Get To Steam and Review People

Subjective observations are often not particularly actionable.

 

I like to think I have always been good about submitting bugs I find...

 

Personally I like the direction the game is going. These things just take time TM so I'm waiting a bit for the next update. I played a few months ago and didn't want to burn myself out, so I'm waiting for the next few patches, maybe until we get more solid military order system (patrols, alerts, have civilians lock themselves in houses, designated safe zones like burrows in DF or sth like that) and some crew improvements (seeing to which workshop someone belongs in the Crew tab, renaming crews, prioritizing tasks like ordering someone to do an exorcism first, and then take confessions for the rest of the day so my event doesn't fail). I'm fine with getting screwed over by my greed or bad luck sometimes, but not when I do everything right and game arbitrarily decides to punish me with no way to fight back.. like all civilians chasing a bandit to the other side of the map and dying, or not being able to protect overseers when invaded, or everyone melee-ing an Obelisk.

Basically most of the suggestions that have been posted on the forums already, or have even been confirmed by the devs. I think we already have a few big topics in Design about combat AI, UI improvements, so no need to pile on top of these when they are pretty detailed already. And some are already implemented, like forestry and upkeep reductions. So we just have to be patient and let the devs work without pestering them all the time... It seems like they 'got this'.

 

The way I approach it; if a player ever has to look any important information up on a wiki, rather than having it easily accessible via tooltips or ingame menus, then the UI does not do what it is supposed to. Right now the game is extremely frustrating to the people I've introduced it to, because they could not find the information they felt they needed to make choices. They've all mentioned feeling like they are being set up to fail by the game withholding simple information that would have drastically improved their situation if they had known it before committing to a course of action.

Now, it's easier for me since I've played the game with every major update, but every single time I have sat a person down with the game they have expressed frustration with not being able to find the information they wanted. Everything from understanding what governs colonist behaviour, to what buildings you are going to need one or two steps down the road. Several have started building a colony they thought was cool looking and focused on the things they wanted to do with their game, only to be punished by something being thrown at them that they had not been warned about in advance, and that they could now not react to because they had spent their resources elsewhere.

Sure, if you're going to a Dark Soul'ish experience then that's perfectly fine. But then that should be properly communicated to the player, but from my experience that is not what a new player feels like s/he is going into.

I am extremely sorry to hear that, but that's obviously your call. Be aware that I may not be the only person that has misunderstood this. Not only do the early artwork and articles, that let me to buy the game, suggest a higher level of steam punk, but the title of the game also makes a promise that it does not really meet as it stands. I have literally been holding on with really sinking hours into the game because I was waiting for the clockwork part of "clockwork empires". If that's not happening then I don't really see myself loading up the game again. This should not be misunderstood as anger. Not every game is for every person, and that's entirely fine. I chose to buy the product early, knowing full well that it could evolve into something I was no longer interested in. I am writing this to make you aware that some people are considering the steampunk aspect the core selling point. And with a title like that I don't really think you can blame them.

That's very possible. I have, as mentioned, not been playing the game much. It has not been my personal experience, at any point yet, that I actually had a meaningful choice: merely the task to figure out the optimal solution to an equation where I was not given enough data to actually solve it in any other way then tedious trial and error, where making the wrong choice meant that I had to start the game over again from scratch because the process had set me back so much that there was no feasible way to recover. If that has changed since last I played then that's awesome. I am not in any way claiming to possess an ultimate truth about anything here.

The only thing I can say with absolute certainty is that when I played the game last time (I play a handful of hours with every major update), the game was not enjoyable for me. What I listed was the reasons I did not have fun, and the reason I can not make a positive recommendation on steam, in good conscience.

 

This latest version should really really really help get some positive reviews. It is a night and day difference between upkeep and supplies, and hopefully some of the reviews from people in this forum are made top reviews.

 

Didn't Steam change how they count reviews based on whether the game was bought through the store or acquired by key? Might mean reviews from those of us who arrived right at the beginning of Earliest Access don't influence the numbers...