KickStarter The Legends of Eisenwald Thread

[cvv]

Anyway, to more interesting things - on the Wizard's Path map I've stumbled into a ruined castle in the night and got a prompt to "Blow the Horn". I guess it's the Golden Horn I've been hauling with me since the previous chapter. I blew it, fought some undead duders but nothing happened afterwards, no reward or additional text. What gives?

EDIT: after checking a previous save I can see the Golden Horn actually didn't carry over. So no idea what horn I blew. Is it a bug?

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

After you blew horn and fought the undead, you should have gotten some loot, check your inventory. It's helmet and armor of Gunther the Proud.

For most people not, nowadays most people want autoplay quest GPS. What would've helped is this - if a quest says "Forest of Abrakadabra" it'd help if I can see the name in the quest map. Or if I can see where I can go on the overworld map, without furiously clicking around. Sometimes objects are hard too see too, I looked for that damn Saint Hermit hut for half and hour before I accidentally clicked on a seeming impassable place on the map and suddenly a "Hermit Hut" label popped up. Didn't see there was a building at all.

Again, probably not a good decision on our part but we tried to make map exploration not as easy as "open the map and find the place". Playing as a hero you have no special abilities to look far away from where you are For the same reason the map cannot be scrolled, however I wish we went with fog of war instead.

 

[Cadmus]

I, for one, liked the texts in Eisenwald OC a lot.

In fact, I disagree with cvv completely on both that front and "generic faux-medieval low fantasy" somehow being a more desired element. It isn't.

Fantasy isn't more popular in vidya than history? Please. Personally I always prefer serious settings over retarded stock fantasy cliches I've grown out of 20 years ago, I've been ranting about it on Codex for years after all, but to say most gaymers are the same is krazy. Just look around you.

Again, I only say all that bc it's a shame LoE isn't as popular as Homam or Disciples and a fantasy setting would help a lot to get there. But I accept Alexander's comment about a passion project. As I said, this game deserves a huge kudos on many different levels.

The quest system was done on purpose without hand holding. Unsure now if it was a right decision, probably more not

For most people not, nowadays most people want autoplay quest GPS. What would've helped is this - if a quest says "Forest of Abrakadabra" it'd help if I can see the name in the quest map. Or if I can see where I can go on the overworld map, without furiously clicking around. Sometimes objects are hard too see too, I looked for that damn Saint Hermit hut for half and hour before I accidentally clicked on a seeming impassable place on the map and suddenly a "Hermit Hut" label popped up. Didn't see there was a building at all.

But again, exploration and questing is mostly fine, it's just little details that are sometimes frustrating.

Fuck the most gaymers. The game didn't sell well not because of weird german words (that I personally liked) but because in the absence of the marketing money there was only a lukewarm word of mouth as far as I can tell. I didn't play it too long because it had too many faults and got boring (and even I finished xulima the same year). The writing was p. shit as far as I recall. In fact the setting was the most interesting thing about the game at the first glance.

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

Codex: where all games are shit. (tm)

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Normally when taking selective dumps on aspects of games on the Codex you don't have the developers conversating with you, so the shits can get quite diarrheic, but since you're here being a good sport there's actually quite a big element here of holding back. Which is probably beneficial as it likely helps weed out the brown to just leave the more useful nuggets of sweetcorn.

I think the mistake you made was the macro, not the micro issues. I think its biggest flaw was not knowing whether it wanted to be a strategy game or an RPG. You highlighted this yourself when you mentioned how the combat was simplistic but the questing too hardcore, but I wouldn't say the combat itself was too simplistic, just that not enough focus was put into it. If the main meat of the game was preparing an army to take over castles then you'd have focused on that and provided something akin to a non-fantasy HoMM type game, which would have been very popular. Likewise, if the main bulk of the game was the questing and character development then you could have focused on that instead of lumping all the quests into gigantic wall-of-text dumps at taverns & had quests spread around lots of NPCs in every nook and cranny, thereby reducing the need for so much combat XP and allowing the player the entire game to build their army and character, rather than making them virtually clean their sheet every mission.

