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.

Balancing Issue:

• Disbanding units for XX resources: Please give the player the ability to sell its current units for % of the price back. In a battle wherein water can only reach halfway of the map, and the other can only be fought via land, a 1v1 battle could turn each of the player to dominate one area (land/sea). If a player invests too much in the navy, they couldn't sell their units for extra support, and thus will be a sitting duck for the entire game. The land/aerial units are compelled to attack the bases of the person dominating in the navy.
• selling of a building cooldown: increase it to match the attack speed and projectile speed of the splash cannon defense unit. I could sell a building when it was being attacked by a defense unit.

Chat:

• ability to filter out words. I could swear a lot. Trash talking/swearing is usual in an online gaming especially on a fast pace game such as this.
• Allies chat function/whisper (self explanatory) From Stabbey: By default, chat is allies-only. Shift-enter is how you chat to everyone.

I just played a game like that. My opponent filled up his support building sea units, and when I abandoned my seaside base, he couldn't do much to attack me. I lost because it turns out that he had a lot of money he couldn't spend on units.



That's not going to work exactly the same way, buildings have unlimited queue slots now. Instead, when you have multiple buildings selected, there should be an icon over the ones which are producing/researching something.


By default, chat is allies-only. Shift-enter is how you chat to everyone. (I had to figure that out by myself).

That was me you fought yesterday evening. Good game by the way.



I see, I'll strike it out. I didn't know there was an update.

Campaign Maps:

• AAclone is the default map in campaign mode which is actually little Rivellon. Little Rivellon is the only campaign map working as of now. Please delete the other campaign map if it can't be used by the player.

You might say I'm being demanding on the tutorials, but everyone wants to be spoon fed Not everyone knows the mechanics anyways.

Campaign Map:

• AAclone is the default map in campaign mode which is actually little Rivellon. Little Rivellon is the only campaign map working as of now. Please delete the other campaign map if it can't be used by the player. Little Rivellon was left.
• Tutorial (upon starting the game): Tell the player to right click on land occupied by the player to expand some options such as research, buy units, buy/use cards. I just noticed that you can create units when the AI was building one during campaign!
• Tutorial (upon building your first transport units): You can load troops only when the transport units are on land. I initially thought you can load units only when the transport is on water.
• Saving the game: I could type on the right side where the date and time is located. Should have been unchangeable.
• Tooltip at the start of the battle: This is regarding the picture of a dragon and an amry before the start of the battle. I don't even know selecting the army is auto resolve. I thought they are just there for aesthetics. Please explicitly state on the interface if it is a direct command/auto resolve.
• auto resolve: there was one instance wherein both of the parties were killed. I was the attacker but I still captured the enemy land.

Dragon Issue:

• Chameleon Hide: I'm still in cloak mode when I attack using my left mouse (not skills). The description on the "Dragon skills" for the campaign map is a bit misleading or the chameleon is bugged.

Game Issue:

• WASD not working correctly: Especially when in dragon mode. It might be connected to the fact that you have control over your units when toggling back and forth on dragon mode. WASD is not working correctly if you have control over your units. WASD is also an issue during building phase.
• "shift key always": once you selected a unit and selected another one without pressing the shift key button, you will control both instead of toggling between units.

Buildings:

• Gold mine: Change description from "Increasing gold by 100 times" to 2 times Changed to "Increasing gold by 100%."
• Academy description: Change discount of 0% to whatever is the right percentages. Changed to subversion, etc free cards.

Cards:

• You must be able to change/withdraw your cards on the battle screen. If this is intentional, just on the "secret/hidden" card because the enemy doesn't even know the card over there anyways.
• priest mercenaries card: a little bit of typo.

Interface:

• "You Win" below that "You are Victorious" redundant IMO.

Balancing Issue:

• the recruitment center should have some regen. I encountered one player who did a "rush". Summoning a dragon at the start of the game. He targeted my recruitment center initially. It got into red health. Thankfully he left as a show of mercy I think.

Tomorrow, I'll try out doing an auto resolve in every game against the AI on the campaign.

BTW, the AI on the capital is challenging (direct command). I won the game because the AI ran out of money. If they could summon the dragon, it could be a different story. On this battle, I won the game yet every units, even on the enemy's side, were wiped out on the campaign statistics. I didn't capture the land though as compared to the issue above on auto resolve. I still have no idea how this campaign balancing work out even though someone already explained about the survival rate thing, I still have to grasp the concept.

The "winning but not capturing country" is actually not a bug but something that we'll look at nonetheless. It needs to be more clear to players what exactly happened + the idea behind it is up for discussion. Thanks for your input so far!

I know it's not a bug, hence it's not included on the bullets. I just don't know what happened as to how my units got lost. Thanks for the clarification btw.

Campaign map:

• !!! Big bug: Emporium (see update below-can be recreated): Buy cards at the same type: Buy one card in emporium and you can buy it again when you visit the Emporium again at the same turn. It will deplete the cards available at the Emporium and can possibly turn your cash into negative amounts. If you buy the same card again, the cards available at the emporium will deplete per card bought. Once all of them are bought and you buy another card, the game will crash.
  
  Specifically, I bought a hunter card mercenaries. After I exit from the emporium, I tried buying there again on the same turn and hunter mercenaries is still available to be bought even though it was already gone from the emporium since I bought it already. I clicked "buy" and my cash can turn into negative, and the story about crashing above happened.
  
