Lack of player feedback on game...

[Rudedawg]

For me one of the things I like most about this game is the development team. They have been very responsive to my queries - and the weekly livestream is awesome - how many gaming companies do that?

So for me, I would like to support this game's development as a player any way I can.

Besides purchasing influence, here are my initial thoughts about what I think you can do to improve the game;

1. I would love the ability to name my hero - I think one of the reasons why I don't play SC2 is because for me I don't feel any connection to the units. With DoF I think there's a real opportunity to define this game by hero abilities, and the ability to name them.

2. Chat is cumbersome, distracting, and imo in the wrong place. I would to see it like most games - in the bottom left, resizable, with varying transparancy.

3. Bottom portraits of unit selected. This is very frustrating - For example if I want to switch a peasant from one task to another - I like to select all of my peasants - go to the bottom see who is doing what and then reassign if necessary.

Well I don't know if it's just me - but right clicking, left clicking, trying to select along the bottom portraits does nothing for me.

4. Town Center should have it's own protrait in top left corner please or a hot key function. So I can click and get back to the town center quickly.

5. Font - I realize it's "stylish" but for me hard to read. I don't like it. Often times I am trying to figure out if 3's are 5's, numbers often collide" etc...

6. New Structure Announcement - many times I have a few buildings on the go - can we get an icon that flashes for 10 secs when a building is finished building that allows us to click and then go to that building right away - so we don't have to search for it?

7. Dragons - well personally I don't like them, like the chat their cumbersome to use - and to be honest when I'm playing a video game I want to have fun - walking or flying they don't go very far. They have to be micromanaged.

Some words of advise - that most game developers miss.

You game has to be fun.

When you implement something into the game ask yourself - is this fun?

So dragons, No thanks. As they are I won't be buying or using them. Which is going to put players who are willing to micromanage at an advantage over me. Which means I might not play this game for very long.

8. I'm sure I don't need to say this - but clicking on units and asking them to go and do things is still very spotty - human archers for some reason are terrible for getting them to go and do what I want them to do.

9. Unit differention - in SC2 I know who's units are who's - the screen is easy to read - it's bright, colors are bright and vivid.

It's not that your graphics haven't come a long way, but DoF looks like a cloudy day, everything seems a little blurry, dark or washed out - I know you are going for a certain "look or style" and I'm sure there are certain players who love it.

But for me, I like to see my units, I like to see the battles, I like to know who's who. I want to see the hero (maybe make him a 25% bigger?).

I like the game.

I am playing it for short periods.

But I am not sucked in by it yet.

Here's hoping that you get there, because the market needs a game like this and a company like you

[Perkons]

100% Agree.
I would also advise to make the game free to play , with members option simillair to runescape.
Also maybe some simple cash shop.
You would get 5x more players. And with time you would profit.

[Konstantin Fomenko]

Thanks for the kind words and feedback. We hope everything will change around late June - we are simply waiting for a good deal of funding to invest into advertisement to attract a lot more players. Lack of players is the biggest problem atm - as it completely stops the PvP component of the game. Now to address some of the points you bring up:

1. I would love the ability to name my hero

Never thought about that this way - we do allow naming Armies, I guess that would make sense - really easy to include, I`ll see if we add this in one of the coming patches.

2. Chat is cumbersome, distracting, and imo in the wrong place.

Brad new fully customizable chat will be added in a patch later this week, we`ve been workign on it for a while

3. Bottom portraits of unit selected.

Try clicking with right mouse button, left mouse button as well as Shift, Cntrl + LMB or RMB

4. Town Center should have it's own protrait in top left corner please or a hot key function. So I can click and get back to the town center quickly.

This does make sense early game, but after couple of days you really don`t use it as much and that icon in the top won`t make sense. We do plan to add Hot Keys for various buildings though.

[Rudedawg]

Awesome! Konstantin, thanks for the response and the great answers!

I know you guys have alot on your plates, but it's nice to see that you're open to player feedback.

[Ghost]

I agree with all of your points except the one about micromanagement.

In a RTS, the player who micromanages better will and should always win. That's a big part of what defines the skill of a RTS player, how well they micro. Otherwise it just becomes, "throw my mess of soldiers at your mess of soldiers and hope I win," which is much less interesting.

[Gruber12]

I agree with all of your points except the one about micromanagement.

In a RTS, the player who micromanages better will and should always win. That's a big part of what defines the skill of a RTS player, how well they micro. Otherwise it just becomes, "throw my mess of soldiers at your mess of soldiers and hope I win," which is much less interesting.

This is true, I played a Dark Crusade game with 2 hours of non stop fighting to their base because both teams mirco like champs



One update I want is for Attack Moves, for some reason mine sometimes turns off if i reselect units while their moving so they walk into the enemy without atatcking

[Silkjc]

I would advise getting alliances in before doing a large marketing campaign...at the moment there is no 'sticking feature' to keep people playing.
You need a reason for people to want to play...they need 'territories' and something to work for, something to make friends for, a reason to keep coming back. This is why it is always so dead in PVP...if I want the current style PVP I can go play total war multiplayer...which does it much better.

DOF needs to focus on what they have better than Total War, or other games... persistent kingdom mode. Expand the persistant mode more fully into the multiplayer features of this game, something like Stronghold Kingdoms and you will have an absolute gem.

[Gruber12]

With Alliance territory, I suppose a new "side-map" could be unlocked as a newly discovered island that has clans fighting over it. When a alliance takes over a certain chunk of it they could say get a 5% boost to a gold production, or have a area that is rich in iron and melee units in the alliance get 2% increase to their attack

[aramsm]

I think PvE needs more attention too. Maybe some NPC patrols, bandidts and armies walking around the map like Mount and Blade. A better AI when they actually react when you shoot them arrows and make them stronger. More levels of quests and bosses and dungeons.

WIth Alliance system we could fight to take control over cities or areas wich gives us access to a dungeon or to a mine.

We could have equips for armies and hero too.

And the world could be totally persistent like Stronghold Kingdoms Online, with army range of sight and fog of war in world map. But that would mean no more armies ranks perhabs?

[Wolfentir]

Also creating your own castles would be great. Have a limited amount of stone or wood and then position your castle walls as you see fit.