[Feedback] Colonies and PvP - Dev Diary

[Ozzymandeus]

I have also picked up several of the new "totally blank space" adventures. So until BB fix that bug no more wasted adventure searches.

Let's see:

Island economy - wrecked by ill conceived resource sink event, risk of locked zones from moving buildings.
Explorer searches - bugged
PvP - buggy, unbalanced and with pathetic rewards
Adventures - riddled with new bugs (looping attack animations, garrison rebuilding several times), horrible new intrusive "info" elements and horrendous lag.

So what's left? rebuilding mines and not much else.
I admit I'm addicted to this game, but with *nothing* to do I'm quickly kicking the habit

You could buy some gems in the MEGA HAPPY HOUR!

But seriously, it would be impossible for me to agree more with every word you have said here Jim_B... although I would add that, for some of us at least, even rebuilding mines is a pain in the backside because the Geologists are bugged too.

Why on earth anyone would want to invest in this bug fest right now beggars belief!

[idanar]

I have also picked up several of the new "totally blank space" adventures. So until BB fix that bug no more wasted adventure searches.

Let's see:

Island economy - wrecked by ill conceived resource sink event, risk of locked zones from moving buildings.
Explorer searches - bugged
PvP - buggy, unbalanced and with pathetic rewards
Adventures - riddled with new bugs (looping attack animations, garrison rebuilding several times), horrible new intrusive "info" elements and horrendous lag.

So what's left? rebuilding mines and not much else.
I admit I'm addicted to this game, but with *nothing* to do I'm quickly kicking the habit

Totally agree!! You can count the same conclusions from me!

[Vystress]

Just built Armory and Academy for curiosity sake. So, to conquer a large colony which produces a whooping 262 coal/6 hours (note: my buildings produce 8k every 12 hours), I have to train troops who require tons of steel, iron and coal?!!!! Let me just reach for my credit card, BB...

[HawkNZ]

I never got to try out Colonies on test, so am testing it now on the live server

Feedback no. 1

Why are there tabs in the combat academy?

It's confusing lots of people on help who overlook them and can't find the heavy troops. There's also no need to use separate tabs since there's so few troops types and so much room in the interface window. Overdesign of the interface has resulted in a bad final product.

Evidence that it's a problem copied from help (I'll post them as I see them, but there were at least 4 I saw earlier):
[22:56] [MVA] TeutaBgd: where do i train heavy infantry? tnx
[23:42] [WoN] freier: does any1 know where can i train some heavy infantery?
[15:29] [Dinos] Iohs: can anyone tell me how to make Heavy infantry please?
[16:49] [PhR] danny12: how do i make heavy cavalavlry
[22:18] [PhR] danny12: yea i have 1 of them but can only make 3 different troops

Feedback no. 2

The Marshall Interface is awful.

A button asking you to select units, taking you to another screen where you click on some unit types, then returning you back to the previous screen where you finally select the number of those units you actually want to put on your marshall?

Who dreamed that up?


Feedback no. 3

Marble to make medi-kits? What?

Are we hitting marshals across the face with a brick to try to wake them up? Seriously, this just smacks of trying to make the Colonies system into a resource sink that absorbs as many different resources as possible.


Opinion so far: regretting investing resources into the buildings and weapons. Let's see what the returns on investment are...


Feedback No. 4

First attack done. Wasn't real-time as lag was so bad I had no idea what was going on until the fight finished. Not sure what the 2nd fight will be like where I have to switch troops during combat... Also, why no combat report?

Basically, I have no idea what just happened and got no entertainment value from it at all. Which should be the main point of a game...

Feedback No. 5

Weird thing happening in the main Colonies interface from the home island. I click the globe button and can see my training expedition. If I click "show details" a screen comes up saying that there's nobody playing the (one-player!) expedition and I'm giving the option of inviting one of my friends along. Haven't dared do it as I don't know what "exploiting" this bug would do. Looks like there's a programming error here somewhere.

