SOTW 0.79 - First Act Beta preview!

[jack1974]

I've also fixed two big plot bugs that probably only a few people found... because to reproduce them in practice you need to advance the story and IGNORE the sidequests. Then at one point, early chapter 3, Vaelis splits from the party. Before, you could do the sidequests, but that would lead to funny situation where Vaelis isn't in the party and yet shows up during the quests. But the best is later, when

Spoiler:

Althea or Shea (the "other" sibling) is held captive, you can free roam with Vaelis a bit, to investigate the wolf shack, and the same bug could happen. Althea is held captive in dingirran's camp and hop, shows up nearby you during the sidequests

So in practice you need to do the sidequests within the first 4-6 days of the story. I think I'll add in the quests description a warning to prevent the player from failing them

[Alex81]

!!!! I can't wait! (another four minutes of download)

Celso ? You made my weekend ^-^ (Elder Scrolls will need to wait)

[jack1974]

Lol thanks for the compliment

[Franka]

Hmm what are your system specs ? Here on a i3-2120 3.30Ghz with an Ati Radeon 4670 and 8Gb RAM runs fine even if I keep opened photoshop, thunderbird, firefox and couple more.
Not trying to brag or anything, I want to get an idea on which computers the game has problems to see what I can do to optimize it thanks

Ah also if you go in option and choose transition -> None, the speed on the map improves?

Intel 2 quad core Q8200 2.30 GHz with ATI Radeon HD 5700 and 4 GB RAM.

Transitions off make it run much better, yes.

[jack1974]

OK the specs should be fine. In the latest update I also made several tweaks that improve speed too

[Troyen]

Looks like a lot of people are just posting issues in this thread. Is that what you'd like us to continue doing, or would you prefer separate topics for things we find (e.g. a list of typos)?

[Troyen]

All right, I'll go ahead and start posting here anyway. Some of these might not be worth your time, but I just tried noting down everything I saw. (Disclaimer, this was written from the perspective of American English; I'm not sure how all of the rules change in British English.)

In version 0.7.7:
In General:

• This game is eating my laptop's battery, even when it's in the background. I think Loren wasn't quite as power-hungry, but it's been a while since I tested 100%->0%. Might be a RenPy issue.
• I liked the main menu theme. I had to listen to it for a couple hours while compiling this.

Class Selection:

• Clicking "Back" from the class selection page goes to the difficulty selection page instead of to the Althea/Shea selection page (and if you say that's because the Althea/Shea page has no back button, well, the difficulty selection page doesn't either! Not that it needs one.).
• Second sentence has a pair of mistakes: "You can also change your twin brother's class but he can't be the same as yours." (Same with sister's and she when selecting Shea.)
• Nitpick: The hunter description says they excel at ranged weapons, but the ranger has the bow and arrow icon. (To be fair, I immediately thought "that's a ranger!" when I saw the bow and arrow icon.)
• In the ranger's description, "two handed" should have a hyphen two-handed to avoid ambiguity with two weapons.
• In the hunter's description it talks about "regain balance" as a class benefit, but I don't know what that means at this stage (I'm up to the attributes page). I assume it's some combat mechanic I'll learn later. (If it's too much to describe at this stage maybe it's better to just omit it?)
• In the druid's description, it should read "remove negative conditions from party members"
• Nitpick: In the "Please click the icons..." the "please" isn't necessary, and doesn't show up in most of the other instructions (so far).
• The second sentence at the bottom should either read "go to the previous screen", though honestly, I think you could just delete this sentence. Hopefully the "Back" and "Next" buttons are self-explanatory and it's just extra text on the screen.

Choose Attributes:

• Constitution description should either say "Increases your character's durability" or just drop the 's and go with "Increases character durability". It's missing an article as it is.
• Same for the other attributes actually. Now that I see they aren't limited to two lines, I think "your character's durability" would be the better choice because I'm creating the character, but I suspect you reuse this text for all of the party characters.
• Constitution description: instead of "...will increase the HP amount by 5" where the "the" is slightly awkward, perhaps "...will increase maximum HP by 5"? Same comment for Will and SP.
• I just came from Diablo, so I might be reading the description wrong. When you say "increases threshold/resistances by 1%" is that 1% of my current threshold value (not shown) or is it additive (e.g., four points means I now have 2% resistance)?
• Strength description: just say "Threshold" instead of "Threshold value" like you do with resistances. (Or else say "the Threshold value" but that's more wordy).
• Seems to be a little button lag when clicking multiple times. If I quickly click say Constitution five times, the first click registers immediately, but the attribute will slowly count upwards to 15. It's not terrible, but dumping all my points into one stat results in the points being allocated for a few seconds after I've finished clicking. (Possibly a RenPy issue?)
• Aside: It's kind of hard to gauge the value of some of these stats on the opening screen. I do like how I can see my HP/SP change with allocation, but I lack a frame of reference for the other stats. For example, I'm sure speed will be super-important like in PS/Loren, but I don't know what 107 means (is that good? average?) nor how adding two points will make that better. I also can't see the secondary stats like critical hit chance, or resistance, etc probably because they would over-clutter the screen. I guess I can calculate them based off my current attribute values, but when I get gear there might be additional modifiers. I guess I'll see when I get to the game.
• Typo: The title says "Choose Althea Attributes" when I'm picking for Shea, after picking Althea's. I presume the opposite would be true as well ("Choose Shea Attributes" for Althea when selecting Shea.) The trait selection pages do this correctly.

