Note: All Bugs seen in version [0.751]. No bugs are copied over from the [0.75] thread unless I actually run into them again and take a new picture.It's only bugs from a single game so far. I'll update it when I play another game as a different starting Sov (till I've had a crack at each one for testing purposes.) Bugs from any new games I'll put in a new post so you don't have to keep rechecking the first post.
Pictures, with hopefully amusing comments, available here:
http://s40.photobucket.com/user/DrFranknfurter666/library/SK%200751%20Bugs
Major Bugs
SK Fortress cannot be attacked - see save
Shards can be consumed multiple times. (Resulting in suicide. Despite the description they most certainly increase the doomsday counter).
After encountering the SK fort all battles and map interactions produce the same prompt about needing a key.
Broken SK conversations. Repeated and repetitive, with incorrect text, bonuses and rewards. I had one conversation giving two or three reward pages then repeating in a couple of turns. The rewards listed did not match the selected dialogue options.
Minor Bugs
Units can move into enemy tiles during the battle result pop-up. Allowing for stacking with goodie huts/dens/enemy armies:
Heroes still get injured on top of the 10 Doomsday points on death. Despiite Patch notes on steam reading:
Unit turn order icons often incorrect, ignoring units or indicating the wrong number of moves. e.g. here A unit 2x as fast is shown having (3, 2, 0...) 5 turns while the slower unit is shown 9 times. The Second image the sole Warlord unit isn't shown at all on the turn order.
Missing Content
Lieutenants missing description (cut short) and ability icons/abilities in general.
Misc_Shrill missing text and description
Warlock and Warlord share icon (but not model).
(Additional items can be found in the Photobucket library for 0.751 bugs listed at the top.)
Skill-bugs
Naphaz the warlord skill tree:
ShadowSoul:
Unit Behaviour/Balance Comments
Endless loops and random ability use. Enemies are dumb.Trogs use battlecry on an endless loop (most units seem to use abilities as soon as possible irrelevant of the situation). Should never cast it when it's the only unit left. Much like spiders should never cast web... ever. It's almost never going to benefit them.
Both Lieutenants are desperately sad, pathetic boss battles. They can be kited to death due to them having very very low initiative, movement and disliking ranged attacks. (the fire one never used his spell when attacking him). I killed both lieutenants with a single unit, taking no damage from one lieutenant. The other did 4 damage from one weak spell and killed a single summon that I used to test the lieutenants physical attack strength. They wander around aimlessly and project no threat or sense of panic. They have no motives, desires, the description text is cut short and I don't care about or fear them at all. Nor do I have any other option of swaying them (e.g. getting on good terms with a fire/ice minor to 'talk' them to death or threatening to kill said minor if they don't hand over the key. Or killing said minor to enrage them and get them to attack my capital.)
Pathfinding is still annoying. Units will use all their tactical moves to attack a unit, walking the slowest and most convoluted paths to reach the enemy in tactical. On the strategic map pioneers are suicidal and don't like taking the safe route (e.g. two paths around a mountain, they'll go for the path going through enemy territory, ending turn adjacent to enemy camps.
It's possible to win the game using a single hero, no trained units, no sovereign battle spells. I don't think this is intended. I should probably try a game where I keep the hero confined to the capital to encourage me to test normal units... but I really don't want to. Normal units are about as dull and uninteresting as testing a dozen plates of Sprouts, Sprout soup, Crispy sprouts and shredded sprout salad. (I hate sprouts).
Unit abilities have terrible, terrible balance. Half I used once and realised they were awful so never used again. I shouldn't need to list them all. But can if it's desired. It's really not an isolated issue of one lone bad skill/spell/trait. The others are amusingly overpowered (But I found them to be useful exploits for a quick test-game and about the only fun thing that kept me interested.)
Enemies... I still think it's sad that you go around murdering random humans and their pet dogs. With the 'immaterial resources' surely murder could give you some negative resource while dealing with them some other way. (E.g. a 'talk' action in combat) could give you other resources.
