Telepath Tactics - opinions

[wartman]

I pretty much went straight from the demo to pledging on Kickstarter. Even at this early stage the game-play feels very solid. The deterministic combat is great, and I really like how important positioning is. My favorite thing, however, is probably the shove/pull mechanic: for example, in the last map of the demo I had one of my units pull the archers off the tower with her mind. It was awesome, and, importantly, made me feel like I there were more ways to win then just sending my units up to stab the enemy in the face. The engineer likewise is a lot of fun, as it opens up the possibility of building barriers to funnel the enemy into a spot you can take advantage of. I hope you'll be keeping this stuff in mind designing the maps--I see a lot of potential to give people creative paths to victory.

Also, as a color-blind player, thank you thank you thank you for adding shapes to show which side a unit is on instead of just using a different color. I wish more developers did that.

The interface didn't win me over as much as the core mechanics did, and I'd like to hear a bit more about your plans for it. Specifically, I think context-sensitive clicks are sorely needed. For example, clicking on an enemy unit could bring up a menu of available attacks (if said enemy is in range), moving on top of a tile with a bag in it might automatically pick it up, clicking on an open tile could just move you there. Clicking on a button for every action works fine, but you could probably streamline things to the point where the menu-bar isn't even required. I also kind of liked the look of having buttons pop up on selected units rather then on a fixed bar, like in some of your old videos, although I'm sure you had a good reason for changing direction on that. Granted, I'm no game designer, so take my ramblings with the usual grain of salt.

Great game though! Can't wait to get the final version, and I'm glad the Kickstarter is going so well.

[CraigStern]

Thanks a ton! I really appreciate the feedback.

God, that interface. I've already revised the interface quite a few times now based on player feedback; I'm starting to think it's just one of those things where no one is ever going to agree on an ideal solution! A lot of people were like you, and liked the old "pop up buttons by the character" method, but a lot of others didn't like that the buttons weren't always in a consistent place on the screen using that method. So you have the current window, which lets you drag it wherever, but always appears in the same place on the screen. Maybe I'll add an option to the game to have it just auto-position under the current character whenever selecting actions? I'll have to give it more thought.

Anyway, I appreciate the thoughtful feedback, and am looking forward to finishing this game up for you. ;)

[wartman]

Thanks a ton! I really appreciate the feedback.

God, that interface. I've already revised the interface quite a few times now based on player feedback; I'm starting to think it's just one of those things where no one is ever going to agree on an ideal solution! A lot of people were like you, and liked the old "pop up buttons by the character" method, but a lot of others didn't like that the buttons weren't always in a consistent place on the screen using that method. So you have the current window, which lets you drag it wherever, but always appears in the same place on the screen. Maybe I'll add an option to the game to have it just auto-position under the current character whenever selecting actions? I'll have to give it more thought.

Anyway, I appreciate the thoughtful feedback, and am looking forward to finishing this game up for you. ;)

Yeah, you're never going to please everyone. The solution you posted sounds like a good compromise though, I'm sure you'll come up with something that works.

Anyway, this game has really gotten into my head. Here, have some art:



(Not sure if this should be posted somewhere else, but there you are.)

[Ertxiem]

Welcome wartman. KZ's sig says everything:

Welcome to the forums!
Read the rules, use proper grammar and punctuation, play the games, share your ideas and enjoy your stay!

But it seems that you're already following those!

Regarding the interface, if it's not too much to ask from Craig, it would be nice if both options could be chosen (fixed position and auto-position). But apart from the personal preferences, that may not be a crucial thing in game-play. After some turns we'll probably end up getting used to either way of placing the interface.

The golem vs swordsman is a great image! I really liked it.
(Just for reference, there are also a few Art threads around here, in case you're interested.)

Craig: There is a colour code, named ColorADD designed to help colour blind people. It may also be interesting to take a look at Color Oracle that is a colour blindness simulator. I'm not seeing exactly how to fit both things into TT, but it still may be interesting for future reference.

[bloodwars]

I too played the demo and immediately pledged.  I think the unit interface is pretty good in showing your available actions and unit stats, so i've got no complaints there. seems like a sollid tactics type game.

I'd prefer combat didn't automatically end, since I like bashing all the barrels and such (unless the gold auto loots and the items don't carry over, in which case it's truly pointless).