Select Althea Trait:

• I thought I saw someone else mention this, but Morran is mentioned as Althea's father and all the pronouns refer to Morran as "she". "'One day,' he said" and "...his words would become true."
• Fighting goblin hunters trait: "Althea was able to overcome her fear..." Also, either "from the beating they had gotten" or "from the beating they received".
• Fighting goblin hunters trait: "That day, she was discovered to have" or "That day, she discovered she had".
• Fighting goblin hunters trait: I think "mental conditions" sounds a little better, though "mind conditions" isn't wrong.

Shea's Trait page looked OK.

Skills:

• As a general comment, the use of "the" is inconsistent between skill descriptions. Sometimes it's missing, sometimes it's there, so I'm not sure if you were trying to go for brevity. I'll assume not in these remarks.
• When I pick my skill, shouldn't it automatically go to the next page for me?
• There's a small skip in the music when I click a skill.
• Cripple: "Critically hits the target and cripples him/her, inflicting the slowed..."
• Invincible: "The immortal spirits of the forest bless the character's shield...
• Hawk Eye: "...increased by 10% of base value..." Something is off, but I'm not quite sure what.
• Strike Through: "Critically hits the target..." Also "two-handed" needs a hyphen.
• Wide Slash: "...hits all enemies in..." (delete "the" before "enemy") You also refer to the "frontline" here but "front row" elsewhere (like on Barrage).
• Healing Prayer: "Pray to the forest gods..." You can also reduce "who will recover 50%" to "for 50%" if you want.
• Barrage: The way this is worded makes it sound like if I use it on an enemy that has high resistance/defenses and they take very little damage, I will do 50% of that small damage amount to the adjacent enemies. Is this interpretation correct? (I'll test it out in the game later if I can.)
• Barrage: "Hits a single target with a ranged weapon...
• Guard: (Aside) I hated fighting against this in Loren. Good to know now I can annoy my enemies with it.
• Cross Cut: "if not a boss." Skipping the "a' is okay if you use parenthesis like you do on Critical Hit: "(if not boss)"
• Sweeping Strike: "two-handed" Okay, I'll stop pointing these out.
• Ward: Delete "the" before "elemental resistances"
• Hide in Shadows: "The character completely hides in shadows, doubling defense..." (delete "the" before "defense", "completely" also seems redundant)
• Critical Hit: This one is tricky because of the length. "The hunter critically hits a single target for 300% base damage. If hiding in shadows, the damage is doubled and the target paralyzed for 3 turns (if not boss)." (I hope that fits?)
• Bandage: Similar to Critical Hit, either "If the hunter is hiding in shadows" or just "If/While hiding in shadows". (The skill name is also Shadows plural, which makes more sense than hiding in a single shadow.) Also applies to Double Attack.
• Double Attack: You could simplify this to "Hits a single target twice...". Either way, need the "a" before "single target".
• Take Aim: I think this should be "at a whole row of targets".
• Take Aim: This skill reads as if I require 5 turns to take aim, rather than the damage bonus applying for 5 turns.
• Invigorating Prayer: "Pray to the forest gods..."
• Flaming Torch/Ice Flask/Backstab/Choke Nitpick: I think it should be "for 150% damage" and you need a "the" before the condition name.
• Perfect Balance: Delete "Perfect Balance skill" and just start with "Balances the..."

[Miakoda]

I really haven't had much time to play, but I'm having fun.

However, I also came across a few minor typos. Obviously, not as big to fix as bugs that crop up.

Original:
Announcer:
The first fight of a day is a two-on-two between...

Suggestion:
Change the 'a' before day to 'the'

Original:
Snow Tiger Pelt
A rare pelt from one of the fiercest animal in the area, quite valuable.

