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[Starver]

What resolution does your device run the game at and what quality level is it defaulting to?

I have never found any indicator of resolution on this thing, but looking it up by model number, apparently 1024 pixels by 600 pixels. By default I run at Medium (in your config screen) but sometimes on the map it tells me it might run slow, suggests knocking that down. I tend not to, because it has never obviously affected anything other than the decorative imagery is notably blurry (lower res, extrapolated back up in pixels to native screen res?). Setting to Low does not 'restore' any images, Medium and High (the latter probably higher-than-necessary resolution scrunched down, so looks the same as pre-scrunched Medium?) look identical and it runs without any other obvious complaints in all three modes.

I did get the size down to around 120mb from ~250mb by swapping to spritesheets (which is likely somehow related to the ui issues you ran into), but it's creeping up again and I think will finish up at around 160mb.

I had a quick poke around, the most recent complaint I could find regarding spritesheets 'going black' seemed to be this, from two years ago (most others from as early as 2012!), but I imagine it's not as easy as that.

I'll do some fiddling. And this is an old tablet (that wasn't top of the range when I got it, I have an older tablet that is better, for odd reasons, but it is more awkward to use that beyond what I currently use it for) so I'm probably dropping off across the inexorable feature-creep limits for any vaguely ambitious App that's trying to look better on newer iterations of hardware.

[TTHSK]

What resolution does your device run the game at and what quality level is it defaulting to?

I have never found any indicator of resolution on this thing, but looking it up by model number, apparently 1024 pixels by 600 pixels. By default I run at Medium (in your config screen) but sometimes on the map it tells me it might run slow, suggests knocking that down. I tend not to, because it has never obviously affected anything other than the decorative imagery is notably blurry (lower res, extrapolated back up in pixels to native screen res?). Setting to Low does not 'restore' any images, Medium and High (the latter probably higher-than-necessary resolution scrunched down, so looks the same as pre-scrunched Medium?) look identical and it runs without any other obvious complaints in all three modes.

I did get the size down to around 120mb from ~250mb by swapping to spritesheets (which is likely somehow related to the ui issues you ran into), but it's creeping up again and I think will finish up at around 160mb.

I had a quick poke around, the most recent complaint I could find regarding spritesheets 'going black' seemed to be this, from two years ago (most others from as early as 2012!), but I imagine it's not as easy as that.

I'll do some fiddling. And this is an old tablet (that wasn't top of the range when I got it, I have an older tablet that is better, for odd reasons, but it is more awkward to use that beyond what I currently use it for) so I'm probably dropping off across the inexorable feature-creep limits for any vaguely ambitious App that's trying to look better on newer iterations of hardware.

I found something that might have been the cause which I've fixed in a new version (should be up for the opt-in beta within the next few hours, depends on Google). Could you let me know if it's fixed?

[Starver]

I found something that might have been the cause which I've fixed in a new version (should be up for the opt-in beta within the next few hours, depends on Google). Could you let me know if it's fixed?

Will do! Will pass by some Wifi I can scrounge off later today.

Spoiler: What time did you put it up? (click to show/hide)

Because I made effort to get the other tablet I mentioned onto Wifi, last night (18-20 hours ago) and a couple of hours ago I tried it. It was black-box-free but it did freeze badly on me.

Whole device freeze. No response except holding the power button down to restart.  Not even the hold-a-little-more-than-a-tap for the usual off/airplane/reboot/etc. It got to the fairly-hard-but-not-Factory-reset level, which I'm not in a habit of doing.

It had also previously complained at FPS being low (the third or fourth time I consulted the map, much as with this one's trouble) as I was wandering round the very first intro-mission¹ and just had another look at the full map when it stopped.

But that's a Samsung SM-T210, and kernel version 4.4.2 dated to early 2015, though that was an update itself and it was a little earlier still when new. Just FYI, and to maybe bump the thread for others to see you're still improving things. Can't hurt. Otherwise I'd be PMing/emailing/Play-Store feedbacking  you all this stuff, instead. 

