Edit: added in one or two things I forgot, fixed one or two things I copied wrong, and clarified some parts
The 1.3 fiasco has interrupted all of the feedback posts I had intended to do, as the focus of the dev recently has had to shift to repair and recovery instead of improvement, and also I didn’t want to take focus away from what was going on with the 1.3 update. However, with the recent news that we’re still getting the follower update in 1.4, I’ve decided to go ahead and continue them. Some of my feedback will be on things that they’re currently working on, but some might be on things it will take them a long time to get around to. Either way, I think it’s good for them to have the info, as there’s the possibility that they can stick a few small changes in while adjusting other things. So here’s my next feedback post, on Followers. It will be structured with all of the issues first, and the reasons why they’re issues, then the solutions that I believe would fix these issues at the end.
Issues
Naming
This first issue is a minor one, but it’s always bothered me that Followers are called ‘Followers’ and not ‘Companions’ like in the previous games. A ‘follower’ has the connotation of being lower than whoever the leader is, whereas a companion is someone who travels alongside someone else and experiences things with them as equals. I’m not sure why this was changed, and the new name is less fitting.
UI
The UI requires players to select a follower to see how much time is left on their resource generation, but takes away the ‘Collect All’ button after they do so. So it requires a bunch of extra clicks/taps to check the timers and then collect from followers.
Also, there isn’t an easy way to tell which followers are crafting something and which are idle.
Follower Currencies
There are problems with most of the follower currencies.
Food
After players level their followers to the max, food is useless. This has been acknowledged as a problem, so hopefully it will change eventually, but it remains an issue currently.
Food is also a dud gift of chests, taking up room in them and making the drop rate of the things in them that are actually good drop far less. I can’t describe how disappointing it is to wait 24 hours to open a diamond chest, just to get only food out of it. Even during the time food still has a use, getting it as a drop really sucks.
Ore
It’s really hard to get enough ore to keep all of your followers active, as players get only 1 ore generator but have 16 followers currently (all of whom have a fairly high ore cost at higher levels). My followers are often forced to sit inactive simply because I can’t afford the cost to active them. It doesn’t feel very good to have to not use my followers, especially after investing so much into them.
Ore is also another dud gift of chests, though a slightly better one than food.
Gold
It’s disappointing that followers not only have a cost in ore and time, but also one in gold. The cost in ore and time is already enough of one. Why do followers need to cost gold as well? Early-game, players are always short on gold, so having one more area to spend gold on is hard. Especially when ore, if it was implemented properly, should have completely replaced the gold to be the sole currency that followers use to craft anyway.
Crystals
These work fine as an evolution currency, so these are fine overall. However, players get too few of these, and get them too late, so your followers lag behind where they need to be to be useful. More on this later.
Also, why is the super rare evolution currency used for making tier IV relics!? This breaks multiple principles of design. I’ll just give one of them for example: consistency. You’ve taught players that relics are used solely to evolve followers. Now you’re suddenly asking them to use them for something else out of nowhere. I know this is likely an attempt to solve getting so many follower crystals that have no use after a follower is fully maxed, but this just isn’t a good solution to that problem. (A better one would be to allow for conversion of follower crystals or something similar.)
Crafting Costs
Like I said in the section about ore, followers just simply take too much ore to be able to keep them active all of the time. Gold is also a rare resource for beginning players, so having to spend it in yet another location makes it tough for them.
Also, the costs for relic crafting with Eveline are way too high for her to be of use in crafting more than the first 2 tiers of relics. Not only does it take multiple of the lower tier of relic, but it also takes gems or Follower Crystals. Why are these required to craft? Even if Eveline didn’t require gems or Follower Crystals to craft relics, the cost is still high in time, ore, and in getting other relics to use as material (relics of any tier are extremely hard to get). And simply trading one of the same tier of relic to another set shouldn’t cost much at all. As it is, crafting and trading both having such an exorbitant cost makes it almost impossible to get tier 3 and tier 4 relics.