Shards... the shard attacks are still annoying. Enemies suiciding against them is very strange (and the unit model gets stuck on top of the shard). I had most enemy waves suddenly ignore shards and go directly for cities... which came as a bit of a surprise. (Wiping out the undefended city that was otherwise never attacked). The SK minions feel... lifeless and mindless. Perhaps if all those giant stacks of instantly created enemies had to carve their way though neutrals first it'd slow them down and make it seem like they were a little more 'real', actually interacting with the map. A short list of things that bug me: Instant creation, teleporty move animations, instant death against shards and having only... 4 targets? makes them feel mindless. (Cities, shards, rally point? and if you're next to the SK fort - you). Combined with a lack of tactical AI they just seem... soulless.
The land-warping harvest and damage spells... these really need to have some other visible effect on mechanics beyond the doomsday counter. Without any benefit to 'happy' terrain (e.g. spawning neutrals, either to farm for loot or to defend against the SK minions), there's no real downside to the spell. And the doomsday increase can be undone with a spell or event making rushing crafting options extremely easy.
The... sad little doomsday reducing spell. I feel it totally undermines a core game mechanic. I could bring the doomsday counter down to 0 with so little effort. I kept it high just for testing, but there was no feeling of fear or danger on the way up to 'end-of-the-world'. More tactile feedback, hostile terrain spreading and the SK starting to cast big magic or gain large passive boosts to troops would be nice. e.g. Give units like darklings stats that feed off the doomsday, or have all enemy units gain buffs fighting in shadowlands. Or have the SK unlock new abilities at certain doomsday thresholds (but not lose those abilities if the doomsday is reduced.) e.g. have a minimum doomsday *Floor* that increases as you or he destroy the world/corrupt terrain.
Neutrals and SK conversations? The neutral faction text seems completely different to the SK/standard quest text. I see a big info-dump of backstory without the jokes. Also the writing feels a little... ugly. I'm not sure why. Also dull and lacking choices, or *informed* choices and some log of what was said if you want people to remember it all. (I'd like shorter, more interesting and dynamic conversations with the backstory available all the time via descriptions on their home city/diplomacy/quest screens.) The 'please wait x turns to talk again' is a terribly ugly placeholder mechanic. The icon for all the minors isn't in and all of them are squished, with the wrong aspect ratio as though they're trying to fit into a box half the width of the window.
Graphical Glitches
Item descriptions off:
Duplicate recipe unlocks shown:
Circles in tactical map:
Lingering Particle effect in FOW:
Movement above 10 reads as “11...” rather than e.g. 11/13:
Doomsday counter doesn't reset on starting new game:
Turns left on cooldown for abilities updates/displays incorrectly:
Ability range visual is set for the unit location when clicked. Not actual location (if a unit is moving). (visual bug only, I think):
Drain Fertility description correct, but all other new spells say -10 doomsday counter incorrectly:
New spells also show terrain code rather than descriptions:
Harvesting Fertility doesn't corrupt centre tile:
Bump. Added pictures and updated.
Great feedback, sir And please, if you could go into detail on what works/dosent work (from a player perspective) with current battle abilities, it'd be most appreciated. Many abilities were hooked up with an intended second-pass (as many passes as we can give them, actually).Detailed feedback on which ones you 'used once then shelved', along with those that you feel are currently overpowered, would be great to add to our internal discussions!
Sure, a detailed breakdown of unit abilities then. Let's start by jumping into that 'unable to attack the SK' save.
I've a level 17 Warlord. With 4/7 Shards.
The Overpowered:
Correction "4 + 1 per controlled shard damage". What is that in practice? Am I supposed to keep count of my shard number? What if it's resisted? Did 20-30 damage to all enemy units. (100+ total damage). 1 Unit resisted and took 0 damage.
Dark Spread - Doesn't tell you the damage but after seeing it in action it's good. 25-30 damage to all enemy units, can be spammed by alternating with Correction.
Strategic - Doombringer. Adds lots of movement (i.e. free strategic turns), initiative (i.e. free combat turns) and attack (free damage and counterattack damage). Far more than it should be doing. At 320 doomsday it adds +3 initiative (tooltip says +1). Attack tooltip also doesn't mention doombringer. Movement says it adds +1 doombringer +0.4 agility... obviously both are wrong but the end result is a total move of 13... which reads as 10.
