[Feedback] Tile Clarity and some minor bugs and annoyances

[Stormfox]

Since Darkgod asked me over in the steam forums to compile a list of IMO not-so-ideal tiles and make a post here, I took some notes during my last plays, and here is my current feedback about stuff that coud or should be fixed, upgraded or otherwise changed to make the game clearer and more enjoyable.

Tileset readability

As I said in the respective steam thread, there are some clarity problems with the "floor" and "wall" textures in some zones. After a few dozen hours, it gets of course better because of familiarity, but the initial impression and ease of play is pretty horrific in some places and could be improved upon.

- The double height tiles are a problem in general. I know I can disable and cut off the high trees and similar stuff, but perhaps a 1.25 tile high "big tree/shroom" could be drawn to give the height illusion (at least as long as the player does not play an ogre) without obscuring the line above those tiles. Anyways, the game is barely playable without the cut-down option checked. To a lesser extent, this also applies to big mobs, although those are much more manageable. Still, I had a case where I did not notice a guy because he was "in the shadow" of a giant.

- Characters, objects and even the exit can hide behind the UI. An especially irritating offender is the map with exits in the top right corner. I know I can cycle the map of for a moment and could move any interface parts, but still, it happens too often. The exit-behind-map-problem could likely be fixed by changing the maps around a tad so the zone exits rarely sit in the corners and generally tend to be more top-bottom instead of left-right. Btw, applaud that the UI is click-through besides the skillbar, which makes combat under the HP or buff bars actually possible. A more permanent solution would be a small frame of non-gamespace at the borders (optional, of course, and ideally movable so it can fit individual UI positioning). On my huge widescreen, shaving of two or three columns on one side would actually be feasible if it brought more clarity.

- Some overlays are a bit heavy. I was screaming at those clouds to go away on one map, to no avail (damn these clouds, they never listen!). The fog over the caldera is a bit heavy, too. Some of the CC overlays could be softened up a bit (ideally, make a third option - on, off, reduced).

- General terrain tilesets that are overall hard to read: Mushroom Forest (completely nuts) and to a lesser extent Volcano tiles (including the floor tiles of the gem caves depending on which color shift the mood lighting currently has) and the bog tileset. Most everything else uses a variation of dungeon, sand or forest, which are generally very easy on the eyes and well readable.


Minor annoyances

- The game seems to have a memory leak or does not flush out long unused stuff. When playing for a few hours without quitting in between, saving and zone generation start to take noticably longer, and soon after even effects or simply combats with many opponents at once start to stutter. Easily fixed by making a manual quit and relaunching, but still. Most likely the game simply never "forgets" anything during a running session, making the memory imprint bigger and bigger as you progress. If that is the case, purging "old" data (like dungeons you have not been in during the past x-thousand turns for example) could make this a non-issue.

- The achievement popups in the game come up for each and every character again and again. Not only are most of them clearly adressed as if they should be account- not character-specific ("...a character to level 20"), they do not get supressed with the lore-supression option. If it were fewer of them, they might actually be nice as a kind of milestone reminder, but after the tenth character or so, I really do not need a popup for killing the slaver lord again, for example.


Small bug

- I seem to have a texture bug with certain skill effect layers. It happes most often with those wizards in the scar, and in my current playthrough I noticed that the ability "Suncloak" behaves badly like those, too. The texture is a blocky square covering the whole character tile, but flickers away sometimes, looking normal. I guess there is a bad frame in the animation of those flame auras?


Unexplainable stuff

- In the santascape, some of those shivgoroths seemed to be undamageable for most of the time. Only some of them were, they had no buffs in their list, they were completely ordinary mobs and I always dealt only a handful of damage to them (plus some healing because of cold element procs). It looked like the main weapon damage got completely negated and they only got the proc damage, which effectively did no real damage. The strange thing is that a shivgoroth next to one of the problem ones would be dispatched with one or two normal melee attacks easily. It even happened with one rare mob, which was a real problem. I could wear him down with spells, eventually, but that took ages.

[HousePet]

I think there is an option somewhere to stop showing repeated achievements.

Perhaps the Snowmen had higher armour than your weapon damage?

[Radon26]

that is a really harsh feedback.

"clarity problems with the "floor" and "wall" textures in some zones."
i myself cannot think of a set that could cause a difficulty discerning the two.
i get that some tiles and "actors", can be a little obscuring, but as long as you are not rushing through (its turn base roguelike... rush=death), you should at least notice the health bars.
i am pretty sure the higher "actors" do not grant a bigger "frame". (except for big diggers in alternate SWL).

"Characters, objects and even the exit can hide behind the UI."
would be weird if it was the other way around...
i mean, i get what you mean. i myself was annoyed a few times by enemies notoriously hiding behind the map, but what, are you going to disable UI completely? its there for a reason!
and if you right-click-and-hold, you can drag the "camera" around, to gate a better view of the place.

