Colony Ship Early Access Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[thesecret1]

Oh, and yes, it is much easier than AoD. In AoD, I had to roll a new character several times just to get a viable build, here I just picked the stats without much thought and ended up curbstomping everything (companions are a massive help. Lone Wolf would likely be much more painful).

It feels like the "learn by doing" system has some minuses, though... Basically, if you fail a check in dialogue, you still get some XP into that skill for the attempt. And failing one check usually does not result in failure - you are presented with more checks. Ergo, the optimal way to play is to quicksave prior to dialogue and try discovering the longest skillcheck chain possible so as to accumulate the most XP. If you meet a gang of enemies you want to kill, it's best to enter negotiations, pick as many failing checks as possible, and then kill them, rather than going straight to the killing.

Also, I find that by avoiding combat you're sort of sabotaging yourself. Not only are you missing out on all that sweet skill XP for your combat skills, you are also losing out on all the gear enemies have. Even if I see an easy way to bypass or trick a band of enemies, it's counter-productive to do so rather than simply killing them all, unless you are scared of raising your combat reputation too high and making people think you're a psycho (but that's not that big a negative compared to becoming the God of War and swimming in premium loot). I think AoD handled this better.

 

[RegionalHobo]

conclusion : it was good, but not as good as teron was, which for me was one of the best crpg hubs ever. i'd say it s maadoran tier

What the hell is teron?

aod's first city

finished, had lots of fun.

Yikes, not what I want to hear only hours after release if this EA section is supposed to represent 25% of the game.

finished, had lots of fun.

lol what?

steam shows 8:30 hours, but really with the alt tabs i guess 5-7h is about right

 

[Savecummer]

Btw, if you have good Initial Disposition from 10 Cha, you can fail skill checks in multi-stage dialogue with a Dispo slider and still "pass" the check. Like I failed Streetwise 4 vs Black Will but had pushed the Dispo slider almost max right already before and the failed check still passed through...

 

[Jinn]

steam shows 8:30 hours, but really with the alt tabs i guess 5-7h is about right

A 30-35 hours campaign would be ideal for me for a game like this. Maybe I'll be able to squeeze that out of it in its final state if 25% is 6-7 hours.

 

[Vault Dweller]

steam shows 8:30 hours, but really with the alt tabs i guess 5-7h is about right

A 30-35 hours campaign would be ideal for me for a game like this. Maybe I'll be able to squeeze that out of it in its final state if 25% is 6-7 hours.

Since we're aiming for replayability and different paths, 30-35 hours would be way too long.

 

[Jinn]

Since we're aiming for replayability and different paths, 30-35 hours would be way too long.

Way too long from a developer standpoint or from a player's? Because I'm well aware of your goal of replayability and different paths, but from a player's standpoint I would say that 30-35 hours for a replayable RPG is just about perfect from me.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Player's. The longer the game is, the harder it is to replay it. Fallout was perfect in this regard. Fallout 2 was way too long. It's subjective, of course.

 

[Jinn]

Fallout was perfect in this regard. Fallout 2 was way too long.

Definitely agree that Fallout 2 was too long, but always felt like Fallout was a bit too brief. I guess I'm saying that I generally felt a middle-ground would feel like a more appropriate length, but I'm the type that if I'm going to replay a game - even a highly replayable one - I'd want a bit of time away from it before I did, rather than hopping right back in. So I guess that informs my opinion about it too.

Anyway, it is what it is. I guess you can consider this a form of feedback in a way. Not too sure if I'm in the minority or not, but I am one who also wished AoD had been a bit longer.

 

[jackofshadows]

Conjure spirit spell works but I cannot see the spirit itself.

another small bug

This guard got stuck there during Mercy fight (after failed negotiations) and the other one on the balcony couldn't join the fight because the door was locked so I cleared Mercy and the rest, couldn't end combat, thankfully have been able to lockpick that door, kill the balcony guard and after that the fight was over. Done screenshot right after.

build

Heavily regret not investing in electronics at the start because I couldn't raise it to 3 therefore missed a lot of stuff, 2 implants and alfa tower quest included

Overall feels good, especially liked the stealth system although few times it was a pain due to fixed camera. I know that there was a lot of whine about it regarding AoD/DR but I don't get it and I think it was a big design mistake. Oh well. Maybe it'll be possible to make some transparency during stealth mode? No idea if UE can provide that.