Feedback No. 6

Tutorial quests aren't very well written. I need cavalry for my 2nd attack, yet the tutorial system only told me to make archers and infantry. A tutorial shouldn't leave you having to go back and make more troops like that.


Opinion has not improved much since first impressions...

Feedback No. 7

So, I made new weapons and then new troops so I could take some cavalry back for the first boss camp. Lag wasn't so bad, so I could see what was going on and was able to swap troops round. It was a little bit of fun, but not much. Certainly not enough that I prefer "realtime" over "fire and forget". And it's all a little imprecise. I'm not convinced it's responsive enough and I don't know if I lost cavalry unecessarily when the enemy swapped from bows to melee.


Opinion has improved slightly, but now see it as a missed opportunity. This concept of "real-time combat" is not enough fun to justify the attention it requires. You've got to sit around and wait for your general to walk to the enemy camp, then watch the fight unfold. I like the simple strategy options that make it , but it should have been based around strategically setting up of troops in advance, then sending them off to fight their battle, and you can come back later and see how they've done. Real-time? Meh...

In summary: get rid of real time combat and make it so you set up your troops in advance then "fire and forget".

If I were to guess, I'd say real-time combat is a leftover from a time when this was going to be real pvp and you thought players would be able to swap new stacks of troops in and out on the fly in combat against one another. Then that idea got abandoned for being unworkable, but the real-time idea stayed for no good reason. Close guess?


Feedback No. 8

Either blocking is rubbish or the tutorial is badly done.

I blocked the second boss camp, as the quests suggested. In doing so, I lost 20 troops from the blocking marshall. I might have been able to lose fewer if I'd been quicker off the mark and the lag had been less, but I don't think I did too badly for a first attempt.

I just looked at the simulator and see that I could have attacked the camp and killed it with losses of only 7 troops (or maybe 12 if I've remembered the troop numbers in the enemy camp wrong).

So, either the blocking balance is way off or the way the tutorial is set up is rubbish. If you want to promote this idea of blocking, then the losses on doing a block should be significant less than attacking each camp in turn. Even similar amounts of losses would be understandable. But recommending doing a block that looses you around twice the number of troops is beyond ridiculous.

UPDATE EDIT: Just realised I may have been unfair here - blocking troops are cheaper to build than attack troops. So, I lost 20 Heavy Archers doing the block, but saved 7 (or 12) attack archers
HA cost = 3 xbow + 10 brew = 30 hardwood + 30 iron + 10 brew
AA cost = 6 bow + 10 brew = 60 hardwood + 60 iron + 10 brew

So, losses from block = 600 hardwod + 600 iron + 200 brew + 20 settlers
Losses from attacking = 420 hardwod + 420 iron + 70 brew + 7 settlers (or 720 hardwod + 720 iron + 120 brew + 12 settlers)

So, it the losses from the block vs attacking were about the same, depending on how good my memory of the expedition was.

I still think a tutorial should be set up to show a significant benefit for a recommended tactic over brute force, but at least it wasn't the complete failure I originally imagined.

In summary: not thought through enough. Return to balancing drawing board and start again

Feedback No. 9

Finished expedition (nothing new to report on the above experiences). Received loot mail with subject "[undefined text]". I thought this game was out of beta? Not impressed at all

Feedback No. 10
Loot = 3 star coins. THREE?! THREE?! You are having a laugh!

Either give a reward or don't give a reward. Don't insult players with something so ridiculous.

Feedback No. 11
Opened colonies interface, and there were options to build defences and claim colony - presumable from the expedition I had just completed.

Clicking "build defences" brought up an error message saying it had expired. Clicking "claim colony" brought up a spinning timer.

Clearly something has gone wrong. Don't know what. Don't really care at this stage. It's obviously an unfinished product that needs seriously reworking while on the live server or removal back to the test server. Presumably a lot of these problems have already been reported on the forums there. Time to not just (reportedly!) listen to feedback but actually act on it?