A HoMM-like game is already a hybrid, its a hybrid of a regular RPG and a traditional 4x Game. Most RPGs are already hybrids, hybrids of Tactical War Games and Adventure Games. What you've done is try to hybrid an Adventure Game with a 4x Game, two genres that don't generally tend to work well together, and then add in a player character with stats. I don't know if this is because your team has too diverse a mix of inputs or if it's because that was the dream someone had, to try and see if such a thing could work, but IMO it's just a very cockhanded way to go about something. The final result of insipid combat combined with obtuse quest delivery is probably the exact opposite of what would have made it codex classic, that of obtuse combat and plain talking quests.

It's not about quest markers, its just about being 'fair' with descriptions and then, if you do find what you're looking for, not to have to play hunt the exact pixel on the mountainside to trigger the event. I don't know how much time I wasted from going to the right spot, getting nothing then wandering about like an idiot before finally checking on-line to see that I was right the first time, I just had to man-handle the pixel-point by having the camera at the exact right angle to allow it to notice my pointer could move the horse one microdot further. Pixel hunting is widely considered the 'jump scare' level of dumb with regards to Adventure Games.

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

Don't get me wrong, I love you guys and Codex and we've seen probably one only good things from you. But I also read other threads and topics and my overall impression is that there is not a safe topic or something everybody agrees upon and it's really cool. No authorities, no gurus and that's what makes the Codex great.

The game didn't turn out the way I envisioned. There are multiple reasons for it including my lack of experience but the biggest is probably the constant lack of money we experienced during development. When you don't pay your developers the market rate, you can't really tell them what to do. And everybody then turns on their creativity and as a leader I had to find a compromise. So, in some areas game got really good but in others it suffered because of that. Separation of light, medium and heavy armor is a good example of that. There was no mention of anywhere in our design document but here you go, that's the creativity being added by someone that I and few other members of our dev team didn't find arguments against amidst searching for money.

On the other hand, I really like how the game turned out, with all its flaws I had great fun playing it. And combat I still think is good, what's missing is some variety and faster army development in the beginning. For combat alone I played Cursed Castle scenario over 30 times I think

 

[Darth Canoli]

Interesting reading.
You can't fight against the lack of funding (well, you can always eat roots ... )

If you find a way to find some and the will to make a sequel, i agree with incendiary, more in-depth tactical battles would be great and i'd add a great recipe for success is more units variety.
By that i mean, original characters, even weird units like cursed knights turning werewolves or vampires at night, unique heroes to go along your troops and even more unique enemies to fight (i think i remember there were a couple of interesting enemies)

I liked the questing system but i have to admit some of them were a pain, i didn't finish the first expansion but that's just me, i rarely get to see a game's end sequence, most of the time, the most interesting stuff happen in the first half of the game while discovering the game mechanism and lore or far before the end anyway, after a while, there isn't anything to run for, you're in a well charted territory. (and boredom settles in )

 

[cvv]

snip

100% agreed on two points - quest givers spread over the map instead of text dumps and pixel hunting.

I don't see the problem with the hybrid issue tho. The closest thing to LoE is King's Bounty, also a uber-hybrid of Homam and RPG and one of my favourite games of all times. I actually prefer this to a "purer" strategy game like Homam. I'm having way more fun then when replaying Homam 3 and 4 a while ago, those games didn't age well in my book. Also no problem with the combat or light/medium/heavy armour. The combat could've used a bit more complexity, more abilities for melee units (with a cooldown btw, skipping turn is a really bad idea, I rarely use the ones that are in the game) or some sort of backstab mechanics for example but it's p. fun as it is.

Also, to not dump on the game too much, I'm appreciating the map structure more and more. I think the maps are the best in any Homam-type game I've played and I've played them all. There are a few amazing maps in Disciples 2 but overall LoE has an edge. My take on the setting, names and stylistic/translating issues hasn't changed but I find myself liking the characters and overall story. Have you been borrowing from real historical events and intrigues Aterdux Entertainment?