Some narrative badly adds up with the fact that MC is living in the Pit for quite a while, like the first line to the doctor "are you a Doctor?" Plus some other vendors.

 

[Agesilaus]

Am I just misremembering things, or does facing matter in combat? I can't help but think that there is some option to change the direction your character is facing during combat. Maybe it's just AoD, though, or some old feature that was removed after the demo.

If there is facing, please someone tell me how to change which direction my characters are facing.

 

[LudensCogitet]

Fallout was perfect in this regard. Fallout 2 was way too long.

Definitely agree that Fallout 2 was too long, but always felt like Fallout was a bit too brief. I guess I'm saying that I generally felt a middle-ground would feel like a more appropriate length, but I'm the type that if I'm going to replay a game - even a highly replayable one - I'd want a bit of time away from it before I did, rather than hopping right back in. So I guess that informs my opinion about it too.

Anyway, it is what it is. I guess you can consider this a form of feedback in a way. Not too sure if I'm in the minority or not, but I am one who also wished AoD had been a bit longer.

Lately I'm feeling like games wear out their welcome long before they are over.

Playtime as a measure of value is _understandable_ but not particularly reasonable. To justify 30 - 35 hours of playtime, a game would need very deep systems that are still exploring new gameplay territory at hour 30, rather than just jabbing the already raw dopamine receptors.

Short, but replayable with radically different strategy sounds good to me!

 

[Vorark]

20h~25h would be the sweetspot if replayability ends up being as high as AoD. Not long enough to drag and yet short enough to leave you wanting more in a future playthrough. Playtime would be similar to the Shadowrun games which were more or less thigh packages (well, HK less so.)

Btw, bought it.

 

[agris]

For what it’s worth, 15-25 hrs sounds great to me. These days, the idea of a huge game can actively dissuade me from playing it. Part of that is current game development culture wherein games are obviously padded with content that adds nothing to the experience other than largesse.

I’ve seen some clickbait headlines that say the average gaymer is 32 years old. That audience probably appreciates a shorter game vs a longer.

 

[Jinn]

I hear what you are all saying, but do you really think 30-35 hours is radically longer than 20-25? The way that I look at it is that extra bit of time doesn't make for a more drawn out experience, but still gives you the feeling of having gone through a proper journey. Now if I was saying my ideal playtime for a replayable RPG is 40-60 hours, I'd understand the apprehension towards that. I just often times feel like something like 15-20 hours in length pulls me out of the world right when I'm getting into it and feeling immersed.

 

[Agesilaus]

Bug report:

Spoiler

Go to Jed to collect debt
Jed says that you can get the money by helping him fight the Black Willow
Go fight the guy and his 2 guards.

If Jed dies during the fight, afterwards the dialogue pretends that he is still alive. If you click "kill Jed and keep all the money", combat starts but you win right away because Jed is already dead

 

[Butter]

Discussions of playtime are kind of pointless, because it can vary so much from person to person. There are people who say BG is a 100 hour game.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Ergo, the optimal way to play is to quicksave prior to dialogue and try discovering the longest skillcheck chain possible so as to accumulate the most XP. If you meet a gang of enemies you want to kill, it's best to enter negotiations, pick as many failing checks as possible, and then kill them, rather than going straight to the killing.

By choosing a learn by doing system VD had dealt with people complaining about distributing skill points. Now, new opponents arrive, people who optimize the fun out of the game.

In beta I was savescumming encounters to get extra defense points, by dodging enemy attacks until they stopped giving out exp. I knew that what I was doing wrong, but couldn't help myself

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Bought. Hopefully, this time the game is less about min-maxing skills perfectly to pass skill-checks, every character is not a raving sociopath, and religion is not attacked.

 

[Jackpot]

One problem I have with really short/replayable games is that it can make an individual playthrough feel kind of meaningless.
This is especially true when lots of content from runs overlaps or you fail to find much new content due to building incorrectly.
One solution is to have some sort of small static bonuses when you complete a run depending on your ending. Like completing the merchant storyline nets every new character you make 5% better prices or something small like that.
Or even some sort of board on the title screen that keeps track of each character that finished the game and their accomplishments.
I dunno, I get that the additional content and knowledge of the game's world is supposed to be the "reward" for multiple playthroughs, but I still think some tangible record of the player's playthroughs can better encourage multiple runs and make each run feel more like an extension of each other rather than the individual playthroughs that they are.

