Life is Feudal Official Forum

[Wolham]

Hello, devs and community.

I bought the game the other day and have been absolutely smashing it together with a group of friends, we love it. However, there are some wrinkles we spotted needing to be ironed out. We spent a decent amount of time talking about these yesterday, and I figured I'd voice our collective thoughts. Sorry for the mega-sized post, I hope you take time to read it through, I tried to put it into sections to make it more digestible, give it a clearer structure and allow you to find parts relevant/interesting to you.

Disclaimer; I've been playing on a server with slightly accelerated skill progression, hence my impression of the game might be a bit off from the intended experience. Sorry, devs. I still think most of my constructive criticism holds quite good ideas though.

I'll sandwich the criticism in some praise.

Spoiler

First, while the AI of the game might not be the most realistic, you still managed to make me shit my pants in fear on my first wolf attack. I still fear to stray too far from my settlement when it's not daylight. Well done. Would be even cooler if you could make some of them hunt in packs, avoid settlements and roam around, but I understand this is alpha and that's not really something that needs focus.
I also really love the overall pace of the game. If you want to build something grand and majestic, it takes a shitload of time. If you want to build something smaller and simpler, it still takes a shitload of time, albeit a smaller shitload. It makes it so much more rewarding when you finally manage to make your first little shack, or built that pretty-but-short road between your and your friends houses shitholes.
Furthermore, it's really great how a main way to improve construction early on is to pave roads, because it motivates players to build roads between their places, which not only makes the settlements look more realistic (unless abused), but also benefits the community as a whole living there. This process could even be lengthened as I found the construction/masonry tree comparatively fast to level up in.

First under inspection is the skill tree.

Some parts of the skill tree works fine. Forestry and prospecting makes sense, and terraforming is okay, albeit one may argue parts of it should be integrated into the former two. I don't have experience with Nature's lore but my friend doing it says it's a sensible and okay skill tree.

Farming.

Spoiler

Levelling farming to understand how to take care of animals, okay. But when I am a master hunter, why would I need to sit for hours and hours and wait for my chickens to shit out their eggs and dung so I can clean it up in order to hit not only 30 but 60 in animal lore so I can go beyond creating bone glue and actually tan the hides of the animals I hunted? Leatherworking should definitely be under hunting, not under farming (skinning the leather off of an animal should teach you more about the material than picking eggs and dung). And even more illogically, why do I need to know so much about taking care of animals in order to process plant material into fibres that I can use for sewing? As far as I know, tailors of medieval times were certainly no chicken whisperers. And hey, I know you give strong indications of wanting tailors to be medieval housewives, being master chefs before grasping what a needle is, but come on. Cooking under farming, okay. Tailoring? Really?

The main issue here however isn't how illogical it is for the skills to be in this order; it's that animal lore completely bottlenecks the rest of the skill tree. It took me days to hit 30 in animal lore; thanks to pregathered bone and water, it took me less than an hour to get told that my procuration can't go beyond 29.99 because my animal lore is too low. This was incredibly frustrating, because my whole group of friends had already been waiting the whole day for me to unlock procuration so that I could make leather so that we could craft weapons (my friend already got quite far into the whole blacksmithery tree, I don't know too much about it). It'd be okay if there was anything I could do about it to make it go faster, like how most other skills are dependant on how much effort you spend into gathering materials/working on it etc, but I already got an almost full chicken coop and it just doesn't make sense for me to spam coops and snares all over and around our settlement just to unlock tanning. And hey, I'm still struggling to unlock the ability to stretch a hide on a rack and wait for it to dry, whereas my friend who went into masonry is already annoying me about how he unlocked the ability to build a bloody keep and wants to get started on that. BUT WE CAN'T EVEN MAKE LINEN ROPES YET.

Constructive criticism;

Spoiler

Rework the pathings of the skill tree. Don't force things into farming, extend hunting, make tailoring and the such a separate tree, maybe? If you definitely want to keep it the way it is, reduce the bottlenecking of animal lore, since it's has so many fewer things to level it up than any other skill does (for instance, butchering the animals you have in your coup gives procuration rather than animal lore). Maybe you could add actions to do to level it? Pet and talk to your animals to make them happy? Wash and brush the rabbits? I don't know.

