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[Frank2368]

This looks interesting. I've started playing Dominions 4 a bit ago an enjoy it quite a bit. Where can I get a beta key? The Steam page doesn't seem to be up yet.

[ChairmanPoo]

I think us unchosen ones are left to wait until january :p

[Ludorum Rex]

Drop down boxes, like the difficulty option and everything in detailed game setup, show their contents behind the rest of the page content and are unclickable.

That's an embarrassing bug - I didn't test properly after my tooltip bugfix two days ago (it caused this issue). I have made a fix for the drop down issue, and it'll go out tomorrow with a bunch of other fixes.

This looks interesting. I've started playing Dominions 4 a bit ago an enjoy it quite a bit. Where can I get a beta key? The Steam page doesn't seem to be up yet.

The Steam page should go up in a couple of weeks - I want to squash out the worst bugs and get a bit more progress done before it goes public. There should be a "coming soon" page in the much nearer future.

[lordcooper]

Great big disorganised list of things that need fixing and random thoughts.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Playing on Windows 10 at 2560x1440.

No sound?  Would be wise to get this in the game before putting it up for sale.

Settings appear behind the menu and are unclickable. 

Loads more wizard types than I expected

Grey Wizard description misspells assassination.

Race: Demon 'ferocious' misspelling.

Planewalker 'almost [impossible] to corner'?

Wizard types were listed twice initially, but not on a relaunch.

Possibly far beyond the scope of the game, but how cool would it be to have a mobile 'gandalf type' grey wizard without a tower?

Minor Divination doesn't mention what it actually does.  Ditto for astrology.

Wildshaper: 'wiht' = with.  'By the by raw'

Do wizards starting with 'lesser' magic also get 'minor'?

Alignments don't cost points, intended?

Some wizard types use more points than others, game intended to be 'unbalanced' like MoM?

Please list prerequisites for research.

It is possible to save custom wizard types without a name, no delete function seems present.

Impossible to make a grey background on banner.  Literally unplayable 

Weird blue border on right side of screen.  http://puu.sh/t4vFG/077906cd6e.jpg

Tooltips not appearing in top icon bar (edit: many places) (not implemented?)

Zooming is jerky.

Map is legible (if not particularly pretty) at first glance, are specific resource icons planned?

Esc key should open pause menu.

Unable to type when trying to save and therefore unable to save.

Hovering over x icon in research menu but not clicking makes it go greyed out.

Esc should close open menus (research, recruitment etc) as should clicking their icon again.  Opening a new menu should close the existing one instead of leaving it open in the background (submenus excepted).

PERSONAL PREFERENCE: I'd vastly prefer if it used whole numbers for resources.  500 food + 25 a turn > 5 food + 0.25 a turn.

Scrolling mousewheel zooms map instead of scrolling within encyclopedia.

Would be nice if the encyclopedia had some fluff to go along with the stats.  Also tooltips (there's a pattern emerging here ).  I have no idea if, say, 'stoic' is a positive or negative trait.

Needs a tutorial and/or explicit victory goals.  I have no idea if I'm meant to be taking over the world, fighting for good/evil, searching for loot or what.

Some research options (so far leadership, diplomacy, minor binding and warding) double/half estimated turns when selected.

No idea if building farms on arctic tiles (for example) is a bad idea.  It is possible to add the same workers to the same project multiple times, which apparently does decrease the build time.  No visual representation of in-progress building?

Clicking the 'cast spell' button simply made the button disappear.

Turn counters should ideally be on the end turn button.

Turns remaining on building farms doesn't seem to change until it's finished, which took more turns that it said it would.  Really need some sort of icon to show finished buildings.

Exploring for 10 turns doesn't seem to have done anything?  Same for espionage.  Resource theft from a village gave a blank popup and said the perpetrator just recovered from their injuries in another one.  He is now unselectable but is shown in the followers menu as still doing resource theft.

