Thursday, May 01, 2008
Frayed Knights Pilot Release Aftermath
I wasn't really trying to make a huge deal of the pilot - this was an experimental release to help gauge how we're doing while there's still time to make major corrections. Releasing anything like this to the public, and soliciting criticism, is not something I'd recommend for anyone who fears damage to their ego. Even when the really negative comments are in the minority, one sting wipes out ten praises. At least it does for me. But the purpose of the pilot and the survey is not to make the development team feel warm and fuzzy, but rather to give us an accurate picture of where we are and where we need to go. Like checking for directions at a gas station before committing to another 200 miles. It was to help us know what major and minor changes need to be made while there's still time to make them.
And the response in the last 24 hours to the release of the Frayed Knights Pilot has been incredible. I'm sitting with 80 survey responses so far, and climbing. The response so far has been overwhelmingly positive - better than I really expected, to be honest, as much as I daydream about making a game that absolutely everybody loves.
Better yet, almost everyone - especially those who offered strong approval of the game and it's overall style and flavor - has offered criticism of aspects that they feel need to be changed. Often extremely constructive criticism, with several paragraphs of recommendations and clear explanations of what they had trouble with and what they'd recommend to fix it. We're talking details worth their weight in gold.
I am - in a word - floored. But in a good way.
Hmm, I guess that was six words. My bad.
Thank you to everyone who has participated and continues to participate in the pilot and the survey.
We're gonna push forward with the full release stuff, but I suspect a "revised pilot" will be making its way out. Hey, FK testing crew, if you feel like signing on for another tour, I'll have need of your services again sooner than expected! For those who haven't received enough punishment...
I plan to continue the regular blogging on development as it continues. I started this thing as kind of an open-development thing, and I'm going to continue in that vein. While I have my own criticisms of game design failures and so forth, the neat thing about being a critic is that you can tear down the things you see without having to build anything of your own for other people to tear down. Doing this has exposed quite a few holes and issues of my own.
Moving forward, the most commonly mentioned issues with the game are these:
* UI - in a nutshell, there are too many button presses required to do something, especially in combat. As I kind of expected, spellcasting is still too cumbersome (I can say that it is FAR better than it used to be, for all the good that does...) People have more modern expectations for the UI, and I have to respond to it. A lot of the suggestions seem to mirror World of Warcraft's design, for some reason... go figger. Unfortunately, I don't know if the built-in Torque UI tools are up to the task, so I've got a lot of work on my hands...
* Movement Speed - this is a sensitive issue. People expect first-person-shooter speeds in first-person games. The "walking speed" in Frayed Knights is far faster than realistic - it's more like a real-world run speed. But people like to zip. Especially in the village or another safe place. I'd deliberately tried to slow things down to closer to Ultima Underworld speeds for Frayed Knights - a more deliberate "dungeon crawl" / exploration pace (at a good run speed, but still...) But it frustrates people. So I'm gonna have to come up with a happy medium.
* Randomness - there's too much randomness in the game, between the random encounters and the wildly varying difficulty of combat. People might mow down four groups of two cultists four times in a row, but then get clobbered by the fifth while at full health and endurance. And the random encounters - while usually paced reasonably, approached ridiculous "Final Fantasy" levels in some cases.
* Combat - not exciting enough. And not clear enough. The melee characters don't have enough options, and the effect of some of the spells is too subtle (due to randomness and lack of clear feedback) to really tell what makes a difference. And some of the balance is off, like endurance / resting. Some things we need to focus on include better / clearer options for the characters, easier target selection, feedback on the upcoming combat order (who is going to go next), and easier spellcasting.
* Feedback - just overall, there needs to be clearer feedback on what's going on in the game that the player can either control or react to. I knew this was a problem before releasing the pilot, but we lacked the time and resources to take care of it. But there needs to be better visual display of what's going on with all the little details in the game. There are a TON of details happening in the back-end number crunching, so much that even *I* don't know what's going on sometimes. That needs to be exposed, if it is important. And if it's not important - I should consider dropping it.
* The Music (And Sound)- I actually deliberately limited the music, partly because I thought the looping stuff was annoying, and partly because Torque was having some major bugs with streaming audio. People wanted more of it - the game is too quiet with this release. And in general, more sound effects are required.
* Movement Control Awkwardness - I tried (HARD) to make a game that was completely controllable with only a mouse. Either I botched it (and yeah, I probably did - even I don't play that way), or its simply not what most of my prospective audience wants. Straight WASD and mouselook (basic first-person-shooter controls) is high on the list of requirements, though it's going to make things weird for clicking on all the things on the screen when the mouse moves your vantage point instead. I'm probably going to settle on holding down the right mouse button to turn / look (or the "A" and "D" keys...) . Maybe I'll keep the old system around (with some refinements) as an option or something.
* Key Remapping - yeah, I know. I know. Everybody's got their favorite way of playing a game, and they want all games to conform. I'm the same way. This isn't a hard task, just a tedious and annoying one... but that's about 75% of making a game. It just kept getting bumped in priority.
