KickStarter Vigilantes: neo-noir, turn based tactical RPG

[Haba]

I had one incident where two goons walked into the same tile. Once the first one was down, the second wasn't targetable anymore. I could walk my guys into the same tile.

 

[Eyestabber]

Timeslip

I seem to have found a bug.

It seems like the game isn't taking into account the bonus -1AP from the Firing Position perk when it comes to make a Overwatch action:

This happens every time I try to Overwatch when the shot cost is reduced by the perk, and I have the exact amount needed to shoot.

Probably a visual bug. As in: the AP counter doesn't update properly and it's best to do the math on your head. There are MANY UI related bugs in the current version.

But I just found (I think) something critical: WHERE ARE THE TIER 2-4 ARMORS!? There is a Steam achievement for them, but no crafting option, unlike the Mk1. Is anyone using armor that is better than the very first one you can craft?

 

[Luka-boy]

But I just found (I think) something critical: WHERE ARE THE TIER 2-4 ARMORS!? There is a Steam achievement for them, but no crafting option, unlike the Mk1. Is anyone using armor that is better than the very first one you can craft?

They aren't crafted normally.

Fully upgrade your level 1 armour and it will get a gear icon with an arrow that allows you to upgrade it to the next level.

 

[Eyestabber]

But I just found (I think) something critical: WHERE ARE THE TIER 2-4 ARMORS!? There is a Steam achievement for them, but no crafting option, unlike the Mk1. Is anyone using armor that is better than the very first one you can craft?

They aren't crafted normally.

Fully upgrade your level 1 armour and it will get a gear icon with an arrow that allows you to upgrade it to the next level.

Wow...guess Timeslip can chalk that one up to "[issue fixed]Solution: tell user he is a moron".

Nah, but srsly tho, COME ON. It's a gear at the bottom of the armor that only shows up when you FULLY upgrade it. Come on...

On a side note, you just saved my campaign, lel.

 

[Risewild]

Probably a visual bug. As in: the AP counter doesn't update properly and it's best to do the math on your head. There are MANY UI related bugs in the current version.

Nah, the AP counter is correctly updated (I force it to update by placing the cursor over a different enemy, that updates it).
And I do make the math in my head too. I know I can shoot twice if I don't move, but it still won't allow me to Overwatch the shot.

I ended up shooting the enemy with a lower chance to hit instead of waiting for it to move closer and get the Overwatch shot then.

 

[Iron Balls McGinty]

Bought it yesterday and already 12 hours played.

Having a lot of fun just fannying around, playing on vigilante and making lots of mistakes.

The red ninja and fireman sam have saved my sorry arse a good few times.

 

[Dickie]

Oukay, but what about bypass? I'm getting the feeling that Bypass + Surveillance are simply mandatory for the main character, correct?

Surveillance is useful, and you'll gain it by using it, but you can also interrogate for info on districts. Wouldn't really invest many points in it (if any). Bypass is a good one to have, as Taka-Haradin puolipeikko pointed out, to allow your team to reposition a greater distance before combat starts. The formula is 20 for initial tile + 12 per additional tile.

Is this formula in the tooltips or hints section? I like to know the formulas for stuff. Can you explain more of how leadership bonus works? I saw earlier in this thread or the other thread where you said the person with the highest presence is the leader, but does leadership stat do anything for it besides adding to presence? How much do you have to add to presence to get 1% chance-to-hit modifier? Does the leader also get the benefit of their own leadership? I see they get the icon, but thematically, I'm not sure it make sense, so I wanted to double check.

Also, does the speed loader only work with revolvers, since that would make sense? I don't recall that being in the description, but it didn't seem to work for me on other guns.

But I just found (I think) something critical: WHERE ARE THE TIER 2-4 ARMORS!? There is a Steam achievement for them, but no crafting option, unlike the Mk1. Is anyone using armor that is better than the very first one you can craft?

I see somebody already answered this question for you, but it'd be nice if the game made it more obvious. I managed to figure it out on my own, but it was just before fighting the final boss when I was just upgrading equipment for the lulz. I was waiting to use my components to upgrade better armor and didn't realize there wasn't better armor.

 

[Timeslip]

Congrats with the release of your game, i hope it does well.

With the insane amount of tactical games releasing now or very soon it will be hard to find the time for a proper playthrough..

