Life is Feudal Official Forum

[Guildion]

So I have around 50 hours of adventure in this game behind me and I begin to see the limits of this game.

I know this is an Alpha, but you allow players to play this game, so you guess they will have fun playing it.
But I think there are several big problems in this game which definitely prevent fun, and I will list them here

- Client isn't stable, even for people playing with big machines like me, SSD, latest graphic cards, 32 Go of RAM and a very good CPU. I crash when I start the game, I crash when the sun rise, servers are timing out much too often, etc...

- Players can play together only if nobody is terraforming, because everytime someone click on the cancel button after an Observation of the ground, all actions other players were doing are cancelled. After 2 days of full time game, I'm bored, really.

- The inventory windows should always be opened in a corner of the screen if the player wants it, and we should be allowed to fix it in order that it never moves on the screen. I am so bored, I have to move this fucking windows everytime I press TAB or when I open an other container, the invotory windows always disappear behind other container windows, it's really really boring...

- Some ingredients are rare despite it's very needed, for exemple the rope produced with flax. We don't have ropes because none of our group is courageous ennough to endure the boring farming process, I guess nothing is measured in this game, because when I see the time needed to collect ONE cell of mature planted flax, ITS 2 FUCKING MINUTES IF NOBODY CANCEL THE PROCESS WHILE TERRAFORMING.

- We tried to hunt wolves and dears, we saw the combat mechanics, I hope you realise this game can't be a pvp game right ? Because the combat isn't ok at all.

- Players should have the possibility to put their stuff somewhere it's safe, house are only safe 12 hours, the time it's claimed, but after it isn't. I have 2 characters on the same server, I'd like to be able to enter in the house of my second character's claimed house. Why not allowing a list of persons allowed in structures ? It would be the player who decide with a new windows inside his claimed house.

- Players should be able to deconstruct the structures they build, he can't, even the first buildable structure, the campfire, isn't destructible. How you think people will be able to build a village if they have to build 20 ovens before they're able to build their first house ? Where do you put the house ? Between 20 ovens ? Right... you can pollute the nearest forest with an army of ovens. It's boring, really.

I could continue the list for hours, I don't have enough time, I think I'm going to make a pause, I'll come again in a month or 2 to see if things are better ingame...

[Guildion]

- Players should be able to put a server in their favorite list, it would prevent them to lose 5 minutes in order to refresh the server list everytime they crash, which is really often, and everytime they log an other character, which in this kind of game is really often too.

- Players should be allowed to return to the "Choose the character you want to play with on this server" instead of only being allowed to quit the game. Being obliged to leave the game everytime you want to leave a server... it's really boring.

- Players should be allowed to terraform while on the observation screen, with the buttons listed directly on the screen, instead of having to scroll menus everytime they want to raise the gound... and to open observation windows every 30 seconds... it would be less boring.

- Digging a tunnel is really difficult, the process is broken, it works but it's definetly not ergonomic or comfortable.

[Lintrix]

I am convinced you have no clue what the word "boring" means, but all your points still stand. They should title the game LiF - Alpha build, not LiF - Release build.

[Guildion]

I am convinced you have no clue what the word "boring" means, but all your points still stand. They should title the game LiF - Alpha build, not LiF - Release build.

You'll know what I means in a few hours.
And if you're a fanboy, then I must tell you I'm 31 years old, I work in the video game industry, and I can teach you what's an Alpha test and what does the word Boring means.

[Guildion]

- Wolves and dears corpses are reset everytime a server Time Out, which allow players to skin the corpses several times.

- Claimed structures prevent thieves from stealing what you gathered during hours, but then you go to sleep, and then you go to work, and after that timelapse you return ingame, and none of your structures are claimed, claiming time ended, and a thief stole everything. Bad luck... But we can build a wall around our village to prevent this ! Cool let's do it ! In the end we need a gate in that wall in order to travel, and the gate can only be claimed 12 hours, juste like any other structures...

[Saxxon]

I could continue the list for hours, I don't have enough time, I think I'm going to make a pause, I'll come again in a month or 2 to see if things are better ingame...

Considering this is an early alpha and we clearly ask you to not buy the product unless you want to support and test the product it might be a good idea to come back in a month or two if you are upset with a game that is in alpha state testing. If you are in the video game industry I am sure you understand this already though. We appreciate you support and look forward to you returning soon.

