Beta2 feedback

[ThvN]

I finally had a chance to give beta2 a try, I managed to play through the tutorial twice with only a few crashes, but still plenty to report I attached three zips, two tutorial playthroughs + log and some savegames that often make the game CTD when continuing with the next mission after loaded.

In general

- New briefings and menus work fine, no more issues with my 1280x1024 resolution. Very nice, and the briefings look a lot better now, I especially like the red 'X' wax seal stamp on the options menu. Although some text symbols are still missing, the texts themselves seem error-free, it's just the missing symbols that make it poor to read.

- I checked the stutter caused by the Blood Angel units, and it seems to be less noticeable. But when doing a first pass over the units there a few major stutters, and there is still a weird dip in CPU usage when BA units are in view, but overall less persistent stuttering and no strange MSE activity like in beta1.

- The scrolling issue when I have my secondary monitor in use remains. When approaching the edge of the primary screen the cursor hangs, the game doesn't scroll and the mouse pointer appears on the extended desktop of my secondary screen. So I dove under my desk to disconnect it again (luckily I vaccuumed today...) and I can scroll normally again.

- During missions, the text messages do not fit in the text box, and some unit names are too large for the UI sidepanel.

- When crashes happen, they seem to happen almost exclusively when progressing to the next mission. When it happens, it usually CTD's for me after a new mission is loaded and I try to select the menu on the deployment screen or the purchase/upgrade menu. I haven't been able to make a savegame that reliably crashes every time when you go to the next mission, but I included two saves that will often cause the next mission to crash like described or won't load at all. I can usually get around this by rebooting my PC and try to load again. So it is a bit random.

Purchasing/upgrading/unit list issues

- When purchasing new units, one of the strength points is missing their HP (hit points). The green HP bar doesn't show up either. If I deploy the unit and than remove it from the map back into the unit/reserves list, the green HP bar appears but the last segment is empty because of the missing HP.

- When I upgrade a unit, the small picture in the unit list won't update (it will still show the old unit) until I deploy it and than take it back to the reserves.

- The unit order in the unit/reserves list seems a bit random? Purchased units are simply added at bottom, and deploying a unit and then removing it from the map into the reserves will cause it to appear at the bottom of the list. So it can be hard to keep track.

- The unit/reserves list can only be scrolled by using the mouse wheel while keeping the cursor over the column of pictures, clicking the arrows/dragging the bar doesn't work.

- In the upgrade/purchase menu, the last two transport options (Gorgon & Trojan) are a bit hidden, you have to scroll to find them; I only discovered them by accident.

- When trying to upgrade a unit, sometimes weird things happen. Frequently, in a new mission, when my first action is upgrading a unit, a part of the allowable upgrades have their 'Upgrade' button greyed out. This seems to alternate/skip sequence, for example when upgrading a Leman Russ it will show two columns of available models but all the models in the right column will have greyed out buttons, while the left column works normally. When I retry to open the upgrade screen sometimes this issue will be gone; and I've always managed to make it disappear by first opening the purchase menu and selecting some unit categories without buying them.

- It is unclear how many units can be deployed; it seems to be a number that is shown in the purchase screen, it goes down when I place units on the map. This would be better put where a player can check it without having to check the purchase screen, like in Panzer Corps. Also, I cannot purchase extra (reserve) units when I have deployed the maximum allowed, but as long as I can still deploy units I can purchase as much extra units as I like and deploy them all. I have deployed dozens of units which I bought while I still had free deployment slots, often I had more units than deployment hexes so I placed the rest in the next turn.

To be continued...

[ThvN]

Minor graphical issues part 1

- The unit panel image for some units are missing or corrupted, as is the hover panel image for the Wall/Cliff terrain. This happens when hovering over the Landmines, the Hive Turret or the Wall/Cliff terrain. The screenshot shows the Wall/Cliff, the same image but larger is displayed for the unit panel when hovering over Landmines/Hive Turret units.