Suggestion:
'animal' should be 'animals'. Also, since you have other conditions as separate from the sentence, you might consider:
...in the area. Quite valuable.

Original:
Ruined Pelt:
A pelt from a common animal in bad conditions. Not worth much.

Suggestion:
Make 'conditions' singular into 'condition'.

Original:
Pelt
A pelt from a common animal in normal conditions.

Suggestion:
Once again, 'condition' instead of 'conditions'.

[nightshadengale]

-The map is WAY more responsive now--no lag issues at all anymore, even with transitions left on. Still seeing slight blurring with the sprites (as expected, since it didn't sound like you've changed that code at all). I've played a lot of Ren'Py games on this laptop in the past without seeing anything similar, so it seems odd that I'd need to turn transitions off for this game. It's also way more pronounced in the scene with Riley than it is later in the game.

-The item tabs on the merchant's inventory are a big improvement--but I still think the Sell button is too far away from your inventory. You can't double-click to sell things (which makes sense, since it's also an inventory screen), so there's a lot of extra mouse movement involved in selling multiple items.

-The addition of checkmarks for party members who can use an item makes it much more obvious. However, I noticed that the green/red highlighting on the merchant's inventory indicating whether the selected party member can use each item seemed bugged. Often some pieces of equipment wouldn't have a highlight, and I think there may have been a couple times where an item the selected character could use was highlighted in red or vice-versa.

-The text for checking the traps is much more natural now, but sometimes it jumps right to "select your party" without any text. Is that intentional? (It feels perfectly natural from a gameplay perspective, but I wanted to confirm that it's not a bug where an attack alternate dialogue never plays.)

-I've seen some interesting item names coming from the random generator--"Rusty leather shawl" and "Fine steel breezy leather leggings."

-The first time I tried to leave the city with Vaelis, I got a scene where he warned us that we might want to rest first because we were so weak--but my party's HP/SP totals were around 60%/100%, 95%/100%, 100%/40%.

-Even if you choose to talk to the ratman rather than attacking, everyone will talk as if you fought when he invites you to return.

-I still think the "Click to Continue" button after a battle could benefit from the application of some responsive design principles--make it taller when there's space!

[Troyen]

Well, I entered the game...and promptly decided to check out the party menu.

Some of the questions I had about attributes are answered on this screen, but I left my first post unedited because it was my "new user" experience.

Version 0.7.7, the Party Screen:
General Remarks:

• I can see my whole party! It was interesting encountering 14 different characters in Loren, but honestly, scrolling through each character on the inventory screen was kind of a pain. The SotW screen is a definite improvement already.
• That said, the Resistances section needs some work. I recognize the icons, but only because I've played through Loren three times. Even so, I don't really recall what the "Tired" condition did. Not sure how you could convey this information without overloading the screen. Loren had a pop-up tooltip (I think), but that would seem out of place in this UI.

Attributes:

• Why does Shea start the game at 45/49 on both HP/SP while Althea is full? Is this intentional? (I think this might be the wagon trait I picked - I did the "touch his face" option. Shea is a hunter with 8, 8, 8, 12, 12, 6 for attributes and the critical hit skill.)
• I like how I can click on "Attack" or "Defense" and get a description of what the values do. I wish I could've seen this when picking initial attributes as I was guessing on how you calculated damage.
• Hit Points: "represent the character's health" Actually, "a" might work too (and in some of those other "_ character's" places).
• Threshold: "Each hit taken increases a counter. If the threshold level is reached, the character will..." (or similar phrasing)
• Critical Hit: The way this is worded implies a 5% critical hit attribute doesn't mean I have a 5% chance to critically hit. If it is my actual critical hit chance, you can cut all the stuff about "numerical representation" and just say "Critical Hit is the character's chance to inflict a critical strike..."
• Magic: Should say "spell effectiveness" (singular because English is confusing like that).
• When no stat is selected: "...to read more information (singular) about it." (or just drop the "about it" part).
• When no stat is selected: I think "On the left are the attributes" and "On the right are the resulting stats..." work better. The comma is out of place.
• When no stat is selected: "parenthesis" has an h. Actually, this whole sentence is a little awkward. You could probably simplify it to: "On the right are the resulting stats, with the effects of equipped items in parenthesis." or something like that.

Inventory:

• Loren did this too, but at a glance it's confusing to see if I'm equipping a two-handed sword or two swords. Perhaps the weapon icon in the offhand box could be faded slightly?
• The Party Inventory (not sure what you call this) doesn't appear until I click on one of my equipment slots when I change tabs and change back to Inventory.

I'll try to stop nitpicking, but I think the very first line of the game (from the announcer) needs a comma after "sirs".