SOTW 0.79 - First Act Beta preview!

[Anima_]

No, we don't use the content of cRemove any more. The only thing that matters is that it has at least one entry.

[nightshadengale]

Most of the bugs I ran into have been mentioned already, but there were some issues with the UI, the overall responsiveness, and the writing that stood out to me just as much. Several of the interfaces are pretty clunky, and the game often responded somewhat sluggishly or spastically to input (I frequently had to click things multiple times before it would respond, and there were several times where I'd try to scroll back to read a piece of dialogue I accidentally clicked through and suddenly find myself back on a screen 2-3 scene transitions prior.) The responsiveness problems may be partially due to the fact that I'm playing it on my laptop, but I have lots of games on here and I haven't run into this type of behavior before.


UI issues:
The shop screen and the inventory screen are the worst offenders--they're quite awkward, especially compared to their Loren counterparts. Specific issues I noticed:

-The "Equip" and "Sell" buttons are far away from where you click to select equipment, and not terribly obvious. The double-click shortcut for equip/sell was finicky and often didn't work for me.

-You have to scroll through the tiny tabs in YOUR inventory to move through the different types of items in the merchant's inventory on the other side of the screen. This means lots of unnecessary mouse movement to look at all the items in a merchant's inventory.

-The indicator of which party members can use the highlighted item isn't as clear as in Loren--the portraits are tucked up in the corner, on the opposite side of the screen
as the list of items you're interacting with, and the green background isn't as obvious as the checkmarks were.

-The item comparison grid is a bit awkward--at first glance, it looks like the first column is the stats of the item you're looking at, and the second column is the stats of the item you currently have equipped (because of the way the names are aligned over the columns)

-The placement of the "close" button when you're looking at the list of items you can equip in a specific slot is also a bit awkward.

Non-inventory UI issues:
-The "Continue" button that appears after battles, etc is too short. There's a bunch of empty space between the battle summary and the button tucked flat against the button of the screen. I'm sure it works visually when you get a ton of loot to fill that empty space, but as it is it looks squished and awkward and is annoying to click.

-The "Fame Gained" indicator is not very visible, especially since it normally appears at the start of a scene transition...when you're distracted by the scene transitioning.


Non-UI issues:
-The game was often finicky about responding to clicks. (In particular, when clicking on a location)

-The scrollback needs some more...stickiness? It's too easy to accidentally scroll back through multiple scene changes, etc. I don't know how this is usually prevented, but it's not something I've noticed with other games that used scrollback.

-The hover bubbles describing locations are slow to appear and often stick around for a while after you've moused off of them (and even after you mouse over another location)

-At the start of the game (before the flashback began), the sprites would all blur for a moment whenever one of them changed expressions

-Sometimes an item that I'd sold or equipped earlier in the game would appear in my inventory with 0 quantity when I was selling stuff to shops. (While I'm guessing you didn't make major UI changes between 0.73 and 0.75, this is one issue that may have already been fixed.)

-The trap-checking dialogue is kind of hilarious because you repeat it SO MANY times and it sounds awkward to begin with. Maybe have a 30% chance that there's nothing in the trap AND you don't get attacked immediately after checking it (and throw a couple more wild encounters elsewhere to compensate)? Or at least have 2-3 versions of the "Oh no something is attacking us" transition so it's not "Over there! A wild beast!" every time? (The "Hmmm we got [Item name (X)]!" is also amusingly awkward. It would be better as just a non-dialogue "You got [Item name (X)]! ")

-This likely isn't something you're going to fix, but I found the writing in this game pretty bad. The pacing was awkward--some moments were drawn out too long, like the long-winded arena announcement at the beginning of the game (I think it was supposed to hook you in, but I started getting bored), and some moments seemed rushed and lacked the tension they should have had (like the murder accusation.) A lot of the dialogue was stilted and unnatural. (This wasn't restricted to the sidequests--while those had more grammatical errors, the problem was very much present in the main quest scenes.)

[yayswords]

Have to agree about the trap checking.

Bug: Can't use Vaelis' Leg Break.

I also think Shea taunts (ranger skill) with Althea's voice. I am pretty sure of it, it sounds like her cheering too, so it doesn't even feel like a taunt.

Vaelis can target the back row with the throwing axes but it does nothing.

[Lonestar51]

Bug: Can't use Vaelis' Leg Break.

I gave vaelis the Leg Break skill as well. Sometimes I could use it, sometimes not; and it is not clear why. If there is any restriction, it would be a good idea to state so in the description.