* Character Creation / Customization - Character creation just isn't for this kind of game. It's a game about these four characters (and some NPCs). The customization comes with leveling, and I didn't have leveling included with the game. I'm not too worried about this, but I wanted to mention it here because it's clearly pretty key.
There are also lots of suggestions / issues that aren't as common, but they jibe strongly with my own feelings towards the game - or they just make sense - and I'll be addressing those as well. The above were just the most common issues.
Again - thank you to everyone who is participating in the pilot. While pleasing everyone isn't going to be possible for any game, the suggestions will help me to make a more enjoyable game. Assuming I'm up to the task...
Labels: Frayed Knights, Game Design
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:42 AM (Permalink)
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I have no idea if Torque can deal with this, but in several of the adventure games I've played lately they dealt with walking speed with a click method. One click walks, two clicks runs. So when you're in the open you click twice and scamper your way over, but can go slower when looking for a clue, clicking boxes, etc.
~J
~J
Hmmm.... well, for mouse-based control, that might be appropriate. For walking around... if people are going to be running a lot, a toggle might be more appropriate.
Great Job Jay!
Expect even more feedback as people like me get time to play it this weekend.
-Spiff
P.S. Making progress on the crazy graphics engine front. Every success like yours helps spur others onward.
Expect even more feedback as people like me get time to play it this weekend.
-Spiff
P.S. Making progress on the crazy graphics engine front. Every success like yours helps spur others onward.
# posted by 
: May 01, 2008 1:37 PM
: May 01, 2008 1:37 PM
I think a large part of the movement speed comes from the temple being fairly grand in scale. it just *feels* like you're moving awfully slow against such a huge backdrop.
But even so, I don't see any reason not to exaggerate the movement speed, unless you consider movement to be an entertaining portion of the game. It seems to me that like most games, walking around is basically the mortar that holds the bricks that represent that actual meat of the game together. And as such, you should be thinking in terms of bricks to mortar proportions.
If you think comparatively, harken back to the days of grid based blob games, such as Wizardrys < 8 Dungeon Master and the like. Movement speed is entirely under the player's control, and a skilled player can rip through familiar/expansive areas at lightning pace.
In comparison to more modern games, I've always felt a bit disappointed by games like Stalker, Boiling Point and so forth, that do a really great job of simulating this world on a grand scale, but ultimately wind up with you spending most of your time walking/driving around and not really interacting in any meaningful way. At the other end of the scale, you have Oblivion, where it seems a bit silly, both to trip over a dungeon every few feet, and to have an instant teleport as part of the interface.
That's the main part of my feedback thus far (since the pilot came very close to the Team Fortress 2 update) but I'll play a bit more and throw a few more 2 cent pieces into the well.
But even so, I don't see any reason not to exaggerate the movement speed, unless you consider movement to be an entertaining portion of the game. It seems to me that like most games, walking around is basically the mortar that holds the bricks that represent that actual meat of the game together. And as such, you should be thinking in terms of bricks to mortar proportions.
If you think comparatively, harken back to the days of grid based blob games, such as Wizardrys < 8 Dungeon Master and the like. Movement speed is entirely under the player's control, and a skilled player can rip through familiar/expansive areas at lightning pace.
In comparison to more modern games, I've always felt a bit disappointed by games like Stalker, Boiling Point and so forth, that do a really great job of simulating this world on a grand scale, but ultimately wind up with you spending most of your time walking/driving around and not really interacting in any meaningful way. At the other end of the scale, you have Oblivion, where it seems a bit silly, both to trip over a dungeon every few feet, and to have an instant teleport as part of the interface.
That's the main part of my feedback thus far (since the pilot came very close to the Team Fortress 2 update) but I'll play a bit more and throw a few more 2 cent pieces into the well.
# posted by : May 01, 2008 3:08 PM
: May 01, 2008 3:08 PM
I don't think that the mouse lock/pointer to click things dichotomy is going to pose a problem at all. While holding down the right mouse button, the mouse controls your view/direction, then you simply let go of the right button to make the screen stationary again and click things with your left button. No trouble at all. BTW, posting feedback on the feedback, great idea, makes us feel even more involved; keep up the good work.
# posted by : May 01, 2008 3:13 PM
: May 01, 2008 3:13 PM
And I rather liked the magic system, once I got used to it (I just wish the healer was the default non-combat caster). As for too many buttons, pish. I played WoW for two years, and am not eager to see another carbon copy of that system. There is something to be said for character.
# posted by : May 01, 2008 3:17 PM
: May 01, 2008 3:17 PM
"...the effect of some of the spells is too subtle (due to randomness and lack of clear feedback) to really tell what makes a difference...."
This is one thing I think FF10 did really well. When Darkness is effective against an enemy, it almost always hits, and makes them almost always miss. All those abilities that would normally be pretty subtle were much more obvious and therefore more appealing.
This is one thing I think FF10 did really well. When Darkness is effective against an enemy, it almost always hits, and makes them almost always miss. All those abilities that would normally be pretty subtle were much more obvious and therefore more appealing.