Followers Give Necessary Functions Too Late
Followers have functions that are useful, but come so late that players have to suffer through having whatever problem the Followers fix for quite a while. For example, Soulchaser gives the ability to craft weapons, but players are likely to get stuck due to lacking a good weapon at least 2-3 chapters before unlocking him. Another example is Mutiny, who gives instant clear tickets, but comes so late in the game the player has already gotten used to the annoyance of not having a way to instantly clear battles. And Elyra provides yet another example: after getting her, getting gold can still require a bit of a grind sometimes, but is reasonable overall. Before getting her, however, players are always short of gold. Often I was unable to level up my gear not because I didn’t have enough shards, but because I didn’t have enough gold. I was constantly trying to stretch my limited amount between leveling gear, leveling spells, evolving followers, leveling minions, crafting, buying from the shop, and buying from the kingdom shop. And the player has to struggle through most of the game this way before finally getting her.
Followers Are Too Hard to Evolve/Evolve Too Late
Evolutions of Followers also come too late, continuing the problem of followers giving necessary functions after the player needs them. For example, by the time players are able to evolve Northelm, they’ve likely been capped out on gear for a while. Personally, I had to power up other characters just to go hunt his crystals down, which shows that, instead of his upgrades coming at a natural point in the story close to when they are needed, his upgrades lag behind when they are needed. I also had to go hunt down Auri’s crystals, as I reached the point where I needed tier 2 relics to progress, but they were too expensive for me to buy when they appeared in the shop (they were past my current gold cap).
Followers Don’t Give Enough Higher Rarity Items
Followers in general are quite useful, but in the middle game, around the period where players have reached level 40-50 with one character, Followers lose their usefulness for a while. This is because Followers can’t be leveled at the pace as your character, so they remain at a level where they have a high chance to craft tier 1 and 2 gear/spells/shards. After the early game, this
isn’t useful at all, and Followers take such a large investment of gold, ore, and time that the player isn’t even really receiving back their investment. It’s still worth it for the rare chance of high tier stuff, but players lose a lot of resources this way if they keep their followers active all the time. This gets better once players are able to eventually get enough crystals to max their Followers, and at the highest levels Followers are quite useful for the chance at mythic items. However, even the highest rank Followers still have a high chance to give low tier items, which can be very disappointing.
Unclear Unlocking Process For Sidequests
The game doesn’t explain that you have to complete all of the sidequests for one chapter before the character’s quests for the next chapter will even show up. So a player can believe they have no side quests available for a Follower, when actually they need to do the side quests for a different character first.
It also doesn’t show when the next side quest will be available (for example if a Follower has 1 side quest in ch 3 and then another in ch 6, the game won’t tell you that.
Follower Crystal Imbalance
As players start maxing their followers, they end up with a bunch of ones they don’t need (especially Eveline crystals) and a lack of ones they need. Allowing conversion from one type of follower crystal to another (once the player reaches lvl 50) would help a lot with this.
And it’s conversion, not getting rid of the crystals entirely, so players won’t be lacking in crystals if the level cap for followers is ever raised.
So, those were what I think the issues with the Follower system are. Now for the solutions.
Solutions
There should be a ‘Collect All’ button added to the screen that shows up after a follower is selected (perhaps in the bar at the top that has the back arrow).
Timers should be visible without selecting a specific follower.
There should be an icon on the Followers’ picture that shows when they are crafting/producing.
Ore and food should be either made by followers only and not dropped from chests anymore, or removed from the game entirely.
- Removing ore and food from chests would improve chests drops, and the happiness of players with chests, exponentially.
- Followers already have a cost in all the investment to level them up, and then have time as a currency for their crafting, so even if ore was eliminated completely, Follower crafting still wouldn’t be free.
- Alternatively, food could be used for both leveling and crafting (which would solve the problem of food being a dead currency at the same time.)
Followers shouldn’t cost gold to evolve and craft.
- This change will help new players save gold for upgrading gear, spells, and minions.
As a follower ranks up, their increased rank should come with a lower cap on the tier of type of item they can give.