Game doesn't seem to display what is in my grand army and I can't recruit new troops despite it seeming to show Clansdwarves as recruitable.  Edit: Noticed the 'inspect' button.

No display of where my followers are?

No quit to main menu?

Sometimes unable to recruit for reasons beyond my comprehension.  When able to recruit, training times vary drastically from the estimate (5 turns became 20).

Besieging should notify you when you can assault.

Is there any way to see what's in a city before assaulting it?

Exploring takes longer for some followers than others, no idea why.  Without a notification of when their fatigue is gone it leads to lots of having to check the same screen every turn or two

When building stuff in the tower you don't get to see what it does until it's built, which is inconvenient.

Seemingly no way to cancel training/building.

It seems like I can hire workers for free?

This all sounds pretty negative but I dig the concept, see what you're going for, and agree that there could potentially be a really neat game in here.  It needs a lot more work before it'll get to that point IMO, and I'd advise holding off on early access for longer if possible.  Releasing it as it is now will likely get you loads of negative reviews from those who expect EA to basically mean 'mid-late beta' and have a negative impact on overall sales.  Look at Clockwork Empires to see how disastrous premature release can be.

[Cthulhu]

I'd agree that you're gonna want to finish the UI work you're doing well before you release.  It's more playable than it was on the last release but it still doesn't really feel like I'm doing anything, mainly because I have no idea what I'm doing.

I'd say expanded tooltips and some kind of manual, especially more detailed descriptions of the options I have, is mandatory before release.  There might be a ton of awesome shit already implemented but I have no idea what it is or how to access it.

The thing about cast spell though, the icon disappears because you have no map spells available.  That's a good one to bring up actually, the map spells have no visible effects or anything to indicate they're working.  I used scorched earth on an enemy regiment and nothing happened, I don't even know whether or not the spell cast successfully

[Ludorum Rex]

Thanks for the detailed and honest feedback - I hope to organize and respond to it some time tonight. This also includes getting all the bugs on the known issues list. (btw: I really like the "no tower" idea. It requires some adjustment to mechanics/logic, as a lot of code assumes a wizard either has a tower or has been defeated, it's also a really flavorful concept and will be extremely useful for modding - it is unlikely to be worked on before the UI/graphics push for early access, but it will certainly go into the backlog).

I am pushing out a build with a few bug fixes this morning, including the extremely annoying dropdown bug. It should be on steam in an hour or so.

You are absolutely right that the level of feedback/response in the UI is the biggest blocker at the moment. For example some spells do have placeholder or no effects, but the majority have actual effects, including some of the semi-complicated ones (like the enchanted necklace that slowly turns the wearer feral/mad). There is also a lot happening under the hood that doesn't really get shown anywhere (the effects of city buildings for instance). And finally the victory/quest condition window and more informative/interact-able diplomacy windows are necessary to have a game experience that doesn't just consist of murdering/conquering everything.

There will be a manual, but a goal of the current push is to get the game to a state where someone who doesn't read the manual can readily navigate the UI and "do stuff" with just a small smattering of tutorial hints. Where actions give immediate feedback, and the flow of what to do and what is happening in the world is readily intuitive. As you folks are most likely a lot more tolerant of opaque user interfaces, more in-tune with strategy game mechanics and probably smarter than the average player, that certainly needs to be addressed in order for public early access to result in useful feedback and not so much a horde of angry people who don't read the disclaimers.

I could type more words, but I need to push a build now, get some breakfast and head off to my dayjob. I'll be back tonight with a response giving the detailed feedback the detailed reply it deserves.

[Zangi]

Bug: Got stuck in some diplomatic event.  Windowed mode.

'Follower', emissary in 'town', ended up in a duel due to romance, stupid, or bad luck.
Clicking on any of the 5 options doesn't advance the event and I can't end the turn.
I somehow got that option thing to go away, but it ends up crashing.  (Also, some army I supposedly killed cause they attacked me the turn before was still there?  Or I ambushed em?)