"changing the maps around a tad so the zone exits rarely sit in the corners and generally tend to be more top-bottom instead of left-right."
whhhhAT?! you have problem with exit being behind the map, and now you want the hot bar to be part of it?!
by default, hotbar occupy the whole bottom section.
if you dont like it however, i believe there is a way to change your ui so that it doesn't interfere with the map at all.

"On my huge widescreen"
i was going to suggest "if you have a small screan then that's my be the problem", but no...

now you have problem with overlays, which have like 75% transparency or so...

ok, i think i can see the problem with volcano terrain. yes, the floor is very similar colour to the hills, but crystal cave?
can't discern between a gray gray, ground, and a patch of multi coloured crystals...
"mood lighting currently has"
i am beginning to doubt we are playing the same game...

"The game seems to have a memory leak or does not flush out long unused stuff."
ok, so we are playing the same game. yes, that one was plaguing the game for quite some time.
you can play maybe an hour like that, then it can fail at any moment.

"unexplainable stuff"
uh... i think i can explain it.
This belong to the bug section!


house pet, armour hardiness? would have to be 100% to completely negate a melee attack, even if it had a billion armour.

[Stormfox]

that is a really harsh feedback.

Really? I collected some minor things that could be optimized, presented them in a civil manner after actually being asked to do just that and even proposed some possible solutions, and the first response I get is one that needs to defend the game from me, oh so brutal attacker, giving me the black hat? Please.

"clarity problems with the "floor" and "wall" textures in some zones."
i myself cannot think of a set that could cause a difficulty discerning the two.
i get that some tiles and "actors", can be a little obscuring, but as long as you are not rushing through (its turn base roguelike... rush=death), you should at least notice the health bars.
i am pretty sure the higher "actors" do not grant a bigger "frame". (except for big diggers in alternate SWL).

You misunderstood. I did not say there was a special issue telling the walls from the floor. I said the entire tileset is so awash with a mix of strange colors that it is hard to follow contures and see objects on it.

"Characters, objects and even the exit can hide behind the UI."
would be weird if it was the other way around...
i mean, i get what you mean. i myself was annoyed a few times by enemies notoriously hiding behind the map, but what, are you going to disable UI completely? its there for a reason!
and if you right-click-and-hold, you can drag the "camera" around, to gate a better view of the place.

"changing the maps around a tad so the zone exits rarely sit in the corners and generally tend to be more top-bottom instead of left-right."
whhhhAT?! you have problem with exit being behind the map, and now you want the hot bar to be part of it?!
by default, hotbar occupy the whole bottom section.
if you dont like it however, i believe there is a way to change your ui so that it doesn't interfere with the map at all.

You misunderstood again. Exits on the bottom side of a map work perfectly well - because the "game board" ends at the skill bar. In the same way, as long as the exits are not in the very left or right corner, those on the top of the "game board" never get obscured because there is no UI element there. I know how to move an UI. I just think it could be arranged better to avoid unneccessary "hidden" mobs, items and exits. And for that, I proposed possible solutions.

"On my huge widescreen"
i was going to suggest "if you have a small screan then that's my be the problem", but no...

now you have problem with overlays, which have like 75% transparency or so...

ok, i think i can see the problem with volcano terrain. yes, the floor is very similar colour to the hills, but crystal cave?
can't discern between a gray gray, ground, and a patch of multi coloured crystals...
"mood lighting currently has"
i am beginning to doubt we are playing the same game...

And I am beginning to feel trolled. The caves shift light hue in a certain pattern over time. A very pretty effect, but together with the strange floor texture can make it a bit hard to see objects on it. About the overlays - Confusion is a perfect example of "could be tuned down a bit".

"unexplainable stuff"
uh... i think i can explain it.
This belong to the bug section!
house pet, armour hardiness? would have to be 100% to completely negate a melee attack, even if it had a billion armour.

I am not sure its a bug. Could be something else. But, since the poster above you also seems to not have understood that paragraph of mine correctly, let me try again:

- Santaspace lvl 1 has Shivgoroths
- Some of them behave like they had 1000 armor (which they do not), ones right next to them or even the same ones 50 turns later do not.
- Nothing in their tooltip and buff list suggests why.
- I have never experienced the same thing with Shivs encountered in "regular" zones.

[Radon26]

"presented them in a civil manner"
well, you didn't use any obvious insults but...
"... but the initial impression and ease of play is pretty horrific ..."
"Anyways, the game is barely playable without..."

"because the "game board" ends at the skill bar."
hmm, if that is the case for your game settings, then the hot-bar would not hide anything...
but again, (i have not played with the option's myself but-) on a few videos of this game, i have seen a ui that is literally what you are asking for, a cut off section containing all of the elements: map, bars, effects, skills.

"And I am beginning to feel trolled"
so was i for most of your review (except ofc it wasn't directed at me).