Combat skill trees, in connection to crafting;
Melee weapons

Spoiler

I've hit quite high in militia. You know what weapon I've been using? My lumber axe. Logically, I'd thus become a good axe warrior.
But no.
Apparently, in order to use a slightly more fancy axe to do the exact same thing (Yes, that's how axe combat works, you chop, it's literally the only thing you can do with an axe), I first have to master sword fighting (which I not only haven't practised for hours during militia service, but also involves stabs, slashes, chops, lunges, etcetera), and then I have to have my smith make me a scale armour to run around with.
Think about axes. Think about people fighting with axes. What are you thinking of? Admit you thought of vikings.
What is a militia? People who aren't trained warriors but merely does it secondarily to their main profession.
Were most vikings professional warriors? No, they were farmers, hunters, etcetera, with the fighting and raiding on the side, asides from a minority of dedicated warriors protecting the head (hird, hirdmen or housecarls). Hence, it makes no sense that a weapon so much technically and logically simpler than a sword not only does not fall under militia, but also requires you to know swordfighting first. I can see that you tried to create a different between dedicated warriors and peasants by having the "warrior" weapons in one skill tree and the footsoldier/cannonfodder weapons in one skill tree (spears) but poleaxes are far more for trained, dedicated personnel than axes are. And hey, while morningstars are pretty fancy, a simple club isn't that hard to use either (you literally just hit someone with it). And on that topic, it's ridiculous that a blacksmith can make a fine quality lumber axe, but needs to learn how to swing a sword around before he can make a war axe. I can accept that you need to understand the weapon in order to craft it well; I don't understand why you need to understand irrelevant weapons.

Constructive criticism;

Spoiler

Separate these individual skills for eachother. Or make the skill tree more of a tree and less of an excel document with rows and columns. Maybe make it so that weapons based on tools (axes, pitchforks) are one tree, and that base needs to be mastered in order to wear better designed weapons of the same kind, after which the tree splits and you have to choose either axes or spears.
Swords are available from day one as a separate skill tree, where you have the ability to use a training sword or a simple real sword, but you'll be so shit at a real sword that you'd die if you tried to hunt with it, and thus have to start with training with friends using the training sword in order to get started. Either make shields a separate category, or make a subdivision/continuation of each weapon tree to either specialise in fighting with a shield or without one (just because you know how to use a shield with an axe doesn't mean you know how to use it with a sword?).
And to balance it, since each individual weapon is now more easily accessible, make progressing in it slower, and make the skill tree in it deeper. You can pick up a training sword at day one, but it'll take months before you're a master swordsman. Want to be multifunctional and good at both axes and swords? You can do both from day one, but you'll be stuck being mediocre at both of them unless you spend double the amount of time compared to training just one.

Ranged weapons

Spoiler

Similarly, the bowcrafting tree makes no sense. It's easier to make a bow both in practice and in the game than a crossbow. Why do you need to master crossbows first? Why do you need to master leather armor wielding before you can do either? As far as I know, it was quite common for archers and the such to be unarmored, simply because 1. it's much easier to make and master a bow than a leather armor, 2. no matter how light a leather armor is, it's still making you less mobile than wearing just clothes. I get that you're trying to prevent people from running around in heavy armor shooting arrows, but this isn't the way.

Constructive criticism;

Spoiler

Make bows usable before crossbows. Trust me, if you give a child a bow and a crossbow he's;
1. more likely to hurt himself on the crossbow
2. less likely to figure out how to reload it.

Crossbows are easier to aim and fire, yes, but a lot more unintuitive to load due to the strength required, and a lot more prone to going wrong. Yes, they're a lot easier to master, but doesn't offer the same depth as a bow, and while the difference isn't as big they are harder to get started with. And hey, as someone who enjoys hunting in the game and spends a decent amount of time on it, it makes a lot more sense to hunt with bow rather than crossbow, right?