- A very minor issue: when the terrain has a very big crater it will sometimes glitch out and stop displaying it. This is when only a small part should be still in view, I've seen this in other games, I assume the program wrongly calculates the sprite is no longer in view and it stop drawing it. It is easy to duplicate when I zoom in on the edge of the very big crater or slowly scroll when zoomed in. See screenshots; note that in image 2, the mouse cursor is where the edge of the crater should be, the Taurox APC hasn't moved so that is a good reference point.

[ThvN]

Minor graphical issues part 2

- The map overlay for the transport movement is still the good old Panzer Corps truck (although cleverly rotated 90 degrees, nearly fooled me!). A placeholder I assume.

- Already reported in the first post, the text messages during missions are displayed incorrectly.

- The firing animation for the Hydra AA vehicle makes it look like it fires only half of the guns, it looks a bit feeble. Some animations for other units have the wrong offset/alignment when they are firing in some of the six facings, I'll see if I can make a list if I progress further.

- Some small icons in the unit stat panel and some UI button icons are a bit unclear and not very recognizable. I'll try to make a list of examples, but take for example the 'Replacements' button; it seems to show a vice, but I'm still not sure and maybe a simple wrench or something would be better?

- Some (coastal?) hexes have borders with 'seams' showing. See screenshot. Yeah, I know, I'm a perfectionist. Honestly things like the hex borders and crater glitch don't bother me, but I like to be thorough when reporting.

Notes from playing

- During play, 'Rest & Refit' (or 'Supply') buttons do nothing (but the unit loses its move/action however!)

- 'Replacements' worked, but during missions it does not restore any partial hitpoints of the 'top' strength point, it only adds ‘whole’ unit strength numbers. To explain: If a unit with multiple HP still has all its strength points but is missing a few HP (yellow or red bar), replacing does nothing. A unit needs to lose strength points before it can be replaced. This is a bit annoying with units that have low strength but a lot of HP, like Titans or heavy armour.

- When an infantry unit has a transport, it cannot be deployed in Settlement or Strongpoint hexes. But during play these units can freely move into those hexes anyway. This is not very consistent behaviour.

- Ogryns seem incapable of attacking, they only fire when defending. The Ripper gun might be broken?

- Is there no 'standard' Leman Russ tank? Even the basic model seems to be an upgraded variant.

- The combat predictor only shows max. 20 kills, although I have used units which always inflict much more. It might be some built-in limit or the prediction cannot handle higher numbers?

- Sometimes the animations are not played if a unit quickly moves before or after attacking. So it sometimes looks as if a unit is firing at an empty hex because they fire at the hex that the enemy was in before he moved and attacked them.

- Ammo doesn't seem to be implemented yet?

- An important combat stat is missing from the unit panel, the number of shots per weapon is not shown, so weapons with a lot of shots but weak attack strength look very poor in comparison with single shot high-powered cannon.

- Unit balance/stats can be strange, I'm not sure how balanced they should be at this point but one thing that had me ripping quickly through the missions is the enormous firepower of the transports. Because they have the same strength number as the unit they carry, buying a Chimera for an infantry squad gives them 20 multiple range 3 multilaser/heavy bolter attacks that will decimate a lot of units. My latest creation is a Conscript infantry unit with a Gorgon, this rolls hundreds of attack dice and routinely inflicts 20-40 kills per attack, and has vaporized 50-strength Gretchin units... Even when the Gretchin are in a terrain with 60 cover they will still suffer 40-50 kills.

Well, that's enough for now. The coming week is (finally!) a quiet one for me, so I hope to get a lot of testing done.

[Galdred]

- During play, 'Rest & Refit' (or 'Supply') buttons do nothing (but the unit loses its move/action however!)
>> That is not always true : if the unit is damaged, it will recover 1 hitpoint (only works for units with several hitpoints like some Tanks and Titans of course).
If the unit is broken(red), or wavering(yellow), it may make the unit recover 1 step of morale.
Otherwise, it makes the unit waste its turn indeed.

I fully agree on the lack of info regarding number of shots/weapon issue. It makes it hard to evaluate which units are good at what tasks.

[fsx]

Purchase: I could purchase after scenario 1 many units. More than 8 (shown in the upper left corner). If I end purchase and klick purchase again, I could not by some units.
Could it be, that the counter for the units will not been updatet, if I dont leave purchase screen? If I leave, the counter is updated.

