Larian Studios Forums Dragon Commander Dragon Commander - Beta Henry's Bug hunting and suggestion thread

This compilation was initially here: http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=467423#Post467423

Again, someone should do a sticky compilation of the bug issues so the beta testers will have an idea what was already suggested or remedied via a patch (by striking out the bug issue), or the current bugs/issues.

First off, epic music. Hats off Kirill.

Generally, my approach is on the details. You'll know what I mean after reading my report:

Game Issues:

• Leaving the Battle Zone as a dragon: If you die after 10 seconds, your screen is still black and white. The only remedy is to go back to dragon form again.
• You Lose: "Make haste, if your team doesn't respond in TWO seconds, you lose." I can only read the warning under 2 seconds :P
• "You Lose make haste..." part 2: appeared upon starting a game. This was 2 games after the 2 seconds "You lose" prompt (see post above). After the first encounter with it, I played another game, then exited to the desktop. Upon starting a game after opening the application again, the "You lose" prompt appeared. I really lost after the countdown.
  
  Now, it was 13 seconds. I'm assuming the prompt was for 15 seconds. It is TOO SHORT to even take action. Maybe adjusting it to 30 seconds to a minute could suffice. Except of course when the defeated faction has no units at all for him to take action.

Balancing Issues:

• Dragon Issue: This is still up for debate. Either the cost of summoning a dragon is too much/less, the CD of the skills are too long/short, going in and out of dragon mode destroys the game. My initial suggestion was accumulating recruit cost after dying (IE 30 recruits initially, +5 for every subsequent death). The reason I suggested it was to put emphasis on the dragon both on the player and on the enemy. To attack it more than the usual and to protect it more. It's like the queen of the chess. Once it gets eaten, it'll be hard to bounce back.
• Charm skill: NOTE I'll delete/strike this out once I've proven otherwise: You can use skills of the unit while the unit is charmed.

AI: (against AI Insane 1v1. This is a one time match)

• Dragon: Never saw them summoning a dragon.
• Ships: They build a lot of transport. 8 out of 10 are transports, never even utilizing most of it, and they only load one unit at a time in my case. The only possible strategy I could think of when they buy a lot of transport ships is to self destruct them.
• Unlimited resource/recruits: Well, it's a good advantage. It's a little bit unfair on my point of view though :P
• Moment of idleness: There was one moment in the game where I could literally do another activity keeping the battle open and the AI is not doing anything. When I attacked while it was idle, they became aggressive. Weird IMO. I lost though, I thought at first they had limited resources.
• Winter Islands:The initial transport ships were not being used by the AI because its pathfinding is literally on patrol (going sideways). They need to build another one to capture other islands.
• Default AI versus other difficulty AI in selection of AI at the start of the game. The default should have been a normal difficulty. It tends to confuse the player what the default AI is, and it is redundant. I just learned that the default AI can use skills as compared to other difficulty AI.
• AI Priority: It seems the priority of taking out the dragon is low, or I'm imagining things? I'll test this out sometime.
• Charmed units: Make the AI ignore charmed units w/ some exception. In regards to the balancing issues above, an exception would be a transportation unit/trooper who has the ability to make a suicide attempt.

Interface:

• Path lines: Path lines for flying units/all units, should be available. A short duration of it appearing when the unit is prompted so the player will recall his or her command to that unit. It's similar to the line of the rally point, except that it's red when you're attacking a unit, and green when just moving to another location.
• Unit support AOE: Specifically, the Zeppeline Fog of war. The 400 Radius is a blind guess. I don't even know if my units surrounding the zeppelin will get the benefits of the ability. Just by putting the mouse on the icon, the radius should appear on screen.
• Fog of war user icon= Arrows/triangle going to the right. Should have been smoke of cloud or other icon that tells cloaking. Just my suggestion so as not to confuse other people with the one below:
• Revelation= an "All seeing eye" icon should be nice. It is to avoid the confusion between Fog of War icon and this one.
• Research hotkey: research command in individual buildings should have a hotkey. It seems the research function can be found outside of the battlefield (IE campaign map)
• Description of skills in research bar: The description can only be seen on the units. It is really not helpful if you go and research it on the individual buildings if you don't even know what you are researching for. It seems the research function can be found outside of the battlefield (IE campaign map)
• You Win screen = I only won once, based from it, I don't know how to exit the "You Win" screen. Pressed enter, space bar, mouse key, etc. Just to get out from it. The screen should have said how to exit from that screen like "press any button to exit"
• Scroll Sensitivity: Should be in game option. Scrolling is so slow. Adding the camera the controls during build mode is a chore.
• Charm skill: Please put an icon if that unit was charmed so the players has an idea who to attack.

Unknown Issue:

• Devestator blowing itself up: When I tried bombarding the devestator to itself, A shaman was healing that unit, and put an aegis on it. Then, I tried transforming into a dragon. First dragon of the three, healing the unit with restoration spell and putting another aegis on it. It died with half health still remaining and replenishing.

The list below are inconsequential/trivial to the game experience
Game options:

• Drag down button: For example, Try dragging down the texture quality under graphics option and part of the dragged down option is not seen. You need to scroll down to see the rest.
• Description of option interface: When putting your mouse on the option, the game should tell the effects on the performance and graphics option. One thing that interest me is the God Ray option. I don't even know what that is for.
• Under Combat Phase: "Command hold position" is a little bit overshadowed by the size of the list.

Trivial matters:

• Boat are sometimes moving sidewards.

Suggestions:

Balancing Issues:

• Self Destruct: The mechanic should be either time based (IE 10 seconds to detonate) or the attack function (right click/q then left click (the default)). I had one transport who used self destruct and it was blinking all through out the entire game. It should be a double edged sword, hurting both your allies and enemies if not used correctly rather than a kamikaze. Maybe it was intended to be a kamikaze in the first place...

Interface:

• Formations: Pre made formations/custom made formations should be present. It's hard to micromanage everything on a case to case basis. For example, avoiding a kamikaze/suicide ship w/ its target in the center of a cluster of ships. The usual pattern is to click individual units on the right side and the left of the cluster to separate its units from the target of the kamikaze. One short solution is to give them a formation. Pressing Alt+any letter should suffice. I haven't seen a game w/ formations hotkey except in shattered galaxy MMORPG.
• Queue slots= It keeps the player aware if all the queue slots have been used (IE like starcraft with the numbers per available slots on the production queue). You can build unlimited units from the new patch.