¹ - Where it explains controls, then tells me to find the target - but I decided to pick plants, kill a few bad guys and just test it out, and had 'cleared' half the map (including a gift-stone, a remorse one and a health-giving one) and wasn't anywhere near the two remaining enemies. Because though I wasn't going to grind, I did want to complete things as a test. And who says tests have to work to work?

[simpleyuji]

Looks neat. It has a retro 90's vibe to it. Reminds me a bit of might and magic/hexen and runscape a little bit. Anyway, a tiny nitpick. I find the item costs to be a bit hard to read. As in the numbers and the currency "D" are too close to each other, so it can be a bit hard to read them.

[Parsely]

I like the feel of the graphics, which is mainly what made me want to try this (plus it's the perfect price). The controls work pretty great which is saying a lot for a first person game on mobile, it's a lot like playing System Shock 1 in terms of the camera controls which means you have to commit when walking up slopes if you don't want to move the camera every two seconds but it's not hard to adapt to.

Some problems though:
- I had a quest where I had to mine ore lodes and the rocks the objective marker led me to were different from the blue crystals I'd normally expect to get ore from, and my pickaxes didn't work on them so I had to abandon the quest. How do I break those dang rocks?
- I like using the guns but a lot of the time when I see the lock on on the enemy I can't shoot them when they're far away. Isn't the crosshair only supposed to show up when I'm in range? I'm playing on my phone so I think my screen is just so small that I can't touch their hitbox.

[TTHSK]

I found something that might have been the cause which I've fixed in a new version (should be up for the opt-in beta within the next few hours, depends on Google). Could you let me know if it's fixed?

Will do! Will pass by some Wifi I can scrounge off later today.

Spoiler: What time did you put it up? (click to show/hide)

Because I made effort to get the other tablet I mentioned onto Wifi, last night (18-20 hours ago) and a couple of hours ago I tried it. It was black-box-free but it did freeze badly on me.

Whole device freeze. No response except holding the power button down to restart.  Not even the hold-a-little-more-than-a-tap for the usual off/airplane/reboot/etc. It got to the fairly-hard-but-not-Factory-reset level, which I'm not in a habit of doing.

It had also previously complained at FPS being low (the third or fourth time I consulted the map, much as with this one's trouble) as I was wandering round the very first intro-mission¹ and just had another look at the full map when it stopped.

But that's a Samsung SM-T210, and kernel version 4.4.2 dated to early 2015, though that was an update itself and it was a little earlier still when new. Just FYI, and to maybe bump the thread for others to see you're still improving things. Can't hurt. Otherwise I'd be PMing/emailing/Play-Store feedbacking  you all this stuff, instead. 

¹ - Where it explains controls, then tells me to find the target - but I decided to pick plants, kill a few bad guys and just test it out, and had 'cleared' half the map (including a gift-stone, a remorse one and a health-giving one) and wasn't anywhere near the two remaining enemies. Because though I wasn't going to grind, I did want to complete things as a test. And who says tests have to work to work?

Roughly 18 hours ago as of now; looks like it's not available on the Playstore yet though... Should have "What's new" say 'Last updated Dec 21' when it does appear. Edit: And then it appears (at least for my phone) right after I post. Should be available now.

I looked up the device, it might need to run in the lowest settings mode due to ram requirements (well, in theory it should be good at medium, but I don't have enough devices on hand to check it myself). A massive crash like you had hopefully indicates a memory/similar issue (if it's something entirely code related I've really stuffed up x-x).

Anyway, a tiny nitpick. I find the item costs to be a bit hard to read. As in the numbers and the currency "D" are too close to each other, so it can be a bit hard to read them.

Nitpicks are good - I'll probably enlarge the text a little.