 

[Agesilaus]

bug in the agricultural zone

Spoiler

go down the elevator to the forested area. You can either go south to the occupied tower, or east towards the foliage that leads to the frogs. If you just click on the other side of the foliage, rather than on the foliage to "go through", you will just run right through automatically and the frogs won't bother you. Thereby bypassing what is probably supposed to be a combat/sneak situation.

 

[CaffeineConquistador]

Damn. The GoG spring sale kinda killed my game budget for this year. Anyone have a key they'd be willing to spare?

[edit] Yeah, I'm serious. I'm going for broke and begging. Gumpy need to do a striptease to prove it?

 

[Elhoim]

I'm sure this was discussed before, but the overall movement is rather sluggish. It was the same with AoD. Did you get the suggestion to center the camera on the player? I'm not sure if it would improve it, but it seems like a natural option, because having this free camera is rather strange.

We need to tweak the character movement, especially when it starts running. And we are going to look into adding the follow camera as well.

- there s way less replayability than teron. mainly because there s no background nor different quests depending on which faction you join, since it seems you pick your side far later in the game. companions also make it easy to test all the weapon types. i think i've played AoD when it was teron only for dozens of hours, this game i'll do a second playtrough maximum.

Yes, at first, but once you get back from the Habitat, the town will have different sets of quests depending on which of the 3 leaders ended on top in this chapter. So instead of frontloading everything like we did in Teron, and then when you came back there was nothing, here you will have three alternate paths down the road (apart from all the faction quests in the habitat). Also, reputation (combat/diplomacy/stealth) will matter a lot. How you solve quests in the early and mid-game will define which type of quests and opportunities you get later on. So if you solve things via stealth here, you will get offered some cool sneaking opportunities in the late game. Same for diplomacy and combat. Basically, we moved away from the "railroad tracks" design of AoD into something more systemic. At first you'll be able to do a lot, build a reputation on how you solve things, and then the game splits to accommodate the kind of character you built.

 

[Tigranes]

It feels like the "learn by doing" system has some minuses, though... Basically, if you fail a check in dialogue, you still get some XP into that skill for the attempt. And failing one check usually does not result in failure - you are presented with more checks. Ergo, the optimal way to play is to quicksave prior to dialogue and try discovering the longest skillcheck chain possible so as to accumulate the most XP. If you meet a gang of enemies you want to kill, it's best to enter negotiations, pick as many failing checks as possible, and then kill them, rather than going straight to the killing..

OK, but if some people want to waste their time playing like an absolute retard, then is this really the dev's problem

 

[Nm6k]

- there s way less replayability than teron. mainly because there s no background nor different quests depending on which faction you join, since it seems you pick your side far later in the game. companions also make it easy to test all the weapon types. i think i've played AoD when it was teron only for dozens of hours, this game i'll do a second playtrough maximum.

Yes, at first, but once you get back from the Habitat, the town will have different sets of quests depending on which of the 3 leaders ended on top in this chapter. So instead of frontloading everything like we did in Teron, and then when you came back there was nothing, here you will have three alternate paths down the road (apart from all the faction quests in the habitat). Also, reputation (combat/diplomacy/stealth) will matter a lot. How you solve quests in the early and mid-game will define which type of quests and opportunities you get later on. So if you solve things via stealth here, you will get offered some cool sneaking opportunities in the late game. Same for diplomacy and combat. Basically, we moved away from the "railroad tracks" design of AoD into something more systemic. At first you'll be able to do a lot, build a reputation on how you solve things, and then the game splits to accommodate the kind of character you built.

That sounds very exciting I can't wait to come cross it as the game gets updated.

 

[Elhoim]

Ergo, the optimal way to play is to quicksave prior to dialogue and try discovering the longest skillcheck chain possible so as to accumulate the most XP. If you meet a gang of enemies you want to kill, it's best to enter negotiations, pick as many failing checks as possible, and then kill them, rather than going straight to the killing

Some notes:

- Chains have the same amount, maybe for a few exceptions.
- If you don't tags the skills, there's only so far you can get with this method.
- Failing the checks gives an initiative penalty in combat.
- Succeeding the checks give extra speech XP.
- Attacking before the checks gives an initiative bonus and a bonus feat when used many times.
- You don't get diplomacy reputation, which would close quest paths later on in the game regarding speech.

Basically, you are free to do that, but it's definitely not a clear cut optimal way to play.