Furthermore, stop making leather armor a requirement to use either. If you want to promote the use of leather armor in combination with ranged weaponry, do it otherwise. Here's an example of how:
Make ranged weaponry of all kind heavily agility dependent. Create agility penalties/debuffs for all armor, and more heavy penalties for heavier armor. A leather armor barely affects it; a scale or chainmail armor affects it a lot, a plate armor reduces it immensely. It becomes really difficult to use ranged weaponry in heavy armor, and you'd thus choose not to (just like it would be in real life!). Furthermore, the tradeoff for leather armor would thus determine if you'd rather be a sturdy or a mobile archer. To add further to realism and design choises, make crossbows less affected by this and bows more affected! Now, people wearing armor and heading into the front lines are more likely to equip crossbows, and people hunting or needing the extra mobility of no armor chooses bows! Voila!
If reduced agility also reduces mobility, not just in term of walking/running but turning around etcetera, then that'd also make horseback riding with armor have significant choices; do you want a light armor that lets you shoot bow, a medium armor that lets you swing your weapons around freely, or a heavy armor that protects you but limits you from using weapons that aren't very simple (lances) or very brute (big swords, poleaxes, etcetera).
Very simple solution, very realistic implications. And it's just further emphasizing a mechanic you've already implemented in the game (agility). I admit, I have yet to try wearing any armor, so if you already implemented this I apologize; but then, what'd be the point of limiting archery by putting leather armor in the tree in the first place?

Next are some
Minor polishing details
that I've noticed, and I can understand that these might be very far off on the horizon since we're still in alpha, but I'd still like to mention them.

Fences

Spoiler

Make fences (wood, stone, etc) follow the contour of the ground. If the ground has a steady slope, make the fence slope with. Especially for stone fence, it doesn't make sense it has to be put on flat ground to look sensible (and it still doesn't look sensible if you have to layer the area to make the ground flat because it creates gaps). I personally haven't investigated this too much, as it was my friend who built it yesterday, but I saw the results and wasn't too impressed.

Personal hygiene

Spoiler

Why are the characters so dirty? They look nothing like in character creation! Oh, right, I spent ten hours digging in dirt.
In any case, let my guy have a bath in the sea, and return as the fresh prince of feudal times. This adds a roleplay element to the game; higher standing players that don't have to engage in dirty work can keep their clean looks for more than ten minutes, and maybe using some expensive resources they could make a bath tub? Suddenly, "filthy peasant" became literal.

Alignment and Units (bringing your buddy's remains home)

Spoiler

Yesterday, while hunting, my friend became a victim of the wolves. Part of the same unit, and basically family, I wanted to retrieve his remains for us to bury and his reincarnation to carry in order to continue his legacy. However, as I reached down to pick up his axe and his clothes, I was branded by the world as a villain!
Since we haven't made a guild yet, I don't know if there's no alignment penalty if you're part of the same guild. But if there is, please remove that.

I know there's more we talked about yesterday, especially on areas outside of crafting, but I can't remember right now, so I'll update this post with it later.


I'll finish off with some more praise.

Devs, please don't be set off by my lengthy post. As I said before, I still really like the game, and I think it has a great deal of potential. Because I fell ill and had to take time off, I invested in it as a time killer, and I've been absolutely glued to it. While some parts might need a bit of work, overall the game looks really really pretty, and I really enjoy the graphics of it. I have yet to join a bigger server, and I'm currently merely playing with my four friends on an empty server we found, but I have high expectations for when I get bored of the low population and join up on a bigger server!
I love how precise and detailed terraforming is, and how it actually takes proper time. I also like how logs and trunks stick around, and you can pile your logs into a nice pile, and they'll stay that way. These kind of small details means the world to me, and adds so much to the game. Keep up the good work.

[Willbonney]

Some of the wolves do spawn in packs. Up to 3 at a time with server setting of 50, and I've seen 5 packs with server setting 100. Sometimes you're able to agro them one at a time, others, they always seem to come all at once.

Wait for your first bear attack, heh, that'll be fun.

As for the Animal Lore complaints, you aren't the first to be bugged about it, but it's actually more due to your inexperience with the game. Most of us who have played some time now know pretty well how to get past the slow grind relatively quick. Either team up with a more experienced farmer who has barns/stables, those fill up with dung a lot faster and can be cleaned every animal cycle (once an hour is default server setting.) At the same time, they can also mentor you to raise your skill as well.