- I had a quest where I had to mine ore lodes and the rocks the objective marker led me to were different from the blue crystals I'd normally expect to get ore from, and my pickaxes didn't work on them so I had to abandon the quest. How do I break those dang rocks?
- I like using the guns but a lot of the time when I see the lock on on the enemy I can't shoot them when they're far away. Isn't the crosshair only supposed to show up when I'm in range? I'm playing on my phone so I think my screen is just so small that I can't touch their hitbox.

Quest: It should have been directing you towards the blue crystals that you mine with a pickaxe, that's an odd one. I'll have to check over the quests. Do you remember which map type and type of ore the quest involved?
Guns: The crosshair does indicate enemies being in range; although their hitboxes can be pretty small when they're in the distance (and touch controls make precision a bit tough). You should be able to hit them by tapping around a few times in theory (and luckily these days you don't shoot when you don't hit)
Thanks for the feedback! And glad you appreciate the price (of free, heh); I'm still considering whether I should also have an ad free version for something like $2.50

[Parsely]

Quest: It should have been directing you towards the blue crystals that you mine with a pickaxe, that's an odd one. I'll have to check over the quests. Do you remember which map type and type of ore the quest involved?

Guns: The crosshair does indicate enemies being in range; although their hitboxes can be pretty small when they're in the distance (and touch controls make precision a bit tough). You should be able to hit them by tapping around a few times in theory (and luckily these days you don't shoot when you don't hit)

Thanks for the feedback! And glad you appreciate the price (of free, heh); I'm still considering whether I should also have an ad free version for something like $2.50

It was a big outdoor mountain forest type map, there was some snow and I think lava on the ground but mostly it was green with trees. It was enraged ore that the mission asked for. The rock the marker led me to was like a dark grey one, not like the regular whitish grey ones that are just part of the terrain or the blue crystals, tapping on the rock gave me no feedback like when I tap on a harvestable thing that I don't have a tool for. Since I couldn't mine that rock I mined the blue crystals in the area but I just got iron, copper, and silver, so when all my picks broke I had to leave.

Maybe you could implement a thing that makes you shoot the nearest thing to where you press when you do a long press to help with that? I would really appreciate it, but it might be tough to make it so it didn't let you shoot around terrain since normally terrain blocks your shot by keeping you from tapping on the hitbox.

Aren't there only ads if you press the double coin and XP button at the end of a quest?

[Starver]

Mining a 'blue cryatal in a grey rock' harvests it and turns it into something akin to your description of a dark grey rock (sans crystals). Could it have a) spawned pre-mined mining-points with a target to them or, b) you passed by that way before, mined them, got no credit and it left the marker there?  (Possibility (c) might be that it switched things around mid-mission, perhaps as an unintended reversal of the target-handling when you :bag' a valid target that wasn't actually one of the ones spawned with a marker).

Some things show up on the map, differently, when harvested/activated. I forget about ores (they might be small light green splotches, turning dark green when pickaxed, like trees you can cut but not as big, although garlic/roses/lavender/desert flowers/etc either don't show up or don't show at the pinch-zoom levels I tend to look at) and though I just did a get-some-ores mission earlier I didn't use the map much at all during it. I tend to just get a feel of the hostiles on a map, and anything yellow (might be a magic rock that spawns chests with goodies), if it's an external location without lava-streams to worry about, then leave it alone except when planning how to respond to a sudden wasp-tree ambush.  But it might be worth looking at in your situation, if it happens again.

[TTHSK]

It was a big outdoor mountain forest type map, there was some snow and I think lava on the ground but mostly it was green with trees. It was enraged ore that the mission asked for. The rock the marker led me to was like a dark grey one, not like the regular whitish grey ones that are just part of the terrain or the blue crystals, tapping on the rock gave me no feedback like when I tap on a harvestable thing that I don't have a tool for. Since I couldn't mine that rock I mined the blue crystals in the area but I just got iron, copper, and silver, so when all my picks broke I had to leave.

