Yo



So I was chillin, playing a little game of DotE on Easy difficulty, getting wrecked as always. That's fine since that's what you're "supposed" to do in that kind of game, but I couldn't help but notice that almost every time I get a hero killed in this game (which generally is a sign that the rest of the crew will promptly follow), is because I did not notice soon enough that his/her life was critical. This frustrates me greatly, especially because I do have enough food to heal the hero, but it seems that it's more about reflexes (for tapping the space bar) than what I feel the game is about (shall I call it resource management ?).



This is also the only case in the game where a lack of reflexes has such a critical impact : during the "action" phase of the game, it is of course important to move your heroes around to bring reinforcements, manage several unpowered path entrances at a time, or save ressources located in unpowered rooms. But the timing is not as hard, and the consequences of a failure are not as unforgiving as a hero's death (I lose food but much more importantly I lost a lot of survivability). I may be wrong to give such importance to a hero's death (I'm actually not that good at rogue likes), so maybe you guys will correct me on this.



So why is that I can't properly heal dem heroes ? I see two major issues :

• Visibility : Health bars are not visible enough, and there is no "critical health" indicator. On floors 3 and up, during fights I never dare look at anything else that the top right part of the screen where the four health bars are. If I don't do this the heroes WILL die. Looking at the bars above the heroes heads on the main view is generally too cluttered for me to process what's going on during intense combat, and being always concentrated on these (small) life bars is quite tiring. Apart from larger life bars (maybe vertical life bars would be more readable ? most arpgs use these :confused, a critical indicator would be welcome (most arpgs do that well, usually by adding some red glow on 80% of the screen, playing with the amount of light, or anything that can be seen anywhere you look on the screen)
• Life fluctuation speed and predictability : There's a bit of a gamble in life management in this game : when a hero is mid-life with just a few remaining weakened enemies, should I heal him (and lose 10 food if that heal was not necessary), or not heal him and pray that the group can finish the enemies before the hero dies ? This choice is made difficult by the trouble I have to read fights, and estimate the amount of damage a hero will take in the next half-second. In other games, this future damage estimation can be done by reading the amount of enemies targeting one particular player character, and looking at their state or animation to see it the hit will come sooner or later. In DotE, not only the battlefield is a mess (I can't tell who hits who), but it's really hard to read the animation of enemies since I can only look at the battlefield when paused (because, as I said in previous point, I can't get my eyes off the health bar when the time runs normally). One suggestion I'd have for this is maybe display a list of attacking enemies under each hero in the top right area. Or even with a progress bar that loops and the enemy hits when the bar reaches 100% (that one may be a little too easy ). Or perhaps a tool to slow down time ?
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Another global suggestion that could be tried (and that pro hardcore gamers like a lot of you here will probably hate ) is an auto-pause when the life of a hero reaches a certain threshold. *runs away*





So there you go, my two cents.

I really enjoyed the game so far, which matches my tastes for games more planning oriented (like FTL) than pure action (like Binding of Isaac). That's why I felt this urgency and high tension regarding life management was kind of out of place. But maybe that's what you guys at Amplitude wanted after all, and I'll try again if you fell that's how the game should be played



Cheers



Shtong

Hi,

I agree with your analysis: the player needs to be focus almost entirely on the hero portraits during battles and this is not exactly the type of game that we're trying to make...

Thanks for your suggestions, we will work on that!

It's true that predictability isn't there. It's hard to estimate (and not calculate precisely) how much damage the heroes/towers will take. The game lacks clear targeting : who is attacking who ? Usually in tower defense the enemies attack the closest tower, but as the game can have many towers in a room it's hard to know which ones will be targeted first (it could be a new tower "protector" with high health, high defence and that is always targeted first by enemies, so you cold create traps for them)

Two more things I'd like to see : tooltip on enemies with only their attack, average damage, their speed, the special things to know (like "targets always the crystal" or "runs once under 50% life, etc.), and a bit of targeting choice for heroes/towers. (aka a way to aggro/disaggro)

Shtong wrote:


Another global suggestion that could be tried (and that pro hardcore gamers like a lot of you here will probably hate ) is an auto-pause when the life of a hero reaches a certain threshold

I think that auto-pause on low health will make you almost invincible.



There is a MMO game, named RF Online, there players are able to set auto healthpotion drinking on any percent of their total health . It turns game into something awful, because wins not who is good skilled, but who has more potions.



So if in DotE we have auto-pause on low health and we have enough to heal your hero, game will become so casual.