In summary: Apart from not being all that much fun, the system is bugged and unfinished. Final score: 1/10.

Feedback No. 12

Marshall's just returned home: [undefined text][undefined text]

And two of them couldn't find a landing spot

Still not impressed.

Feedback No. 13
Just working out how many resources I spent on this...
Troops lost
= 27 attack cavalry (AC), 20 heavy infantry (HI), and about 125 attack archers (AA)

(NB, currently the other 30 HI I made aren't showing up in my supply. Hopefully this is a display issue rather than a real bug and they've gone AWOL - UPDATE - the 30 HI have appeared again on my island. Seems it's a bug while they're in troop transport)

Resources to make troops
1 AC = 5 horse, 6 sabre (question: Why does one soldier need 6 swords? Always bugged me the way this game does that and though it might have been fixed with this new combat system. No such luck...)
1 AA = 10 brew, 6 bow
1 HI = 10 brew, 3 mace

Resources to make weapons
1 sabre = 12 iron, 10 coal
1 bow = 10 hardwood, 10 iron
1 mace = 1 steel, 4 coal

Total resources spent
60 steel (150 if my other 30 HI have gone AWOL)
1860 coal
7500 hardwood
9444 iron


The wood and coal are nothing to me. But an investment of 10K iron for almost zero return? Is this seriously considered a balanced tutorial experience?

Thanks to Gerontius for your valuable feedback, +1, I wholeheartedly agree

Plus, just 1 example of a not very thought out reward program,
-Small colony reward: 150 hardwood /6 hrs for 7 days = 4200 / 7 days , can buy 5,000 hardwood in TO right now for 150 coins. REALLY? you call this a reward? The whole reward system is a complete and utter fail

No idea why BB keeps referring to this as PvP , when do I get to actually fight another player? ummm haven't so far, haven't actually even seen another players name at all other than "player" instead of "bandit"

Atleast make this PVE somewhat inticing to play with a far better reward system sheesh

[Juhana_III]

Lots of good points in this thread. Time for BB to swifly ignore everything I guess.

[Nihilista]

The only good thing about this "PvP"-system is that you can ignore it.

[YedCogito]

Dear Santa 2,

this year I wish for X-mas an appointment with someone who makes me a little less cynical, because I have lost all hope for myself after the whole makeover, most people didn't want in the first place

yours,

YC

[Master-Tobi]

Done the tutorial expedition and 1 real 1
So far I feel:
confusing
increadibly expencive in resorces (to build the troops you lose)
reward sooooo little it is really not worth it

might try an other one

But I think that so called PvP is a big fail (and sadly it looks on the way lots of good old feature got broken as well)

[Gerontius]

Here is my second feedback thread of my experiences in preparing for a going on a proper expedition

(my tutorial feedback is here: http://forum.thesettlersonline.com/t...l=1#post269392 )

Feedback No. 1
Preparing a fixed number of troops is painfully hard.

I decided I wanted 150 of each of the attack troops and 100 of each of the blocking troops. Now, my maths is pretty good (to put it mildly), and I'm pretty attentive to these things, yet it took me three or four attempts to successfully achieve this goal.

I queued up the weapons I thought I needed, then came back 12 hours later and queued up the troops - only to find that I was short of weapons for one troop or the other. Ah, well, I thought, my mistake.

So I queued up the rest of the weapons I thought I needed, then came back 12 hours later and queued up the troops - only to find AGAIN that I was short of weapons for some of them - possibly my mistake, I thought, but starting to get suspicious now.

So I queued up the rest of the weapons I thought I needed (are you spotting the pattern yet), then came back 12 hours later and queued up the troops - only to find AGAIN!!?!?!? that I was short of weapons for some of them - seriously, I could not have got this wrong three times!!!