Maybe you could implement a thing that makes you shoot the nearest thing to where you press when you do a long press to help with that? I would really appreciate it, but it might be tough to make it so it didn't let you shoot around terrain since normally terrain blocks your shot by keeping you from tapping on the hitbox.

Aren't there only ads if you press the double coin and XP button at the end of a quest?

Thanks a ton for the precise details! Hopefully I can reproduce it or figure out what went wrong in the code.

I'll see what I can do for making longer range shooting more forgiving - I might do something akin to seeing if it's 'close enough' and have the game assume your intent is to shoot the enemy, scoring a low value hit (ie. no headshots ).

There should also ads at the start of every third mission after a few missions (I think it ends up being 6-7; the counter starts on -3 for a fresh install) although those ones can be skipped early (in theory) unlike the reward ones. It should also reset to showing an ad at mission start if the game isn't played for a while (I think ~24hrs is what it's set to). Ads appearing depends on if there's any available, too, so they might just not appear anyway.

Mining a 'blue cryatal in a grey rock' harvests it and turns it into something akin to your description of a dark grey rock (sans crystals). Could it have a) spawned pre-mined mining-points with a target to them or, b) you passed by that way before, mined them, got no credit and it left the marker there?  (Possibility (c) might be that it switched things around mid-mission, perhaps as an unintended reversal of the target-handling when you :bag' a valid target that wasn't actually one of the ones spawned with a marker).

Some things show up on the map, differently, when harvested/activated. I forget about ores (they might be small light green splotches, turning dark green when pickaxed, like trees you can cut but not as big, although garlic/roses/lavender/desert flowers/etc either don't show up or don't show at the pinch-zoom levels I tend to look at) and though I just did a get-some-ores mission earlier I didn't use the map much at all during it. I tend to just get a feel of the hostiles on a map, and anything yellow (might be a magic rock that spawns chests with goodies), if it's an external location without lava-streams to worry about, then leave it alone except when planning how to respond to a sudden wasp-tree ambush.  But it might be worth looking at in your situation, if it happens again.

Thanks for the debug thoughts Starver. I'll have to check the ore node colours since they shouldn't be the same as tree colours.

[Parsely]

No problem! I haven't played more since but I'll probably pick it up again soon.

I mean I did break two pickaxes on every rock I saw nearby and only found 1 enraged ore (could have been the one that was marked by the yellow quest marker but I don't remember harvesting it). So if that was how I was supposed to get the ore, I guess next time I should be taking a pack full of picks.

I probably didn't see any ads because I only played the intro quests and two of the quests I got to pick myself.

[Starver]

I notice (kudos!) that the equipment-pouch items now have visual 'pie bar' used-upedness indicator (saving the trivial but extra step of checking the wear amount on anything that matters by touch-and-hold). If you have a mission needing a tool and still want to go around using that tool on random-other resources then the best strategy is probably to get all but one of the marked-mission items, then go and fill your boots with everything else until you have just one effective charge¹ of resilience left on your (last?) tool, then get that final mission item to cap the mission off.

For tree-harvesting, while so procrastinating you can avoid the target-tree-type (if you know what it looks like) in your off-mission quest, but if (especially with ores, which look the same²) you harvest the mission-needed type it will fulfil the aim instead. Animal-trapping missions are also prone to random creatures of a target requirement type just wandering into the trap-zone when you're not anywhere near it. Not a complaint, though they could perhaps be persuaded to 'randomly' happen not to walk over the zone (or have it count) when not actually in legitmate pursuit of the beckoning player, if Dev didn't want it to be occasionally so accidentally fulfilling.

Other than that, carry multiple items of (especially!) mission-related tool-types. And/or take the opportunity to craft the best (by resilience) tools available, between the levels available in the raw-ores/etc vendor, the items obtained withi  the best level missions you can play (and get back from!), the rewards (ditto, but only winning you can do) and of the types with the best resilience buffing.