  UPDATE: Apprently, you can buy another card but its on random, not the card you initially purchased. Also, when you buy a card on the emporium without specifically buying a card (IE nothing is on the right side of the screen of emporium), you can recreate the bug! You can only crash when you buy cards and there are no available cards on the Emporium.
  
  My remedy on the matter is disable the buy function on emporium when you don't have the funds.

Interface in Campaign Map(suggestion):

• when sending/moving troops to another location: add an arrow instead of dragging the scroll left/right. That way, you can easily move when you're sending only one.

Cards:

• Genocide: "You can bring down a population to [1] percent." Tried using it and it brought it down to 0.

I just gave out a beta key to someone I know half a globe away from our place. Now, I could test the desynch issues to the max if there are. Also, provided his laptop works like magic! Seems to be at the minimum requirements or lower than that.

I can't play today. My job is really a kill joy right now!

They are rushing me when the deadline is months apart! Anyways, I'll try to play tomorrow. Hopefully, I could play with my friend in my home country.

AI: (1v1v1v1 insane)

• unit production (priority production) must be dependent on map: For example, in Emerald mountains, the AI should have built a lot of land units as compared to frost isles. It applies to AI in the campaign map.
  
  I had a battle on storm shores map and the AI rarely built navies. I won the battle.

Maps:

• Storm shores bugged defensive capture point:
  
  

Interface/convenience:

• a unit able to follow or guard a unit: I tried using patrol targeting a unit and it just patrolled from point A to B.

Chat:
The chat in game sucks because whenever you type, the hotkeys are still able and you click on units you don't want to click (ie toggle between buildings when you don't have anything on)

Crash:
Got a crash while my chat is still open when the victory screen appeared.

Overall changes:
Maybe because I'm playing with someone half the globe away but my game is so slow as compared to before.

My usual settings in the option menu are: Difficulty: Hard, Game Speed: Fastest.

Chat is bugged in all kinds of ways right now.

I was chatting with a player who said it was his first match playing Dragon commander so we were versing the a.i and when we entered the battle I was giving him some tips and I SOLD MY RECRUITING CITADEL when typing the message! that was irritating.

That's what actually happened in my game.

Cards:
Increasing revenue of a country by 100%: This seems redundant at the start of the game since you are going to use it at the beginning anyways. Everyone is going to use that card at the capital in the beginning no doubt!

So maybe there will be a tutorial in the single player campaign, and that is the example used for how to play a card.

Yes, that could be possible.

Now unto the bug huntings:

This is is a campaign game wherein all battles are auto resolve (1v1v1v1 default AI):
Cards:

• Genocide card (50 percent one): It actually adds population to the enemy by 100%.
  I also tried combining genocide to 20% and 50% and the latter (adding population) is still in effect.
• Gold revenue increase (within 2 turns): It only affects one turn/turn when I used the card.
• (possible exploit/intentional?) 200%/250% increase in revenue in capital + 75% discount in unit cost: spam in campaign map capital country for that turn.
  I could build 20 juggernauts in one turn at a cost of 4 gold each!
  
  suggestion: either limit cap to 10 (or whatever) units that can be built per country (province) or use only one card in capital (strategical card (IE increase in gold %), but can use more than two cards in one country other than the capital.
  Although, using those two cards is very strategical especially when you are going to utilize all your resources.
  
  It seems the gold can be stacked a lot and the gold boost is dependent on the total value (From: Maxdmg)(IE base value+gold boost from card) so it could be exploited . Although luck is still at play, a person will have a big advantage over the other if he got a deck of cards full of gold boost. Maxdmg suggestion was to base it on the base value (IE initial gold value of the country before improvements/cards).
  
  Also, I'm suggesting that instead of production slots are dependent on income, it should have been dependent on research multiplied by XX amount for balancing. The reason I suggested this is that the gold boost should have only increased the gold as it should have been intended and not increase other things such as production capabilities, and, as far as my knowledge of the game, there are no increase in research cards that could inevitably lead to increase in production slots.

% rate bugged and auto resolve as a whole:

• Look at the bugged screenie below: I actually have less than 50% probability to beat 1 hunter when I have 12 of them! I'm the defender, and there are no entrenchments in my favor.
  
  
  Yes, I have to use one mercenary card (2 devestator) to increase it to 64%. I didn't take any chances if I lose or not.

I'm finding the auto resolve quite balanced because there are times wherein I could not win even though I have more than 50% chance of winning, and even 60%+!, but there are still some issues that needs to be addressed.

One time though, I auto resolved using 7 juggernauts and 2 hunters against 2 hunters 3 armors 2 devestators (I forgot) and I have 74% chance of winning. I lost all of my units...

Crash:

• I just crashed on the campaign map. I think I'm fiddling some units on the right portion of the map of little rivellon. Note: I only used auto resolve in all my battles. I captured dwarven capital and close in capturing green capital. I'm just cleaning up the other factions.

Were you moving into yellow's territory, or vise versa, or both moving into a neutral territory?

I think if he was moving into an Entrenched country, you could tell from that screenshot, I entered an Entrenched country, and all the enemy units on that screen got a +1 Entrenchment Bonus.

The big gold boosts and discounted production is very strong if you're lucky enough to get the card combo. This isn't OP because each spot has a production limit based on your gold, so your home territory can only ever produce 8 units. I've definitely popped out 8 juggernauts in one go on a few occasions. It's just the way the cards flop.