Crash after reload a deploy-savegame and press purchase button. Not everytime, but sometimes. Also after leaving purchase screen (after reload a seved game).

[KenAllen]

First Impressions


The game installer worked fine.

First 5 minutes of playing
-------------------------------

The menus artwork and music look and sound great. I would however have liked some voice over on the mission briefing screens. Overall playing around within the menus the game feels quite premium. Once the actual game screen opens then the look and feel of the game does not match with the look and feel of the menus. The mouse scrolling is slow and not very smooth and the side control bar does not look as good as I was expecting (after being in those great looking menus). The terrain graphics are ok and fit for purpose but I can't help feel they lack a little quality for a game of 2014, maybe they could have animated features like rippling water and smoke. The sound and visual effects of the units are pretty poor and disappointing but the music is great and suites the game very well. The game play itself feels very familiar to that of Panzer Corps but I feel a newbie would be completely lost if they were to jump into this game. Maybe the tutorials should explain the game mechanics e.g. movement, attack, effects of terrain etc.

In summary after 5 minutes of play it seems that the game play is definitely there with plenty of depth to explore but just lacking some visual (and audio) WOW.

(Edit). Moved from my other post to here after seeing everyone else posting in here lol

[vadersson]

Hey gang,

New tester here. Due the issue with the links not working, I only get in a total of about 1/2 hour this weekend. Here are my first impressions.

Installation:
No problems and very smooth.

5 Minutes
I am so far very impressed by the quality of the still images. The choices in the dialogue were pretty cool. Yorrick did not quite look like I expected however. The first tutorial was completed in the 5 minutes. Very happy to see that units have range; this is not PanzerCorps with a Warhammer flavor, which really makes me happy. There was no Sergeant however to give me instructions during this mission. I am just kind of feeling my way through it. There is also a lot of information, and I am not sure what it all means, or how to use it. I also find the light grey on dark gray buttons hard to notice. I did not even notice the items at the lower right until I started looking for the end turn button. While it may not be quite as atmospheric for Warhammer, a bit more contrast on the buttons would help. There also appear to be no tool tips working.
The map looks very good and the unit images look good to. I have not tried to find a zoom yet, but the map is a bit small and zoomed in right now. The sound effects were not quite what I had hoped for either. I was glad at the range of noises, but the sounds were a bit off and too flat. It was a bit hard to scroll the map with the mouse and I have not found any keyboard keys to do it.
Currently I am not sure how to find the end turn button and that is concerning.

~15 mintues
Second scenario – right after the first tutorial mission.
To start the second mission I went to purchase some troops. I bought a Griffon and the program crashed when I exited the purchase screen and returned to the deployment area.
Unhandled Exception! I took a screen shot.

30 Minutes
After getting restarted from the crash the previous day, I spent about 20 more minutes playing. No crashes this time and I finished the second scenario and I am at turn 4/11 on the bridge crossing.
So far the graphics are really nice. I like the backgrounds and the flame effects are cool. Figuring out some of the buttons took a little while and I also finally found out that the mouse wheel zooms. I have a little trouble scrolling with the mouse as I use two monitors and when I try and scroll near the other monitor, I tend to overshoot and just go to that monitor’s screen.
The game is actually quite good. The AI seems very weak and almost non-existent. Most of the game seems pretty easy so far, though the river crossing is at least more interesting. I feel like there is still something missing, but overall, the game is pretty reasonable. I wish there was something to differentiate the different weapons firing however. Since most vehicles have both cannons and bolters, it would be nice to see them all fire. It would also be good if they could attack separate targets.
The sounds still need tuning. Some sound pretty good, but a lot are a bit grating rather than exciting.
The story seems good, but something happened so that the end of mission screen passes by really quick and I don’t get to read it. The Orks also seems to come out of nowhere in the River Crossing practice pre-game text. The space hulk was empty in the last scenario text and suddenly we are waiting for orks. Also in the middle of the scenarios I keep getting these strange pop-up messages from someone about meeting at the mess hall and aeronautica loses. Bit odd.