For example, consider this rework for Toragon:
- A common Toragon will craft common to uncommon equipment.
- An uncommon Toragon will craft common to rare equipment.
- A rare Toragon will craft uncommon to epic equipment.
- An epic Toragon will craft rare to epic equipment.
- A legendary Toragon will craft rare to legendary equipment.
- A mythic Toragon will craft epic to mythic equipment.
This change would make followers a lot more useful, while still leaving enough random chance to cause them to not be too overpowered.
Allow conversion from one type of follower crystal to another
- This would help a lot with the surplus of certain follower crystals and the dearth of others.
- Since it’s conversion, not getting rid of the crystals entirely, players won’t be lacking in crystals (they’ll still have the same amount of them in the end, just allocated a bit differently) if the level cap for followers is ever raised.
- Could only unlock once the player reaches lvl 50.
- This would ensure players don’t convert their early crystals and instead level up all followers relatively equally
Clearing the chapter that the follower is first given in should give a crystal for that follower after that when clearing with other classes (instead of giving either an Eveline crystal or nothing, the way it does currently)
- This would help evolve followers at a quicker, more natural rate (one that aligns with natural progression better.)
- The player still has to clear an entire chapter for the crystal after getting the follower, so crystals still wouldn’t be spaced to close together
- This helps solve the problem of chapters not being that rewarding to clear at the same time.
Sidequests should be adjusted to reward Follower crystals earlier and more often. And give better rewards than Iron Keys.
- This would help eliminate that gap where players can’t evolve their Followers and need to rush levels with all of their other classes to be able to. Some particular changes:
- Northelm’s second crystal should be given at chapter 5, or chapter 6 at the latest. Otherwise, players start to not have enough inventory space for all of their characters.
- Auri’s first crystal should be given in the first chapter after she’s unlocked
- She’s the only follower who breaks the trend and has her first crystal later, and players feel the restriction of not being able to evolve her.
- Sidequests are important to do, and can only be done once with each character, so the rewards should be better to encourage players to do them. Iron keys are very common, so right now the non-crystal side quests don’t feel rewarding to do. These sidequests should give either ruby or diamond keys instead.
All chest slots should be shown on the main screen from the beginning, even the locked ones, with the unlocked ones having text on them showing that they are unlocked by Northelm (idea courtesy of Flora).
- Flora says, “The game would come of less as a must vip game, and would point new players in the direction of making multiple heroes, to unlock said crystals.”
- It would also help give a sense of progress to the game, which is currently lacking.
It should be ensured that players are always able to have their followers crafting.
This can be done through two different methods:
- Removing ore and having Followers cost time only
- (if ore is kept)
- Giving each follower a passive ability so that even if the player can’t use their active ability, they still can be useful through their passive.
- Having multiple followers generate ore as their passive.
Add Fragment System tied to followers that awards the player for salvaging.
- See Adhakus’s rework for details
Followers should be reordered and their abilities changed around so that the points when players acquire and evolve them better match the points when their ability becomes useful in the story. There are a few different good options for how they could be changed, but here’s one that I believe is good:
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Eveline
- Active
- Craft dungeon and skirmish tickets (the player gets to pick which)
- Passive
- (if these are still linked to Followers) increase Gear, Spell, and Minion inventory space and/or increase resource caps
- As I explained previously, I think inventory space would work better being tied to the number of characters a player has unlocked (and perhaps the level of those characters too if necessary) and that inventory caps should be removed entirely. However, if they stay, they’re a good fit for Eveline.
- (if these are still linked to Followers) increase Gear, Spell, and Minion inventory space and/or increase resource caps
- Evolution
- Increase chance of crafting double tickets
- Increase the Chest Inventory slots
Ticket crafting goes to Eveline now. I find the lack of tickets to be one of the areas where this game falls short compared to others. Being able to do an instant win or two to stock up on chests when I don’t have time to actually play much is something that feels great to do when I actually have the tickets to, but it’s rare that I can. Moving ticket crafting to Eveline, so tickets can be obtained earlier on, letting players select which type of ticket they want to craft (letting the randomness come from if the player will get double tickets or not instead) and removing the ore cost so that players can actually afford to craft tickets will all help with this. Also, this goes back to player expectations. It’s good to show players that tickets exist in the game early on, before they get used to not having them at all.