You REALLY need to consider AFX Jay. Right out of the box you have WoW like controls, quickbar, ability to select pretty much anything in the scene, pretty gfx feedback indicating anything you have selected, automatic targeting of spells at your selected object/entity, etc etc.
And the difference in quality of special effects is just a completely other level from stock Torque. It's not even a comparison.
I'd recommend you look into it before you put too much effort into reworking your UI controls. ;)
And the difference in quality of special effects is just a completely other level from stock Torque. It's not even a comparison.
I'd recommend you look into it before you put too much effort into reworking your UI controls. ;)
Actually, I have AFX.
But I tried integrating it with my Torque customizations, and I failed miserably. TGB and TGE had diverged too far.
I may give it another stab now that the April milestone is over.
But I tried integrating it with my Torque customizations, and I failed miserably. TGB and TGE had diverged too far.
I may give it another stab now that the April milestone is over.
The walking speed is fine as it is, since this is not a FPS and there's bound to be lot's of things to interact with in almost every room.
A nifty new feature for the ADD people here would be a "run" button/key that enables running speed but slowly lowers the endurane of the whole party. Just a thought
A nifty new feature for the ADD people here would be a "run" button/key that enables running speed but slowly lowers the endurane of the whole party. Just a thought
Please make the mouselook a toggle instead of a 'hold down the button' thing.. A thing like that can definitely wind up being a make-or-break issue for some people.
# posted by : May 02, 2008 4:44 PM
: May 02, 2008 4:44 PM
Oh and, I could be totally wrong of course but isn't making the game completely playable by keyboard higher on the list than making it completely playable by mouse? Wasn't that one of the big points Jeff Vogel said he was happy he finally got to implement in Av5?
For example, if I could just type 'C H 4' to cast a healing spell on character 4, that would go a very long ways towards improving the feel of controls.
Hmm.. that's not what you mean by 'mirroring WoW's design', is it? Cause that's the way I remember it being in Bard's Tale, Dragon Wars, Ultima, etc.
Anyway, I loved the pilot, I think it shows a potentially brilliant retro-style game in the works.
For example, if I could just type 'C H 4' to cast a healing spell on character 4, that would go a very long ways towards improving the feel of controls.
Hmm.. that's not what you mean by 'mirroring WoW's design', is it? Cause that's the way I remember it being in Bard's Tale, Dragon Wars, Ultima, etc.
Anyway, I loved the pilot, I think it shows a potentially brilliant retro-style game in the works.
# posted by : May 02, 2008 4:55 PM
: May 02, 2008 4:55 PM
On the front page of www.frayedknights.com... "elvin" isn't a word. It's either "elven" (an elf) or "elfin" (like an elf).
Another suggestion - more conversations, but shorter ones. They seemed like a lot of reading when they were going on, but then it was so long before the next one that I had nearly forgotten who the characters were.
I agree with most of the 'common complaints' - but the game is still fun despite them. As much as I'd appreciate the polishing you have planned, I think I'd still buy the game if some of it slips from your publish deadline.
That said, a dealbreaker for me was a computer reboot when I clicked one of the options at the icky pool (details are in my survey response). It was just too annoying to lose my progress up to that point.
Still, keep up the good work! It's definitely a good game, and the fundamentals are there. Some interface polishing, some bug hunting, and the rest of the content, and you'll have a solid game, better than most of my options at Walmart.
That said, a dealbreaker for me was a computer reboot when I clicked one of the options at the icky pool (details are in my survey response). It was just too annoying to lose my progress up to that point.
Still, keep up the good work! It's definitely a good game, and the fundamentals are there. Some interface polishing, some bug hunting, and the rest of the content, and you'll have a solid game, better than most of my options at Walmart.
A thought on the movement speed... You mention that the movement speed is far faster than realistic, but that begs the question of scaling. In most games that keep track of day/night, they compress it down so the day only lasts an hour or so. If you're doing a 24-to-1 compression of time, then a leisurely walking speed of 2 mph would turn into 48 mph. The characters should look like they're driving on the freeway. Wandering the game-world is intentionally a compressed experience, because a play session isn't long enough to accomplish anything otherwise.
# posted by : May 07, 2008 10:39 AM
: May 07, 2008 10:39 AM
I'm incorporating many of these suggestions.
As to the crash bug on the fountain, I'm absolutely clueless. David, could you email me your log file? It sounds like maybe a broken sound effect, but you didn't mention a crash when any of the other portcullis gates opened.
As for time compression - I kind of abstract time out as it is. I mean, combat is turn-based, and so could take hours on some scales :) The key point is making something players are comfortable with, and I've come to the conclusion that the majority aren't comfortable with the previous speed.
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As to the crash bug on the fountain, I'm absolutely clueless. David, could you email me your log file? It sounds like maybe a broken sound effect, but you didn't mention a crash when any of the other portcullis gates opened.
As for time compression - I kind of abstract time out as it is. I mean, combat is turn-based, and so could take hours on some scales :) The key point is making something players are comfortable with, and I've come to the conclusion that the majority aren't comfortable with the previous speed.
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