Tonight I hope to have time to get another 30 minutes. (Gotta cross that bridge.) The game is interesting so far, but there is just something missing. I can't quite put my finger on it...

Thanks,
Duncan

[Galdred]

After 5 minutes :
I find the graphics style very suited. Having played Rites of War, Final Liberation, Panzer Corps, I skip the tutorial and immediately jump to the campaign.

15 minutes :
The gameplay seems to be in between Panzer Corps and John Tiller's Campaign series, which I like. The scale is easy to grasp ( I suppose 1 "pip" represents 1 guy or 1 tank), which is a welcome change from both Panzer Corps and Rites of War. The UI has some rough edges : I cannot scroll the map with the arrows. Why? I find it much more efficient than hitting the edge of the screen. The slidebars (in scenario selection for instance) are not very responsive. I am surprised I cannot drag and drop the slidebar to go faster to the bottom.
I like the graphics, but some of the combat animations are a bit off (shooting does not always seem to originate from the weapons being fired).

30 minutes :
I got a lot of crashs, I don't know why, as it seems much worse than what other are experiencing. It happens after very different actions, but usually around the same turn in a given game, as if it was corrupted. The log is not very helpful. The missions seem heavily scripted, which can make them a bit gamey (only tried 2 so far), as you can manipulate opponent activation easily. I wish there was an easier way to review mission objectives, and an event log for the mission pop ups. Some of the data concerning vehicles is missing ( which weapons ignore cover, rate of fire of each weapon, melee damage? or is it range 0 weapon only...).

1h
I played the scenario with the Titan after giving up on the campaign due to crashs. The titan is really cool, and feels very powerful, but the free retaliation attacks make it a bit too powerful, as ork infantry and vehicles do not try to hit it at all, for fear of being blasted in return. So it looks like a promenade, with the titan walking among orks killing one from time to time, while they just stare at it.

Overall, I like the gameplay and the presentation, but I hope there will be varied mission objectives (I did not have time to play that many different missions).
I think the UI needs more polish(if an unit cannot gain anything by resting, it should not be allowed to), and we need even more info on weapons and vehicles ( otherwise some prices do not seem to make sense at all : What are the differences between the standard Shadowsword and the one with upgraded targetting? Or the regular Sentinel and the Armageddon Pattern one? They have the exact same stats, but different price. What about the Salamander command? Why is it much more expensive than the scout version, while the only difference is that it has reduced sight radius???).
I think the retaliation makes little sense at this scale ( why is my titan firing 4 times as much if 3 ork squads attack him? Is the crew slacking off when not fired at?), and gives too much of an edge to strong units (high defence and high damage), or long range ones, which were problems that already existed in the Battle Isle serie.

The soldiers turning into vehicles is a bit confusing(do they benefit from the vehicle weapon support when dismounted? Where are the vehicles when they are inside buildings?), much more than in Panzer Corps.
It might be simpler to just have separate units for vehicles, with a carrying capacity, or display both vehicles and infantry on the same hex when they are dismounted.

[KenAllen]

1 hour of play
-----------------

Many points have already been raised so I will try not to repeat any.

Thoughts on the UI

1- As far as I can tell, there is no weather indicator. The game description mentions weather. I don't know if this is yet to be implemented.

2- I think the terrain description box is too large. There is only ever 4 lines of data which do not take up much space. In fact, you could probably fit the image box in with it.

The image for the terrain could fit inside the terrain description box.

image.jpg (133.9 KiB) Viewed 5323 times

This would then provide more space for the unit description box to show more stats. I would like to see unit traits (special abilities) as I felt this was missing in panzer corps. Maybe you could add forward/backward buttons to be able to scroll through all the units stats within this box. I think this would be very useful.

3- When in the unit purchase/upgrade screen and comparing units, can better stats be shown in green and worsened stats in red.

4- There was times during a game when the Ork war boss was talking. I think it would be better if the screen zoomed to his location with the speech bubble so it is obvious who is talking.