UI needs massive work.
Information/costs on wizard tower add-ons. 
More information/costs when recruiting mercs/workers. 
Ideally, Follower traits should be easier to check out.
Saving doesn't work?

[Ludorum Rex]

Great big disorganised list of things that need fixing and random thoughts.

Answers inside spoiler tags:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

No sound?  Would be wise to get this in the game before putting it up for sale.

I have licensing in place for some tracks of generic fantasy music. It's not been high on my priority list, since I tend turn music off in a lot of games, but I'll make sure to put it in. As for sound effects, those are usually pretty decently priced so I should be able to afford some basic ones even on my non-existent budget.

Settings appear behind the menu and are unclickable. 

Fixed in 0.9.63

Various spelling errors

Thanks, I'll get these fixed.

Wizard types were listed twice initially, but not on a relaunch.

Interesting. Haven't seen this - but will try to reproduce it.

Possibly far beyond the scope of the game, but how cool would it be to have a mobile 'gandalf type' grey wizard without a tower?

Requires some mechanics changes as the engine assumes all non-defeated wizard have a tower. Will be great for modding. Need to figure out how to balance the loss of the tower. Will it give additional points for traits/research? Should there be unique abilities or traits for a "wandering wizard"? Lots of cool possibilities, but will have to wait for now.

Do wizards starting with 'lesser' magic also get 'minor'?

They do. I will find a way to present this information.

Alignments don't cost points, intended?

This is intended. Good/Evil alignment has advantages and disadvantages, and I'd like the player not feel penalized points-wise for this choice.

Some wizard types use more points than others, game intended to be 'unbalanced' like MoM?

Most of the templates were created prior to the customization being added. The points costs aren't really balanced properly yet, either. The intent is for the templates to be somewhat equal in power. I wouldn't mind having some templates be specifically designed to be challenging or overpowered, but if I get around to adding these, such balance issues will be highlighted in the selection window.

Minor Divination doesn't mention what it actually does.  Ditto for astrology.
Please list prerequisites for research.
It is possible to save custom wizard types without a name, no delete function seems present.
Impossible to make a grey background on banner.  Literally unplayable 
Weird blue border on right side of screen.  http://puu.sh/t4vFG/077906cd6e.jpg
Tooltips not appearing in top icon bar (edit: many places) (not implemented?)
Esc key should open pause menu.
Hovering over x icon in research menu but not clicking makes it go greyed out.
Would be nice if the encyclopedia had some fluff to go along with the stats.  Also tooltips (there's a pattern emerging here ).  I have no idea if, say, 'stoic' is a positive or negative trait.
Some research options (so far leadership, diplomacy, minor binding and warding) double/half estimated turns when selected.
Turn counters should ideally be on the end turn button.
Turns remaining on building farms doesn't seem to change until it's finished, which took more turns that it said it would.  Really need some sort of icon to show finished buildings.
Exploring for 10 turns doesn't seem to have done anything?  Same for espionage.  Resource theft from a village gave a blank popup and said the perpetrator just recovered from their injuries in another one.  He is now unselectable but is shown in the followers menu as still doing resource theft.
When able to recruit, training times vary drastically from the estimate (5 turns became 20).
Besieging should notify you when you can assault.
It seems like I can hire workers for free?

Noted and added to list of open issues/bugs.

Zooming is jerky.

The incremental zoom levels are on purpose, but I agree they feel off. Needs to be improvement.

Map is legible (if not particularly pretty) at first glance, are specific resource icons planned?

Yes. All map graphics will be improved. Probably not in time for initial early access, since time/budget constraints are an issue here.

Unable to type when trying to save and therefore unable to save.

Partially fixed. Haven't had time to do a regression and fix any other bugs on the file dialog. A recent change broke them.

Esc should close open menus (research, recruitment etc) as should clicking their icon again.  Opening a new menu should close the existing one instead of leaving it open in the background (submenus excepted).

This is what I am currently working on.

PERSONAL PREFERENCE: I'd vastly prefer if it used whole numbers for resources.  500 food + 25 a turn > 5 food + 0.25 a turn.

