suggestions & feedback

Zearin

Larva
I kept thinking feedback in my head each time I played, and it finally “collected” enough for me to feel the need to post it. :)


suggestions

new blog post types ✍
While you are rebuilding your game engine, I kept thinking it would be really cool if you were able to post some more “behind the scenes” stuff.​
  • Post about your design process
    I thoroughly enjoyed your post about the upgrades to the ants’ pathfinding algorithm! I would love more posts about your design process (graphically, gameplay-wise, and software architecture-wise).

  • Post about music
    • (First, I have to say: This game’s music is fantastic! Each tier’s music is better than the last. The layering of instruments is beautiful. The way it parallel’s the game’s day/night cycles is great. And most importantly, the game’s soundtrack does not burn itself out—which is no easy task when composing music that is designed to loop endlessly.)

    • Way back when Diablo II (yup…“2”) came out, the game’s composer Matt Uelmann (sp?) would periodically release an MP3 of a particular song on the game’s website, along with a short article (usually a couple of paragraphs) about it. He would describe motifs, instrument choices, ways the music was shaped to fit a particular section of the game, and so on. He even posted some unreleased tracks that didn’t make the game, and explained why he decided to cut them.

      If your composer is up to it, I can’t get enough of this stuff!

    • Also: Who IS your composer??? Your team always lists 3 developers, but I have not been able to locate the person who has created your awesome music. This person deserves to be credited as one of the team!
game features
  • Ingame “backstory” (a la Age of Empires/Mythology)
    One of my favorite features from the Age of Empires Series & Age of Mythology games was the ability to select any unit, and right-click its portrait to open up some historical info about it. These blurbs would mostly be a historical summary, but would sometimes describe how a the game unit might (for example) deviate from history, or cite sources that “inspired” the unit’s design. I would love this about the ants, the other critters in the undergrowth, and perhaps even some plants (insofar as their interactions with critters or ecological role).


feedback

game UI
  • ui: readability of numbers
    When my scores (food, leaves, population, etc.) are on top of bright backgrounds (especially brood tiles, most of all fungus-filled leafcutter brood tiles), they are unreadable. Please fix this! Just add a little stroke or text shadow to the numbers. It would make such a huge difference.

  • picture mode controls ⌨️
    I play EOTU on a laptop with a trackpad (yes, really!). This makes it impossible for me to move the camera around after entering picture mode. (Nope, no numpad—not even with modifier keys.)

    But trackpads are so versatile, I am always wanting to be able to move the camera using trackpad gestures…but the game won’t let me! Why not allow use of the trackpad, or even a mouse (let’s just say “pointer”) to control the camera? Using a mouse with modifier keys (shift, control, etc.) to toggle things like zoom, pitch, pan, etc. would be way easier

artwork
  • artwork: the leafcutter’s cut leaves
    The leafcutter update has been spectacular in many ways, especially the artwork. The only nitpick I have is the look of the cut leaves! The leaves (on the plants) after being cut look like they were chewed by catterpillars or grasshoppers or something, but not leafcutter ants. One thing I love about watching real leafcutters cut leaves is the arcs they leave behind after removing a chunk. My favorite reference footage is this time-lapse of leafcutters doing their eponymous work. Compare the missing chunks on the plants’ leaves with the more “haphazard” looking, catterpillar-esque chewed look in the game.

gameplay
  • gameplay: difficulty medium vs. hard
    I’ve seen some forum posts by others discussing the maximum level of difficulty. I love love love this game! But I’m nowhere near that good. So, please allow me to share an intermediate-level player’s viewpoint on the difficulty levels.

    I usually find medium difficulty to be a good fit…at first. Since the game is in pre-release, I end up re-playing the campaign levels a lot. (I like the freeplay okay, but I love the campaign!) In short order, I usually end up finding that medium is too easy for me.

    But when I switch over to hard, I am usually crushed. I can beat perhaps the first two tier 1 levels on Hard. MAYBE the tier 2 levels if I give it enough tries. By tier 3 and leafcutters, I struggle to even make it halfway.

    The jump in difficulty from medium ▶︎ hard feels a little too much. I know there are lots of players who are looking to increase the maximum difficulty, and that’s totally fine. Just don’t forget to offer us upper-mid-level players a good difficulty option, too.

    (QQ: Apart from stronger enemies, and more underground critters, does difficulty affect anything else?)

  • gameplay: adult leaf-mimic mantis
    And here’s the rub! The adult leaf-mimic mantis is awesome. It looks gorgeous. It moves beautifully. Its minimap invisibility is sinister (and appropriate!). But as someone who has been playing the leafcutter levels on medium difficulty over and over again, I can say this with certainty:

    You must control the spawn rates for leaf-mimic mantids more carefully than other critters!

    In some games, I don’t even see an adult mantis. In other games, I can be dominating the army ants, when suddenly a HANDFUL of these tough assassins take down half my army before I even know they’re there.

