Author Topic: Exile Princes Closed Beta Testing  (Read 30103 times)

Jubal

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Exile Princes Closed Beta Testing
« on: January 10, 2019, 10:58:23 PM »
OK, I'm going to tentatively start punting copies of this to a small group of testers. Please report bugs here, and also shout here if you want in on the betas but don't have a copy yet.

Open Bug Reports
> Apparently cities can vanish in some circumstances. Not been able to replicate this yet.
> Factions can declare war on each other multiple times for some reason.
> Saving in the tutorial doesn't work
> Staying at taverns when there's an end week and a quest trigger shouldn't avoid the quest trigger

Open Feature Requests/Plans
> Maybe make "you caught them unawares" more explicit when you fight unarmed fugitive
> Clarify search boost somehow
> Make last message clearer in log?
> High taxes needs a penalty for the AI
> Bigger or more common negative reactions to some bad quests from companions (eg assassination)

Closed Reports/Requests
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Versions and Changelog
Current version: 011

Changelogs
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: April 24, 2022, 12:20:04 PM by Jubal »
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Tusky

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Re: Exile Princes Closed Beta Testing
« Reply #1 on: January 12, 2019, 05:47:52 PM »
I'd be happy to test.

I don't have heaps of spare time but I'm sure I can make a bit.
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Tusky

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Re: Exile Princes Closed Beta Testing
« Reply #2 on: January 13, 2019, 09:52:18 PM »
Few initial things, this is me trawling around the tutorial map

Observations

- You really can spam listen for rumors and search city
- I wanted to check my army menu within the city but didn't see a way so had to leave a few times, (accidentally ran a load of turns without realising in the process)
- I fought many times after searching the city - do you only get coin? I was expecting a district to like me more or some such. If they did there was no notification about it
- Hired swords appear to be op here, and destroying anything I encounter (ended up with an xp of 395). I'm no longer bothering with any citizens because I don't need to

Questions

- Is there a way to combine troops of the same type? I had a few citizens one with 2 one with 4 or so. Didn't matter too much since they seem to be cannon fodder but I did wonder

Bug

In the tutorial when I clicked on the bandits the information given was "clicked"



Nice...

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Jubal

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Re: Exile Princes Closed Beta Testing
« Reply #3 on: January 13, 2019, 10:58:37 PM »
Thankyou!

You shouldn't be able to totally spam search city - after about five searches it should require you to either leave & re-enter or stay in a tavern before you can use it again (it may later drop to 1 attempt before having to do that, but I don't want to go there until I've got more possible results for the searches). The search city feature still doesn't have that many possibilities - eventually I'm hoping to put more sidequests there etc. What you get on that very much depends on what's in the city to start with, it sounds like Harionasis just has one of the combat missions (tunnels or ruins); in other cities, Search City can give you a couple of sidequests, weapon upgrades, or some hiring options. I might accelerate improvements to City Search up the to do list. OTOH I'm OK with rumours being spammable, I think most players will get bored with them fast anyway and info-gathering (especially if you're running up to an election and want detail on all the districts of a five district city) can already be a drag so I didn't want to make it harder on people.

I'm really not sure where I'd put a button that allows you to check army menu whilst in the city - would a hotkey to do it be sufficient? You can check your army easily enough in cities you own (by going Castle -> Garrison -> Your Army) but I just don't know where to put the extra button to allow it in other cities.

Noted on hired swords being OP. They should be pretty decent line infantry that can take on e.g. kinklades, wibulnibs, and be about even to most garrison troops like pikemen, shield guards, etc - maybe they're just too easy to get as an upgrade at the moment and I need the boost to cost more XP. You can't get them straight off as a first tier unit except in the tutorial, they're usually an upgrade for Hired Ruffians.

There isn't a troop combine option, as I don't know how I'd do that without allowing the player to make huge OP super-units (and what I'd do with combining XP tallies, any other bonuses, etc).

Thanks for the tutorial bug, that's easily fixable.

