KickStarter Vigilantes: neo-noir, turn based tactical RPG

[Slimu]

I saw the large number of negative reviews and I'm baffled by them. For the asking price (too low if you ask me) you get a well made game without bugs.

One thing which I think should be more obvious is using the body targeting system. I used it in the tutorial mission and only right now (after 7h of playing) I remembered it existed. Is there a button in the interface for using this? Another thing which is just me being dumb, is the way you can set the THC for which the overwatch attack is being triggered. I don't remember reading about it in the tutorial messages and after 3h I figured it out. I think a small message about it in the tutorial would be helpful.

Like I mentioned in the review, the only bug which appeared for me, was the two enemies standing on the same tile. This happened a few times on different maps. One thing which I don't know if it's a bug, was that on a mission to kill one mafia lieutenant, one of my characters which had a SMG had to unjam it almost every round. Usually I don't mind if a few times a round you have to do it, but it was getting ridiculous.

It's possible to double-click to select a city square instead of using right click? In the beginning of the game, it was a bit hard to understand why the square I clicked to view information changed to the one under the mouse icon.

In one mission, there was a song with a woman's voice. What song is it?

 

[Drowed]

Bit demoralising spending 10k hours working on something just for someone to play it for 20 mins and conclude that it's crap.

Well, sadly, that's internet for ya. You see people going to the Steam forums of turn-based role-playing games just to say things like, "is this game turn-based? I hate turn-based games! It's stupid, idiot, it's not realistic. Make it different." I mean, it's Steam. It's not much above the level of Reddit or Gamefaqs, sadly.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

can you make saves sorted by newest instead of alphabetically?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I saw the large number of negative reviews and I'm baffled by them. For the asking price (too low if you ask me) you get a well made game without bugs.

One thing which I think should be more obvious is using the body targeting system. I used it in the tutorial mission and only right now (after 7h of playing) I remembered it existed. Is there a button in the interface for using this? Another thing which is just me being dumb, is the way you can set the THC for which the overwatch attack is being triggered. I don't remember reading about it in the tutorial messages and after 3h I figured it out. I think a small message about it in the tutorial would be helpful.

Like I mentioned in the review, the only bug which appeared for me, was the two enemies standing on the same tile. This happened a few times on different maps. One thing which I don't know if it's a bug, was that on a mission to kill one mafia lieutenant, one of my characters which had a SMG had to unjam it almost every round. Usually I don't mind if a few times a round you have to do it, but it was getting ridiculous.

It's possible to double-click to select a city square instead of using right click? In the beginning of the game, it was a bit hard to understand why the square I clicked to view information changed to the one under the mouse icon.

In one mission, there was a song with a woman's voice. What song is it?

how do I change the overwatch thing?

edit: nvm I'm dumb, never paid attention to those buttons

 

[Timeslip]

I saw the large number of negative reviews and I'm baffled by them. For the asking price (too low if you ask me) you get a well made game without bugs.

Typically, bad reviews come more quickly than good ones. People who don't like the game don't tend to finish it, whereas people who do will mostly finish it and maybe leave a review. It will likely pick up a little over the next couple of days. Mixed is a bad place to be, though maybe mostly positive would be okay.

Well, sadly, that's internet for ya. You see people going to the Steam forums of turn-based role-playing games just to say things like, "is this game turn-based? I hate turn-based games! It's stupid, idiot, it's not realistic. Make it different." I mean, it's Steam. It's not much above the level of Reddit or Gamefaqs, sadly.

Yeah, not the sort of thing you can fix (Well, except with a few pre-frontal lobotomies). Find it odd that people will spend their time complaining about things they don't care about, rather than doing the things they do. That said, the vast majority of people I have dealings with are level headed.

One thing which I think should be more obvious is using the body targeting system. I used it in the tutorial mission and only right now (after 7h of playing) I remembered it existed. Is there a button in the interface for using this? Another thing which is just me being dumb, is the way you can set the THC for which the overwatch attack is being triggered. I don't remember reading about it in the tutorial messages and after 3h I figured it out. I think a small message about it in the tutorial would be helpful.

