Larian Studios Forums Dragon Commander Dragon Commander - Beta Changelist for version 1.0.133.9727

Here's a changelist for version 1.0.133.9727.

- Added a lot more control options when in dragon mode:
create control groups like you're used to (CTRL+number to assign)
then call your control groups with ALT+number
you can then build units (when building selected) or cast skills and direct units (use their shortcuts, shortcut to move is Q)
- Fixed transports AI in RTS
- Fixed strategy AI
- Fixed sorting in unitshop
- Fixed lobby crash during refresh
- Fixed issues players not correctly leaving lobbies, resulting in lobbies which always fail NAT punchthroughs \o/
- Updated soundbanks
- Added autodetect for texture quality settings
- Memory optimization for terrain texture system
- Fixed mines not finding any targets
- Clear lines when exiting RTS mode
- Added audio slider for unit reactions
- Anti air turrets have reveal skill now
- Memory layout optimizations to reduce fragmentation
- Warlock only cloaks self now
- Added manual decloak button to warlock
- Tank unload is instant now
- Enabled savegames when playing against AI
- Added dynamic gamespeed when playing against AI: in RTS, you can increase/decrease this with +/- or in menu
- AI's show correct names now
- Added country tooltip on sea tiles
- Improved shaman flee behaviour
- Show dragon spawn timer in UI
- Warlock & Shaman cast range doubled
- Devastator Besiege increased AoE
- Warlock Cloak to Tier 1
- Warlock Polymorph to tier 2
- Dragon Haste to tier 1
- Performance optimizations
- Stability fixes

We are aware of an issue in this version with the unit control icons not appearing in RTS mode. This will be fixed tomorrow.

Have fun!

Hooray, saved games are back. This is the biggest reason for me not finishing campaigns - not because of crashes, but because I get tired of playing before I run out of game to win.

The control you get in Dragon mode is a huge game-changer. Slap all your buildings onto one control group in RTS mode, and you can tab through them in Dragon mode, making a ton of stuff on the fly, and with buildings selected, the "move/attack" button in dragon mode tells nits where to rally to.

The tab also works great for controlling your blob, and yet offers you precise precision for moving your units. I'm not used to this new control method and haven't really gotten accustomed to using control groups so far, but I'll have to keep trying.

Found something interesting. If caps lock is on entering an RTS map, the unit/production shortcut keys show up in capitals instead of lowercase.

Fantastic! So many changes I would like to see)
P.S- Shut up and take my money!!

Throwing money to monitor

Bug: In the Campaign, I can't seem to research any units on the Master tier, despite having 64 Research points (I saved for an extra turn after 44 wasn't enough to check. The AI was able to research Charm, but I am not able to myself.

Dragon skill research does work.

If it's dragon research that's strange, but if it's unit research, did you get shamans first? - I've noticed that's one, "feature" they have at the moment.

I have no idea what I researched first. Do you mean to say that if you research Shamans as your first thing, that blocks you from Tier 4 research?

-BUG-Before battle I cannot choose Hostile AI setting at all
-Bug-There are some intricate text lines at tutorial videos(Russian Language)There are not correct subtitles for these videos

I think Nuju just meant that you have to have researched Shamans before you would be able to research Charm. You would have to have researched some of the unit types, though, so that couldn't be the problem for the entire master category.

EDIT: You need to research something on the Expert level to get access to the Master level.

With just the hunter unit researched, I didn't have access to any Master level research. If I researched A Bird in the Hand, for example, I could research teleportation for the hunters, as well as juggernauts and bomber balloons. Researching Devastators unlocked those 3 Master level items, as well as the On The Double devastator upgrade.




With this beta (or at least this is the first I've noticed it), there is no 'Default AI' setting, the difficulty level is just set at whatever the default value is in the main options. You should still be able to change the AI difficulty in the lobby, though.

Has the pathfinding been changed?
I had it happen a few times now* that my troops didn't reach the destination I set for them and instead walked in circles or got stuck in some dead end (that didn't even point in the right direction).

* I ordered them to move to some rather distant location, the map was this one map with the sea divided by a long narrow stretch of land with two ressource centers and navy/air sites on it.
I think it might be the one Stabbey keeps complaining about.

Anyone else seeing a massive list of new skirmish maps that don't actually load and instead crash you to desktop?

Yes, it seems they aren't ready as there aren't pictures of the maps, but I was hopeful and loaded one anyway and the game froze.