I don't want it, and I think that nodody wants.



What about alerting on low health, there I agree with you. I often miss my heroes and modules dying. It would be good if we had some alerts like hero's portrait red blinking and modules' health bar red blinking.

APLH has right to be in game. For example:



[LIST=1]

Standart option only on too easy or switchable option on some Custom Mode, if there will be such one.

Some kind of device that allows APLH only for hero wearing it.

There was Cardio power system in SW KOTOR doing almost the same.

Some hero focused on squad tactics. The Commando. He could have a passive abilityfor APLH for every hero in the room or the same ability but active one.

Some kind of supporting module, which enables APLH for every hero in the room. Oh no, don't read it. Building such module in every room is equal to constant APLH.

[/LIST]



I hope devs will pay attention to my post

I think that auto-pause on low health will make you almost invincible.

It depends entirely on the game design. If you have to spend a lot of food, you could be dead pretty quickly. It depends on the game style. If the game is more based on the resource management than on the speed reaction, so it could be a good solution. I can't be sure of what developers intend with their game, but with a real time with pause system like in games like Baldur's Gate, and the module system to product resources, I tend to think the game is more fit for a strategic gameplay, and less with pure speed reaction or multitasking ability in real time. : ) But I can be wrong, of course. At least, the game designers could consider to make this at an optional feature to players who don't want to play in a "rush way". : D

I would like to say that you can use the number keys to select your hero then tap H to heal them. But I feel like the game could use a pause system like in Dragon Age. This is a "soft-pause" where the game is frozen but you can cast actions to each of your units. In fact, I feel like that would play extremely nicely because sometimes I will panic when I have to move units across the map (and I have to use each of my heroes to move my screen fast enough because of no minimap, ugh) and end up moving my units to all the wrong places.



I really don't mind not having a minimap, but if we can't have a fast way of scrolling the screen, a soft-pause would be great!

What's the difference between the soft pause you're talking about and DotE's "space bar pause" ?

The difference is that he already knew how to use it in Dragon Age but just now due to your post became aware that and how it also is possible in DotE! ^^

Oh. Okay :]

Note for devs : add the "win without using pause" achievement when the game is done. Having that one will be pretty badass.

Mysterarts wrote:
Hi,

I agree with your analysis: the player needs to be focus almost entirely on the hero portraits during battles and this is not exactly the type of game that we're trying to make...

Thanks for your suggestions, we will work on that!

I'm glad this is being worked on. Good to see the dev team sticking to its vision.

Hey, uh, real quick suggestion.

Slim health bars above hero heads or below their feet, nothing major, but enough to allow you to retain focus on a battle without getting in the way or forcing you to look at the top right corner non-stop.

I feel that the game would STRONGLY benefit from a system like this, anyone else agree or have a better iteration on the idea?



Edit: Been longer than I thought since I played. They're in there.

justanaverageguy wrote:
Slim health bars above hero heads or below their feet, nothing major, but enough to allow you to retain focus on a battle without getting in the way or forcing you to look at the top right corner non-stop.

Yeah, this will be enough.

Personally, I would like the hero icons added to the left edge of the screen. Might just be me, but the left side of the screen is a bit more visible than the top right corner and I'm more likely to notice a low health bar.

Many dungeon crawls have ended from spending too long in one session and getting complacent with those health bars, or hitting space-bar just a split second too late. The portraits and lifebars are a bit out of the way. That said, I love the crisp clean elegance of Amplitude UI's!



The left side could work perhaps with the data scaled up in size. That's typically where RPGs place your party's information. Many of us are kind of hardwired to glance there! Scroll over and center your camera on the fight, but with quicker access crucial data as efficiently as glancing at a side view mirror while driving. Bottom-center might also prove effective!

I completely agree with OP. And truth be told, the game was not so much oriented toward micro-management back when it came out. Now it's like I have to play Starcraft II, only I'm trying to enjoy a nice and chill tower defense.



So, I know that there was a high probability that the game could turn out to be really different from what I expected. But I just have to say that this disappoint me. I really like the TD genre, and not the RTS type. I bought a TD, now I have a RTS in my steam library. It sucks, a lot, especially because I have trouble finding good games lately, and DotE was very promising.



Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you to the dev team (one man team ?) and their hard work. A lot of updates have been done lately, and that's really cool. But I don't think I'm gonna keep on playing this game, not until the full version is released at least. I might give it a second chance then, but until then, it's not just the type of game that I like. Fortunately, Endless Legend seems to deserve my interest, so I'm not done with you guys