Possible bugs

1- This may be me but I was playing the first mission of act 1 and I was unable to purchase new units during the game. I was able to purchase a sniper unit at the beginning but after that I was not. I had lots of requisition points. Would it be because I moved my unit out of the objective square just outside my base entrance?

2- The rough riders seem to have a delay on shooting and sometimes have no sound effects.

All other bugs Found have already been reported.

Impressions of game so far

The game mechanics is excellent with great depth. I would just like more stats provided along with unit traits in the unit description box on the sidebar for quick reference. The visuals looks better when zoomed in as you can see the details. Sound effects is the games weakest point (the Sential movement sounds like a parrot or something lol). Since the game is strategic based I feel that improved sound quality will really help elevate the game.

Looking forward to the next beta version. Good work so far guys

[IainMcNeil]

Thanks for all the feedback guys - keep it coming!

[KenAllen]

A few more


1- I moved an infantry unit (with spotting range of 2) two hexes away from a know enemy unit position. The enemy unit was only revealed when I selected a different unit. (Not sure if that is how it is supposed to work).


2- whenever I open the unit list and then close it, a black band remains between the side bar and game area. It's in the exact location of the scroll bar of the unit list. Nothing I've tried will make it disappear except saving game, quit to menu and then reloading game. (Opening up the unit list brings back the black bar).


3- I tried to replicate the error I had with not being able to purchase units in act 1 mission 1 but was unable to. I do not know what conditions caused it.

[Galdred]

A few more


1- I moved an infantry unit (with spotting range of 2) two hexes away from a know enemy unit position. The enemy unit was only revealed when I selected a different unit. (Not sure if that is how it is supposed to work).

AFAIK, you only spot units whenever you "confirm" your move (ie you cannot undo anyore). To confirm, you either select another unit, or click on an empty hex. It is not intuitive at all indeed.

3- I tried to replicate the error I had with not being able to purchase units in act 1 mission 1 but was unable to. I do not know what conditions caused it.

I have never been able to purchase or upgrade units in act 1 mission 1 of the campaign at all(I did not get a set up phase).

[KenAllen]

Thanks for reply. That makes sense then with regards to spotting.

On my second point I should clarify that I meant purchasing units with my factory through out the mission. There was an occasion where I was not able to do this even though I had plenty of cash. I replayed the mission and then I was able to purchase units. I will have to retest again.

[vadersson]

Hey gang,

Follow up to my first report above. I finally finished my first hour last night (sorry, I have been busy...)

~38 minutes
I started my second 30 minute block on turn 4 of the bridge crossing tutorial mission. I was able to complete the mission, hit the end turn button after reviewing the field, and crash.

Crash at end of bridge crossing mission

Crash 2.jpg (59.53 KiB) Viewed 5275 times

When I loaded the auto save, it happened again just like it did before. So I reloaded and it worked. Just to check, I reloaded again and it still worked. I had hoped the save game might have some sort of repeatable crash, but apparently not.

1 hour (and more)
After beating the rest of the tutorial scenarios, I decided to just check out some other scenarios to see some of the other stuff.
I loaded up the last scenario, Mire. I checked out the map and units and completed my 1st Imperial turn moves. (I noticed that the space marines did not have any movement sounds BTW.) I hit end turn after shooting up some Ork vehicles and suddenly I get the Victory pop up! The game opens up the whole field so I could review things. So I guess I beat the game.

After that I went and tried Diabolus just to see it. While still scrolling around to see my units, crash.

Crash while still looking around

Crash 3.jpg (57.24 KiB) Viewed 5275 times

Overall, I played about an hour total last night and it really seemed more buggy than before and I had more crashes than I had experienced. I do have some other observations too.


On one screen I thought I found a misspelling, "hed", then I realized that there are just no apostrophes in the text right now. That may be the source of a lot of my grammar concerns. (That and being UK English). Does Warhammer 40 K characters use contractions? Not sure what the style guide says for High or Low Gothic.

The gargants and stompas did not really look big enough for their units. Not sure what can be done with the scale, but especially the Gargant models did not convey their power. On the plus side, the Baneblades made me drool. (I love those superheavys...)