Personally, I have tended to wear out pickaxes mostly, saws occasionally and once I even 'wore out' a firebrand/torch smoker-outerer. (Technically I might have been able to wear out a bucket, not sure about shovels/machetes, I've only limitedly used a sledgehammer in a mission, same with the magic compasses.)

Not counting the mission when I first encountered sandstorms, which certainly wore out every worn item (including all weapons) in an instant and might have damaged pouched equipment too. But without any weapon left I didn't have much to work with and I think I aborted, and have been wary of sandstorms (in particular) ever since then. Though I've certainly had them in the way passing close to me later on, so it could have been toned down, or I just was far less foolhardy.


¹ Noting that it might be two or three 'units' of wear, each time, depending on tool. I assume this is so as to scale suitability of "50% more uses", and/or to scale back sandstorm/other-environmental wear as the author intends. It might be better to make "one wear for one use", but then the contribution/subtraction of wear would have to be differently conditional for the dame effect. - But do note that a pickaxe with two more 'resiliences' left is on its last use, etc.

² Although you may be able to assume that an ore-crystal near to an acid-pool is the acid-ore, etc, to pursue/avoid that type in particular.

[TTHSK]

I mean I did break two pickaxes on every rock I saw nearby and only found 1 enraged ore (could have been the one that was marked by the yellow quest marker but I don't remember harvesting it). So if that was how I was supposed to get the ore, I guess next time I should be taking a pack full of picks.

I believe I fixed something possibly related to the issue, if it was a rarity quest (rather than an ordinary gather one). Fingers crossed!

Animal-trapping missions are also prone to random creatures of a target requirement type just wandering into the trap-zone when you're not anywhere near it. Not a complaint, though they could perhaps be persuaded to 'randomly' happen not to walk over the zone (or have it count) when not actually in legitmate pursuit of the beckoning player, if Dev didn't want it to be occasionally so accidentally fulfilling.

I have fixed some of these sorts of cases, but I am torn on others because they are pretty fun/lucky feeling.

Not counting the mission when I first encountered sandstorms, which certainly wore out every worn item (including all weapons) in an instant and might have damaged pouched equipment too. But without any weapon left I didn't have much to work with and I think I aborted, and have been wary of sandstorms (in particular) ever since then. Though I've certainly had them in the way passing close to me later on, so it could have been toned down, or I just was far less foolhardy.

It was indeed toned down at some point - I think I had it set ~3x as high as it is now when I was testing it.

¹ Noting that it might be two or three 'units' of wear, each time, depending on tool. I assume this is so as to scale suitability of "50% more uses", and/or to scale back sandstorm/other-environmental wear as the author intends. It might be better to make "one wear for one use", but then the contribution/subtraction of wear would have to be differently conditional for the dame effect. - But do note that a pickaxe with two more 'resiliences' left is on its last use, etc.

² Although you may be able to assume that an ore-crystal near to an acid-pool is the acid-ore, etc, to pursue/avoid that type in particular.

1 - I'll probably do a pass over to 'flatten' all the usage values. The original (vague) design was to have multiple use types per tool, and different use types would use different amounts of durability, but one tool-one type of use (even if it's used on multiple interactable objects) is where things have ended up.
2 - That's a pretty good idea - there's a part of map gen I've wanted to add (but haven't had time) that would allow 'grouped' features - eg. an oasis with trees in the desert - that would allow it, too.


Also: Expeditionaries now has a release trailer! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ysy-Zia99mQ

[Parsely]

Thanks so much for responding directly to my feedback in a very timely manner, it's not every day you get devs who put that time in to interact with their players. c:

[Starver]

I'm just going to bump this.  I let it slide a little* but kept with updates as suggested by the Store and over the last week or so I've actually been dipping back in during a free moment or three.