Cheers PhantasmaNL. Going fairly good so far, though seem to have dropped off new and trending on Steam. Wasn't expecting to last this long on it though (wasn't even expecting to get near it TBH). Yeah there's a glut of similar games out at the minute - looking forward to getting some down time to try them out.

 

[ushas]

Probably a visual bug. As in: the AP counter doesn't update properly and it's best to do the math on your head. There are MANY UI related bugs in the current version.

Nah, the AP counter is correctly updated (I force it to update by placing the cursor over a different enemy, that updates it).
And I do make the math in my head too. I know I can shoot twice if I don't move, but it still won't allow me to Overwatch the shot.

Yeah, as you have no issues to shoot normally, would guess that overwatch check just doesn't take into account the Firing Position perk. As the perk was added in one of the latest big content updates before the release and is higher requirements, not many people have taken it yet.

Nah, but srsly tho, COME ON. It's a gear at the bottom of the armor that only shows up when you FULLY upgrade it. Come on...

The thing is, in the past the armour upgrade progression was linear. Then the crafting system got a whole overhaul. This is what one gets for giving us more options, hehe. Agreed, it's somehow nonintutive.

Edit - lol, sorry for stepping in, Timeslip, didn't know you're already here *quickly runs away*

 

[Timeslip]

regarding wall shooting:

enemy marked with an arrow shot at my warrior in red aeveral turns in a row from that position, and connected a couple of times.

Also it seems that screenshot is with grain effect even though i switched it off in game.

Cheers, have taken a note to look at this wall. It's probably missing a component. Yeah it does look grainy - will check into that soon.

 

[Timeslip]

Timeslip

I seem to have found a bug.

It seems like the game isn't taking into account the bonus -1AP from the Firing Position perk when it comes to make a Overwatch action:

This happens every time I try to Overwatch when the shot cost is reduced by the perk, and I have the exact amount needed to shoot.

Thanks Risewild. I'd say you are correct. Have added it to the list of issues to look at. This won't be hard to fix.

 

[Timeslip]

I had one incident where two goons walked into the same tile. Once the first one was down, the second wasn't targetable anymore. I could walk my guys into the same tile.

If you have a more modern PC, would you consider enabling logging (in the options)? A screenshot can also help me understand what's the problem may be, if you have time to grab one. As for two enemies on a tile, I'd guess a broken link in animation system may have made the KO animation not trigger. As to why the second character on the tile isn't targetable, I can't guess, but I will do my best to recreate.

 

[Timeslip]

Bought it yesterday and already 12 hours played.

Having a lot of fun just fannying around, playing on vigilante and making lots of mistakes.

The red ninja and fireman sam have saved my sorry arse a good few times.

Cheers Iron Balls McGinty ! Elena definitely packs a punch early, the SMG has way better damage potential than the other starting weapons.

 

[Timeslip]

Yeah, as you have no issues to shoot normally, would guess that overwatch check just doesn't take into account the Firing Position perk. As the perk was added in one of the latest big content updates before the release and is higher requirements, not many people have taken it yet.

The thing is, in the past the armour upgrade progression was linear. Then the crafting system got a whole overhaul. This is what one gets for giving us more options, hehe. Agreed, it's somehow nonintutive.

Edit - lol, sorry for stepping in, Timeslip, didn't know you're already here *quickly runs away*

Yeah, would be my guess too. Please answer away, you know the game as well as anyone and I have to go and try to fix the mac problems. Anyone running it on Mac here? Have very little info on the problem, so flying blind.

 

[Lhynn]

Been playing it for a couple hours, and i like it, but it feels too barebones.

For the main gameplay thing. The attacks you mount lack context, you should get a text blurb about what you are doing, and it shouldnt be on demand, you should have to do some leg work and investigation to find these.
Gameplay feels aimless.

Perks feel underwhelming, nothing to really look forward to, nothing to change the gameplay there. And some dont make any sense.
You have this feat that gives you 15% to hit this turn and -20% to hit next turn, why does it have a cooldown? whats wrong with spamming it, the player would be fucking themselves anyway if they did. Also itd be a fun feat if it was for melee, because you could plan around it in a more organic way.

Its definitely worth the asking price, but it could be so much more.

 

[ushas]

You have this feat that gives you 15% to hit this turn and -20% to hit next turn, why does it have a cooldown? whats wrong with spamming it, the player would be fucking themselves anyway if they did.