Ideally, chest slots and the resource caps wouldn’t be tied to Followers anymore, but if they are, they are moved from Northelm and Auri to Eveline (I would heavily push for only one of them to exist and be tied to her though). The functional things like these are pretty important (chest slots especially), so should they be tied to the most important follower. Plus, players get her crystals the most, so this would enable players to have access to higher resource caps and the chest slots sooner.
Evolving Eveline isn’t really worth it right now because of the high cost of later relics, so these changes to her abilities would make evolving her much more worthwhile.
Eveline no longer has relic crafting or exchanging, but Adhakus will get it (in a slightly more useful form).
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Toragon
- Ability
- Craft random armor
- Evolution
- Decreases crafting time and increases the highest and lowest possible rarity of gear Toragon can craft.
- A common Toragon will craft common to uncommon equipment.
- An uncommon Toragon will craft common to rare equipment.
- A rare Toragon will craft uncommon to epic equipment.
- An epic Toragon will craft rare to epic equipment.
- A legendary Toragon will craft rare to legendary equipment.
- A mythic Toragon will craft epic to mythic equipment.
- Decreases crafting time and increases the highest and lowest possible rarity of gear Toragon can craft.
Toragon works well the way he is currently, except for the cost of crafting (which removing ore would fix) and how he often produces low tier, underpowered equipment. A floor on the lowest possible rarity of gear he can craft (changing to be higher as he is evolved) would fix this.
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Northelm
- Ability
- Craft random weapon
- Evolution
- Decreases crafting time
- Increases the highest and lowest possible rarity of gear Northelm can craft.
- same as for Toragon
Weapons are very important at the beginning of the game. One of the biggest things that holds players back and makes them stuck early-game is the inability to get a good weapon. Giving Northelm the ability to craft weapons would solve this problem. Since the effects relating to chest slots and inventory slots were given to Eveline, Northelm has the room for a new ability to be given to him, making him the perfect choice.
This ability would also fit with Northelm story and personality. As a guard, he has to be at least somewhat familiar with weapons and how to get them, so the ability to obtain them would suit him better than some of the other Followers. Perhaps the backstory behind it could be that, as the guard of a smaller town, Northelm had to be resourceful to find weapons that he could use. He started off creating his own makeshift weapons from farming tools, etc. and eventually learned how to create proper ones. Regardless, his dialogue currently doesn’t relate at all to his role of increased chest slots and inventory, so the change could be made without adjusting his dialogue at all or giving a reason, and it would still work.
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Bree
- Ability (if food is removed)
- Generate gold
- Gold bonus
- Evolution
- Increase amount of time gold can be stocked
- Increase amount
OR
- Ability (if food is kept)
- Generate food
- Convert food to gold
- Gold bonus
- Evolution
- Increase amount of time gold can be stocked
- Increase amount
The lack of gold early-game is a major problem, as I said previously. Elvira’s abilities aren’t tied to her at all, as it isn’t once mentioned in the story that she’s a merchant, so they can be moved to Bree. This will improve the gold gain to a reasonable amount.
If food is removed, Bree can just generate gold. If food is kept, then Bree could generate food but have the option to turn gold into food. This means she’s basically generating gold, but just with the extra step of converting. And she can still generate food to be used when needed.
One other change I made from Elvira’s abilities is that I gave Bree the ability to increase how many hours of gold she can stock (like the way ore and food currently work). Elvira can only store one hour of gold, causing lots to get lost overnight. So this change solves that issue.
These new gold-related abilities don’t tie quite as well into Bree’s story, but they do still fit. Part of being a farmer is selling what you produce, and she cooks a lot with different unusual ingredients, so she could be cooking, and then selling what she makes to get gold.