[Guildion]

- Uprooting process should be more rewarding, it takes a lot of time but doesn't give anything, it only gives back a place where you can plant a new tree. Or it should take less time, or the root should disappear after some time. Currently uprooting is boring and not fun.

- A small warehouse with 1 room and only 300 units of stocking capacity costs more than 200 Building logs. For this cost, either the warehouse should have more stocking capacity, either it should cost much less materials.

- Same for other containers, barrels, chests, etc... stocking capacity is too small for the cost.

- The 10.000 units (or is it 100.000 ?) of stocking capacity of the simple bag which appears when you drop an item on the floor isn't enough to stock all the materials needed to build a simple small warehouse.

[Guildion]

- There are annoying noises which are looping everytime a player does an action near where you are. This happens a lot while terraforming because players repeat a lot their actions of "raise ground", "lower ground".

- Is it me or the music played is always the same ? I guess every players turn the music off after a few hours !

[Guildion]

I could continue the list for hours, I don't have enough time, I think I'm going to make a pause, I'll come again in a month or 2 to see if things are better ingame...

Considering this is an early alpha and we clearly ask you to not buy the product unless you want to support and test the product it might be a good idea to come back in a month or two if you are upset with a game that is in alpha state testing. If you are in the video game industry I am sure you understand this already though. We appreciate you support and look forward to you returning soon.

That's exactly what I said, thanks for quoting me.

[Rhinosaurus]

Its clear you aren't suited for alpha. Also some of your figures are blatant hogwash so ... Ya.

[Guildion]

Its clear you aren't suited for alpha. Also some of your figures are blatant hogwash so ... Ya.

I participated in more Alpha than you, and if some of my figures were blatant hogwash, you'd have pointed them. If you don't have seen yet that a small warehouse cost more than 200 building logs, it means I played more than you.

My feedback should be appreciated by the devs.

[Liam]

Alpha is the stage when key gameplay functionality is implemented, and assets are partially finished. A game in alpha is feature complete, that is, game is playable and contains all the major features.
These features may be further revised based on testing and feedback. Additional small, new features may be added, similarly planned, but unimplemented features may be dropped. Programmers focus mainly on finishing the codebase, rather than implementing additions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_development

Maybe you can find some usefull info here that can calm ur mind incase your "worried" about the game

[Dods]

His points still stand. I hold the same opinions as the OP. I'd love to support the game! But I definitely over supported. I'd even lend a hand in coding or help lay out a testing plan. But, the amount of time this game needs for serious bug testing is well outside the scope of making people pay to test the entire game.

Most of the systems need serious work. Honestly, very little thought was put into the game systems themselves. I am sure that tons of effort was put into the coding and such...

The amount of coding put into what the current game is reminds of someone who spent TOOOO much time on the project. Which is why they needed more financial backing (so that we could pay to be alpha testers and help fix the game).

I myself am taking a break from the game and still attempting to remain level headed. But it is hard to not be salty when you've been following the game for quite some time and the progress seems minimal at best.

1) https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/life-is-feudal

[Dods]

Alpha is the stage when key gameplay functionality is implemented, and assets are partially finished. A game in alpha is feature complete, that is, game is playable and contains all the major features.
These features may be further revised based on testing and feedback. Additional small, new features may be added, similarly planned, but unimplemented features may be dropped. Programmers focus mainly on finishing the codebase, rather than implementing additions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_development

Maybe you can find some usefull info here that can calm ur mind incase your "worried" about the game

Your own words here are not correct within the context of this game. LiF was meant to be a realm vs realm pvp sandbox. The major key being MAJOR features. The major features are guilds, pvp and kingdom warfare.

With that said lets review some of the major system components which make up the entirety of the system.