Daily and weekly tasks - took to them nicely, the daily ones.  Good to get me going for terrains/mission-types I might have otherwise passed over. If I could match "desert (2 missions)" with the two divferent mission types also being asked it made things feel nice. Today was a request for a Mystery, but because of the specified 3xMountain (see footnote!) I took a Dungeon or Ruin version (whichever it was) that was the first up for offer on the list.
It was then that I discovered I would not have to wait for the Weekly mission. It being in with the plot-mission giver (that I'd been avoiding 'til then, again as per footnote).

Skill points and 'buffs' - Good idea. I started with a whole bunch of them, so I spread them liberally around the available progressions. I think this is part of the reason I'm getting back from missions with respource items and equipment of levels in the 50s, 60s and even a couple of ones at 70. I like to 'farm' the levels, as you know. Plus (for some missions) there's the option to continue a map post win-condition, which has been let me stop worrying about putting off doing thongs, for fear of closing things too early! 

Craft requirements - Well, it was my loophole that I told you I found. Once I worked out why I wasn't getting my bought-materials onto the crafting table, took a bit of 'evening up' by adventuring for more goodies to sell before I could raise the crafting capability to use the things I'd bought. Obviously a new player (or one who hadn't dived headlong into the loophole!) is going to not be so disadvantaged as they play more evenly from the start.

All the extra mission-maps! - Well the Plateau had me confused for a brief moment, but it has something to it. Still to check I've tried out every locale and every mission-type (being mostly guided by the randomised Daily suggestions, yet to blitz a mission-vendor or go see if the "choose your own spec" guy is still down at his end-of-strand point), but quite a lot of development.

Real-time mode. - Not tried yet! Still sort of happy with ths sort-of-semi-turn-based play, TBH. Ironically, as 'turning' does not advancing NPC-time (or reloading, as it shouldn't), unlike moving. Also I suspect I might get lag if forcing that mode, so best left to people with snazzier tablets, eh?

I see you revamped the uses/durability system. Also I've yet to update all my equipment, but I think I'm getting more per-item use out of the ones I came this far through the updates with, already. I assume that's how you want it.

(Secondary to that, I got into an interesting situation where a sledgehammer I used (in a Dungeon-based Disruption mission, where item-containers were checkerboarded within alternating pillars, I'm sure you'll know the template layout) eventually got to "-20/5 durability", as in I used it 25 times to knock out the 25 pillars. I might PM you to tell you how I did it. Almost certainly not what you intended. )

(Tertiary to that, on my last try of a Mountain mission (for Ore Mining, if it matters) it pestered me about not having a Quench item in my equipment. I did have a bucket, though, there in my 'active inventory bar'. I'd used it in a prior Volcano mission. Went ahead with it anyway, after backing out first to check I'd not sold it or something, knowing that my high-spec Drake Leather boots were probably a good safeguard too! Unfortunately, being on a Mountain*, it plonked out as I was still adjusting my sight-level to glance upwards a little at the closest red dot noted from the initial check of the game-map. Still, the 'bucket check' may need checking, unless (because that was the only 'advisory') it wasn't a bucket that it needed, but something else I'd missed being added!)


So, yeah. Bump. Loads of new features, so readers of this new and old now know, even if they've not had the Play Store/whatever telling them about it.



* My elderly tablet running quite nicely apparently, as discussed, but crashing out at times. Not exclusively, but overwhelmingly at random early points on a Mountain map. I've herded cats merchants across forest and field and desert maps (wide area), I've pestered the bears-and-bees simultaneously you-know-where (for sheer opponent-count) and I've admired the new Plateau location (a much more limited area, but has some topological similarities) with virtually no crash-out, but the Mountain seems to be doing something. I've also refrained from trying to find the giant (in the plot-progression), as that's when it started misbehaving on me. Though you'll be relieved to hear that the recent "black bar" problem is totally gone!

[Parsely]

Oooh, updates huh? Gotta try playing some more soon