[yayswords]

Pff restrictions, Karen could use it on enemies that didn't even have legs. I hope there are none!

[jack1974]

Most of the bugs I ran into have been mentioned already, but there were some issues with the UI, the overall responsiveness, and the writing that stood out to me just as much. Several of the interfaces are pretty clunky, and the game often responded somewhat sluggishly or spastically to input (I frequently had to click things multiple times before it would respond, and there were several times where I'd try to scroll back to read a piece of dialogue I accidentally clicked through and suddenly find myself back on a screen 2-3 scene transitions prior.) The responsiveness problems may be partially due to the fact that I'm playing it on my laptop, but I have lots of games on here and I haven't run into this type of behavior before.

Ren'Py (the tool I'm using to code) is not famous for speed, however I can play the game on my EEPC which is really low-end (it goes slow, but that PC is really below the minimum specs).
I think might be a driver issue in you case.

I've checked the UI issues, will so some changes like the checkmarks, and add the tabs also on the top of vendor window, but for other changes like the position of the buy/sell buttons I'll wait for more feedback from other users, since honestly I thought it was a big step forward vs Loren so I think depends also on tastes.

Non-UI issues:
-The game was often finicky about responding to clicks. (In particular, when clicking on a location)

-The scrollback needs some more...stickiness? It's too easy to accidentally scroll back through multiple scene changes, etc. I don't know how this is usually prevented, but it's not something I've noticed with other games that used scrollback.

-The hover bubbles describing locations are slow to appear and often stick around for a while after you've moused off of them (and even after you mouse over another location)

-At the start of the game (before the flashback began), the sprites would all blur for a moment whenever one of them changed expressions

All those problems are related to the slowness the game is running - I don't have control on all those things you mention so I cannot do anything about it, sadly

-Sometimes an item that I'd sold or equipped earlier in the game would appear in my inventory with 0 quantity when I was selling stuff to shops. (While I'm guessing you didn't make major UI changes between 0.73 and 0.75, this is one issue that may have already been fixed.)

Ugh I thought I fixed this! I need to check again why it happens...

-The trap-checking dialogue is kind of hilarious because you repeat it SO MANY times and it sounds awkward to begin with. Maybe have a 30% chance that there's nothing in the trap AND you don't get attacked immediately after checking it (and throw a couple more wild encounters elsewhere to compensate)? Or at least have 2-3 versions of the "Oh no something is attacking us" transition so it's not "Over there! A wild beast!" every time? (The "Hmmm we got [Item name (X)]!" is also amusingly awkward. It would be better as just a non-dialogue "You got [Item name (X)]! ")

Lol yes, will add some more variants for the texts

-This likely isn't something you're going to fix, but I found the writing in this game pretty bad. The pacing was awkward--some moments were drawn out too long, like the long-winded arena announcement at the beginning of the game (I think it was supposed to hook you in, but I started getting bored), and some moments seemed rushed and lacked the tension they should have had (like the murder accusation.) A lot of the dialogue was stilted and unnatural. (This wasn't restricted to the sidequests--while those had more grammatical errors, the problem was very much present in the main quest scenes.)

I don't know what to say, I think writing was fine, but again I'd like to hear other opinions about it. To be clear, I wrote some sidequests with the help of another writer, so those might look different from main plot

[jack1974]

Pff restrictions, Karen could use it on enemies that didn't even have legs. I hope there are none!

Yes you can use it only on a staggered target, forgot to add it to the skill text description!

[jack1974]

OK regarding speed, I think I know the main problem on laptop - while for Loren I used the low (but safe) resolution of 1024x576, for this game I went with an HD-Ready res, 1280x720. Which means that on all desktops is going to be fine, but on laptops like for example my EEPC that has 1024x600 max resolution, the game needs to downscale it, and if the laptop is not powerful enough (has a good GPU) will slow everything down
You can try to go in option and disable the transitions to None, that should speed things up, but apart that... there's no solution, sorry

[yayswords]

Althea (as a druid anyway) talks a bit like a pacifist in battles. "Please surrender before this gets any further." I don't think she really acts like one otherwise. It's particularly unfitting when the party is looking to kill mobs for pelts or venom glands. Please surrender and let us skin you alive, then we'll leave you be. :D

[jack1974]

Well druids are pacifists (at least in my games).
Druid: "Please surrender before this gets any further."
Enemy: "No!"
Druid casts hellfire armageddon + meteor swarm + chain lightning and pulverize everything in 50km.