DEV BLOG #9 - Player feedback and design deep dive
I got some great feedback from the demo. Thank you all for playing and leaving comments! It's been wild watching people play and reading comments. I read everything and try to respond to as much as I can.
Full notes
Full Goblin Colony update
Read the full published notes in a cleaner layout. The original post stays linked below.
What changed
0 fixes1 addition5 changes0 removals
Gameplay
Events
Maps
changedRework to how gold is gathered and stored . Previously chests had it's own individual storage. The reasoning was to make it feel more dynamic and "alive". Ideally goblins would put gold in different chests which I thought looked cool. In reality it had very little positive impact on the game. It mostly just made it unintuitive which caused unnecessary player frustration.
changedAnother problem is that it was pretty complicated. Not only does the game need to keep track of the content of each chest but also constantly test for updates. Whenever a goblin picks up gold, chests needs a separate variable to keep track of incoming (designated but not yet delivered) gold preventing goblins from overfilling the chest. And of course all this bleeds into other systems. What happens if a goblin with incoming gold dies or gets interrupted? Well now we must find out which chest was being delivering to and deduct that incoming gold. Such chain-effect of events can be a source for hard to find bugs.
changedPros: Rewarding player intent & give more control. If the player builds a chest more closer to the gold with the intention of making gathering faster, that should be the outcome. Previously this was only true as long as the chest had space which effectively meant just for the 10 first pickups. Now this will always be the case which brings up another advantage.
addedIncreasing player knowledge. The player can now more accurately predict where gold will be delivered. Very important in a strategy game with combat, aggro and line of sight.
changedFaster gameplay. No more goblins walking pass full chests.
changedThe gold change and some other feedback also made me reconsider how "selling" works. In the demo it was very restrictive. Only giving 1 gold nugget for a few selected objects. The main reason behind this is because I really don't want to turn this game into a min/max fest. I wanted each map to become more populated and decorated as the player progressed. But it was a bit too restrictive and also unintuitive. I still want selling to only be used for cleaning up mistakes or as a last resort. But for now I'm changing it so all objects will give back half it's worth in gold back. It will also be an instant deposit, speeding up the process further.
Goblin Colony changes
changedRework to how gold is gathered and stored . Previously chests had it's own individual storage. The reasoning was to make it feel more dynamic and "alive". Ideally goblins would put gold in different chests which I thought looked cool. In reality it had very little positive impact on the game. It mostly just made it unintuitive which caused unnecessary player frustration.
changedAnother problem is that it was pretty complicated. Not only does the game need to keep track of the content of each chest but also constantly test for updates. Whenever a goblin picks up gold, chests needs a separate variable to keep track of incoming (designated but not yet delivered) gold preventing goblins from overfilling the chest. And of course all this bleeds into other systems. What happens if a goblin with incoming gold dies or gets interrupted? Well now we must find out which chest was being delivering to and deduct that incoming gold. Such chain-effect of events can be a source for hard to find bugs.
changedPros: Rewarding player intent & give more control. If the player builds a chest more closer to the gold with the intention of making gathering faster, that should be the outcome. Previously this was only true as long as the chest had space which effectively meant just for the 10 first pickups. Now this will always be the case which brings up another advantage.
addedIncreasing player knowledge. The player can now more accurately predict where gold will be delivered. Very important in a strategy game with combat, aggro and line of sight.
changedFaster gameplay. No more goblins walking pass full chests.
I got some great feedback from the demo. Thank you all for playing and leaving comments! It's been wild watching people play and reading comments. I read everything and try to respond to as much as I can.
Based on some of your feedback I've decided on some changes and thought I'd share some of my reasoning behind them.
Rework to how gold is gathered and stored. Previously chests had it's own individual storage. The reasoning was to make it feel more dynamic and "alive". Ideally goblins would put gold in different chests which I thought looked cool. In reality it had very little positive impact on the game. It mostly just made it unintuitive which caused unnecessary player frustration.
Another problem is that it was pretty complicated. Not only does the game need to keep track of the content of each chest but also constantly test for updates. Whenever a goblin picks up gold, chests needs a separate variable to keep track of incoming (designated but not yet delivered) gold preventing goblins from overfilling the chest. And of course all this bleeds into other systems. What happens if a goblin with incoming gold dies or gets interrupted? Well now we must find out which chest was being delivering to and deduct that incoming gold. Such chain-effect of events can be a source for hard to find bugs.
So let's simplify it. No more individual gold storage, chests now pools it's resources into a shared total gold storage. Goblins will always deliver gold to the nearest available chest.
Pros: Rewarding player intent & give more control. If the player builds a chest more closer to the gold with the intention of making gathering faster, that should be the outcome. Previously this was only true as long as the chest had space which effectively meant just for the 10 first pickups. Now this will always be the case which brings up another advantage.
Increasing player knowledge. The player can now more accurately predict where gold will be delivered. Very important in a strategy game with combat, aggro and line of sight.
Faster gameplay. No more goblins walking pass full chests.
And finally, simpler and faster code.
As for cons; potentially less dynamics and realism? But as stated before this didn't really worked as intended anyway.
The gold change and some other feedback also made me reconsider how "selling" works. In the demo it was very restrictive. Only giving 1 gold nugget for a few selected objects. The main reason behind this is because I really don't want to turn this game into a min/max fest. I wanted each map to become more populated and decorated as the player progressed. But it was a bit too restrictive and also unintuitive. I still want selling to only be used for cleaning up mistakes or as a last resort. But for now I'm changing it so all objects will give back half it's worth in gold back. It will also be an instant deposit, speeding up the process further.
All in all a pretty big core changes that should make the game even better!
There's more stuff coming but that's enough from me for now. As always, thank you for your support!