And yep, there's a goodly number of Exilian references in there :)
« Last Edit: January 13, 2019, 11:04:11 PM by Jubal »
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HemingwayGames

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Re: Exile Princes Closed Beta Testing
« Reply #4 on: January 21, 2019, 01:31:27 PM »
Nice work with this game, Jubal.  A few things came to mind while playing the game:

I missed a number of blue messages while travelling. I would often move quickly accross the terrain, and once I noticed the message, it was too late to determine where it occurred. Would it be possible to highlight these events on the map? Leaving behind a question mark icon on the square would allow the player to go back if missed. Another option would be to interrupt the game and showing the quote (with possibly an image). Example: "You hear tell of local rumours that suggest that interesting things may be searched for in this place"

I found I needed to use a number of moves to determine where the end of the map was. I would move over to the edge and test whether I could move across. Even if I couldn't move across, it wasn't clear whether I was blocked by the end or a obstacle on the adjacent page. To confirm, I would then test each cell on the edge. I think it's possible to determine this by the message; for example, "The terrain is impassable" means end of map, whereas "The terrain is high and impassable mountains that way" means otherwise. Is there a way to make the edge of the map more clear, so that the player doesn't need to use up turns?

I ended up failing a quest because I needed to deliver a letter to another city. I didn't know where the city was, so I ended up randomly searching and arriving late. It would have been a nice touch if I received the direction of the city (e.g. East) while listening to rumours in the city.

Also, is it possible to highlight the last message in the text? When doing the tutorial, I found myself skimming backwards through the lines of text to find the start of the message.

A couple of typos in the text:
- In the factions section: They have 1 cities.
- In the tutorial: Now, move away from the city anduse the X key...


Jubal

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Re: Exile Princes Closed Beta Testing
« Reply #5 on: January 21, 2019, 01:58:52 PM »
Thanks, that's all really useful!

The blue messages aren't super important, and they have an area/time effect so actually last for 2-3 moves rather than being locked to a specific tile - it's basically a search success chance boost. You can get interesting searches regardless (especially if playing as scholars), you just get a much increased chance to do so when the blue message shows. Given that, I can't mark them on the map and I don't want to interrupt for them (I think there'd be too many interruptions). Maybe I could highlight the search button whilst the search boost lasts?

I've been wondering whether to properly mark map edges. I'll have a go at implementing something for that - possibly some differently coloured mountain/sea tiles that are impassable.

City directions are a good point, will look into that.

Highlighting last message sounds difficult but I'll see if there's anything I can do.

Typos I'll get on and have a look at pretty soon! :)
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justatoady

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Re: Exile Princes Closed Beta Testing
« Reply #6 on: January 21, 2019, 09:49:43 PM »
very fun so far^^
the battles go very quick, which i like, and the old timey designs feel very consistent

random things i noticed:
- when you try and move on a tile with a city's army on it, it gives you the "impossible high terrain" message from mountains

- when the travelling armourer offers you stuff, they always say "an" (see pic)

- when you start a new game you can spawn on a mountain

- i noticed i just ignored the rumors and city searches after a while and focused on the quests for one city,
so far i don't see much progress in our relationship, i did around 10 quests for them, and the leader still nods curtly, but maybe that's just him,
 
- possibly a spoiler, depending on how randomised this stuff is:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

-yes, marking the map borders in some way sounds like a good idea

- semi-related: is there a way to get more chickens (faction related units) other than random overworld encounters?

justatoady

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Re: Exile Princes Closed Beta Testing
« Reply #7 on: January 21, 2019, 09:51:55 PM »
oops here are the other pics

Jubal

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Re: Exile Princes Closed Beta Testing
« Reply #8 on: January 21, 2019, 09:58:08 PM »
- when you try and move on a tile with a city's army on it, it gives you the "impossible high terrain" message from mountains
Noted, will look into that.

- when the travelling armourer offers you stuff, they always say "an" (see pic)
Ooh, noted, will look into that.

- when you start a new game you can spawn on a mountain
Yeah, that's a thing. I decided it didn't seem like it was worth changing?

- i noticed i just ignored the rumors and city searches after a while and focused on the quests for one city,
so far i don't see much progress in our relationship, i did around 10 quests for them, and the leader still nods curtly, but maybe that's just him,
Yeah, the leader's attitude to you is always static and based on their personality - your relationship is built up with the city as a whole, not with any one leader. This is currently even true for leaders who are your faction - I may add more depth to this at some point, but it'd be a relatively large task I think.

I think city searches should get more valuable when I add more options/possibilities - or do you think something else is needed there?

 
- possibly a spoiler, depending on how randomised this stuff is:
The idea is that sometimes you catch them unawares for an easy fight. Should I make that more explicit?

-yes, marking the map borders in some way sounds like a good idea
Noted!