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

We borrowed a lot from medieval tales and legends plus made some references to real events and persons but not so much. A few things in the game have direct parallels to modern politics but it went unnoticed since it's pretty much Russian politics. Werner von Sterch is using words Putin used to say, three factions draw a lot from Russian communist party of the 90s, from conservatives and liberals. Even the faction name Fichten (spruce in English, yel' in Russian) refers to the first Russian president Boris Yeltsin. This is just to name a few things

 

[cvv]

Finished, took me about 40 hours on Normal. I liked the game a lot, especially the map architecture, every map was unique, interesting and fun (except the last one, that was a letdown - an old map and very easy for my OP squad). Huge kudos for a plot not aimed at 8 year old retarded children, such refreshing, much appreciated. I lolled in the end - I played the goodest of good guys, forgave everyone and in the end I was left standing alone in a forest without a pot to piss in, telling myself "sure I'm poor, alone and everybody hates me but at least my heart is pure". Haha.

No idea what would've happened if I played a vengeful villain but I guess I would've ended up as a rich, powerful noble at the duke's court. So true.

Now how long are the DLC and Bastard? I gotta me careful with my time the next few months, gotta plan this a bit.

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

Road to Iron Forest is 4-5 hours, story wise is my favorite map. Bastard is 5-6 hours, Blood of November is about the same or maybe a bit longer.

 

[Mark Richard]

Finished, took me about 40 hours on Normal. I liked the game a lot, especially the map architecture, every map was unique, interesting and fun (except the last one, that was a letdown - an old map and very easy for my OP squad). Huge kudos for a plot not aimed at 8 year old retarded children, such refreshing, much appreciated. I lolled in the end - I played the goodest of good guys, forgave everyone and in the end I was left standing alone in a forest without a pot to piss in, telling myself "sure I'm poor, alone and everybody hates me but at least my heart is pure". Haha.

No idea what would've happened if I played a vengeful villain but I guess I would've ended up as a rich, powerful noble at the duke's court. So true.

Can't say Eisenwald didn't warn us! The game does everything it can to convince players that being an opportunistic backstabber is the only path to wealth and power. Even when I fell to the dark side, part of me doubted these promises would go beyond world-building to translate into something tangible - surely a do-gooder HAS to be richly rewarded because in virtually every game with multiple endings, they are. If something like this happened in a mainstream game, the players would insist the endings are lopsided, and the critics would question the moral fiber of the developer.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Retaining your good name, honour and soul IS the best ending and reward. But I wouldn't expect such lowborn plebs to know that

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

I like revenge ending, being good at the end was not really as satisfying as I was hoping.

 

[PEACH]

The writing was p. shit as far as I recall.

I disagree. While not every moment of the game's writing blew me away, stuff like the Swallow Tower, the Golden Horn and the knight who was read his last rites (and how it ties into things later after you first hear it) are fantastic and add a lot to the game's atmosphere and sense of place. I'm on my first playthrough at the moment and the rumours and bar dialogue have been consistently enjoyable and have often enticed me to drop what I've been doing and explore in search for clues or answers to what happened in these scenarios. After taking so many castles and doing so many errands I'd say the reading -> investigating loop that comes with a lot of the side content has quickly become one of my favourite parts of the game.

Another nice touch is the light dialogues that often frame/contextualize the storytelling; A bartender rolling his eyes and making snide comments as a man tells the same story for the thousandth time to anyone who will listen or two people arguing about the veracity of some wild claim one has made for instance. It fleshes things out really nicely and in a game I expected to be a lot closer to Mount & Blade in tone and attention to writing I've been very pleasantly surprised so far.

 

[cvv]

The Masquerade scenario was fun but gotta say, I'm not a fan of the Iron Forest scenario. First, the game messes up with your troops so that you blow your dorra on a unit that's taken a way from you a minute later. And after a while you realize you blew everything on units you lost and now you need to recruit new ones for money you don't have anymore.

AND you have to constantly hide during the day and only grind weak bandits during the night for a few coppers and a handful of XP.