Now, I know some people have had bugs with the combat armoury, so maybe that's the problem. Or maybe it's the lag and setting up ~30 or more queues of weapons and troops went wrong somewhere and some got missed out. Or maybe it's jut the clumsy interface copied over from the barracks, WHICH PEOPLE HAVE BEEN COMPLAING ABOUT FOR TWO YEARS!!!

Basically, due to some unknown combination of player error, bugs, lag and a clumsy interface, it has taken me 2 days to complete the simple task of building an army of 750 troops.

So, in view of the above series of very valid problems with the system, my feedback on the new troop creation mechanism is entirely negative and can be summarised as follows

Making weapons in groups of 25 only is insanely poor given the years of bad feedback you've already received on this matter
Making troops in groups of 25 only is insanely poor given the years of bad feedback you've already received on this matter

I'm sure there are many solutions to this problem, but one really obvious one springs to mind: The PvP system needs only ONE production building.

This single production building can produce troops DIRECTLY from resources. There is no need to compliate matters by producing weapons first, then producing troops from those weapons. It just slows down and complicates the whole process unecessarily and compounds the effects of a clumsy interface by forcing you to use that interface twice.

But, despite these failings, I will persevere and finish a proper expedition!

Feedback No. 2

Got my selection of 9 colonies to attack from a short search. All of them appear to be occupied by other players as far as I can tell. Is that supposed to happen? Tutorial video suggested that there would always be a mix of occupied and unoccupied colonies to attack. I really wanted to attack an unoccupied colony on my first attempt. What's gone wrong?

Decided to go for the colony that produced iron in order to make a direct comparison between iron costs and income. Apparently, if I hold it for the week I will receive 4620 iron. Seems very small given that even the tutorial expedition cost me 10K iron.

Feeling a bit unsure of the value of doing this.

Feedback No. 3

"Conquer your first island" quest has yet more [undefined text]. These sorts of errors are pitiful.

Feeback No. 4

Really don't like the short time limit of 6 hours to conquer the colony. What if I get called away unexpectedly. Or just want to go to bed? Forcing me to play the expedition at a short timescale for no good reason just puts me off.

Feeback No. 5

Marshall interface seems to be bugging out. Takes several attempts for it to recognise which troops I want to select. It's a painful enough interface to use without having to try several times!

Feeback No. 6

I shouldn't have to "Choose my first unit" if there's only one unit on my marshall. That's lazy programming.

Feedback No. 7

It's official, I like the combat system, but NOT having to watch battles play out live. It's a nice simple mechanic with the opportunity for some strategy. BUT it's not complicated enough that I want to sit and watch every battle and be ready to swap troops in and out.

It really need to be changed so you can set your troops up as you like before you go into battle, then send them out with their orders, go and make a cup of tea, and come back to see how they did. This whole realtime combat is an epic failure in my view. It adds nothing except novelty value for a few attacks and forces you to play to the game's schedule, not your own.

I don't think I'll be bothering with colonies after this for that reason alone.

Feeback No. 8

Tried my first block - a three way attack. Was a total failure. As far as I can tell, it was a total failure due to a bug in the game. If not, it's some weird aspect of the interface that I have not worked out yet.

The problem was, I was unable to swap attacking units in and out on the boss camp during the fight for the first few rounds. This meant that, once my infantry killed the first wave of cavalry, they were massacred by the second wave of bowmen and there was nothing I could do about it. I lost significantly more troops than necessary and may not be able to finish the expedition now as a consequence.

Another reason not to have realtime combat - if the game bugs out or goes wrong, the player is helpless to do anything and just has to watch as his troops are killed through no fault of his own.

Summary of feedback: rubbish, rubbish, rubbish, rubbish, rubbish.

Feedback No. 9

Just finished the expedition, although was short of the perfect type of troop for the final battle so didn't go as easily as it should have. Lag on the blocking camp was still there, but not quite as bad as the first time, so I didn't lose anything extra as a result.

