Seth10n's Feedback from 72Hr Playtest

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Summary

Overall I've really enjoyed the game. The blending of ideas from other titles around combat, survival (partly), and village-building, coupled with the new granular take on building structures was extremely pleasing to engage with.

Encountered Issues

(Major) NPC's Running Away in Fear. Did I Morph into a Bandit?

(Have posted this in issues-forum along with map screenshot) Upon starting a new game for the third time (by choice, not forced by the game) I was about to start the third raid (Day 22 I believe) on my village, but the Bandits were taking their time coming to attack. I decided to investigate along with 5 of my companions, to see what the hold-up was. I noticed the expectant raiders were engage in battle with a wolf, who was half way up a mountain-side (not accessible, he must have landed on a really small ledge). I took the opportunity to attack the bow n arrow bandit, while they were all distracted, the we proceeded to the other bandits who were desperately trying reach the wolf. At this point in time, one of my companions had disengaged from the fray and was returning to the village. After looting the corpses and "winning" the raid attack, my 4 companion still in battle, decided to take up the challenge of knocking-off the wolf from its pedestal. This then resulted in my 4 companion dying from a non-existent (they could not reach each other) wolf bites. I decided to return to my village where I proceeded to see out the rest of my day, and go to sleep on time. At this point in time, I took no notice of the game music, which continued with the battle music as though I was still engaged in battle.

cont. When morning arose, I went to inspect my one villager who did return, who in turn, did a 180 and hid in their home shelter (The Inspect label at this point was red). I thought why are they running away in fear, so I decided to explore more of the map, and proceeded to the NPC on the eastern side of the lake near Padstow, in which they too ran away from me in fear. I then saved the game, and quit, hoping it would rectify itself, but after loading the saved game, the fight/battle music was continuing, and the villager still runs away like I'm some ogre. Another sleep and still no change.

(Minor) Village Workers Interrupting my Crafting.

I built 3 Bloomery's in the hope to have dedicated ones to each Ingot type. On multiple occasions when I attempted to create either Tin/Copper Ingots, as part of research items and/or materials for further crafting, and autobot villager when they had capacity, would come to the Bloomery's and add the missing Ore (if I was making Copper Ingot from Copper Ore, they would add Tin Ore) to my crafting item prior to it being finished, which would result in a Bronze Ingot, not Copper as I was after. This was on all Bloomery's, including the one I had dedicated to Copper only.

(Minor) Not Knowing the Day and/or Season.

Unless you went to sleep to speed up time or recover health, there was no incentive to go to sleep. The only known way way to identify the game day, and how long until Winter, was in the sleep cut-scene. I find that while villagers are sleeping, its also a good time to continue gathering materials for your village. Without another source of knowing what day-cycle and season it is, you potentially lose valuable crafting/harvesting time (closer to the next raid) by sleeping just to see this information.

(Minor) First Raid Experience.

On my first rad, with only one village companion, and being a newbie to the combat mechanics, needless to say I died a few times (5 from memory before I was victorious). When I spawned back in my shack (facing the bedroll, not outside) the first time, the two raiders left out of three had already begun beating me to death again before I even had a chance to turn around, unsheathe my weapon, unsheathe my shield and begin to counter-attack. With 30 sec cooldowns before respawning, in the hope the Bandits would pillage and skedaddle, they stuck around. Rinse and repeat until I chipped away at their health to their inevitable death. This was a compounded problem having not been introduced to the combat mechanics previously.

(Minor) Bolded/Unbolded NPC Conversation Options.

Sometimes when talking to quest giver NPC's, the quest option would appear as a bolded option in the conversation list, while in others, it was not in bold at all. This was pretty hit-and-miss, but thought I'd make note of it.

(Minor) Water Interaction.

While It's been mentioned before by others, I did take a cpl of screenshots of Rabbits underwater, while also seeing Deer and Boar enjoying a leisurely jaunt subaqueous (lake between Haerndean and Bradford), as well as birds flying submerged (also screenshot), when crossing underneath the Crimson River to Crasmere. Not too sure how you'd address this, when there's no death-by-drowning, or no . . . no-fly/grazing zones.

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Some Suggested Ideas for Enhanced Gameplay

Additional Information on the Player Attribute Screen.