I think most would agree. The current values have historical basis really (balance was a very low priority early and small values were easier to work with when testing/developing). It's easier to balance when the granularity is higher, and having 0.3725 Ectoplasma as the upkeep cost for something makes the player feel more like an accountant rather than a powerful necromancer.

Scrolling mousewheel zooms map instead of scrolling within encyclopedia.

Yes, this is a known issue, that has proven a bit annoying to fix. Needs to be bumped in priority as it's really annoying.

Needs a tutorial and/or explicit victory goals.  I have no idea if I'm meant to be taking over the world, fighting for good/evil, searching for loot or what.

Absolutely - this is next on list of tasks.

No idea if building farms on arctic tiles (for example) is a bad idea.  It is possible to add the same workers to the same project multiple times, which apparently does decrease the build time.  No visual representation of in-progress building?

Invisible farms (and other sites) is fixed 0.9.63. Improved tool tips and/or map overlays are needed for your first point.

Clicking the 'cast spell' button simply made the button disappear.

You had no map spells. Needs better UI and some low-level generic map spells.

Game doesn't seem to display what is in my grand army and I can't recruit new troops despite it seeming to show Clansdwarves as recruitable.  Edit: Noticed the 'inspect' button.
No display of where my followers are?
No quit to main menu?
Sometimes unable to recruit for reasons beyond my comprehension.
Exploring takes longer for some followers than others, no idea why.  Without a notification of when their fatigue is gone it leads to lots of having to check the same screen every turn or two

Recurring theme of better usability applies here.

Is there any way to see what's in a city before assaulting it?

No, but there should be.

When building stuff in the tower you don't get to see what it does until it's built, which is inconvenient.

This is a bug.

Seemingly no way to cancel training/building.

Will add this. AI can do it. Unreasonable that the player lacks a button for it.

@Zangi: Noted your bugs, and added those too.

[lordcooper]

No sound?  Would be wise to get this in the game before putting it up for sale.

I have licensing in place for some tracks of generic fantasy music. It's not been high on my priority list, since I tend turn music off in a lot of games, but I'll make sure to put it in. As for sound effects, those are usually pretty decently priced so I should be able to afford some basic ones even on my non-existent budget.

Aye, I'm sure some people don't mind the lack of sound at all.  For me it just feel like something's missing without some background ambience, and even something as simple as a click when ending a turn is useful as feedback that the turn did indeed end.

Possibly far beyond the scope of the game, but how cool would it be to have a mobile 'gandalf type' grey wizard without a tower?

Requires some mechanics changes as the engine assumes all non-defeated wizard have a tower. Will be great for modding. Need to figure out how to balance the loss of the tower. Will it give additional points for traits/research? Should there be unique abilities or traits for a "wandering wizard"? Lots of cool possibilities, but will have to wait for now.

The ur-example for the wandering wizard or magic hedge knight archetype is basically Gandalf, so maybe it'd make sense to think of the way he operates.  Despite having pretty potent magical abilities and being a great physical combatant, I'd argue that his main role is that of a chessmaster.  He accomplishes his goals primarily through others, stacking the deck in his favour through diplomacy, knowledge and his own reputation while having a keen grasp of the strengths of his allies.  In context of your game this could be represented through things like bonuses to diplomacy, an increased number of followers, additional 'favourite followers' (assuming that gives them a bonus), a unique victory condition (possibly relating to artifact found in dungeons), faster research (maybe only 'catch up' research at the towers of allied wizards?), bonuses vs evil etc etc.  Obviously you don't want all of those, just some examples to get you thinking

[Cthulhu]

The Grey Mage is already basically exactly that, he just doesn't wander.

[lordcooper]

The Grey Mage is already basically exactly that, he just doesn't wander.

Kinda, yeah.  It needs to be that but more so, with maybe slightly less focus on actual magic (three types seems to be above the average) and more on followers or other factions.