You know, some of the perks would be pretty neat spammable. For example, can imagine having a backseat leader who spends the first few combat rounds' APs just Tagging and Insulting all the enemies.

But in the case of Controlled Breathing, if it can used at will, what stops me from spamming it next turn to mitigate debuff? Plus if one can just pile up +15% CTH then skill itself doesn't matter anymore. Two turns cooldown is here because the perk has two turns effect. And you can combine this with weapon modes. Also it's handy in combination with Adrenaline perk (+50% AP this turn, skip next turn).

 

[Timeslip]

Been playing it for a couple hours, and i like it, but it feels too barebones.


Its definitely worth the asking price, but it could be so much more.

Hey Lhynn. Appreciate the candid feedback. I guess based on the levels of funding and team size, there's only so much you can do, no matter how hard you work. I'd say we had 0.1% as much funding as something like XCom. Even compared to the majority of other indies making similar games, Vigilantes was incredibly under funded. I agree Vigilantes could be more, but the same is true for any game really, even if there are millions behind it. That said, I'm not done yet. It would misleading to suggest there will be vast mechanical changes or big new features, but there will be improvements and additional content.

For the main gameplay thing. The attacks you mount lack context, you should get a text blurb about what you are doing, and it shouldnt be on demand, you should have to do some leg work and investigation to find these. Gameplay feels aimless.

Can you give me a bit more on this. I don't understand.

Perks feel underwhelming, nothing to really look forward to, nothing to change the gameplay there. And some dont make any sense.
You have this feat that gives you 15% to hit this turn and -20% to hit next turn, why does it have a cooldown? whats wrong with spamming it, the player would be fucking themselves anyway if they did. Also itd be a fun feat if it was for melee, because you could plan around it in a more organic way.

I'm not sure about perks being underwhelming. Give an unarmed character flurry, athletic, berserker charge, tough guy, taunt, dim mak, defuser, destroyer and behemoth, and you'll have a character which can burst cover 5 tiles without AP cost, absorb considerably more damage, hit harder, get free attacks, draw fire away from allies and take reduced damage, paralyse enemies, and catch grenades. To me, it seems that perks have vastly changed how that character functions. Perks is one of the areas I'll be focusing on, so if you want to pitch in any interesting ones, I'm all ears (or eyes).

 

[Timeslip]

You know, some of the perks would be pretty neat spammable. For example, can imagine having a backseat leader who spends the first few combat rounds' APs just Tagging and Insulting all the enemies.

But in the case of Controlled Breathing, if it can used at will, what stops me from spamming it next turn to mitigate debuff? Plus if one can just pile up +15% CTH then skill itself doesn't matter anymore. Two turns cooldown is here because the perk has two turns effect. And you can combine this with weapon modes. Also it's handy in combination with Adrenaline perk (+50% AP this turn, skip next turn).

I thought cooldowns were pulled from some of those perks, could be wrong though. If they aren't I'd be willing to. Yep, you're right on controlled breathing.

 

[Lhynn]

Hey Lhynn. Appreciate the candid feedback. I guess based on the levels of funding and team size, there's only so much you can do, no matter how hard you work. I'd say we had 0.1% as much funding as something like XCom. Even compared to the majority of other indies making similar games, Vigilantes was incredibly under funded. I agree Vigilantes could be more, but the same is true for any game really, even if there are millions behind it. That said, I'm not done yet. It would misleading to suggest there will be vast mechanical changes or big new features, but there will be improvements and additional content.

Hm, for the strategical layer you could use more depth.

For example theres this game. Comic book hero: the greatest cape

This is what you can do every turn, which is roughly what you can do in vigilantes, except here its far better presented.

Here you can recruit people to do patrolling. Depending on what they are doing that round they may agree or not, you may even find them while doing surveilance if they didnt agree to go with you.

These RNG elements feed into the vigilantism theme of not know what the fuck will happen next. Most of this is just text and some luck, it is a lot of writing, and can take quite a while, but it adds a lot more than another character model.

Can you give me a bit more on this. I don't understand.

Sure, why are you attacking them? what is it that you hope to accomplish? other than gaining some XP and interrogating people for the 50th time this week.
Combat is too easy to start, and too unrewarding, theres no real impact behind taking down one of their facilities, at least the player doesnt feel like it was a victory.