Critical Strength + Critical Leech + multi-target spells = stupidly huge amounts of health restored each and every shot.
Shadow Soul. +HP lots of HP. I've got 100 max so can tank lieutenant punches if I wanted to.
The Powerful but less spammable:
Arcane whip. Tooltip when attacking reads "Does 31 damage with 30% resist chance to a single target." No mention of damage range or effect of resisting. Actually did 42 damage... so it's obviously effected by other things.
Warg Spirit - Great. fun and overpowered but also unnecessary. The warg is so slow enemy archers get 2 turns before it acts. (The battle should have been over turns before that, considering the Warlord can reach 2-3 turns per archer turn). The Unholy howl ability does get my Warlord up to initiative of 46 which is fun but unneeded. Also good as chaff and a troop buff. If you needed an army or chaff that is.
Sounds powerful but isn't currently:
Deadly Favour. Interesting in theory. But sacrificing 1 turn and some health for 5 slightly faster turns and a tiny increase in damage is pathetic.
Nightmare - stun all enemies with ? resist chance and effect. Sacrifice health, waste a turn that could be spent killing things. Useful only if you have two big armies fighting. Otherwise just kill the enemy already.
Form of mist - Invulnerable to attacks... that'd matter if I was getting attacked. Punishes having a high initiative (runs out before the enemy get more than 1 or 2 attacks in, maybe not even 1 in a Lieutenant battle). If the turns were absolute (e.g. 5 theoretical turns of an invisible 20 initiative unit) then it'd be useful defensively. As is it's both ridiculously powerful, odd and unneeded. Really it should stop you attacking or moving and provide a variable health boost and a % damage reduction. e.g. 5+shards health per turn for 5 'combat rounds' providing 80% damage resistance.
Strategic - Wasteland scavenger. You'll be rolling in loot anyway. Considering all the SK minions drop loot and he spawns hundreds of the blasted things. I had 33 rows of loot, 12 collumns so that's 330 + 66 = 396, call it 400 loot items left over after crafting lots of stuff.
Useless:
Drain life. Does 6! damage. 3 if resisted. No variable component makes it much worse than a basic attack.
Overwhelming fear. A tiny, army-size limited debuff. Another wasted turn.
Shadow shift. Another worthless spell. It's the darklings spell for heaven's sake. The battlefields are so small there's never any need or reason for swapping places with anyone only it's worse than the darklings since it involves self-harm.
Soul Rend. A melee 10 damage spell that's both a terrible summoning spell (can only summon a unit when next to an enemy at <10 health) and also worse than a standard attack. 10 unmodified damage, not taking into account level, shards, base attack or enemy stats. Also a wasted turn.
Psychopathos - provides a weak, low initiative unit. With no useful abilities (unlike the warg which has 25% more initiative and a solid buffing ability).
Death lash - sacrifice a turn and a unit. Why would you do that? Ever?
For reference a standard attack does 15-31 damage to a trog.
Wonderful, thanks! Iteration is the key to getting this stuff right, so this kind of dissection is invaluable. I'll go through an try to tighten these abilities up, but one disagreement I want to bring up...I found Shadowshift, as a early pick, to be very enjoyable. tactical positioning is something you can always make use of (and just because the Darkling has it dosen't make it un-interesting). Nothing feels better than shifting an enemy into a planned swarm of your forces, or finding your Warlord on the front line with low HP and shifting with a friendly for a clutch save.
I find shadowshift one of the... weak support abilities. It isn't going to win a battle on its own, it'd be great on any other weak unit in large army battles but on that guy? Also it hurts you, so the 'retreat' option is actually a very bad idea. Coupled with his high movement, there's little need to waste a turn moving instead of moving and attacking.
Also the fact that any strategy you base around it can be messed up by, and done better by, the extremely common darklings. Well that makes it look quite sad in comparison.