I don't have access to the full game, but the assassin in the demo seems CRAZY strong.  can one hit guys, leap, and seems to dodge everything throw back at him/her.  the enemy AI also doesn't seem to act very cohesively as a team, so it's pretty easy to split them up and pick them off.

anyways, i appreciate what i've seen, and look forward to seeing more - thanks!

[CraigStern]

Wartman--that art is totally awesome! I am totally going to share that, if you don't mind. :D

I don't have access to the full game, but the assassin in the demo seems CRAZY strong.  can one hit guys, leap, and seems to dodge everything throw back at him/her.  the enemy AI also doesn't seem to act very cohesively as a team, so it's pretty easy to split them up and pick them off.

Thanks for the feedback! The assassin is quite strong in the single player demo campaign mainly because the enemies in that campaign are relatively weak; if you play Local Matches, where the teams are evenly matched in terms of stats, I think you'll find that Assassins are more balanced. They are actually really bad against most front-line fighters, which get physical resistance and a counterattack. They are also easy to finish off with Mental attacks (since those can't be dodged). :)

[strikereternal]

Yeah, in the demo level the assassin has lots of soft targets to pick off and plenty of room to maneuver, plus she outlevels most (all?) of the opposition.

I'm actually wondering about the leveling/experience system.  It seems like it's flat, i.e. no scaling factor based on the level of the opponent.  Are there balance concerns here? What's the rationale for going with this as opposed to say, Fire Emblem where your XP gained scales with the level of the opponent, allowing underleveled characters to catch up and discouraging stacking all your experience on one character? (FE system certainly has what I would consider weaknesses, e.g. Jeigans leading to rather illogical play.  Just curious about the design choices and not trying to advocate a change.)

(edit: Now that I check the demo again, I don't actually see levels on the enemies in single-player.)

[CraigStern]

Yes; at present, enemy level does not have any actual effect on enemies or on experience gained.

My prediction is that there won't any serious balance concerns with flat experience progression because of a few things that are handled differently. They are:

(1) Backstab damage. Not having other characters to watch your lone fighter's back will automatically put him/her at a big disadvantage.

(2) AI. You can't just send out a single over-powered character to attract enemies one at a time. Enemies will actively pursue your weakest characters, so you're making things much harder on yourself if you deliberately keep most of your characters weak.

(3) Defense is percentage-based, not directly arithmetical. You're never going to see something like the notorious "No Damage!" pop-up from Fire Emblem unless you both seriously overlevel and somehow manage to get resistance stat gains every single time.

(4) Even if you do manage to get close to 100% resistance in an element, this isn't a game where you just have Defense and Resistance; in Telepath Tactics, getting (for example) 90% slash resistance means there are still something like a dozen other elements where you character won't have resistance! The AI is smart enough to rely on attacks that your characters don't resist, so at best, your character will take minimal damage from only some of the enemies present.

In short: this isn't Fire Emblem. You can get a really damn powerful character through overleveling, sure, but that character is unlikely to successfully solo a battle--and in the meantime, your other characters are going to drop like flies. That, at least, is what I predict. I could be wrong. :)

[strikereternal]

Makes perfect sense. My impression playing the demo was also that I didn't see any particular advantage to be gained by overleveling a character.  Along with your points, the variety of tactical situations and possible opponents should incentivize spreading out the experience among members of different classes.

[StrawmanMatt]

My apologies if this has already been addressed in detail, but: would it be possible to set up a custom campaign so you can move between campaign levels freely and nonlinearly, without getting stuck going down any branches, and your position being determined in part by what map you were in before?

(let's say you had four maps, A1, B1, A2 and B2. A player in both A1 and B2 can travel to B1 and A2 and back at any time, but you can't go directly to A1 from B2. There may be a dungeon under B2, and its only exit is out to and its only entrance is in from B2.)

[CraigStern]

Yup! You can absolutely do that via scripting.

[bugfartboy]

When creating a new attack, if it isn't of the element Create, the game now takes whatever you put in the creates attribute as a sign of what you'd like to replace the attack's target with if it dies.

Yes!!!
My wishes have come true!!! :D

~Edit~
From the same post, I believe I see why my "Undead Swordsman" characters weren't getting their names properly when I modded them in. Silly me.

[bugfartboy]

Can an item give a one-time use attack?

[Ertxiem]

Like explosives?

[CraigStern]

Not yet. I've just added equipment into the game, however, which will give characters granted attacks for so long as the equipment remains equipped.