Also something more, bypass at the end seems dumb, why do we even have to click on the loot? seems like a wasted opportunity. I would propose adding a risk to the bypass, you have limited time, either the police or enemy back up is coming, and you have to get out of there. X is the loot you get, and you can attempt to bypass other places for loot, increased risk or limited tries, meaning youll have to actually think if you want to loot something with low chances of success but valuable, or something with high chances but most assuredly vendor trash.

I'm not sure about perks being underwhelming. Give an unarmed character flurry, athletic, berserker charge, tough guy, taunt, dim mak, defuser, destroyer and behemoth, and you'll have a character which can burst cover 5 tiles without AP cost, absorb considerably more damage, hit harder, get free attacks, draw fire away from allies and take reduced damage, paralyse enemies, and catch grenades. To me, it seems that perks have vastly changed how that character functions. Perks is one of the areas I'll be focusing on, so if you want to pitch in any interesting ones, I'm all ears (or eyes).

Not arguing that all the feats put together amount to something good, just saying, individual feats feel like crap.

I would go with less feats but more gamechanging, so that you really look forward to getting them and when you do you feel a noticeable difference.

flurry is basically a 10% chance of getting a 50% or 33% increase in your damage while unarmed, which you probably should avoid if you have a good weapon, but at the end of the day its effectively a 3-5% increase in damage and thats pathetic, and it feels pathetic.

 

[ushas]

Oh that Comic book hero game looks interesting. Is it good?

flurry is basically a 10% chance of getting a 50% or 33% increase in your damage while unarmed, which you probably should avoid if you have a good weapon, but at the end of the day its effectively a 3-5% increase in damage and thats pathetic, and it feels pathetic.

Have you played with those perks (i.e. Flurry for hth and Fastest Gun for handguns)? In the past I've also argued against (and higher % esp. for Flurry, or have Flurry II, won't be bad), but not anymore, because those aren't as much important for overall damage increase (many other options for that) as for situational effect. When it happens, and I have 2AP remaining plus 3-4AP saved I can also throw a grenade, use one more Dim Mak etc...

Some could indeed be more impactful or peculiar. In overall, however, the feel in the past (not far in play right now) was that there are variety of builds. When you get unlocked Quarterback it doubles the throwing range from 5 to 10 tiles. Fast Delivery can effectively let you throw two grenades instead of one in a turn. But as we get a perk per 3 lvls, it's about combination too, esp. party-wise (I recall having this high initiative lieutenant-dead-on-first-turn leader + sniper duo, which felt mid-game more powerful than obvious two snipers, for example). Also utility items are practically equipable perks.

 

[ushas]

I thought cooldowns were pulled from some of those perks, could be wrong though. If they aren't I'd be willing to.

Haven't taken those leadership perks yet, so can't really check, sorry.

The following is info from ingame description + some possible suggestions and feedback if want to hear some:

Tag!
Provides +15% damage bonus against this enemy for 2 turns (for all allies), costs 2AP, 2 turns cooldown
-> suggestion: no cooldown, can Tag at will for 2AP, perhaps no need to stack

Insult
Increases criticals against this enemy +5% for the rest of the battle (for all allies), 2AP cost, 2 turns cooldown
-> suggestion: no cooldown, Insult at will for 1AP, could be stackable (eg. Lightly / Heavy / Deadly Insulted)
Edit: Nah, that was stupid, perhaps just cancel cooldown, but 15%-20% for 2AP (if crit roll after hit roll then real critical % increase is lower)

All out offensive
Increases damage by all party members by 40% for 1 turn, costs 5AP, 2 turns cooldown
-> suggestion: once per turn (ie. 1 turn cooldown) Depends on the team play, as leader is exchanging his own firepower for the party's.

As for Tactical Delay, situationaly powerful, no complains (cancels delay AP cost for all team members).
Fearsome and Terrifying presence can use some buff, or perhaps increase chance of enemies to flee in the aoe or so (can combine with a shotgun CC)

Some thematic ideas if want to add perks (but feel free to skip):

Spoiler

Go! (active)
Gives an ally +X AP for the following turn for the cost of (X+1) AP. Practically the leader is giving away his APs for ally's.