Next problem is in setting up defences: I want to be able to choose the order in which my troops go into battle if I'm to make use of the troops that do more damage against certain enemies. Seems to be no way to do this. Silly and obvious oversight and speaks to an unfinished product. Even if there is a way to do it, and I can't find it, it's a still a failure of the game design not to make it more apparent.

Feedback No. 10

I really like the summary report at the end of the expedition, even if it lacks details of specific battles. This is something I have seen people ask for on normal adventures for a long time. Please do the same sort of thing for normal adventures.

Summary of feedback: Finally something I actually like about PvP. Needs to be implemented ASAP on normal adventures!

Feedback No. 11

Loot received: 263 coal, 1170 iron, 1690 coal, 520 hardwood, 21 cavalry, 52 settlers, 500 wheat refill, 64 valour points, 13 star coins

Unit losses: 23 HI, 10HC, 10 HA, 143AI, 98AC, 74AA

Resources spent on troops: TBD

Update - decided I can't be bothered to work out the resources I spent on this. It doesn't really matter to me. The game is: you gather resources, you invest them in something fun. I didn't think either taking the colony or setting up the defences was fun apart from one or two small nuggets in a vast seam of bare grey rock. So I won't be bothering doing another expedition.

Feedback No. 12

The marshalls and expedition supplier are out of order in my star menu - split up by the explorers. This is a slightly annoying and easily fixed.

Feedback No. 13

Why does the colony yield clock stick? I finished the colony 8 hours ago, get up this morning and gather resources and find that although one cycle of resources had been delivered, the timer for the next cycle was still at 6 hours. It is now counting down again having opened up the colony interface

1st update: you have to actually click on the colonies button ever 6 hours to keep clock going.

2nd update: Thought this was a bug and I was getting less resources, but it seems not. The resources keep on accumulating after 6 hoursif you haven't collected them. It's just that after collecting them, you have to wait another 6 hours before you can collect any more. I'd describe that as a slightly useless and confusing feature, but not a bug!

Feedback No. 14

Lots have people have already complained about this, but thought I'd add to the mix - emails when your colony is attacked are so bugged as to be useless.

Received an email with [undefined text] telling me I'd lost the colony, then another email saying I'd defeated an attacker. The second appears to be the correct one, hooray!

Update: the details for the colony says i've been attacked 6 times, yet I've only received one email about it. Can't begin to guess what the bug here might be...

The first email came with 64 valour points and 13 star coins, which is a nice treat. Was that supposed to happen or is it part of the bug? Is defending your colony intended to be another source of income? If so, I really like that. BUT the options and abilities to defend your colony need to be better because they're currently rubbish as mentioned in my feedback above.

So, make defending a colony more fun and tactical and strategic and provide nice rewards and I'd probably play colonies for that aspect of it. But not as it currently stands.

Feedback No. 15

My colony got conquered today. Basically it's luck that someone decided to make a serious attack on it since there's not way to set up a serious defence. Major failing in the system, in my view.

And the mail bugs continue. First I get an email telling me I've won a colony and sending me a massive bunch of rewards (nice but wrong!) then I get an email telling me my colony has been conquered (true).

Shame that any gathered resources are totally lost as well. Would be a nice consolation prize that you can still gather one more click's worth of resources. No real reason not to offer that given the tiny amount that are on offer anyway.

Overall, I got more resources from apparently bugged emails when my colony was attacked than I got from taking and holding the colony! Points to a failure in the balance

Feeback No. 16

Glad colonies are optional as I won't be doing them again. I'll have to do one more to wipe out my remaining colony troops thanks to the mad decision to force people into having two parallel armies. But that's it for my feedback. Goodnight!

[Singaboy]

well said Gerontius. It defeats common sense, how badly this troops production is implemented. The weapon production of 25 per stack is incredibly frustrating. Top that with an insane iron consumption and you need to be almost masochistic to play this PvP. Why would anyone create such a system?