1) pvp - broken
2) authority - not implemented (probably not even coded)
3) skills - not fluid, undynamic, static, constricting, limits gameplay beyond a skill cap, illogical. (broken)
4) map size (not included)
5) biomes (probably not coded)
6) rich crafting system (they mean time consuming)
7) almost unlimited alchemy combinations (if the game continues to forget what you discovered about a plant this is true)
mini-games to half gathering time (not implemented)
9) complex food and cooking system (apples anyone?)
10)

[Derpindaisy]

Alpha is the stage when key gameplay functionality is implemented, and assets are partially finished. A game in alpha is feature complete, that is, game is playable and contains all the major features.
These features may be further revised based on testing and feedback. Additional small, new features may be added, similarly planned, but unimplemented features may be dropped. Programmers focus mainly on finishing the codebase, rather than implementing additions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_development

Maybe you can find some usefull info here that can calm ur mind incase your "worried" about the game

Atleast one person in here understand what "early access/alpha" means.

Thank you Liam

[Shu]

I also agree with pretty much all points the OP has made, although not too much with his attitude. On the other hand again, I also think that calling the current state of the game "alpha release" suggests more than there really is.

This is why I fully support the other thread here, that calls for more frequent and more open communications by the devs themselves to the small community they managed to build through this "alpha" sale and the hype they luckily received.
This also is, why I am a bit stoked, why some of the issues that in fact just require tweaking a hand full of numbers in data files and the DB, but majorly annoy so many players that do not know their way around digging through a highly normalized SQL database and XML files to fix it themselves, at least for their own little servers.
As a software engineer myself I fully understand that those tasks are the most boring that you can get, but it also is what most of your users will notice first, and have their opinions based on. I too do have a LOT more fun coding than changing some plain integers in dumb data files. But it's freaking important and actually so easy to do. It even gives an impression of much progress at the cost of a fraction of what implementing whole features has.

If you ask the public to do and PAY for testing your software, you really should put an emphasis on giving them the most practical environment of doing said testing.

Leave those pesky code-bound bugs aside for 1-2 weeks and concentrate on all the mantis entries that can be fixed even when drunk or asleep. I bet a good half of the issues would be resolved, a lot of people would be a lot more happy, and therefore a lot more ready to go ahead with testing the more interesting things with a positive attitude. We all are united in the wish for an awesome game, but if you stop feeding a hype by progress, one can fall deeper in an hour than one rose a day before. I'd really REALLY hate that to happen, and not everyone has the same level of patience. Some stuff is just too easy to band aid to pass up on it.

On the other hand again, I am always very enthusiastic about supporting small and uprising game studios. I've been disappointed and straight up pissed off by the big names in the industry way too often way too severely, and I'd so much love for game dev as it was in the mid to late 90s to come back. I just love small, almost homebrew style teams of people that just love doing what they do. These are the people worth my money, not EA or Vivendi or whatnot.

But you still, as a dev, need to stick close to what your current player base craves most. With selling the alpha you gave a portion of self-determination up, and should to some extent fulfill some of the more reasonable wishes in order to stay credible and keep the morale up as much as you can.

I'm absolutely not saying that they from now on just have to code out our collective ideas. God forbid! But you have to cater to your testers to some degree to prevent widespread loss of interest. And yes, superficial boring stuff like crafting, harvesting and growing times can actually make all the difference when it comes to playability and fun playing for hours and hours to really get down to even the most far out issues.

[Dods]

Lots of stuff I agree with

This was extremely well said. I applaud your efforts at attempting to communicate these concepts to the wide spread community. However, I feel as though a majority of what you have written will be lost on many.

I also fear that changing a few integers for timers to speed up the game process is really just a band aid for a game that many people find tedious and boring. I'm an engineer (systems/hardware) and I am massively unimpressed at the depth of these systems in place. I'm also hugely disappointed in what coding I can see in the form of the "finished product", LiF:YO.

I too have been burned by major gaming companies. But, I've been burned by Indie companies just the same. The difference between a major player and an indie company I believe can be summed up in one equation relative to a huge company's perception and their Alpha release:

Risk << Completion

This studio is taking a risk by making an MMO. I fear they won't make it and have settled for a mini feudal Rust. They say otherwise ... But I'd believe otherwise when I see the MMO (remember the MMO was sold .... not what we see here).

[Kimon]

So wait, you paid to be an alpha tester (find bugs and report them) and now you're leaving the game because you found bugs? Hilarious.

[Guildion]

I also agree with pretty much all points the OP has made, although not too much with his attitude. On the other hand again, I also think that calling the current state of the game "alpha release" suggests more than there really is.