Also - not sure if it started in this version or previous, as I haven't played in a few days, but the Frost Isles map has no land and there are skeletons, trees and towers hanging in mid-air!

I played on Frost Isles pre patch and there was land there, maybe something happened during the patch in regards to that map.

Here's a bug that I kept forgetting to include in the reports:

For a while now, and up until the last version, including (haven't tested in the current version yet), I noticed that if I had control groups from previous maps, they would not clear for a new map. This results in me pressing 2 or 3 and selecting a random group of units and structures, including some that were not even mine, if I had not assigned a new group 2 or 3 yet.

Because I suck at editing (see my above post where I put my question in the actual edit reason, ha ha), I'm going to just sort of generally ask again.

Is anyone else missing ambient effects in some of the skirmish maps? To test, turn music all the way down, and see if you can hear any ambient sounds such as wind, or birds.

I absolutely do not get any ambient effects in Emerald Mountain, for example.

I've not noticed any missing sounds, but then again I haven't really been looking for them. I'll certainly listen out for them next time I play on the maps.

... of course I already have Shamans researched. I'm 19 turns into the game. I am saying that I can literally research NOTHING on that tier, despite having the prerequisites and money.

Nope, Raze, I'm pretty sure this is bugged. I do have things researched on the Expert Tier. I have the Devastator, but can't pick up "On the Double". I can't research the Juggernaut or Bomber Balloon.

Aha! I think the problem is because I loaded a saved game. I saved and continued a campaign game last night. Just before going to sleep, I manually saved, then researched Imp Fighters, and quit the game without saving again.

Loading the game I saved last night, now I cannot research anything at all on the Expert Tier, even though I bought things from it previously. That's probably also why I cannot research the master tier stuff: I tried to do that after loading a previous saved game.


EDIT: No wait, now the research menu seems to have fixed itself - both tiers. I'm not sure why. It is a fresh turn now, though.

It's bugged and it's fixed in the beta upload we'll do today. In QA now, should be up in a couple of hours.

Two more things I noticed:

Sometimes my movements on the campaign map don't seem to be executed.
I plan them, but when I click the advance turn button, they stay were they are.
Anyone got an idea why?

Removing a building on the campaign map could use a confirmation, a simple miss-click and it's gone (yeah, I know, don't miss-click...)

Yes, I have an idea That is because your opponent plays a sabotage card on the country your units are in (like "The hunters in the selected country will not be able to move during the next turn"). This also happened to me and I was wondering at this before by chance I saw the played card during the turn progression. This should be made more visible in my opinion.

I LOVE the sabotage cards. You know your foe is *insert unit*-friendly, place that card in the blind spot and watch him moan as his favourite unit just got worthless!

Ah, indeed, that explains it.
Hm, maybe display a small card in the country where it was placed, similar to what is done when you play a card to build a building for free? Unless this happens, too, and I'm struck by temporal blindness...

I had the AI use a card that reduced shaman movement speed on me.
They were practically reduced to stationary healing structures, as it took them ages to creep across the battlefield. Very nasty.

This indeed happens^^ - however it is only shown during the turn progression. Since the camera follows the events during this phase it is very easy to miss. Try to scroll manually during the turn progression and if you see any card on the country click on it - that is how I found it out^^.

Other type of movement stopping:
Say you move a large army from country A to enemy country B.
Country B sends one unit to country A in the same turn.
Owner of country B executes his turn BEFORE owner of country A.
The result is that the units from country A will never move to country B and there will be a fight in country A, not country B.

And it's always been like this :p

Yes, this other possibility I knew and understood.
Somehow I didn't think of the possibility that the AI might use cards, though.
Maybe because in the early beta-builds the AI didn't do so well with cards.

That is indeed true. The AI has been very much improved since the early-beta builds.

Hey, just a question. Do you think we will be able to test the 1 p campaign too ? I mean, It deserve to be tested or is it ok ?

Larian has said that single-player is coming to the beta, but only a sample, and even they don't know when it will be put into the beta.

If you were to ask me, I'd say that I don't see why we should not test the whole or most of the campaign before release. Unless Larian has some supertastic (yes, I made a word for it) QA that there wouldn't be any kinks for beta testers to sniff out and report.

Why would you buy the game if you were able to play the whole campaign when you got a free beta key. The first campaign map in single player is a good appetizer imo.

Mmm, point taken. I wasn't thinking from that perspective, I was only thinking from the beta testing perspective.