Red tile issue remains, this seen on loading the save mentioned in the OP:
Units still stack onto the same tile in battle: (it's hard to see because they share the same model, but notice only one of the two is targettable via the unit order on the left).
Bug: Mana upkeep costs are removed before mana income is added. So casting a spell with the minimum amount of mana causes it to be instantly lost on clicking end-turn. e.g. I had 20 mana, +3 income, cast tireless march, now 0. I had +3 mana and 0 unit enchantments the next turn.
Another order of events bug. The unit information panel updates upon clicking attack, not after the lengthy animation.
Sovereign spell escape costs no mana. (maybe more spells too... shows how rarely I've used them). [edit] Seems I had an amulet of sorcery, I thought it only modified unit spells. Perhaps the UI could clearly show which it effects and list the actual price of spells accordingly. (show -100% in tooltip... why -130%? it doesn't add mana)[edit 2] - Also I'm unable to cast spells that cost 0 mana in battle, if I don't have the full, original cost of the spell in the bank.Death lash can't target heroes, but has no mention of that oddity in the description.
Master stealth ability does not work. Attacked despite being in an army of 1 where all units have master stealth.Beautify tile has no eligible targets. (that I could find, surely someone managed to cast it in testing?)Raise Land can't target: Oceans, Blue fissure, Arctic, swamp etc. Also I have two copies of it, neither of which are world-spells.
Had 4x events in a single turn from 'apathy', 'indifference', 'hope' etc (one bug). One of which took -50 mana and I had -11 mana, (second bug)
Adding equipment to an army updates the battle rating a turn later.
Hit by two crippling shots... which both lack a description or helpful tooltip. The net effect was I had to watch the enemy take a few dozen pot-shots at my unit for a very long time (I had two turns for each enemy turn so that's skipping 10-20 turns). I survived... but the skill is probably broken in some way. (+crippled popped up after each action of mine until the end of battle, but didn't stop me moving after the first few minutes of the battle.)
Amusing one. My Peregan has no base initiative. I'm not sure when he lost it, or how. But it could have been related to the silly cripple shot bug. A 15 point initiative loss has certainly crippled him. Start a battle to see the crippled effect on him. Save hereThere's something amusing about the self-imposed challenge of fighting the sorcerer king alone with a crippled Peregan.
I had 3 neutrals turn enemy with me on one turn with no prior warning (it's so early I haven't even met them yet).
Unclaimed shards block unit movement, claimed shards do not.
Blank event:
On battlefield, Heroes with Maul ability when they use it, it is taking effect at the swarm level, so every unit attacks. This may be as intended but I believe just the unit with that ability should be the one continuing to attack.
Imperial Enforcer missing description:
Asking neutrals for crafting recipe gives blank reward screen:
Crafting shows dead troops as possible targets (poor bailey just bit the dust to a turn 16 swarm of trog archers, gloves turn up in equipment inventory so it's just a display bug):
Natures counter provides 1 per level food. City level reads 4. Total food given= +2:
Warlock army trapped in stone (technically a shadow hill) from consume forest/mountain spells cast next to him. Tile now impassable:
OK, should I post the bugs/glitches I've found here or on the Steam forum? Little confused but I'll repost here to make sure I'm getting them reported.
Guardian Sovereign
The Guardian Sovereign has two identical abilities. The Fertility and Revive Land abilities give the same spell, "Revive Land". However, Fertility only takes two picks to get and Revive Land takes five. Seems...odd.
Help Menu
Under "Game Concepts" there are goodie huts. In game, they are called treasure chests. Probably should be consistent (the picture in the Help shows a treasure chest, not a hut).
Also, in the help menu, Units is actually displaying Monsters and Monsters are displaying units. Should be swapped.
Also in the help menu, under "Game Concepts->Pioneers", it should probably say you need to be six tiles away from a city to build a city rather than relying on the tooltip.
Suggestions
I'm color-blind and some of the greens are too close to tell what is settlable and what isn't. If you could make it so that land you can settle on stands out a bit more or is not quite so close to the other shades, that would be great for us color-blind folks.
Also, it would be nice in the crafting window to actually see all your ingredients you have, rather than having to go into equipping units to see.
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