AND it's not easy to recruit some troops (usually the most basic of bitches) coz the enemy sleeps in the villages randomly. For instance I needed some archers but there were only a few villages to recruit them and night after night enemy patrols camped there and I couldn't hope to defeat them with my weak ass army. And even if I could I wouldn't be able to afford to heal all those heavy injuries.

And when I finally beat the RNG, after looong waitings, and recruited a couple of bowmen, one healer and a young noble or two I realized I can't hope to defeat the Knee-deep knight dude with his line of crossbowmen and veteran infantry to continue the main story.

Am I missing something here? What I'm supposed to do, keep hiding and grinding bandits for a month to level up?

 

[PEACH]

Finished the game and eh. Sorry if this is too harsh, I didn't originally intend it to be but...

Main issue I had was that a campaign of that length didn't seem very necessary given that you've experienced more-or-less the entire depth of the gameplay within a few hours. While I understand that budget constraints disallowed a more in-depth progression system, I can't help but think that the format you stuck to with post-game expansions would've been a better strategy from the get go.

I've think I've heard you say that some people don't know what they want / only think they want a long and in-depth game (correct me if I'm wrong) but I don't think that's really the root cause of the issue. The fact is, there's very little meaningful progression going on between or within chapters that isn't story-oriented, and while I felt that aspect was handled effectively enough, even that felt some strain by the last two maps. This coupled with the combat that wasn't exactly peak tactical gameplay and the constant resetting of your party in order to maintain even a semblance of difficulty made a lot of the game feel very grindy. Nine times out of ten (a conservative estimate) I was able to accurately predict whether I'd win a fight before it started, and although it may seem dismissive I think out of the dozens and dozens of battles I participated in only a handful were memorable and only one was challenging (Landgrave in Sleepless Counts) with even that potentially being quite a bit easier had I not lost 4(?) units immediately prior via scripted event. Many were enjoyable enough regardless, but some serious fatigue crept around by the end game due to how repetitive it had gotten without many interesting twists on the formula. Only so many times you can stomp through the same formations of the same enemies before it gets a little exhausting.

Story/writing was decent-to-excellent varying from segment to segment and NPCs/map exploration was a good romp until the last 2 maps, so I don't want it to come off like I hate the game. But no matter how much overarching narrative and band-aiding you did to link each map together it still felt like a campaign that was a bunch of stitched together scenarios without meaningful progression or real justification for the format other than story.

I can't help but think you bet it all on breadth instead of depth and thought creating the illusion of progress would rectify that issue upon realizing you wanted to stretch 5 hours of progression into 40 hours worth of campaign. For some people maybe it works fine, but if you want people to devote time to your timesink you should probably give them a reason other than "because we stretched the content out as thin as possible!". It's weird too, because the game would probably be perfect for an audience of people who want a very light strategy/tactics game but the format you chose doesn't play to the strengths of the game whatsoever. As an RPG it's pretty mediocre and the duration of the campaign only pronounces that over time, but if you focused on the mechanics and design that you actually had in front of you rather than what you (maybe?) wanted to have in front of you I think you'd have put together a much more satisfying game as result rather than having to Frankenstein something like this together so awkwardly.

 

[lukaszek]

finally gotten into this and finished main campaign due to disappointing disciples demo. that 1st sentence was excuse to write about upcomming 90% sale, with unspecified big discounts on dlcs upcomming monday

 

[lukaszek]

are there any tested/approved fan made campaigns?

 

[KateMicucci]

I liked it.

 

[Darth Canoli]

are there any tested/approved fan made campaigns?

I'm not sure but the DLC adds some good campaigns, better than the original, the early beginning is a bit torpid but soon, it gets quite good.

 

[lukaszek]

played through it all on hard diff. Besides main campaign only road to iron forest I found worth it. Surprising since I didnt like hide and seek part of campaign.

Iron forest is quite janky/buggy though. Learn to use console. Also enemy scaling over time is insane. If you take just a bit too long you will end up having to cheat in 5 paladins to destroy last castle.