Bribe I and II (active)
For 100 Euro and 5 AP cost you can bribe one basic enemy troop to leave (i.e. switch to fleeing), With Bribe II can bribe also specialist rank for 200 Euro

Team Player (passive, yeah, stealing from FT)
This character gets double CTH (or other) bonuses from party leader, but suffers more when said leader is incapacitated.

Avenger (passive)
When the team loses leader, this character gets buffed instead debuffed

Sunglasses (utility item)
+20 Presence, -10 Initiative at Night

Cologne/Perfume (utility item)
+10 Presence, plus having taunt effect

PS: May Mac be easy to crack.

 

[ushas]

Can you explain more of how leadership bonus works? I saw earlier in this thread or the other thread where you said the person with the highest presence is the leader, but does leadership stat do anything for it besides adding to presence? How much do you have to add to presence to get 1% chance-to-hit modifier? Does the leader also get the benefit of their own leadership? I see they get the icon, but thematically, I'm not sure it make sense, so I wanted to double check

Some unofficial info:
-- Each stat adds +3 to connected skills per point, In case of Leadership it's Presence and Trade
-- There are several perks, that require higher Leadership to unlock
-- Together with Presence increases CTH bonus given to all allies on team (including leader), I think the formula might be something like [ Leadership + floor(Presence/15) ] (so +1% per 15 points in Presence)
-- In the past Leadership determined distance from the leader, but now CTH bonus applies everywhere on the map
-- Fearsome presence perk debuffing enemies in AOE around leader might still correlate with Leadership (not sure)
-- a team loosing the leader will get ronin debuff for the rest of the battle (-1 AP per Turn and Max AP, -1 Initiative)

Edit

Also, does the speed loader only work with revolvers, since that would make sense? I don't recall that being in the description, but it didn't seem to work for me on other guns.

The first reload in a battle is supposed to be for free. Works for me for a shotgun. Well, it's probably the most handy for rifles or shotguns.

 

[Nutria]

I've gotten to around level 10 now and I do feel that the perks are a bit underwhelming. With a lot of my characters I've been saving up their perk points in case I can use them on something better when their stats are higher and I understand the game better. I haven't run into any situation where there's multiple perks that I really want and I feel like it's tough to decide which one to take.

 

[RoBoBOBR]

I've put 10 hours in this game over last 3 days and i can say i like it quite a bit. Sure, there are some nitpicks, but no game is ideal. Graphics are serviceable, sound is good, so is music. I even liked most of the voiceovers. For a one man dev team this is very, very good.
some thoughts in no particular order:
- gathering the team was quite fun
- i like special encounters you sometimes get instead of a combat mission, though some of them look a bit silly on a repeat
- i'm running my crew like a chuck norris movie -- non-lethal ass kicking, and was hitting a bit of a wall, but then i read here about armor upgrading (to lvl 2 and beyond) and that really helped
- perks are ok, some are underwhelming, but some are quite impactful. For example: Athletic is a beast, flurry really helped in tight spots. Skills -- i dunno, for now active team only levels up unarmed combat, and one dude at the base who's putting every point in crafting (i like that inactive ppl are getting levels)
- not really feeling the noir vibe: sure some of your teammate's stories are dark, but for me it's still more 80's action movie, than some dark gloom. Bright colors also help with that. As does running a kung-fu based team.
- in general i like the gameplay loop -- cleaning the city grid, gaining power in skills/stats/base and equipment, finding info on rackets and lieutenants and shutting them down
- no bugs other than occasional wall shooting and rare AI retardation (running back and forth behind a building, healing once and skipping turn) and some minor visual stuff

Timeslip i was wrong about the grain. Turns out i didn't switch it off, probably forgot to hit save.

 

[Risewild]

Timeslip

I found another bug. This one is kinda tricky to find:
When you have a character behind a full cover wall/object, and you shoot at an enemy that forces your character to automatically step out of cover to shoot, if you press the right mouse button fast enough (while it is shooting), the character will get stuck and not move. It will stay there and not return behind cover and will not allow the combat to continue.
Only option left is to quit to main menu or desktop and reload the game.

It seems like it happens more frequently if you can shoot more than once per turn, if you shoot once and then quickly shoot again and press the button quickly, the bug will happen on the second shot.

I only found this out because my mouse is broken and sometimes double-clicks by itself, I then tested a bit more and could replicate the result using a button that doesn't double click.