- semi-related: is there a way to get more chickens (faction related units) other than random overworld encounters?
Not currently - Scholars and Phoenixes get their faction units by random encounters, Generals and Dragons get theirs via special adventure point upgrade events. Do you think there need to be more ways?
« Last Edit: January 21, 2019, 10:08:13 PM by Jubal »
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justatoady

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Re: Exile Princes Closed Beta Testing
« Reply #9 on: January 22, 2019, 11:24:00 PM »
Yeah, the leader's attitude to you is always static and based on their personality - your relationship is built up with the city as a whole, not with any one leader. This is currently even true for leaders who are your faction - I may add more depth to this at some point, but it'd be a relatively large task I think.
fair, i'm not sure it's necessary. they started doing elections now, and leader/rival personalities might actually distract from the whole city running simulation thing...

think city searches should get more valuable when I add more options/possibilities - or do you think something else is needed there?
i like having options in the city, but at the moment, there doesn't seem to be much incentive for searching, maybe if some quests required you to search or use hints from the rumors

The idea is that sometimes you catch them unawares for an easy fight. Should I make that more explicit?
i don't think you need to. it does explain what's going on, and i like ambushing the murderers, because searching and then fighting very weak enemies feels like a change of pace from normal encounters. there is also always the possibility they'll be serious and tough.
my point was just meant to be that zhia's sprite change felt a bit jarring.

Not currently - Scholars and Phoenixes get their faction units by random encounters, Generals and Dragons get theirs via special adventure point upgrade events. Do you think there need to be more ways?
i guess if the phoenixes are meant to be more like elite units, it's fine not to have too many,
maybe make sure players always have access to some low rank chickens to replace the dead ones or would that be too much of an avantage for the phoenix house. also depends on how common the random encounter is.

Jubal

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Re: Exile Princes Closed Beta Testing
« Reply #10 on: January 22, 2019, 11:52:36 PM »
> Leader/rival traits are already factored into elections: most leaders have some sort of viewpoint on society and how it should be run, and that's factored into election results (for example, a wealthy aristocratic ruler will likely do better in a wealthy city).

> Having some quests with city search incentives is definitely a good idea - I made the fugitive quest to do that for the main map searches a bit.

> Yeah, the sprites are a bit random - but since I'm not drawing any of them off my own bat really it makes it hard to get perfect ones.

> The random encounter for chickens is a moderately common search result any time you're in open/plains terrain (pangolins for the scholars are less common and in forest terrain, but pangolins are straight-out decent melee units whereas chickens need training).

I have now got a version of map edge marking working, though I'm not sure it looks right/it may be too obtrusive - I'll try and get screenshots sometime in the next 2-3 days.
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Jubal

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Re: Exile Princes Closed Beta Testing
« Reply #11 on: January 31, 2019, 11:41:36 PM »
Quite a lot of updates and changes!

A big change to the way the game handles companion characters (that is, named characters who aren't the hero, enemies, or quest NPCs): they now can get wounded much like the hero, and can also gain stat upgrades over time. Also, hero upgrades will now get more expensive in adventuring points if your stats get above a certain level.

Plus - bugfixes, one new city quest, one new companion character type (the sergeant). Plenty more to do, but the 005 update will definitely have some decent additional content in it :)
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Re: Exile Princes Closed Beta Testing
« Reply #12 on: January 31, 2019, 11:46:18 PM »
Sounds great you'll have to give me the updated version at some point.

Jubal

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Re: Exile Princes Closed Beta Testing
« Reply #13 on: February 08, 2019, 10:14:59 PM »
Updated to show 005 as latest version.

New feature today - the map now has named regions which cover 1-3 screens. I'm not sure how useful this is but thought it might be kinda cool. There are also now deep forest screens which never spawn cities.
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Re: Exile Princes Closed Beta Testing
« Reply #14 on: March 09, 2019, 06:33:10 AM »
Hey Jubal, thanks for letting me in on the closed beta test! I just playtested version 006 and collected some problems to report:

1. Things got very weird after my hero went down to 1 hp, after I got the message that I'll die in 10 days if I don't get help. First I was unable to move, then when I press ESC (which triggers the exit message), the screen goes to a seemingly random area on the map without me and my troops in it. If I press N to stay in game, I still can't move.

2. The tutorial doesn't seem to work. I just get this:


Loving the concept of this game. Reminds me of something like Wasteland where you never know what you'd end up in every step. The discovery is quite addictive.