your two units were lowest cost regulars and your opponent's one unit was their herald. The main problem is, I think, that this game feels like it's supposed to be a strategy game, but when it comes down to it there's actually very little chance for strategy.


Edit: Also, double-clicking a spot should select all units that have no already made a move instead of all units. It's really annoying to summon a unit into a portal, then trying to move an army you built on that spot and having to move everyone piece by piece.

[Red Kutai]

SaintTape

The fight mechanics are clunky. You have to select so many options to even get an attack to work. 'Do you want to do this? Select the unit. Select an enemy. Select the attack. Are you sure? Go back? End your turn?' It should be made much simpler, as close to a point and shoot system as possible. No one wants to spend 10 minutes in a mini battle.

I'm not sure if you've noticed - as the game doesn't make it very clear - but pressing the 'Done' button automatically commands all of your Units to do a normal attack, unless you've instructed them otherwise; you don't have to do all of those things, you can simply press 'Done' every turn. I think the 'Done' button should say 'Fight!' or 'Attack!' to represent that better.

That said, some of the clicking is a little extraneous, you're right. I'd like to see an 'Auto' button for targetting with manual attacks and specials so you don't have to move to click the target you're aiming at (especially in 1-on-1 fights) - as I've mentioned, the 'Done' button already auto-targets, so the functionality already exists. Similarly - and this is something I've been meaning to suggest in MoGa for a while now - there should be options for avoiding confirmation dialogues; an option to turn them off altogether is a little scary, but I believe Flash supports Shift + Click functionality, and using that to allow advanced players to bypass confirmations sounds like a good idea.

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Speaking of battles, I find myself unable to choose which battle I control per round. This is very annoying, as I would prefer to choose the ones where the stakes are higher. I played a game where the game-winning battle was fought in a computer-controlled fight where my peon beat up the enemy's peon. Would it be so difficult to be able to play all the fights? Perhaps make it an option?

As I've mentioned before, I think the reason for this is that they want (or need) both members of a multiplayer match to be focusing on the same battle - for that to happen, the battle needs to be pre-selected. I agree that it would be better for players to be able to choose (because not choosing feels ridiculous, and frustrating) but that does mean coming up with a good solution for the case of two players picking different fights at the same time - it's nontrivial, but I really agree that it's worth the effort to solve.

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The ability to only 'undo' one move per round is incredibly prohibitive, especially in something that requires tactics like this. Perhaps I want to undo moving my Scout earlier in the round because I now know my Regular can't reach the piece of the grid he would be in.

I meant to bring this up somewhere, because you're absolutely right - until I press the 'Done' button (which probably should be 'Go!', or something more exciting), I should be able to change my commands freely. Namely, the 'You already moved/summoned this Unit!' text shouldn't appear for Units I've moved, and clicking them should allow me to reassign their movements at will. For summoned Units, I'd probably make it 'This Unit was summoned this turn. Undo?', so that they have the opportunity to retract those whenever necessary. 3nodding

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The bottom menu is gigantic and unwieldy. It takes up 1/3 of the screen when it's up, and when you minimize it to see the map, you need to be able to use it as well! I would suggest maybe a slimmer, more streamlined menu, and then allow attack options and explanations of attacks as a hover function over the individual character.

The one issue I have with making Unit descriptions exclusively a hover function is that I'd like ability keywords to have 'reminder text' as a hover function - if the description disappears when you stop hovering over the unit, that can't work. That said, the ridiculous bulky protrusion right in the middle of the screen is definitely terrible, and I'd like to see them explore ways to fix it as well.

Quote:

I would love to see an expansion on the card game aspect. Do I get new cards ever? Can I customize my deck? One of the most important things about a TCG is the customizability, so each player can have their own style. Do you cram your deck full of high damage knights, or rely on the speed of your scouts? Do you prefer defenses or are you all-out offensive? Without that kind of thing, calling the system TCG-based is a lie.

Finally, MOAR STORYLINE PLEASE.

I believe they've said that both of these things are forthcoming, and that they're currently just trying to get the very basics sorted out - we'll get to explore more of the TCG aspect later on, but for now they're just worried about the actual gameplay. 3nodding

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On the subject of the unattractive layour, here's a (relatively) quick mockup that contains some suggestions:


EDIT: Comments I forgot: "Done" sounds like "Let's get this over with", "Go!" sounds like "Let's get this started!"; Unit stats and keywords should have brief explanations on mouseover. Also, for those curious, the flavour text is something along the lines of: "The savants serve as the Dragon Lords' personal oracles, both foretelling and fulfilling prophecies of eternal conquest." sweatdrop

[Omnileech]

How about doing something to the queue for pvp? I'd like to be able to toggle it on and be able to wait for a match instead of having to retry every 15 seconds or so in the hopes I find someone to play against.