Aralon Suggestions thread

[Mindfield]

Originally Posted by Planetshooter

Instead of "the Ug AND Og quest", try to see it as the Ug OR Og quests. It's a choice, a moral decision. Well, not much of a moral decision. Do you kill Ug to get the ring, or kill Og because Ug said so? Or was it the other way round? Utterly irrelevant really, and if you have qualms about attacking something that is not an immediate enemy, just don't do either quest. This may be irritating for the completionists, but who said ROLE PLAYING was all about just ticking off every quest anyway?

As for attacking a friendly, just do it. A message will pop up asking if that's what you want to do. If you're unsure of the outcome, save the game first, then try it out.

It isn't the moral decision -- I like that part -- rather the execution, if you'll pardon the pun. You can't just attack because there's no icon for it, just the talk icon. You can't tap on your linked weapon because it doesn't do anything. I found that the only way to initiate an attack on a friendly was to execute a hostile ability, such as shield bash. Then you get the friendly attack warning. (I did try this too, but discovered I really wasn't ready to take on either one of them. They're strong!)

There's also the ambiguity of the quest. Ug wants the ring from Og but doesn't tell you how to get it. There's no option to even attempt to accuse Og of stealing the ring or asking for it back. In other words, there's no option for a peaceful solution other than not to participate at all. Even if no peaceful solution is possible, at least presenting the option to try when interacting with Ug and OG would give the player some direction, and maybe presenting the option to attack or leave when negotiations fail would help lead the player to the options they have left and whether they want to take them.

I find this is actually kind of a problem throughout the game; there's a lack of specificity and instruction with some things whose execution isn't particularly intuitive. Getting your horse, for example. Once you get the deed, your first instinct would be to find the horse; I looked around the whole village, behind buildings, looking for the damn horse. I only discovered where the horse was when I looked at the deed and found out you have to activate the deed to summon the horse. It's handy, but very unintuitive, and there's nothing that tells you how you need to use it.

[Neo0101]

Mindfield, if you are a rogue there is an alternative. After struggling with the choice I found out that if you 'Pickpocket' Ug you take the ring from him, without ever having to kill him. So there are many ways to approach it.

As for my suggestion, that would be the ability to choose the amount of grouped items (potions, fish, bear blood, etc.) to either put someplace or sell, so either isn't so tedious.

[TooTinyMan]

Originally Posted by Myfingershurt

Or maybe they can learn to craft their own arrows? You could collect sticks and stuff for mats...

Or maybe both? I like your idea too. That would be VERY useful.

[Link6746]

In addition to the bit about save game syncing (remote saves)
Is it possible to add skill synergies so that similar element/action type skills give each other bonuses?

[Planetshooter]

Originally Posted by Mindfield

I find this is actually kind of a problem throughout the game; there's a lack of specificity and instruction with some things whose execution isn't particularly intuitive. Getting your horse, for example. ... It's handy, but very unintuitive, and there's nothing that tells you how you need to use it.

This is possibly one of the major reasons that Aralon won't get massive sales on the touch/phone - it's not a casual game by any stretch of the imagination and even some of the basic game mechanics are too unintuitive to make it a pick-up-and-play game. Now, there is a market for RPGs like this, but I don't think it is currently a large part of the touch/phone market. Personally, I love Aralon and I don't have a problem trying to figure stuff out, even stuff that maybe shouldn't need figuring out!

Depending on the market they're trying to target, improved instructions and maybe a tutorial might be a suggestion. However, you're into the rule of thirds here already - people either love it, hate it or are completely indifferent. Getting someone to swap groups is very hard, all you can do is increase the numbers in all the groups. (That's not an original concept, by the way).

[Saucepolicy]

Some of these suggestions have been noted by other players, but I'm leaving them to add another "vote" when deciding development priorities. As an aside, my character is currently level 17, so I'm not very far into the game:

SUGGESTIONS:

1. Add some fog to cover some of the more obvious draw-in
2. Ability to simply clear links from the action menu, aside from just overwriting them with another link.
3. Specify quantities when buying/selling, in addition to "Sell Stack" that already exists when buying (add that to selling as well)
4. Disallow crafting if you don't have the necessary components
5. Disallow the use health and energy potions if meters are full
6. (NEW)Disallow saving when enemies are nearby and remember the location of nearby killed enemies within a reasonable radius. When loading a game, the mobs within this radius should remain dead and their respawn timers should be restarted. Continuing a game shouldn't be needlessly dangerous.
7. Disallow executing a special ability if the wrong weapon is equipped. For instance: Power Attack should not charge up if I have a bow equipped. In fact, just make a pass through the entire game and try to protect players from accidental button presses. Don't allow players to make actions that are clearly invalid and/or counterproductive (such as drinking a potion when fully healed).
8. Auto-close loot menus after selecting "Take All" (assuming there's room in player inventory)
9. Ability to quickly compare loot to equipped item. Other games do this via color coding (just don't use green/red for colorblind folks) or with little up and down arrows
10. Lower the price of glass vials. I understand that 60gp is reasonable once you level into the upper teens, but it discourages crafting early in the game-- an empty vial is the same price as a diluted health potion.
11. Like Oblivion/ Fallout 3, keep notes, deeds and keys on a separate menu tab for quick reference and more importantly, get that junk out of my backback. For instance, is there a reason I should be keeping the note from my father, the Emerald Brew meeting note or any keys once they're used? I don't know, but I'm not going to drop them to free up inventory only to find out I'm screwed later. Likewise, it's silly for a deed (a piece of paper) to be eating a spot in my inventory. I realize there has to be a way to link deeds to the action bar, which is where the separate "Misc" menu tab comes into play.
12. On a related note, clearly label quest items (such as spirit dust) and do not allow them to be dropped or destroyed.
13. Longer range on arrows and spells. Not much, but I feel that I should be able to consistently get at least 2 shots off before a mob closes to melee range. Bows with a range of 25 or 30 begin to feel better. 20 is just too short to be iable early in the game.
14. Give a warning when out of equipped arrows, rather than informing the player when next trying to use a bow with an empty quiver. It's all in the timing.
15. Add a special auto-save slot, and either save on a timer or every time the player zones. This is separate from the other save slots and I'd even trade one of the existing slots for this functionality. Players can still manually save at any time, but now we should be protected from unexpected crashes.
16. (NEW)Ability to consume potions, and/or activate deeds and other items from the inventory menu, not just the action bar. If you can do this already, I haven't figured it out-- the obvious solution of clicking on the item and having a "use" button in the info box is absent, and dragging the item onto my avatar doesn't work either. 10 slots is not enough if I have to link every item in order to use them.
17. (NEW)For all that's holy, SLOW DOWN the respawn timer on mobs. It's pointless trying to use stealth when every mob I've killed quickly respawns behind me.
18. (NEW)Slightly more detailed maps for towns and dungeons. Nothing major, just be consistent in pointing out locations, exits and buildings that can be entered. For instance, most overworld maps and East Callahein have location hotspots, West Callahein doesn't for some reason. Personally, I don't like the current implementation for location hotspots either, but it's a minor nitpick. I'd rather have a toggle to turn all the location names on at once so I can quickly orient myself rather than holding a finger on each location to see the name pop up.

BUGS:

1. I find that when using tangleroot from the action menu, the menu loses responsiveness for several seconds, especially when trying to change from row 1 to 2. That all but makes the spell worthless to me, as I'm eating up valuable time wishing I could equip my bow.
2. It's all too easy to get caught between a hired NPC and walls or other NPCs. It's ugly, but perhaps hired NPCs don't have collision with the player? Anything would help.
3. Mob AI and pathfinding seems to be easily confused. I've killed more than one red mob because it started walking into a wall and forgot about me. Easy pickings. Most recently, it was the Level 22 Gnoll Mage in the Gnoll Lair by the Callaheim North Gate. I was level 16 at the time.

[icetear]

When you get the quest for killing the orc leader in the fortress, you encounter several friendly border guards. If you help them against the orcs, some of them survive the fights. Afterwards you can command them - by speaking to them.
They will then follow you (caution, no intelligent pathing here) and attack your targets. VERY helpful for the last fight (orc boss + adds).

But here are some problems:

- if you have some (4+) guards around you and no enemy in sight, it can happen that they surround you in a way you can't move anymore. Either fix this by letting the character push companions around - or by letting the character dismiss the guards, so that they will walk around again.

- after saving / loading, the guards do not recognize that they were under command and go off to their origin spot... and eventually fall to death, because they don't use the bridges. Fix this please by saving who is under your command - or by implementing a pathing that hinder them from hurting themselves.

Nonetheless: The possibility of gathering some guards is really cool :-) Would be even cooler if this weren't only in this fortress scenario.

[Kimosabi]

Cooler looking armour and weapons :P Right they all look kind of weaksauce. Nothing too distinguishing or badass.

[Mindfield]

Originally Posted by icetear

- after saving / loading, the guards do not recognize that they were under command and go off to their origin spot... and eventually fall to death, because they don't use the bridges. Fix this please by saving who is under your command - or by implementing a pathing that hinder them from hurting themselves.

Actually this saved me because of another bug I ran into: After completing the Orc quest I was gathering soldiers to follow me as I made my way out. WEll, turns out I gathered one too many and they were surrounding me. I couldn't move because they trapped me, and they would not bloody move. On a whim I saved, quit and reloaded and all the soldiers dispersed, no longer under my command, and I could move again.

So, that's another bug: Soldiers under your command should get the hell out of the way if you try to move into them.

[Zenzi73]

When I want to comlete this quest I can choose my reward-item, but I won't get any reward (no 3000Exp, nor chosen item)...

I killed:
5/5 Gnome Sparkers
18/5 Footsoldiers

The only thing to do is to talk with Yiggdrin, but he won't give me my reward...

Can anyone be of assistence?

Zenzi73