Like I mentioned in the review, the only bug which appeared for me, was the two enemies standing on the same tile. This happened a few times on different maps. One thing which I don't know if it's a bug, was that on a mission to kill one mafia lieutenant, one of my characters which had a SMG had to unjam it almost every round. Usually I don't mind if a few times a round you have to do it, but it was getting ridiculous.

It's possible to double-click to select a city square instead of using right click? In the beginning of the game, it was a bit hard to understand why the square I clicked to view information changed to the one under the mouse icon.

In one mission, there was a song with a woman's voice. What song is it?

Information about how the game works is a bit of a weak spot. Will probably make a few short videos covering the less known aspects of combat. A lot of people miss the overwatch CTH. There's a thread here if you want to post any other stuff you think isn't well explained: https://steamcommunity.com/app/545600/discussions/0/1696046976475164706/

Concerning jamming, do you repair your gear after each mission on the inventory screen? There's a button that repairs everyone's kit with a single click.

About the 2 enemies in a tile - is one knocked out, but the animation didn't play, or are they both active? If one is knocked out, it's probably a dead end in the animation system. If it happens again, can you let me know what item they were using, and what knocked them out?

I can take a look at the double click also. Will see if it's easy to implement.



This one?

 

[Timeslip]

can you make saves sorted by newest instead of alphabetically?

A few people have asked for that and I see the sense in it. It's been a few years since I added the save system, but gut feeling is that it shouldn't be hard to do. If it isn't will change it.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

the way enemies rotate just looks odd

 

[Declinator]

Finished the game and have to say I was positively surprised. Some quick comments:

• The weapons seem like they never jam until suddenly they become seemingly useless and jam constantly roughly around 50% condition. Possibly just bad luck and I started fixing them after every fight so never became a serious issue.
• A couple times after unjamming a weapon I was unable to target and shoot even though I had enough AP. Fixed next turn though.
• Team members being automatically removed from the team after recruiting a new dude was annoying and at least twice I had to fight with just the main dude and a new recruit because I forgot about it.
• AP count does not update visually after many actions (e.g. after reloading)
• Melee AI fighters seem fond of kamikaze barrel attacks (i.e. striking a barrel deliberately even though they are right next to it themselves)
• I saw the AI using a grenade quite literally only once during my playthrough and that was a lieutenant
• My first reaction to a particular level was "oh they forgot to replace the placeholder graphics here" and honestly I'm not sure whether that's true or not:

Spoiler

• Can team members actually permadie? They were always just injured for me even if they were incapacitated. Maybe a time limit to finish the mission after an ally has been incapacitated where they would permadie if you go over the time limit would be nice.
• The Knight Rider song got mildly annoying after a while
• While I understand having three different enemy hierarchies I felt it made the game less focused compared to having just one (e.g. Mafia) with a bigger hierarchy.
• That said, the game always seemed to have purpose and you could proactively hunt for the objectives whereas in something like X-Com you often had to wait for things (e.g. a certain type of a ship to arrive)
• Perhaps higher difficulties introduce enemies with a higher level of weapons faster but I felt that once I got rifles it was largely over for the enemy
• Impossible to change at this stage but it was often frustrating being forced to start the fight from an awkward starting position and the enemy already knowing where I am (especially that one map with a wall on one side and an open street which I cannot enter for some reason on the other)
  
• Incendiary grenades are seemingly the AIs worst nightmare. For some reason even enemies with projectile weapons often try to go around the fire even if they have line of sight and a fair chance of hitting me. Possibly they are trying to reach some ideal distance?
• I think playing non-lethal should be a more punishing experience or rather playing lethal should be more enticing. Perhaps if you had to buy rubber bullets or even specific weapons to play non lethally and the damage disparity should be even bigger. To offset this you could then have the police play a more supportive/punitive role I guess.
• Not sure if intentional but
  end game spoiler

  After getting the mafia leader to give up I still got to interrogate him after the mission which seemed rather funny what with him giving up the life of crime and me still beating him up for some petty info

Most of my comments are negative but I liked the game far more than I expected to after trying out an early version a year or two ago. Overall very impressive and not just "for what it is".

 

[Nutria]

I forget to repair my weapons half the time. Maybe have a button for it on the looting screen at the end of each mission?

 

[Lyre Mors]

I saw the large number of negative reviews and I'm baffled by them. For the asking price (too low if you ask me) you get a well made game without bugs.

