Watched the tutorial and played a first game, here I go!

1. When I saw the tutorial I felt...

God this game looks so complicated! 3 types of resources, many heroes with squads of their own plus the mercenaries (are the mercenaries the same for each hero?) and items and everything? And I got to expand and there are ressources on the maps and towers and camps and boss camps?

The learning curve scares me and I fear that the public first impression might miss the target because there is too much to understand at first.

I suggest...
Either a campaign using the same units and spells available in the multiplayer mode to introduce each unit's pros and cons
OR
To remove the camp mechanics and focus on the resource war with more expansions and jungle control.

2. When navigating the hero select menu I felt...

2.1

I thought longer than I should have that I could have 4 units in my squad and it wasn't instantly clear that the top unit was my hero.
I suggest...
that the hero have a different background color or that the squad units are displayed on a different tech-tree level where the hero is the root.
AND
Having more information on the hero's skills' scaling would be interesting. Skill strength at lvl1 vs skill strength at lvl 20.

2.2

The mercenaries choice seems REALLY important strategy-wise (almost like choosing a race in SC2) and a simple tooltip and triangle/square icon diminished their relevance.
I suggest...
A display similar to the squads units' AND (optional) a two-step team creation: select you champ/squand THEN select your mercenaries.

2.3

Tooltips overlapping the other images are a bit annoying. When I hover on the unit's portrait, the tooltips of the unit above are triggered.
I suggest...
Trigger the tooltips ONLY when hovering the icon of the spell, and not when hovering the whole tooltip area. Also, it might be interesting to have a screen area dedicated to explain the spells/items, or that the tooltips are shifted right aligned on the descriptions' column.

2.4

I didn't know exactly how to start the game after reading everything on the units. It took me a while to notice the confirm button strangely.
I suggest...
A BIG ASS "READY" BUTTON

3. During my first game

3.1

I was playing in Windowed Fullscreen and could not mouse-scroll-down. Fixed it by playing Fullscreen.

3.2

While I was looking at the respawn bar, it was hard to figure out when what was respawning. It felt uselessly crowded as the game went longer and more units stacked there.
I suggest...
A different respawn bar per type of unit

3.3

Units feel small, especially the first squad ones, it made them harder to micro.

3.4

When using the T button on the hero on gems on the map, I was never sure if I was doing the right thing at first...
I suggest...
To have a pointer animation/color change when it hovers the gem and some kind of blinking on the gem after to confirm to m eye that the hero is really going there.

3.5

When shift-clicking movements late game... SO MANY LINES o_O ermegerd
I suggest...
Just one line averaging the path plz

3.6

I was trying to figure out what to do with all the mercenaries... there are so many, it would definitly deserve a post for each factions. And I put ~20 units in a small transport... #worth

3.7

No "Pause" button?

4. Replays?

When I tried to load a replay, I had no information if any data was fetched, no loading bar... and after >5 minutes I Alt-F4 and retried, and retried and never got to see the replay. Maybe the feature was not enabled yet.

5. Good feedback :D

5.1

I LOVE **the idea of building a squad and having it respawning. I would love to have a **bigger squad.

5.2

Nice terrain art! Buildings are alpha-ugly but the terrain looks great!

5.3

The music is really cool! (are you looking for more composers? I could help!)

5.4

Good job!!! This will make a really nice game, keep it up Artillery!

Comments

  • Day9Day9 Member, Administrator

    Thanks for the notes! Many of these comments are UI/UX/usability bits that we'll definitely want to polish closer to release. Though we might not get to them in the short term, they've been added to our task list :).

    As for your point #1 about "tutorial/learning complexity curve," we fully intend to have a tutorial and on-ramp for new players. Right now, we are throwing people into the full game (with bots) so they can learn comfortably there before PvP play. With the amount of change that we have in our development cycle, we don't want to dedicate a ton of time to building a tutorial that we'll throw out 2 weeks later. That said, we absolutely intend to build said tutorial/onramp

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