If you don't have a more experienced Animal farmer, then it's more a matter of having more coops, I usually at minimum fill up 3, 5 is even better. Usually 3 filled with chickens, 2 with hares, leaving only enough room for 1 or 2 new births. Once you get this, it goes by very quickly. Then when you're 90 or even 60 in the skill, you then slaughter all but your best 25 hares and 15 chickens, and leave them in 2 coops of their own, which gives you a good chunk of Procuration. This is for egg production and thin leather production later on, for cooking skill and tailoring.

The personal hygiene deal is something I suggested a good while back now as well. I agree that there should be a cleanliness stat, so that doing harder/messier work gets you more dirty and thus more susceptible to illness (especially if you eat while filthy). That you then alleviate by washing up, taking a dip in open water would help up to 75%, to get fully clean you'd need soap or a tub as you suggest.

The fence stuff, well that's up to the player actually. You are able to level the ground with an upward or downward slope, which then makes the fences or walls slope correctly in those directions as you would expect. Flattening the ground individually at different levels, and you get what you see.

[Wolham]

Some of the wolves do spawn in packs. Up to 3 at a time with server setting of 50, and I've seen 5 packs with server setting 100. Sometimes you're able to agro them one at a time, others, they always seem to come all at once.

Wait for your first bear attack, heh, that'll be fun.

As for the Animal Lore complaints, you aren't the first to be bugged about it, but it's actually more due to your inexperience with the game. Most of us who have played some time now know pretty well how to get past the slow grind relatively quick. Either team up with a more experienced farmer who has barns/stables, those fill up with dung a lot faster and can be cleaned every animal cycle (once an hour is default server setting.) At the same time, they can also mentor you to raise your skill as well.

If you don't have a more experienced Animal farmer, then it's more a matter of having more coops, I usually at minimum fill up 3, 5 is even better. Usually 3 filled with chickens, 2 with hares, leaving only enough room for 1 or 2 new births. Once you get this, it goes by very quickly. Then when you're 90 or even 60 in the skill, you then slaughter all but your best 25 hares and 15 chickens, and leave them in 2 coops of their own, which gives you a good chunk of Procuration. This is for egg production and thin leather production later on, for cooking skill and tailoring.

The personal hygiene deal is something I suggested a good while back now as well. I agree that there should be a cleanliness stat, so that doing harder/messier work gets you more dirty and thus more susceptible to illness (especially if you eat while filthy). That you then alleviate by washing up, taking a dip in open water would help up to 75%, to get fully clean you'd need soap or a tub as you suggest.

The fence stuff, well that's up to the player actually. You are able to level the ground with an upward or downward slope, which then makes the fences or walls slope correctly in those directions as you would expect. Flattening the ground individually at different levels, and you get what you see.

I did see three wolves in close proximity to each other in an area, but they didn't act like a pack. They just spawned close to each other.

Regarding what you say about animal lore, I'd like to disagree. Sure, you can work your way around it. But should you have to? It just doesn't make sense that a hunter has to be an animal carer/stable cleaner for a week in order to learn how to tan hides and boil bone glue.

The whole downward/upward slope teraforming doesn't seem to cooperate with me and I have yet to use it in a way such as that I can actually build on it, hence I haven't tried making fence on it. Will try. Still finding it a bit weird that simple fences and such, like wooden palisade, requires flat ground. For proper walls, okay, but stuff less than that, can't we just be allowed to put it straight on the ground?



Thanks for the reply though, Willbonney, I appreciate someone taking time to read it all through and discussing about it.


On a sidenote, finally managed to break through animal lore 60 today and produce leather and linen. Got the bloomery up and running and my blacksmithing friend ragequitted after finding out that what was 2 hours worth of my herbalist friend searching for flux, resulted in a mere two steel bars. Which is a bit underwhelming. Turns out producing them as ingots is more efficient. Hahaha

[Willbonney]

Regarding what you say about animal lore, I'd like to disagree. Sure, you can work your way around it. But should you have to? It just doesn't make sense that a hunter has to be an animal carer/stable cleaner for a week in order to learn how to tan hides and boil bone glue.

He doesn't have to. He doesn't have to do anything at all with the hides if he doesn't want to. Sell/trade with 'em. Sure, he won't get leather that way, that's his choice though.