Typically, bad reviews come more quickly than good ones. People who don't like the game don't tend to finish it, whereas people who do will mostly finish it and maybe leave a review. It will likely pick up a little over the next couple of days. Mixed is a bad place to be, though maybe mostly positive would be okay.

Weird, the user rating on steam for me right now is Very Positive, with only 11 negative reviews out of 75. Doesn't seem bad at all to me.

 

[ushas]

Well, sadly, that's internet for ya.

Not having to face each other makes it easy to act inconsiderate, doesn't it. On the bright side, at least one steam review doesn't hold enough power to kill a dream. Apart Slimu's there are a few more positive ones too, cool

Jinn, maybe they meant recent reviews? Those are 'Mostly Positive'. But agreed, doesn't look bad to me neither.

Btw. now listed among trending games on steamspy. Don't know why it differs from the steam page, but yay anyway!

 

[Nutria]

Difficulty levels could use some tweaking:

Vigilante is a cake walk. After the first few fights my characters and equipment were way beyond the enemies. Like someone was saying above, by the time you get rifles, it's over. Other than one particular lieutenant battle, there wasn't any real challenge.

I'm struggling to even get started at Hard Boiled. I can't keep up with the improving enemies. By the time I've got my team assembled and managed to find a danger-2 district to attack, they're already at character level 4 and equipped with grenades. It seems like they're advancing at about 4 times the rate they were on Vigilante. Maybe I made some mistakes early on it just keeps snowballing until I'm in a hopeless situation?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

this game is fun, left a positive review on steam

 

[thesheeep]

Did my job, left a Steam review https://steamcommunity.com/id/slimu20/recommended/545600?snr=1_5_9__402

After the September (bugs) madness, it was a joy to just play a newly released game without having to wait for updates.

Much appreciated Slimu! Getting more bad reviews in the last few days. Don't mind bad reviews in general, know not everyone will like the game, and a few of them are pretty constructive. Bit demoralising spending 10k hours working on something just for someone to play it for 20 mins and conclude that it's crap.

Yeah, the Steam review system is a shitshow for many reasons.
Reviews should have a minimum character requirement as well as a minimum played time requirement (latter should be settable by the developer (but not changeable at will), so one could still allow 0 hour but not set it 9999 hours when negative reviews hit en masse).
Also, obviously allow more ratings than just thumbs up or thumbs down as that really isn't too helpful. If it has to be thumbs, at least have multiple categories (like graphics, gameplay, tech, etc.)

Some games of course can be rated badly after an extremely short time due to bugs, but for those I would create an extra category that isn't part of the normal reviews.

 

[Nutria]

I tried to make my review as short and succinct as possible so that people would actually read it. Having said that, it would be nice if Steam didn't allow reviews that were like "dude this game sucks let's play fortnite 420 dude weed lmao"

 

[Timeslip]

the way enemies rotate just looks odd

There is no foot animation for rotation (but there isn't for players either), it may be that. I considered adding it, but the animation system is pretty complex as is, and just never got around to looking at it again.

 

[Timeslip]

Finished the game and have to say I was positively surprised. Some quick comments:

• The weapons seem like they never jam until suddenly they become seemingly useless and jam constantly roughly around 50% condition. Possibly just bad luck and I started fixing them after every fight so never became a serious issue.
• A couple times after unjamming a weapon I was unable to target and shoot even though I had enough AP. Fixed next turn though.

I forget to repair my weapons half the time. Maybe have a button for it on the looting screen at the end of each mission?

I will add a toggle to automate repairs or make it harder to forget to do so. TBH questioning the merits of weapon deterioration (not going to remove it post release though). It adds a little to the atmosphere and makes crafting more relevant, but is a bit of a nuisance factor. I'm starting on bugs today and will try to recreate the issue with jamming.