Even making Call for Heroes unique to wandering classes would do a fair bit to distinguish them and might well be enough.  It'd fit quite well with other potential classes (modded or otherwise) using the same mechanic; say prophets, horde leaders or doomsday cultists.

[ChairmanPoo]

mm, I think it's perfectly defensible that even "grey wizards" characters should have a base of operations. Even if they spend most of their time manipulating to and forth, it's reasonable to have a sancta-sanctorum to which you can fall back...

[Frumple]

... probably should check the official forums, but haven't gotten around to it yet, so... are. Are dungeons not working in the unity/beta version? I think I see their icons on the map (or my memory's off again and I'm mistaking forts or somethin' for dungeon symbols, which is entirely possible), and they sporadically show up in the diplomacy menu,* but if there's a way to throw my lemmings into have my adventurers explodre them, I can't seem to find it.

Other than that, a few immediate things noticed: If it's not something aware of, on 1280x800 windowed (/vista/fastest, if it makes a difference) there's, like... icon overlap. When there's three rows of actions, the top ones'll try to occupy the same space as stuff like cast spell and choose personal guard. Part of me wonders if it wouldn't be possible to let the player just... move that stuff around. Click and drag individual icons around the playing window to suit them.

Some sort of feedback for turn start/confirmation to end turn (note: with the latter, also having some kind of button combination, shift-click, shift-e, whatever, to bypass the confirmation is really nice) would be great, if it's not already planned. Feedback in general when something happens and particularly when something fails definitely feels (even more) lacking (than the non-unity version), though that seems like something noticed and slated for addressing.

At least on my comp it's kinda' hard to tell when a button can or cannot be pressed. There's possibly not enough difference between a recruit button that's this game's equivalent to grayed-out and one that's not. Part of that is almost definitely interaction with f.lux, but even considering that if it's hard to tell under those circumstances it's probably not easy enough to tell without, heh. _{... also, while I'd still suck it up and keep trying occasionally during the beta/EA period and I'm not sure it's actually something worth considering design wise 'cause I'm not sure how many people are in a similar situation, a game that's hard to play without f.lux (or an equivalent) being off/with it being on is a game I won't actually play for fun. Used to eye-soothing screen filter to the point without actually kinda' hurts these days, particularly in lights-off condition which for me is pretty much always, electricity yadda yadda.} Bit more difference between the coloration of a functioning and non-functioning button would be nice, basically.

Some kind of undo button for army movement would probably be nice, heh, if I didn't just miss it.

You can apparently inspect armies you don't know the composition of and... see the composition in the army inspection screen thingjigger.

... and that's about all I got tonight, I think. Only got 15 or so turns in until I lost the will to keep poking at it until dungeons started being exploited, heh. Mostly because it's late, the will will come back later :V _{though on that note, if minion command repeat isn't intended for implementation/re-implementation please please please please please add it (back) on to the list. Having to personally kick minions out of bed when they're done hiding under a blanket waiting for their face to regenerate from the last dungeon run/exploration mission/whatever will get very old very very quickly, heh.}

[Cthulhu]

It seems like buttons get randomly disabled as I play.  Right nwo the menu doesn't work and I'm unable to inspect neutral settlements, making diplomacy impossible.

Aside from tooltips and such I really think a manually laying out all of the things I can do is the top priority.  There's a lot of shit I have no idea how to even attempt to do to find the tooltips.

Still, I'm pretty hype, if half the stuff you've claimed is actually in the game then when the bugs get polished it could be really fun even at this early stage. 

Are planes implemented, like are they generated as described in the encyclopedia and can you actually go there?

I want to do the Black Company Deadman Enchantment.  I want to open a portal to a plane of infinite fcuk and then immediately seal it with an enchantment that'll unravel when I die so if anybody kills me I take the whole world with me.

[ChairmanPoo]

I find the game really really intriguing... I suspect that for similar reasons than the others here because historically we have been interested in similar games.

I've been a bit confused by the interface, havent had a chance to test last nights update