Larian Studios Forums Dragon Commander Dragon Commander - Beta Some bugs and impression.

=========== Bugs ===========

After Credits roll out screen remains black (escape gets you back to menu but it should be automatic I suppose). Also during credits game slows down on few ocasions (goes from 60 to <10 fps)

Combat phase and dragon combat tabs in controls have last option being out of window, no matter how much you try to scroll down. It happens in 1080p resolution as well as 720p, so I guess it is a problem on all resolutions.

Buildings in building on tactical map have no description if you lack gold, which is a bit terrible for new players.

Crashes were sent with Larian's software but I will re-mention one which can be reproduced very easily.
Start new multiplayer game vs AI, then load previously made game. It will take you to lobby. Repeat creating game but instead of starting it click cancel. Button will start flickering and hang the game. Music still plays though. I manage to reproduce it every time.
Also Rivellon map will appear as 4 squares.


=========== Impressions and suggestions after ~2 hours of playing. ===========

Game, sans for crashes, runs smoothly even on high settings while looking very well too. Resource management seems good too, GPU wasn't running very hot like in some other games.

There is no "reset to defaults" option in menu, and it is something that almost any game has (for a reason).

Ingame tutorials as they stand are so-so, but I see that there is good old type of a manual in pdf format in main steam folder. As much as I like it (I`m a bit older player and used to reading these things) I think that fresh blood prefers interactive ingame tutorials. I'm not sure if they will be included in campaign but it would be a good thing to have for sure, considering how complicated the game can be at times.

Map balance:
Little Rivellon seem to favor player on right side of it. If you look both sides have 2 taverns and war factory, but right also has wizard tower. I would suggest moving it to the top of map to province in the middle of it (Herbosos is 5 movements away from start for each of players).

AI:
I'm a terrible tactician and AI was left on default, so I assume it was middle ground one. In such case I managed to starve it in first battle as it simply kept sending suicide mission transports to me (islands map) over and over, to very same place. I understand that it can't be uber awesome on default setting but it should not do such big mistakes. I could just pill up all forces in that single place and wait till it bleeds itself on it. Instead it could at least try attacking base which was behind it and not as good protected.
It also seem that AI is far better when map gets larger (or my attention span can't comprehend more things and I just get worse). When I had very small map and roughly 50% chance to win I just rushed at AI and slaughtered it before it could do anything.

I see that saving is there, but not functional. So I assume that lack of this vital function is just because of beta. It makes it a bit of annoyance with crashes however.

Dragon combat feels about right to me. Powerful but you still have to be careful about things hitting you, and timer at the start before you can morph is nice balancing touch.

Kirill, please consider making full lenght orchestrated album on your own. While game have different feel than previous ones it still have some similiar vibes all around. And yet it is so much different even with them. So far one of my favourite parts of the game is music (maybe also because it plays when game is alt tabbed too, so I listened to it more than played the game itself )

Artstyle is top notch too. From moving map pieces (nice touch there) to unit design and of course our dragon (I tried only sabre though, which isn't too generic and not overwhelmingly ugly either as it usually happens when you try going away from D&D style dragons - see Todd Lockwood's works if you don't know what I mean).


=========== Lastly ===========

I tried to keep list at least in mediocre order, but I'm bad at making writeups real quick (and lack time to spend a lot of time on it), so sorry for that I'm probably going to give it another try once I will have time for it, so expect more things added to the list and me trying to break (crash) the game.

The saving and loading buttons should probably be disabled as I don't think either are implemented at this point.

The game does not save my "Show Tutorial" settings.

They probably should move the Wizard Tower, and probably add a second as well to the other side of the map. Herbosos is not where I would place it, that country is a choke point and the 4 gold income makes it ideal for a war factory. It also is not 5 places away for each player: It's 5 from either of the bottom countries, 4 from the upper left and 3 from the upper right.

Speaking of map balance, each player at the bottom gets an Emporium on an island (2 moves from the capital), but the one at the top has to be shared between two players (3 moves from either capital). It might not be that important, since an Emporium is something I only use occasionally, and it's a drain on a player's resources rather than a supply of free cards.

Ah yes I forgot about 3 and 4 players on the map (I player 1v1 only).
Either the case map isn't well balanced right in any of possible settings (1v1, 2v2 etc)

I will not create another topic, so I just report some minor bugs I saw through the beta test :
- On the risk map, when I accidentally scroll the map at the same time I do something on the map (any game action), it scrolls automatically to the very left end of the map and stay blocked until I open the menu.
- When a ground unit go behind a building, between the building and a hill for example, and cannot pass through, it can be blocked and enter in a infinity loop, so that's look strange on the map... x)
- When I turn into Dragon form and attack a transporter, it can target me on huge height : I fly away vertically very very fast a long time, and the projectile continue to reach me (So high I can see the entire map and further)... Same problem horizontally, few times.

Then, not a bug but just an impression : for the easy level, I feel the dragon more or less balanced, but not for the other levels. I've made few games (and improve myself, so) but in most cases, when I try to help my army with lots of brand new skills, enemies kicked my ass in 1 minute ! Yes, you need to be near (less than 50 m ?) of your target to use the skill, so, nasty machines are happy to see you (almost if they are more than 10) and enjoy explain you that you're not in DKS any more. x)
I've tried different methods, but all failed, and I was so disappointed that I finished the game only with auto-resolve. Chocked to see my semi-god emperor avatar be the worst shame of his species ever... LOL.
Ok, that's all for me for the moment.