• Team members being automatically removed from the team after recruiting a new dude was annoying and at least twice I had to fight with just the main dude and a new recruit because I forgot about it.
• AP count does not update visually after many actions (e.g. after reloading)
• Melee AI fighters seem fond of kamikaze barrel attacks (i.e. striking a barrel deliberately even though they are right next to it themselves)
• I saw the AI using a grenade quite literally only once during my playthrough and that was a lieutenant
• My first reaction to a particular level was "oh they forgot to replace the placeholder graphics here" and honestly I'm not sure whether that's true or not:

Spoiler

• Can team members actually permadie? They were always just injured for me even if they were incapacitated. Maybe a time limit to finish the mission after an ally has been incapacitated where they would permadie if you go over the time limit would be nice.
• The Knight Rider song got mildly annoying after a while
• While I understand having three different enemy hierarchies I felt it made the game less focused compared to having just one (e.g. Mafia) with a bigger hierarchy.
• That said, the game always seemed to have purpose and you could proactively hunt for the objectives whereas in something like X-Com you often had to wait for things (e.g. a certain type of a ship to arrive)
• Perhaps higher difficulties introduce enemies with a higher level of weapons faster but I felt that once I got rifles it was largely over for the enemy
• Impossible to change at this stage but it was often frustrating being forced to start the fight from an awkward starting position and the enemy already knowing where I am (especially that one map with a wall on one side and an open street which I cannot enter for some reason on the other)
  
• Incendiary grenades are seemingly the AIs worst nightmare. For some reason even enemies with projectile weapons often try to go around the fire even if they have line of sight and a fair chance of hitting me. Possibly they are trying to reach some ideal distance?
• I think playing non-lethal should be a more punishing experience or rather playing lethal should be more enticing. Perhaps if you had to buy rubber bullets or even specific weapons to play non lethally and the damage disparity should be even bigger. To offset this you could then have the police play a more supportive/punitive role I guess.
• Not sure if intentional but
  end game spoiler

  After getting the mafia leader to give up I still got to interrogate him after the mission which seemed rather funny what with him giving up the life of crime and me still beating him up for some petty info

Most of my comments are negative but I liked the game far more than I expected to after trying out an early version a year or two ago. Overall very impressive and not just "for what it is".

Hey Declinator. Nice to hear you really enjoyed Vigilantes. You've got refined taste, I'll give you that It's normal enough to focus on the stuff that's working less well. To cover a couple of your points:

AP not always updating: For the most part, it updates when you move the cursor to a new tile. Accept this isn't ideal. I'm pretty sure there was a reason I set it up like this, but will see if it can be improved.

Melee fighters kamizake: The cultists will do this more often. The other gangs typically won't unless they can do a lot more damage to you than themself.

I saw the AI using a grenade quite literally only once during my playthrough and that was a lieutenant: All of the lieutenants, bosses and some of the mid tier troops have them. They only use them if they can do most damage this way. If your troops are spread out, they will use them much less often.

My first reaction to a particular level was "oh they forgot to replace the placeholder graphics here" and honestly I'm not sure whether that's true or not: I'm not very happy with the way that level turned out, but they aren't placeholders. May be able to do something with it.

Can team members actually permadie? There are only 6 of them, so permadeath would be very punishing.

Incendiary grenades are seemingly the AIs worst nightmare. For some reason even enemies with projectile weapons often try to go around the fire even if they have line of sight and a fair chance of hitting me. Possibly they are trying to reach some ideal distance? : Yeah, the AI is really really difficult work. There's tons of factors which determine how they make decisions, ideal range is 1.

 

[Timeslip]

Weird, the user rating on steam for me right now is Very Positive, with only 11 negative reviews out of 75. Doesn't seem bad at all to me.

It had dipped into mixed on recent reviews yesterday and just about to dip below very positive on all reviews. A couple of extra reviews have given it a bit of a push up during the day. The reviews from keys don't count toward the review score on Steam (though they are still visible), unfortunately, as it was being exploited, so it's out of 65 at present.

 

[Timeslip]

this game is fun, left a positive review on steam

Cheers rusty_shackleford

 

[Timeslip]

Yeah, the Steam review system is a shitshow for many reasons.
Reviews should have a minimum character requirement as well as a minimum played time requirement (latter should be settable by the developer (but not changeable at will), so one could still allow 0 hour but not set it 9999 hours when negative reviews hit en masse).
Also, obviously allow more ratings than just thumbs up or thumbs down as that really isn't too helpful. If it has to be thumbs, at least have multiple categories (like graphics, gameplay, tech, etc.)