"The caves shift light hue in a certain pattern over time"
i... did not notice anything like that...
"can make it a bit hard to see objects on it"
well, Z will pick it all up anyway.

armour is made of 2 values.
armour - flat value
armour hardiness - a percentage.
all melee and ranged attacks will be reduced by the the less effective of the 2.
that means, that as long as he doesn't have 100% hardiness, no attack can be fully negated. even if you attacked it for 20 damage.
if it DOES have 100%, then it's not unexplainable and you are just reporting stuff because you didn't bother checking.
and obviously you are going to deny that one, so let's just stick with the bug.
also, some items can give you like "reduce all xxx damage by 2", but mobs don't have many items, and its never stronger than like 2 or 3.
i haven't seen a stronger one.

[Stormfox]

armour is made of 2 values.
armour - flat value
armour hardiness - a percentage.
all melee and ranged attacks will be reduced by the the less effective of the 2.
that means, that as long as he doesn't have 100% hardiness, no attack can be fully negated. even if you attacked it for 20 damage.
if it DOES have 100%, then it's not unexplainable and you are just reporting stuff because you didn't bother checking.
and obviously you are going to deny that one, so let's just stick with the bug.
also, some items can give you like "reduce all xxx damage by 2", but mobs don't have many items, and its never stronger than like 2 or 3.
i haven't seen a stronger one.

I know how armor works. Your explanation does not explain the behaviour I described. Thats exactly WHY I posted that part. I have no idea what else it could have been, it might be a bug. At the very least it fit the clarity aspect (since it was unclear what was going on), so it fit into the end of this post.

[Atarlost]

I definitely agree on the clouds. I've had a game in the current version where I've had to wait for a thick patch of cloud to clear in the Old Forest. If that's 25% opacity something is wrong with your pipeline. Possibly you're still getting multiple cloud layers rendered. I haven't seen a 100% opaque everywhere cloud layer for a while, but they aren't consistently reasonable.

[dukereg]

The "hiding behind the UI" thing is an annoyance. The mini map still shows red dots, which can help avoid disaster. My solution was to reduce the tile size and reorganise the UI until my entire sight radius was visible at once, but that is probably not going to work for you if you have trouble distinguishing things already at full size.

[Mordy]

I'm surprised the OP didn't complain about the dredgeling UI screw acid field attack :p
I agree with all the OP said though. I've been playing in ASCII mode just cause it's much more readable by far. The problem I found is that this mode is bugged and doesn't show all the ground field effects that use one of the rendering technique, like Ruined Earth (not too dangerous) or the ground acid left behind by some sandworms when they die etc...

As for the things that hide behind the interface, I want to blame all the dungeon levels using the maze type generator. The bottom 3 tiles of the map always hide behind the talent bars and this means monsters you cannot even see at all hide there.

[Atarlost]

I'm surprised the OP didn't complain about the dredgeling UI screw acid field attack :p
I agree with all the OP said though. I've been playing in ASCII mode just cause it's much more readable by far. The problem I found is that this mode is bugged and doesn't show all the ground field effects that use one of the rendering technique, like Ruined Earth (not too dangerous) or the ground acid left behind by some sandworms when they die etc...

As for the things that hide behind the interface, I want to blame all the dungeon levels using the maze type generator. The bottom 3 tiles of the map always hide behind the talent bars and this means monsters you cannot even see at all hide there.

Yes to both. The tiles are far better than I've seen on any other roguelike, but dredgling particle effects are horrible.

And we really need to be able to resize the main view area so the bottom of the map can't wind up invisible behind the talent bar. I don't have a letterbox monitor and would really like to be able to use a two icon high talent bar without being blind to the bottom of the map.

[Radon26]

and there are no complaints about exiting the ambush screwing the minimap...
but how did you manage to hide entire 3 rows?!

[HousePet]

I'm guessing you guys mean the Corrosive Vapour particles from Wretchlings? Dredglings only have Dust to Dust.

[Atarlost]

I'm guessing you guys mean the Corrosive Vapour particles from Wretchlings? Dredglings only have Dust to Dust.

Yes. 'Lings are similarly enough named that I didn't notice.

Burning Wake has similar problems, but usually doesn't get stacked three times. It's not a very good shader for seeing through even singly, though, and would make the Wretchling problem worse. I'd like to see all splotchy particles effects retired for the outlined boxes that corrosive worms and path of light use.

[ibanix]

Bump. The mushroom tileset is still really hard to see around. I can't even see the annoying plant NPCs because they end up 'hidden' behind a tile. Not fun

[rangerjeff]

I want to second much of what's been said here. I find myself usually playing by watching the minimap while moving, hoping I notice the red dots. Pink dots are harder for me to notice on the minimap, unfortunately... Maybe a different highly-contrasting color like blue or purple, and make friendlies green?

And while I don't play on a large enough screen to really take advantage without sacrificing too much of my screen, it really should be possible to have two or three bars of skills without the game hiding stuff behind them. In general hiding stuff behind the UI shouldn't happen.