This is why I fully support the other thread here, that calls for more frequent and more open communications by the devs themselves to the small community they managed to build through this "alpha" sale and the hype they luckily received.
This also is, why I am a bit stoked, why some of the issues that in fact just require tweaking a hand full of numbers in data files and the DB, but majorly annoy so many players that do not know their way around digging through a highly normalized SQL database and XML files to fix it themselves, at least for their own little servers.
As a software engineer myself I fully understand that those tasks are the most boring that you can get, but it also is what most of your users will notice first, and have their opinions based on. I too do have a LOT more fun coding than changing some plain integers in dumb data files. But it's freaking important and actually so easy to do. It even gives an impression of much progress at the cost of a fraction of what implementing whole features has.

If you ask the public to do and PAY for testing your software, you really should put an emphasis on giving them the most practical environment of doing said testing.

Leave those pesky code-bound bugs aside for 1-2 weeks and concentrate on all the mantis entries that can be fixed even when drunk or asleep. I bet a good half of the issues would be resolved, a lot of people would be a lot more happy, and therefore a lot more ready to go ahead with testing the more interesting things with a positive attitude. We all are united in the wish for an awesome game, but if you stop feeding a hype by progress, one can fall deeper in an hour than one rose a day before. I'd really REALLY hate that to happen, and not everyone has the same level of patience. Some stuff is just too easy to band aid to pass up on it.

On the other hand again, I am always very enthusiastic about supporting small and uprising game studios. I've been disappointed and straight up pissed off by the big names in the industry way too often way too severely, and I'd so much love for game dev as it was in the mid to late 90s to come back. I just love small, almost homebrew style teams of people that just love doing what they do. These are the people worth my money, not EA or Vivendi or whatnot.

But you still, as a dev, need to stick close to what your current player base craves most. With selling the alpha you gave a portion of self-determination up, and should to some extent fulfill some of the more reasonable wishes in order to stay credible and keep the morale up as much as you can.

I'm absolutely not saying that they from now on just have to code out our collective ideas. God forbid! But you have to cater to your testers to some degree to prevent widespread loss of interest. And yes, superficial boring stuff like crafting, harvesting and growing times can actually make all the difference when it comes to playability and fun playing for hours and hours to really get down to even the most far out issues.

I agree with all of this.

Let's talk about the mechanics in Life is Feudal, why is this game broken ?

- Farming
It takes a lot of time, it's normal because it's just farm, but if it takes time it must be rewarding in the end. Why isn't it rewarding ? Because it won't be usefull in Combat, Combat system doesn't exist, it should have been the reward in the end.

- Crafting / Building
When you start the game you ask, how can I be usefull ? Other players will tell you what jobs are needed. They don't need a builder. They already have 1 builder who grinded his skills already.
The craft is quite good, but it doesn't take as much time as farming.

- Combat

- Economie
Where's the trading windows ? Where is the currency ? Where are the shops ? This game is about collectivism and generosity. Your farming won't be rewarded.

- Roleplay
Combat is fantastic for roleplay, but it doesn't exist, and you don't have time to roleplay while you farm.

You can still make several characters to try to counter these problems, I did it, but the devs never thought about this, so after a few hours of switching characters, you'll get bored to lose your time in the server list.

[Guildion]

- I'm sure you all know 2 or 3 teammates who are afk sleep with their macros activated, they farm while they sleep, and you wonder what you're doing in this game

[Uno]

I am convinced you have no clue what the word "boring" means, but all your points still stand. They should title the game LiF - Alpha build, not LiF - Release build.

You'll know what I means in a few hours.
And if you're a fanboy, then I must tell you I'm 31 years old, I work in the video game industry, and I can teach you what's an Alpha test and what does the word Boring means.

actually you are confusing annoying with boring. What you described as boring isn't boring but annoying, I agree with Lintrix.

[Guildion]

English isn't my first language, despite that I'm sure you understood me.

[Guildion]

actually you are confusing annoying with boring. What you described as boring isn't boring but annoying, I agree with Lintrix.

This game is tedious, and boring, and at this state of developpement, I can't see how the devs will do to release a fully functionnal and FUN game.

Games are supposed to be fun.

[DeathSpear]

lol Ive never had a single crash on this game so id like to know why your "built PC" crashes it.