The triggers for enemy unit actions are pretty easy to fool right now. I was doing the first real ork mission where you have to investigate some abandoned positions. I found the orks waiting to attack, but they just sat there while I shot at them. They did not move until I entered one of the victory squares. Not sure where all this might apply, but it sure made that mission a bit of a turkey shoot. (Similarly in the last tutorial mission against the Militia where you have to capture 5 hexes and face a Baneblade variant, I found Orks on the south side of the map just sitting there.)

I finally saw a lot of the shooting animations from empty hexes that then units move into last night. I also noticed that forces don't always shoot in the right direction and it looks pretty silly. Lasgun shots coming downward out of my units feet for example. Also as a side note, I think there should be some sort of animation for units moving. Things seem so static when units move. I do like the shooting animations, but I wish they would match all the guns being fired. (I finally noticed that you get 3 shots from a Leman Russ if you are in range of the lascannons to show that they fired and 1 if you are only in range of the battlecannon; nicely done.)

I think one big thing I noticed last night was that it can be REALLY hard to tell what is going on during an enemy turn. I just would see the map flash around and units firing. I could not tell where things were moving, when I was getting support fire, who was getting shot at, etc. The computer needs to slow down and properly show their movement and fire better. Maybe add pop ups that say "Defensive Support Fire!" or something as things happen. It was really disconcerting to try and follow enemy attacks.

I also think there is something else the game needs to really hit the sweet spot. Chaos Gate (and to a point Final Liberation) had some great "taunts" and other bits to give the feel of 40K. I strongly suggest that you guys consider adding something random to the units animations/sounds to try and capture this. Just have units randomly make an additional noise before shooting for example, or before moving. Imagine if a Squad of Orks yelled "Waaaggghhh!" and then the guns fire. Bikers yell "Paint it Red!" before moving, or just "Vroom Vroom!" Imperials yelling "For the Emperor!" when they attack, or "The Emperor Protects!" after surviving some enemy fire with no casualties. I fear it would require more resources and more complex programming, but I think it is part of what would be needed to move this game into the Warhammer 40K hall of fame. (And it really has been missing from almost every game since Chaos Gate and Final Liberation, except may Dawn of War.) Again, a not all the time thing, but maybe like 1% playing a random sound before an attack.

I think this game will be good. I really like what I see, but there is still work to be done. I will be glad to keep testing.
Thanks,
Duncan

P.S. It would be great to have a document or something with all the unit stats in it so we know what we are dealing with. I know John Tiller's Campaign Series had such a document, but I am not sure PanzerCorps did.

P.P.S. Just remembered something else I noticed. I read that units are suppose to lose experience when reinforcements are added. I have had a unit reduced to str 1 and reinforce and not lose any experience. Might need looked into.

[fsx]

I installed the beta on 2 different Computers.

Computer 1 (older) Win 7 Enterp:
* installed in the Standard path, but on drive e
* (2nd) beta installed over the 1st
* When 40K runs, my Internet Explorer is very slow.
* once: 40K in background -> if I will continue playing -black Screen
* I see animations, if a unit is hitted
* sometimes animations are on the wrong hex shown

Computer 2 (last year) Win 8.1:
* installed in the Standard path +" Beta"
* only the last (2nd) beta
* no animations if an unit was hitted (also after reinstall)
* White rectangle, but no tooltipp
* later: tooltipp but White rectangles

40K_white.jpg (252.86 KiB) Viewed 5266 times

__________________

* I hope, shortcuts will come
* the size of the font for savegames is to big

[fsx]

2nd Picture not fitted.

after_win_patrol.jpg (221.28 KiB) Viewed 5266 times

Ok, now I won the 1st scenario. But only because I know, that I should attack with all my forces the right target. I placed 2 Units near the other Targets to capture, if I killed the enemy at the right side.
If I capture the right or/and the middle objective, I loose so much Units and spend so much time to fight in these Areas. And have no Chance to capture the last objective. It is not well balanced or I did not understood how to fight in 40K (never played 40K before).

[fsx]

I loved to see the differences during comparing in purchase Screen in PanzerCorps.
red - con
green - better value