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Jon Shafer's At the Gates > General Discussions > Topic Details

DFuxa

29 Jan, 2019 @ 6:24pm

Feedback On Play

Been giving At The Gates a little bit of my time, and I have to say I like some of the ideas. At the same time however I'm noticing things that I would like to see improved. Some thoughts -

Playing the game I've found that the clan trait system is both interesting and infuriating. Essentially this game feels less like a 4x at times and more like a social simulator. That isn't necessarily a bad thing though, just something I find that I dislike. I would however like to see some traits made less common and others more common though - right now a lot of the traits will slant clans towards a certain discipline(s) and upset in others. This can make things difficult when you need certain professions, but everyone in your clan wants to be something else.

Note, in regards to clan traits you should make sure that conflicting traits can't show up on the same clan. I have a guy for example that is Adventurous for example - so he doesn't like being in a settle profession. And... He is a local, so he doens't want to be in an Active profession.... So Derp? On a new campaign I just started I got a clan with Wasteful and Fastidous.

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It would be nice to see some quality of life features thrown into the game. Trading in Caravans if I accidentally buy something, I have to sell it at a reduced price (instead of just giving it back for what I paid for it). When reseraching the disciplines for the first time I can't give a clan being trained the discipline boost; which leads to me having to initially train clans in disciplines and THEN professions at the start of the game in order to min/max. Little things like that make for some good polish.

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It would be nice perhaps to see a ways of players doing adjustments for altering the game nad making it less 'bumpy. Inheritly this game is quite random - which is fine, reminds me of Sid Meier's Colonization, but at least in Colonization you could alter the map you play on or not have to worry about throngs of hostiles swarming around you; and you could somewhat choose your starting position too.

Speaking of the starting position, it might be nice if perhaps more was revealed. I like how you get rumours and stuff but maybe you could see more area around your settlement in the beginning.

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I may add more here as I go along but for now I'll keep things short and try to enjoy the game.

Last edited by DFuxa; 29 Jan, 2019 @ 6:31pm

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Showing 1-9 of 9 comments

DFuxa

30 Jan, 2019 @ 8:51am

So some further thoughts on play.

Playing this game, one thing that irks me is that fact that we can't disband or banish clans. Obviously having bad clans is a part of gameplay, but it can get to be quite a nuisance if you 'find' a clan a years travel away from your settlement (cause your scout found him), and you can't really use the character.

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Would like to see the buy and sell buys in Caravan be static. Right now you buy something or sell something and the buttons will bounce around depending on the number of items. It is rather annoying.

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Autosaves really should have a self delete function so that there isn't so many of them. Also, it seems I have to manually delete them through my files as in game it freezes.

Vundal

30 Jan, 2019 @ 9:39am

If you have a bad clan, Watchmen is a good thing to train them in.

clayffo

30 Jan, 2019 @ 9:57am

bad clans also make good scouts , surveyors, and galleys.

DFuxa

30 Jan, 2019 @ 9:59am

Doesn't really help if he is on the the other side of the map from your settlement though.

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Also, I'll note that this game moves pretty fast, which is fine, but I wouldn't mind if perhaps things were slowed down a bit. Slow down how fast clans join you, how fast things are discovered, etc.

clayffo

30 Jan, 2019 @ 10:08am

if the clan is that far away, just send them to a bandit camp for capture or killing. or have them wander through the forest in winter so they die

Last edited by clayffo; 30 Jan, 2019 @ 10:08am

DFuxa

31 Jan, 2019 @ 5:04am

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Something that defientely needs to be added into this game is some ability to warn you if your clans are slowly dying - either due to lack of supply or what not. Had an army out in the field besieging some bandits. Went to check on them and couldn't find them as they had withered away in the winter.

The same could go for active threats nearby. Maybe a bandit is lurking near your guys or what not. This is something I rather liked from civilization as I could easily keep track of a sprawling empire, even the little settlements where I wouldn't expect anything to happen.

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It would be nice if when looking at enemy units we could see what faction they belong too - not by the color of their banner but actually by it 'telling' us. I see some units running around and i want to know what faction they belong too.

Last edited by DFuxa; 31 Jan, 2019 @ 5:06am

Nurmoniar

31 Jan, 2019 @ 6:56am

you can kill off bad clans by hitting the delete key

DFuxa

31 Jan, 2019 @ 1:48pm

Awesome tip, worked quite well.

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Okay, managed to play the game until winning finally. Some thoughts then on full playthrough.

Galleys seem a bit odd in that they can carry only one unit - but they can ferry your entire settlement full of units? Personally, perhaps I'd make Galleys capable of carrying more units (say 5?), and include settlements if they have 5 or less clans in them.

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The Naval units are cool and all, but because they have to dock at your settlement it can become a chore if you have two separate bodies of water you want them in. On the winning game I played I never bothered to found a kingdom due to the map having a western/southern and norther/eastern ocean. This was due to managing naval units on both side of a small land mass.

I would perhaps like it if we could perhaps build docks, and specfically make it so that fisherman, galleys, and whatever else floats be produced at said docks.

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I'd perhaps like to see a greater collection of enemies to fight. Maybe on top of bandits we could have wild animals like wolves or the like running around - it isn't like animals weren't still a threat to humans in the dark ages.

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I have to say that the Defenses Rome had were pretty lacking. I marched in their with 5 Knights and pretty well stamped out everything to and on the way into Rome. I realize that is a pretty overwhelming force, but I would think Rome should be able to take quite a beating before falling prey to me.

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Looking at the overall game, I felt that the earlier parts of the game felt too rushed with how many clans you were managing at the start; while later on it felt like unless you had tonnes of Fame producing clans - you weren't really getting that many too quickly. It might be nice if the formula was refined a bit so that you aren't hitting 12 clans as quick as you do early on, and maybe making clans a little easier to come by after hitting 20.

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I'll note that I enjoyed the concept for this game, but I hated the bugs and roughness of it. I plan on doing a Let's Play series for this game but I'm slightly wondering if I should hold off in hopes that an update addresses some issues in this game.

Anyhow, keep up the good work and hopefully refine the game a bit - I'll check back into the game in a few months to see how it has improved.