[Thehappypeanut]

actually you are confusing annoying with boring. What you described as boring isn't boring but annoying, I agree with Lintrix.

This game is tedious, and boring, and at this state of developpement, I can't see how the devs will do to release a fully functionnal and FUN game.

Games are supposed to be fun.

I am going to go ahead and call BS on your comment about being in the video game industry; and no, playing video games doesn't count. Because if you were in the industry, you would know that an alpha 1) isn't meant to be a fun experience, but a learning experience for the development team and 2) nothing, including the quality of gameplay, in an alpha release is guaranteed to be in future versions of the game.

I have not had the opportunity to play the game to the extent that I'd like, but I know not to expect a fun and playable game, because that's *not* what we are here to do. You paid for the game to help aid the development, both financially and by reporting flaws and bugs. If you bought this game because you wanted to have a lot of fun, then you clearly don't understand the point of an alpha release.

[Bond290]

You claim you are in the video game industry but it is clear you have no idea what an alpha is. Half way down the thread you start complaining about bugs and things being unbalanced which should be 100% expected when you play early access/alpha. I have played hundreds of alpha games and in all honesty this is one of the least buggy and most stable ones I have played.

[Tajin]

Some quite valid statements from the OP there (certainly good to point them out). However, considering this is still in alpha state, it really could be much worse.



On a sidenote: I would normally expect someone who's working in the video game industry to be much more well-versed in written English. (You don't have to be a native-speaker for that)

Don't take it as an offense, but in that line of work you should really consider improving your English skills.
In fact I would recommend that for any line of work that involves working with/on the Internet.

[Guildion]

Some quite valid statements from the OP there (certainly good to point them out). However, considering this is still in alpha state, it really could be much worse.



On a sidenote: I would normally expect someone who's working in the video game industry to be much more well-versed in written English. (You don't have to be a native-speaker for that)

Don't take it as an offense, but in that line of work you should really consider improving your English skills.
In fact I would recommend that for any line of work that involves working with/on the Internet.

I'm sure you don't speak French, so you can't work at Ubisoft.
I'm sure you don't speak Japanese, so you can't work at Konami.

Really... fanboys will use even the worst arguments to prove their points.

So if your point is that I can't be in the video game industry because my English doesn't sound good enough to navigate on the Internet, how could I write here ?
You're wrong mate, I don't work on the Internet, I work on an Intranet, in the video game industry. And I don't need to speak a perfect English, because I'm French and there is a video-game industry over here. And I don't need to speak English in my domain, which is graphic design.

Anyway, I work with graphic engine technicians, 2 of them laughed at me while I spent 2 minutes to get 1 carrot with 7 FPS despite my powerfull 2014 hardware.

They told me what I tell you, this game will never be complete, the features of LiF will never all be released, especially Combat. Or the devs have a magical big patch in preparation, and I highly doubt about that !

I hope I'll be surprised, or I'll be disappointed to have given my money for this... "game".

[Guildion]

You claim you are in the video game industry but it is clear you have no idea what an alpha is. Half way down the thread you start complaining about bugs and things being unbalanced which should be 100% expected when you play early access/alpha. I have played hundreds of alpha games and in all honesty this is one of the least buggy and most stable ones I have played.

I won't list you all the Alpha I played or I was involved in since a decade, but if you have played hundreds of alpha tests, and for you, "in all honesty", this is one of the least buggy and most stable you have played ; you won't be surprised if I laugh at you

[Guildion]

I am going to go ahead and call BS on your comment about being in the video game industry; and no, playing video games doesn't count. Because if you were in the industry, you would know that an alpha 1) isn't meant to be a fun experience, but a learning experience for the development team and 2) nothing, including the quality of gameplay, in an alpha release is guaranteed to be in future versions of the game.

I have not had the opportunity to play the game to the extent that I'd like, but I know not to expect a fun and playable game, because that's *not* what we are here to do. You paid for the game to help aid the development, both financially and by reporting flaws and bugs. If you bought this game because you wanted to have a lot of fun, then you clearly don't understand the point of an alpha release.

A game is meant to be fun.
An Alpha test is meant to be playable.

nothing, including the quality of gameplay, in an alpha release is guaranteed to be in future versions of the game.

If you had a little experience, you'd know this is only a slang for commercial purposes.