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Adhakus
- Ability
- Fragments Assembler
- Adhakus could have the ability to create various things using fragments obtained from salvaging them. It would allow Ahdakaus to perform the following roles (and would work as detailed in those sections):
- Relic crafter
- Equipment, instead of having an extremely low chance (an almost nonexistent one, as bladepup’s video of salvaging over 300 pieces of equipment and not getting a single relic attests to) to give a relic, should instead always give relic fragments. These parts can be used to have Adhakus craft a relic. This would make salvaging actually fun, would make relics reasonable to get, and give all the common and uncommon equipment that drops from everywhere enough of an additional use to actually be exciting to get (at the moment, the couple of shards from them doesn’t feel worth the effort to salvage them). And if there still needs to be some randomness (this game is very fond of randomness) then there can be a base amount that each rarity of equipment gives, with a chance for the player to get slightly less or slightly more.
- Minions and Spells could either also contribute fragments to relics, or could contribute to rune/glyph fragments.
- Chest crafter
- Salvaging chests should give chest fragments. This would take away a lot of the negatives of the chest system, which often requires salvaging chests instead of getting rewards from them, by making salvaging chests rewarding too (though still far less so than actually opening chests). Depending on which route the devs want to go, there could be a common pool of chest shards, and players can purchase any rarity of chest that Adhakus has available with them (higher rarities just cost more) or these fragments can be used to craft a chest one rank above above their current rarity.
- Fragments Assembler
If ore was removed as a currency, then Adhakus is free to do something other than craft ore. Here’s where I suggest a big change to the game: a fragment system. There’s room in the game for a new, more useful currency if ore is removed, and this change would make the overall experience of the game so much better in so many ways (mostly by making a variety of actions have a small reward, instead of like how there are now when the lack of a reward makes having to perform those actions frustrating or feel like punishment).
Adhakus takes over Eveline’s relic crafting role, but in a different form. I think this way would be more useful to players overall, as the costs for t4 relics are currently far too high, and this would make it still hard to obtain them, but actually possible to do eventually through playing the game normally.
Adhakus can also craft chests out of fragments from salvaged chests, reducing the frustration of having to salvage chests.
And finally, he can exchange relics for another one of the same set, like Eveline can do currently (but at a better cost for the t3 and t4 relics than Eveline does right now).
These new abilities would fit with Adhakus’s personality and backstory, as he is basically a dwarven artisan, and is good at crafting things. The player is supplying him with materials, and he’s using them to create things. These changes would also improve the game experience a lot, I think!
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Auri
- Ability
- Can break shards down into those of a lower tier
- Evolution
- Each evolution allows Auri to break down the next rank of shards and has a higher chance to give a bonus to the resulting number of shards (gotta get that randomness in there, since the game really likes it) [Or could have the ability to convert all types of shards unlocked from the beginning, but I think restricting it like this would help prevent early players from not thinking ahead and converting all of their higher tier shards while not being too restrictive on those who actually need to convert.]
- A common Auri can convert lesser shards to minor ones. There is an x% chance to receive extra shards when converting.
- An uncommon Auri can convert greater shards to lesser or minor shards and lesser shards to minor shards. There is an x% chance to receive extra shards when converting.
- …
- A Mythic Auri can convert superior shards into major, greater, lesser, or minor shards, major shards into greater lesser, or minor shards, and lesser shards into minor shards. There is an x% chance to receive extra shards when converting.
- Each evolution allows Auri to break down the next rank of shards and has a higher chance to give a bonus to the resulting number of shards (gotta get that randomness in there, since the game really likes it) [Or could have the ability to convert all types of shards unlocked from the beginning, but I think restricting it like this would help prevent early players from not thinking ahead and converting all of their higher tier shards while not being too restrictive on those who actually need to convert.]
Sibelios has pointed out many, many times how much the ability to convert shards into those from a lesser tier is needed. Auri’s previous abilities were given to Eveline, so there’s room for her to fulfill this role.
Auri doesn’t have any particular story connection to her new abilities (except maybe special dragon magic that would allow her to do this), but the same was true of her old abilities, so it’s fine.
(continued in next post…)