A year ago I used to play Blight of the Immortals and Jay mentioned a new version is coming out.
So a couple of days ago I noticed that the beta is out and thought to myself - First impressions are a great way to give some feedback.
I sat down and played for an hour while writing down everything I noticed that is worth mentioning in my opinion. Some of the things have been mentioned earlier.
I should also state that I watched the tutorial once before starting the first game.
This list is not in any particular order:
When you Google “Blight of the Immortals” the shown links (Tutorial, FAQ, Blight of the Immortals and News) all give the 404 error when directly interacted.
www.Ironhelmet.com features a facebook link at the bottom that currently does not work
When clicking on a stack of units (that are not following anyone), it would be super nice to see an icon showing which unit already has a move command. (Currently all the white movement lines are not shown when stacked units are selected)
A simple example: “M” meaning moving. Could be an icon of some sort. I know that hovering the mouse reveals movement patterns but is not nearly as pleasant and easy for the eye-brain coordination
Interacting with anything during a movement command should cancel the movement command (Menu does so, zooming in on a card does not for example)
Bug: Pressing “Deploy” for a card while the movement command window (with clear, save and cancel buttons) is open breaks the movement window (All or some of the buttons on movement command window stop working)
At first there is no real indication that you can move offroad. This might be confusing for returning players from the first Blight of the Immortals. During the first game you will learn it quickly though as zombies start wondering around.
Moving any unit takes too much effort (5 clicks minimum).This can quickly grow into a chore. I found out that double-click confirms the movement command and that there are keybinds which both are great but are not explained ingame
“Relinquish Command” is currently super easy to press accidentally (meaning you lose Valour if you didn’t mean to do it). Especially so if using a mobile device to play. It would be nice to have a confirmation button - Maybe not a separate window but the “Relinquish Command” button turns into “Confirm” button once pressed
In the mobile version of the game cards should not be visible at all times (maybe only showing part of the cards) and should be hidden by default instead. Having them slide up from the bottom leaves more space for browsing the map and looking at the beautiful graphics.
If a card is zoomed in and anything is pressed on the background then the card remains open (sometimes even hides data behind it). It would be nice if any interaction un-zoomed (is this a word, haha?) the card. Also it would feel natural if clicking outside the card itself would unzoom it.
I think it would be nice if the cards had icons for how long the effect lasts, how much mana it costs and how fast does it restore.
Currently owning a location adds a small icon next to it. I think it would be nice to have the actual circle color change as well (gives more of a presence and is easier to notice). Jay also mentioned that empire borders might be a good idea. I know, super sloppy!
Would be nice to hide the white dotted lines on roads as they seem like modern day highways
I have not found it explained in-game what the gold coins under the settlements mean. I can only guess that it is a timer for income.
Bug: Estimated time of movement is lost after a combat encounter. Movement location has an empty blue box instead of numbers - It is unclear if the army will move at all.
When you are out of cards then the lower bar should maybe be removed or “out of cards” displayed on it
Bug: Somehow when I used the last card in the deck, the card image remained on the screen until I refreshed. If I reproduce this I will provide clear steps.
Bug: Somehow the March Stomp ability counted 7 targets instead of 3. (3 of these target icons were displayed when I started using it but the window in the top said 7 targets)
I will add more ideas as they come to mind and as I play the game : ) Having lots of fun so far, thanks!
Hmm, just found this game. Figured I’d post this somewhere. These are the key bindings I’ve found so far by looking at the source code.
esc => hide_screen
e => editor_start
n => next_event
= => zoom_in
=> zoom_out
z => zoom_minimap
0 => zoom_minimap
h => show_help [options:index]
q => map_center_slide_empire [options:{duration:500, player: universe.player}]
l => show_screen [options:leaderboard]
d => show_screen [options:deck]
i => show_screen [options:inbox]
o => show_screen [options:options]
s => show_screen [options:place_summary]
a => show_screen [options:unit_summary]
d => next_unit [options:[true, true]] // previous/next idle unit
f => next_unit [options:[true, false]]
c => next_unit [options:[false, true]] // previous/next non-idle units
v => next_unit [options:[false, false]]
w => move_order_edit_start_keyboard // this is the moving units keybind
It would be nice to be able to move all units at once.
If you open up the Blight of the Immortals homepage, click on the menu button and choose “Help” then there is a section for “Keyboard Shortcuts”.
@Ginzae emailed this feedback to me a few days ago and I asked him to post it here because it’s an example of really great feedback. If I could get a page of notes like this from every player who tried the game I would be able to fix-up all the weird broken and confusing stuff in no time and the game would be really good!
Here is my reply to him at the time…
Those 404 are links from the old game. I will have to put something
there so they dont 404.
Good idea on the move icon. I even kind of like the icon you created.
Yes, I have to add a command to cancel movement for anything that
might break it. I will fix cards and deployment today.
Interesting you should say that about the roads, in my latest build I
have reduced the move penalty for off road movement (and mountains
and swaps) and want to make roads more “special”. I want to try
removing them from linking small villages to the capitals and only
have roads connect up the most important places. I hope this will
make it clearer.
Yes, moves are too clicky, Neptune’s Pride is 4 clicks and I’m kind
of used to it. For people with keyboards I recently added “W” key
shortcut to start move order. I will see if I can do better somehow.
I will add an “Are you sure” dialog to relinquish command. (Fixed Yesterday)
The problems with having the cards hidden is that you kind of forget
they are there. I wonder If I could shrink them down to tiny Icon
versions of them. I have been trying to avoid having a special case
just for mobile. When I do the Ipad native version I think the game
will be landscape instead of portrait.
good call on unzooming. I will see what I can do here.
Yes to the Icons on the cards. I have just been waiting to see if the
powers and things are any good.
I was actually thinking of adding an actual empire border like
civilisation or other strategy games. I think players would like to
see the borders of their lands more clearly like on a map.
No there is no population growth, just army vs income growth. This is
how we can use the total remaining population for your final score.
Hah, but they are highways!
Yes, the gold coins are not really working. The more coins, the more
money you will make every 24 hours, and they are kind of a progress
bar. I might get rid of them for something more explicit.
Small skip valour thing is not a bug, just badly explained. You lose
valour for jumping small and make vapour for jumping big! It costs
you to micromanage your empire.
At the moment, if the leader of a group is killed in combat the army
is left without move orders. Bug. (Fixed Yesterday)
If you are going the keybind route, then maybe it would be nice to add another one.
So lets say I pick an idle unit with “d”. If it is a single unit (not in a stack), then maybe the space button could open up the unit screen that I just selected?
So movement would be:
d, space (if single unit), w, double-click.
Also it could be that space itself is bad to implement (has some usage in some browsers I think?). If that is the case, maybe add some other button.
Haha, actually why not add something else as well to fasten up movement.
So if “D” is next idle and “W” is move - Why not add “Q” as “move next idle” (select next & start moving selected unit) : ) This way you don’t even have to deal with the stacked units. That way “D” would be to move through units, but in the early game you would use “Q” as you want to move everyone anyway.
Bug. (Fixed Yesterday)