Game Development: Truffle Snout

[jordancoles]

The maneuver change hurt more than it helped, I will say that

You'd likely be better off reverting the change and then working on the combat system as a whole later on. I feel like keeping it in place and then changing combat with it in mind would just complicate things more and as it currently stands people are having a hard time completing even beaver dungeons with smaller groups.

[replikant8]

Revert the combat change as it's just completely broken at the moment. Players being at an advantage for having lower ua and impossible bat caves are really bad. It's making non-faction players struggle even more as well.

[Kyline]

Thanks for this patch and the one with Chef Credo too.

I just want to say that my pig did not hearth with me like normal (and seemed to completely disappear) I am not sure if he was running to a truffle or not at the time I hearthed but it was disheartening not to be able to find the pig again.

[dafels]

Is the client rewrite still far from done or what? I undrrstand it is a big project, but it is taking too much time, I would rather see some new interesting stuff being added to the game

[UzU123]

Thanks for this patch and the one with Chef Credo too.

I just want to say that my pig did not hearth with me like normal (and seemed to completely disappear) I am not sure if he was running to a truffle or not at the time I hearthed but it was disheartening not to be able to find the pig again.

Chef credo is amazing bruh, I've been doing it for 1 week and haven't finished it yet since every quest I get is to study a dark heart or a rainbow shell. I don't even want to mention how many quests for this credo I've abandoned so far.

Previous combat system was better than the one we have now.

[azrid]

Community feedback is damn near pointless.

translation: My exact ideas don't get added so its pointless.

Remember they are just 2 people.

[jorb]

Is the client rewrite still far from done or what? I undrrstand it is a big project, but it is taking too much time, I would rather see some new interesting stuff being added to the game

I agree, but I also feel that we're too invested in it by now not to finish it. If I had known that this would take this long I would never have gone for it.

[Ardennesss]

A change we made in an attempt to alleviate oft recurring player complaints about the abuse of the combat maneuvers, i.e. trying to listen to feedback. I agree that this is sub-optimal, and perhaps it should simply be reversed, but our plan is also to try adressing combat more generally again, which make adjustments back and forth less appealing. A broader approach to combat is a somewhat bigger project, however, and one which we have tried and failed at before, which is currently being blocked by the client rendering rewrite.

Yes, you put the change in place in an attempt to satiate player complaints about using alts in combat, good move. On paper, the change looked like it would alleviate the problem entirely which is what you were going for. But when players tossed it around back and forth a few times, tried it out in practice, and realized that it was a step backward overall - we asked you to adjust. Nobody is asking you to completely redesign the combat system right this second, we're asking for you to revert one specific mechanic change, or at the very least revert it for PVE so it stops punishing people outside the PVP realm. I'm aware that a full combat rewrite is a future goal, but I don't understand why because you're planning to rebuild it that means we should just live with a busted system currently.

I agree, and we intend to abolish shields alltoghether in favor of a more naive system more akin to Legacy's. This is a somewhat bigger project, however, which ...

So the intent is to redesign sieges at some point in the future and revert to a system more like Legacy, this is the type of communication that shows the community what direction the game is going.

Oh fuck off. I have the ambition to respond to every damn C&I and bug thread -- I realize that I have a massive backlog -- and I try to respond to every PM I get in somewhat of a timely fashion. I may miss some, but poke me again if I do. I do a monthly two hour stream where you can ask and have discussed live any question you dare ask. I have a massive list that I maintain of nothing but player suggestions, and on an average patch at least 50% of the changes are player driven. I'm sure we could do more, and be more timely, but give me a break. I cannot write a full page essay on every thing I comment on, and most ideas are simple enough not to merit more input. "Will consider" literally means I put it on my list and bring it up to our discussion table during some dev session. Realize that you are asking me to spend more time on meta-work that does nothing to advance the cause of the actual game.

"We are only two people" is also a meme at this point. Yes, I'm asking for more meta-work that does nothing to advance the actual game - in the interest of keeping the active player count up and improve overall communication. Literally all this point was asking for was for you to publicize "the list" so that it can be opened up for community feedback on changes that you intend to make in the future, ahead of the actual change. A point that leads into the following:

Presently we are focusing on another oft recurring player complaint, which ruined a significant portion of the experience at the beginning of this world, namely client performance. Perhaps that is wrong, and perhaps we could do something about the thing you return to -- reverse it if nothing else -- but what you have top of mind and what I have top of mind are bound to be two different things. I think of the game in terms of broad scope development, and when I know I will have to look over the entire fighting system again, and when I for that matter do not grind bat dungeons, those things are not my biggest concern, and I frankly don't think that they can or should be. I have to triage pretty hard among the things I want to do with the game. This thing you're hung up on is on my list, and since you've asked so nicely I'll even try to remember to look at it.

I agree wholeheartedly that the number 1 "big project" right now should be client performance. It makes everything multiplayer oriented in this game very difficult to do, and I haven't talked to anyone that disagrees that this shouldn't be the highest priority. However, repeatedly since the rewrite started you've stated that Loftar was the one working on the rewrite, and you were working on the weekly patches. Is the maneuver change something that requires Loftar to revert? If that's the case, that's fine, but that's information that also hasn't been communicated. Should the inability to do bat dungeons take a top spot and require immediate dev attention? No it shouldn't, however the changes made combat more difficult for everyone across the board at all levels of the game. Slimes are now even harder to deal with than they were before, which is saying a lot. The Low-tier "end-game" content that is beaver dens also became a lot harder for the average joe, and that's ignoring the nearly impossible infinitely spawning white beaver rooms.

Same complaint as number two. Again, 50% of the items on a patch list a player inputs. I mean, I agree that I will never implement a thing if I disagree with it on principle regardless of how much democracy is arrayed against me, but it is not true that I do not care what people think or say. This is certainly our creative venture, however, and I don't think you have any conception of what the alternative would even be.

Okay, you care, the input just holds no value. If this game is still just a hobby for you and Loftar that you spend your free time on like it was in Legacy then fine, just state that so people stop trying to take it seriously and help with development. For some reason I was under the impression that we had transitioned to a stage of gave development where the community can help mold the game into something that is fun to play for everyone, which would require leaving your comfort zone and being open to suggestions that don't fit your "model" output of this project. I'm not proposing that you open up suggestions that are clearly out of scope like adding cars or motorcycles or something that clearly doesn't fit within the Germanic lore that you have going on here, but flexibility, especially quality of life changes, needs to happen in my opinion. Adding a timer to the "empty button" on things like granaries is an example of a "quick win" that unless I'm mistaken, would be trivial to implement and yet have great benefit to the community.

I don't dislike the game, nor do I think that anything I suggest should be immediately implemented. I'm simply lobbying for community communication as a whole and a more open development concept. Look how often the "world reset when" question pops up, in an actually serious fashion. People keep asking because they weren't here one of the other 15 times you answered the question on a platform not conducive to widespread communication, such as on stream or in a small forum thread. I just think a lot of the community ebb and flow is fixable in a way other than resetting every 6 months to "keep everyone happy." This world has maintained a strong player base a lot more effectively than previous worlds in spite of how long it has gone on, and that's a testament to the staying power of the game as a whole.

[azrid]

Some examples of foods.



I also got a lot of truffels very fast. My pigs kept zooming around running from one spot to other.
I would suggest turning down the frequency.

[UzU123]

Another example of glorious truffel buff called 'WILL"

And this is before the buff:


I used ql 38 truffel