Something like the press beta will be available for the closed public beta as well - which means that only the first chapter of the single player campaign (=kind of tutorial) will be playable)....

What is a 'closed' public beta ?

There is limited access - only a set number of keys are being released. An open beta can be downloaded by anyone.

By the way, is there a special reason, why I seem to automatically win every RTS match in the campaign, when there's more than one AI faction?
Had it happen two or three times now: I invade a AI controlled country the same turn as another AI, the battle starts but within a few seconds i get the victory screen.

Oh I thought anyone who pre-purchased the game had beta.

Yay, somebody else brought up the topic!

I've been wondering about D:DC's SP beta; normally I'd say giving us access one week before release would be good, but that'd be right in the middle of when I want to focus on (let's) playing Shadowrun Returns. Dilemma inbound.

And yeah, if the beta were restricted to pre-purchases (note: not pre-orders), they could gradually open up the single-player chapters, but as it stands, doing so would be borderline suicidal. Well, I guess they could give pre-purchases a separate demo key that is single-player-only in addition to the key for the semi-public multiplayer-only demo that is out now.

However, knowing myself, I usually stay far away from SP betas (and the respective KS reward tiers unless they also offer other stuff) as I replay games way more seldom than I'd like to to begin with. Giving us access to a significant but incomplete chunk of the game would be even worse, as it'd be a huge amount of spoilers with no pay-off. Therefore I'm perfectly content with eventually getting to play the first chapter in advance just to get a feel of the RP part and the characters.

GOG pre-purchases aren't included for technical reasons. And on the other, more important hand, promotional keys are also handed out, primarily through Alienware.

Thanks, I already read long time ago it would come, but didn't know if we get any news... I know they are working like imps to finish the game, and as the SP campaign will be the core of this game, I wondered ... Remember the early MP ... And seing the progress now.

I already own the game, so, I won't by it again for myself ^^ but first chapter may be useful.

Balancing comments:
Not sure how long some of these changes have been in.
I like the changes to the campaign map. Higher research costs for upper tier units like balloons. It was way too easy before to hurry to balloons and just stomp everything. Much better now.

Also in favor of just starting with hunters as it is now. Anyone with a brain researched them first anyway.

I do not like the inclusion of free dragon skills though. Having them blank emphasized what you research to a greater degree. Invest early in units, suffer on the dragon. Now you can get by a little easier and the trade off isn't as significant.


Suggestions:
Is there a way you can place a greater emphasis on when your opponent uses a card against you? I know it pops up on the right but frankly watching the 'replay' is tedious. I think if a card is placed on your land it should pop up in a way that is more obvious.

Also could we get a hotkey for "skip replay"/"end turn" or is there one and I'm just not aware of it? Spacebar would be good.


Also great work on the AI, getting better every patch.
And Dynamic game speed is great.

You start out with either Hunters (Mountain), Shamans (Zephyr), or Warlocks (Sabre), researched depending on your Dragon choice.

I don't seem to be getting ambient effects in a couple maps I checked, but I'm not sure where they are suppose to be. Unit sounds are proximity based, so I don't know if there weren't ambient sounds, or I just didn't have the camera at a location where they were being played.
I usually have the music on, so have not heard birds or wind at all.

EDIT: with the latest beta (137) I am getting wind immediately on the Frost Isles and Emerald Mountain maps, reduced at low altitudes.

Could you provide a bit more info on this problem?
Are you starting the fight with a very high win percentage ? like 90%+ ?

I'm not 100% sure about it, but I thought the win percentage was definitely lower than 90%. Maybe in the 70s?
I'll try to recreate it (it doesn't happen so often that I invade a country at the same time as another AI, but everytime it did happen, I won automatically) and report my findings.

Still working on it...

Of course the AI now refuses to invade another AI country the same turn as me and whenever it does, my units get delayed bacause their country is attacked.

I just found out that I can't load saved games unfortunately, so testing is a bit more complicated than I had hoped for.

Are you sure you can't load saved games? I have to hit the button, pick the game, and then add AI partners before it'll let me load, but it does work.

Whenever I try, I end up in the lobby but no button is working.
I have to exit the game via the task manager.
Seems I'm not the only one either, look at the latest patch thread.

Ok, managed to get a match against two AI in the mp campaign and it worked!
Whatever the reason the first few times, this time everything was ok.
Maybe I did indeed invade with too many units and the AI directly retreated?
Whatever, I have managed to play two matches correctly now (one time I had ~40%, the other time ~60%).