Some games of course can be rated badly after an extremely short time due to bugs, but for those I would create an extra category that isn't part of the normal reviews.

Thankfully there aren't a lot of reviews like this. A good few of the negative ones are from people who played a decent bit of the game, don't like it, and explain why. These are the the ones I pay most attention to. Concerning minimum requirements for reviews, it's tricky. Minimum character count is a good idea - might discourage some of the people who post loads of low effort negative reviews. Minimum time is more tricky, if you have a game that crashes once per minute, or is just incredibly obnoxious, it's unfair to make players restart the game continually or have to play for an hour. On the other hand, it could work, because if a game is out for 2 months without a review, the absence is a review in a sense.

 

[Timeslip]

Difficulty levels could use some tweaking:

Vigilante is a cake walk. After the first few fights my characters and equipment were way beyond the enemies. Like someone was saying above, by the time you get rifles, it's over. Other than one particular lieutenant battle, there wasn't any real challenge.

I'm struggling to even get started at Hard Boiled. I can't keep up with the improving enemies. By the time I've got my team assembled and managed to find a danger-2 district to attack, they're already at character level 4 and equipped with grenades. It seems like they're advancing at about 4 times the rate they were on Vigilante. Maybe I made some mistakes early on it just keeps snowballing until I'm in a hopeless situation?

It's really hard to call - there's so much variance in skill and experience with the game. Vigilantes is good to get familiar with the game, but it's probably going to be too easy for a veteran TB player.

In hard boiled, combat's a lot tougher and enemies level up about 1.7 times as quickly. It's definitely doable though. You shouldn't attack danger level 2 districts right away - there are 3 danger level 1 districts already revealed - these are softer targets you can get some experience from. There's not a huge xp/cash bonus for attacking level 2 tiles anyway, and if you are just about able to beat one, you should consider how long it's going to take you to heal afterwards. Just about beating a L2 district, but having to spend 6-8 hours healing is very much a pyrrhic victory.

 

[Timeslip]

I tried to make my review as short and succinct as possible so that people would actually read it. Having said that, it would be nice if Steam didn't allow reviews that were like "dude this game sucks let's play fortnite 420 dude weed lmao"

Cheers Nutria I may post on the developer forums on steam with the idea of a minimum review length.

 

[Timeslip]

Not having to face each other makes it easy to act inconsiderate, doesn't it. On the bright side, at least one steam review doesn't hold enough power to kill a dream. Apart Slimu's there are a few more positive ones too, cool

Jinn, maybe they meant recent reviews? Those are 'Mostly Positive'. But agreed, doesn't look bad to me neither.

Btw. now listed among trending games on steamspy. Don't know why it differs from the steam page, but yay anyway!

Yeah it's better now. A couple of bad ones in a row can really knock down a game which doesn't have a lot of reviews. Nice, I'd say Steamspy will help a bit, global web rank of around 50K. In their predictions, it's considerably closer to the 0 than 20,000 owners though

 

[MichiK]

Hey,

I KS'ed the game, but have yet to play it. I have simply found that with KS games it's worth waiting a few months for the game to finish baking before playing it. Sometimes it's incredible bugs like we are seeing with Pathfinder, and sometimes it's proper balancing of the game system/encounters as we saw with PoE and D:OS.

Are there a lot of fixes/ changes planned for Vigilantes in the next few months, or is it basically done?

 

[Timeslip]

Hey,

I KS'ed the game, but have yet to play it. I have simply found that with KS games it's worth waiting a few months for the game to finish baking before playing it. Sometimes it's incredible bugs like we are seeing with Pathfinder, and sometimes it's proper balancing of the game system/encounters as we saw with PoE and D:OS.

Are there a lot of fixes/ changes planned for Vigilantes in the next few months, or is it basically done?

While there are bugs, quite a few people have mentioned that it's the least buggy RPG/strategy game to come out over the last 6 weeks or so. Maybe that's a dubious honour... There are a few rarely occurring bugs which might make you restart a combat encounter, but you may or may not encounter these in a playthrough. On changes, the game will not change hugely between now and its very final state. Bug fixes in the very short term (starting right now - with an update likely within 1 week), followed by improving usability and adding content longer term.