tight grotto
The game has the potential for incredible replay-ability, but I feel like I have seen everything after around 20 hours, with little motivation to go back. I'd like to highlight a video by caracal where he describes how some small design changes could drastically improve the replay value of the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptsn6W-tKmA Several great points.
empty meadow
I agree, I think kind of what it boils down to is that they tip their hand TOO Much in the crime scenes, AND they don't give enough red herrings. I really hope the devs take a look at this video because it's got really good points.
Still having a blast with the game, but I definitely can see that what Caracal is recommending would make the game even better.
rotund raven
Wholly, my case boards have been shrinking the more I play, even on new saves, to the point of where I dont even bother looking through records anymore. The predictability quickly eats the otherwise amazing experience this game delivers!
Frankly, I need the red herrings, I wanna grovel and sweat and bleed and cry over the pure frustration certain cases have to the point where I revisit old crime scenes in a desperation to find any missing clues, like those first few cases. Otherwise, the meta build destroys the replayability.
In saying this, I'm almost certain the devs know this already and have already come up with a creative plethora of solutions; the game only just hit public builds quite recently, and I doubt they would have put any of the details in for following clues if they hadn't already planned to use them in some way.
harsh cape
Yes, please. Less casual, more hard.
jaunty roost
Not every case needs to be a zodiac killer-esque hunt though, sometimes it really is just the next door neighbour with a noise complaint
daring shoal
It can be that, but the murder scene shouldn't have the words "YOU WERE TOO LOUD THROUGH MY WALLS" painted on the kitchen cabinets
rotund raven
PUT A PIN ON IT
daring shoal
Tbh though the current murders very much feel like they're simplified for the sake of testing. I imagine as we move forward they're gonna get much, much more varied
midnight schooner
Tbh though the current murders very much feel like they're simplified for the sa...
There's also needs to be a balance. A steep learning curve could drive away potential new players. You don't want the game to be initially overly difficult, though that can be accomplished with strong onboarding process.
daring shoal
For sure. The variation across murders should be huge
midnight schooner
Something to note: I think the difficulty slider could come handy.
Easy - The design of murders are simple, straightforward.
hard - More red herrings, more mystery.
daring shoal
Some cut and dry, some cold cases
supple sequoia
This is probably the top of my wishlist for the game currently. It's especially bad if you've been watching other people play the game--saw Insym solve the case of the "lipstick killer"and instantly knew where I needed to find a print to solve the case when it happened in my game. Wasn't expecting for there to be "spoilers" in a procedurally generated game!
It definitely feels like the devs have laid the groundwork for more complexity, since there's a lot of things that feel like they should be clues but are underutilized so far--the matchbooks, the vmails, the notes about their performance in their work profiles, etc. Like, it's really cool how the citizens have interests and daily routines in theory, but I pretty much haven't had to engage with this outside of knowing where they live and where they work, because it doesn't seem relevant outside of the occasional case where one of your only clues is that someone is part of the book club. (I've actually had this clue from the beginning on a case and haven't figured out how to learn more about the clubs, but most of the other cases have been much easier so I haven't had to worry about it at all.) It definitely feels like there's plans to expand on this sort of stuff, and I'm trying not to get TOO excited about it because I want to have realistic expectations, but I really hope they have a chance to go crazy with the possibilities there.
I don't want to see the "flavor" for cases entirely go away--stuff like calling cards and weird MOs and the like are pretty rare in real life as far as I know, but they're a huge staple of the genre. It would be great if they stuck around but weren't used for every case, instead being a rare event to make you feel like you're on a truly special case where your perp is particularly devious and elaborate. But even then, hopefully you'd get the higher amount of evidence and red herrings being suggested in the info, so you'd have to dig a little. Like in the case of the "Valentine's" themed killings, you could still have to do stuff like... Go digging in the local enforcer department to find a report that includes a few random bits of info about the "stalker" like the side missions do. You can ask the victim's partner if they know about people the victim was worried about. Maybe there's an even rarer chance that the victim was having an affair and the partner is the actual murderer, etc etc.
cloud nova
The finger print clue is too strong. The game could leave other clues like hair or blood of the culprit to find. The footprint is also a clue but not as used. I would also like that if a weapon was left behind the crime scene that we can trace the weapon back to where it was purchased to check who bought it. Maybe the weapon used stolen from someone else who owned it as some sort of red herring.
tight grotto
This is probably the top of my wishlist for the game currently. It's especially ...
Yeah I agree, an occasional clearly work place related revenge killing, or a serial killer that leaves a note is good. But at the moment, every murder has a finger print clearly linked to the killer, with no false leads once you understand the structure of crime scenes. Its just a bit too predictable
round vale
watched, agree
1st case
WOaoaaaaah
2nd case
woooaaaaah
third case
huh
fourth case
Oh found the killer already
actually started taking deliberatly hard missions, or even bugged missions now to really create that feeling again
tight grotto
I find that some of the side jobs can be quite difficult and often give you much less information to work with
crisp sequoia
The issue with these side jobs is that it's making up an artificial difficulty due to the randomness of the information provided.
Cool, the target has shoe size of 8, is tall and has green eye color, now I'm gonna either turn the whole city upside down, or leave the case as is until it magically identify the person because I encountered him by accident while investigating another case. Also somehow you can encounter several matching persons, but unless you get the game to automatically identify the target you cannot finish the case without a random chance to fail (happened to me in my early playthrough).
sinful yew
There's also needs to be a balance. A steep learning curve could drive away pote...
I don't think a steep learning curve or a particularly hard case is necessarily a bad thing in this game though. If the multiple active killers were added to the game then your first murder scene might just be a criminal mastermind that you have no idea how to track down, and you're helpless to stop them and the murders keep happening. BUT you take other jobs, solve other murders, build your skills, tools, disks, network. All while this mastermind runs rampant in the background until you are good enough to catch them. A true rival for the player, a fiend so prolific everyone in the city is talking about the "[RNG name here] killer".
It could even be extended to other crimes, maybe a serial thief is on the loose and high value information or items are being stolen.
Who knows, with criminals of such difficulty they could even add a retirement mechanic: One day the killer just decides to stop killing, the case goes cold, and yeah you can still solve it, but now it's a hell of a lot harder as the most recent murder becomes a more and more distant memory.
midnight schooner
I don't think a steep learning curve or a particularly hard case is necessarily ...
You're thinking it from the side of the story, and not the User Experience.
If the player gets stuck on their first real case, it's not going to keep them in the game to begin with. A steep learning curves drive people and players away which just isn't a good thing for the developer.
sinful yew
The story is the user experience though. I'm not advocating for the player to be completely clueless, but a case they can follow until another case/crime pops up. Especially if this was expanded upon by the systems in game already, sleuthing for an hour or two while another case is generated shouldn't turn away players and if it does then the game probably wasn't for them in the first place.
tight grotto
The issue with these side jobs is that it's making up an artificial difficulty d...
true, this does happen sometimes and you basically need a bit of luck to get started on finding the person
but at the same time it can be an interesting challenge that shouldn't be got rid of completely
crisp sequoia
but at the same time it can be an interesting challenge that shouldn't be got ri...
I see your point but imo if the only way to get it right is to wait until the game tell you the person it's not much of a challenge, it's just the game that is spoiling you on the case here
Unless it gives you enough evidences to rule out one person (even using the "like books" trait)