With quite a bit of "white-space" available underneath the skill, next to the buff/de-buff %'s, you could redesign this to also include the Gameplay Day (Day 45, etc), as well as the current Season/Day of the Season. I couldn't quite work out if it was 2 or 3 days per Season. Some indication on a screen/tab (at least for those who don't sleep) to prepare for the scarce resources which are inevitably unavailable during Winter.

Some Practical Beginner Tutorials in the first Village.

I understand this may come down to developer resource capacity/availability to design and implement, but having a practical understanding of the combat mechanics (different attacking styles, and better defensive encounters) prior to the first raid/surprise roaming Bandit visit, would greatly enhance the experience. I did see there was a text-based tutorial with a couple of images for the combat mechanics, but better value would be had through optional practical tutorials in the first village. Can also reward players with Trust/Renown toward the village for undertaking the optional tutorials.

Even handing in the Nostalgia Coins to Elders, I saw the yellow coin (30) for those coins under the Sell tab, thinking it would be 30 Gold Coins to me, but no, they were to add 30 Trust to my overall Village Trust Currency. Maybe having a Trust label there would be nice.

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Countdown Timer on missing Crafting Items.

When using the Bloomery to create Ingots, or cooking over the Campfire, it would have been nice to know the length of in-game time it takes, to say, cook meat over the fire. It looked to be around 3hrs in-game, but I couldn't be sure. When you have idle villagers around, they will inevitably jump in and "take-care" of the cooking for you, and before you know it, the 2x cooked meats you needed for a quest, were pinched and consumed by your own villager, there-by delaying the quests conclusion. Knowing how long you had, you can manage your time better. I gave up on the 2x Burnt Mushroom items as villagers would come and "snake" the cooked ones from the Campfire, and place into the Stockpile.

In addition to the timer on some (I say some as when crafting clothing, we know how painstakingly long that can take some items) crafted items, identifying which Priority Order is highest/lowest, both for villagers (Priorities 1-9), as well as, say the Foraging Camp (Priority 1-5).

Better Use of the Outhouse (Ye Olde Thunder Box).

||Could we use the results from disposing of spoilt foods (perishables) into the Outhouse, as fertilizer for crops? While I know it assists in disposing of non-perishable items, maybe those non-perishables could be disposed of by the player only, in to the Campfires, to assist keeping the ablaze. Villager would still need to use wood.||

Better Interaction with the Map.

Having the ability to make a couple of notes across the map (eg: Known Mud-holes/Garlic/Harder to find items) were located, would be ideal. Also, when creating Sign-Posts, having them displayed in a navigable legend-type form, with an editable title for each Sign-Post, just in case a user places one say near a good Iron Ore deposit, and not a village, would make the faster travel that much more user friendly.

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Map/Mini-Map Friendly-game (Deer/Rabbit) Enhancement.

I would really like to see friendly-game be identifiable on the maps. The Deer were very difficult to not only locate, but then engage with. I was unable to collect a lot of the needed hide due to me slow-walked lead-feet (sneak would help here), or the swift-like egress of these prancing beasts from your field of vision, only to leave you asking yourself "were they really there in the first place?"

I did manage to hold my breathe in the water (IYKYK) for longer than one Deer though, long enough so I could end his free-spirited life. While he was distracted eating what one would believe was weed from the suspected lake-bottom, I managed to see if a Reinforced Club would rip the hide from his body. It did, yay!

Having these friendly-game appear on the map as a green (friendly-game, could this work for Rabbits too?) dots, coupled with a sneak-like crawl attack, for those who can't aim/shot the arrow very far, but who instead like to break legs with blunt objects (especially if you need to collect the hide in order to progress the tech-tree). An option here could be to add a Bronze Leg-hold Trap (2x Bronze Ingot, 1x Log, 2x Flax (for coverage)) in the lower level Tier 1 tech-tree, to assist with their capture. Can limit each traps use by only being able to be set once per day, reset 7am, so players can either wait it out, build more traps, or learn to knock an arrow.

Being able to Research Ourselves.

The amount of times I've waited for an autobot villager to either become idle, where they then start walking around camp looking for Easter Eggs or god-knows what else, when they could have gone and continued researching the thing I've been waiting on all day (sometimes longer) for them to get to it (don't they understand Priority Defcon 1 (I know its 9) means NOW!). On top of that, the amount of times I've watched a villager stop with like 3mins in game (97%) and go do something else . . . so frustrating.

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spoiled food can be made already to fertilizer 😅