    I get the stealth part. I think a camouflaged creature being invisible on the minimap is brilliant. But the spawn rates need to be controlled somehow. This is the only caveat to my statement above, about medium feeling just a bit-too-easy—when four (FOUR!) adult mantids pop out and eat my army while simultaneously blocking all access to more leaves, it feels anything but “medium”.

    This is my only serious issue with the spawn rates. I think it has to do with the stealth, fast ant-killing rate, and self-healing abilities of the adult mantis. It should be formidable. It just shouldn’t be spawning 4 at a time (on medium, anyway).

    (Either that, or…perhaps increase the cool-down of its eat-to-heal ability? ‍♂️)

  • gameplay: more than HP
    I was so excited to see your post about ants crawling up and onto their opponents! Anything that makes combat more interesting than critters standing face-to-face, biting each other’s HP down to zero is a plus.

    I have one feature request to take this further: Could you develop a mechanic where, when sufficient ants are facing a large opponent, some ants could “pin” legs or appendages of the enemy?

    Apart from crawling onto opponents, ants’ cooperation really shines when they team up to immobilize huge creatures (relative to ants) by anchoring down its limbs, allowing other ants easier access for attack. I’ve seen it in so many documentaries that I shouldn’t be amazed any more…but I still am, always. It never gets old watching ants fearlessly take on things a hundred times their size!

questions
  • AI: When moving ants between pheromone groups, how do you determine when an ant “switches” to the new group?

  • AI: When I move a pheromone marker to a new location, how do you determine when an ant “switches” to the new location?
    (The speed of the ants switching over has incredible variability. I have no issues with that—I’m just curious as to why!)

  • AI: Every so often, an ant will hang out around the entrance of the nest, and sort of pace about for a little while. What’s it doing?

  • Stats: Are the queen’s initial workers identical to level 1 workers? (If not, how are they different?)
 

pakitane16

Colony
For now, the wikipedia is lower priority to new content. It should come out after every creatures are in the game.
The difficulty is actually ok for me. You can check out some insane video on youtube to learn the their strategies, and there are many builds to beat a level. "Hard" can feel like "Medium" when you know when and what to do. Well, not 3.2 though, it's the most difficult level so far.
Mantis have already been nerfed in their ability and spawn rate. On medium, 4 mantis in the same place is just bad RNG. How often does it happen to you?
Queen tile workers are identical to lv1 workers. When you have no worker left, one worker will spawn for free from queen tile. You can't upgrade them.
 

Mr_Ced

Colony
I agree with the random spawning in the Rainforest levels. It all too much happens to me that I cannot beat Hard but instead Insane for some reason because of spawning. And on the other hand, I get destroyed in Insane and Hard is a breeze.
 

MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
Here here!

Thanks for this very extensive post, we'll go through it all later on but the music is composed by our very own @Liam! He's one of the three developers. He's been spending his time recently on re-working the movement system but as we get close to the fire ant levels he'll be back on the music.
 

Zearin

Larva
Thanks for this very extensive post, we'll go through it all later on but the music is composed by our very own @Liam! He's one of the three developers. He's been spending his time recently on re-working the movement system but as we get close to the fire ant levels he'll be back on the music.

Wow! Thank you, @MikeSlugDisco ! And thank you very much @Liam !

You should totally add the music credit for Liam on the website and in the game! :)
 

Blu

Larva
picture mode controls ⌨️
I play EOTU on a laptop with a trackpad (yes, really!). This makes it impossible for me to move the camera around after entering picture mode. (Nope, no numpad—not even with modifier keys.)

But trackpads are so versatile, I am always wanting to be able to move the camera using trackpad gestures…but the game won’t let me! Why not allow use of the trackpad, or even a mouse (let’s just say “pointer”) to control the camera? Using a mouse with modifier keys (shift, control, etc.) to toggle things like zoom, pitch, pan, etc. would be way easier
you can Always change the controls to some other keys that aren't used in te default controls, or some keys you dont use yourself, for example, i never use the tile selection keys and just click on the icons, so if i had no numpad, i'd set the tile selection keys to the camera mode keys. hope this helps
 

Zearin

Larva
Thanks for this very extensive post, we'll go through it all later on but the music is composed by our very own @Liam! He's one of the three developers. He's been spending his time recently on re-working the movement system but as we get close to the fire ant levels he'll be back on the music.

Just checking in after a couple of weeks.

How’s everything?
 

MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
How are you, @MikeSlugDisco ?

(Did I put too much in a single thread?)

Hi @Zearin - not at all. A while ago I started typing out a detailed reply to this and foolishly relied on the "save draft" feature of this forum to allow me to continue it. It didn't save it so I was a bit disheartened, I'm sure you'll understand. I'll start again.
 

MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
I kept thinking feedback in my head each time I played, and it finally “collected” enough for me to feel the need to post it. :)


New blog types

- Post about your design process

It's a good idea, and I think it's something that might be worth visiting in a video format. I don't want to put too many news updates on the Steam page (less frequent longer ones are better to avoid annoying people), and our website itself doesn't have many followers. However, lots of people watch our YouTube channel. Not long after I was first hired as community manager I did a video interview with each of the guys talking about their roles and various aspects of their design thinking (here's me interviewing Matt, then John, then Liam) and I'd like to return to this format at some point - not least because I have a better microphone now!

- Post about music

I need to bother Liam enough that he takes some time out to tell me more about the music! You can see in Liam's video interview about how the music system works (or at least how it worked at the time; it's been through a lot of iterations since). As the community person it usually falls to me to make such posts - I pester the guys until they relent and spend some time giving me material.

Perhaps when we get close to some new music being added (fire ant update) I'll work a bit closer with Liam as he's designing the music, post some work-in-progress stuff that sort of thing!

Game features

- In-game “backstory” (a la Age of Empires/Mythology)

We have the makings of an in-game wiki in place (it just doesn't have enough content to make it worth activating yet). It currently works in an encyclopedic way, and it'll have a description of the thing in question, how it works in-game, and a section about its real-world counterparts. It's a neat idea to be able to see the information directly by clicking a unit - I'll talk to the guys about that when we get close to fully implementing the wiki. That'll all come in a future update.

Feedback

- UI - Readability of numbers

In the currently running beta we've introduced an option to render a black rectangle behind all the numbers! It'll of course make its way to the main branch when it's ready.

- Picture mode controls

I'll talk to John about this. Trackpads are supported by UE4; I don't think it'd take too much to implement them. The reason photo mode is quite restrictive is that we don't want the camera pointed at something we don't want the player to see too easily (although you can override the camera lock by holding down shift as you press F9). I also want a free-roaming camera for screenshots. I just have to convince John to do it!

Artwork

- The leafcutter's cut leaves

We did use reference pictures when designing the way the leaves disappear as they are harvested. It may be a slightly different species than the one in that video. I'll mention it to Matt but I think our general thoughts are that it's fine and quite readable the way it is.

Gameplay

- Difficulty medium vs hard

Balance is a constant struggle for all games, and as a game in early access we do periodic balance passes. I agree that lots of the difficulties scale inconsistently (and I genuinely think insane is, on any level past 1.x, too insane). I think a bit of an issue is that it's easy when designing something to think a bit linearly (ie, put x% number of extra creatures in and it will be x% more difficult) but there are a lot of other things to factor in of course, and the only way to somewhat model these is by feedback. We keep a close eye on it.

- Adult leaf-mimic mantis

Yes, the mantis has been through many nerfs already and it is probably due more. Its devour ability makes it super tanky. It should be a much rarer creature, I think - and that factors into the above paragraph about balance.

- More than HP

Due to the animation logistics of "pinning down" creatures like ants do in real life, I highly doubt we'll implement a feature like this. You have to member that we're an RTS, not a simulation, and whilst details like this would certainly make things feel more realistic the amount of time it'd take to implement such a feature would be disproportionate to the immersion it would bring. It'd involve dealing with complex systems like inverse kinematics which are both computationally expensive and extremely fiddly to work with (we only use this in one creature at the moment and on one level - the huge whip spider on 3.2 when it's deciding where to place its legs over multiple tile planes because it's so big).

The ants swarming over creatures is appropriate for the fire ants we're introducing in the next major update; it's not excessively complicated and it's based on an existing system (the plant climbing one).

Questions

- AI: When moving ants between pheromone groups, how do you determine when an ant “switches” to the new group?
- AI: When I move a pheromone marker to a new location, how do you determine when an ant “switches” to the new location?
(The speed of the ants switching over has incredible variability. I have no issues with that—I’m just curious as to why!)


Same answer to both of these - ants will notice the new group over the period of a few seconds. It's randomly determined. You can see the process when you see the grey "ghost" of an old pheromone marker tick down as ants notice the new placement. Adds a bit of organic-feeling separation between the ants to make the exodus more trail-like and stop them clumping together and getting in each other's way.

- AI: Every so often, an ant will hang out around the entrance of the nest, and sort of pace about for a little while. What’s it doing?

I like to think it's having a quick smoke break. In all seriousness though, that's to simulate somewhat the tendency of ants to guard their nest entrances. We don't want that to happen all the time, just a little bit.

- Stats: Are the queen’s initial workers identical to level 1 workers? (If not, how are they different?)

They are level 1 in stats. The only way they differ from regular level 1 ants is that one of them will always hatch even if there's no food.
 
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Rayalot72

Maximum difficulty
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
However, lots of people watch our YouTube channel. Not long after I was first hired as community manager I did a video interview with each of the guys talking about their roles and various aspects of their design thinking (here's me interviewing Matt, then John, then Liam) and I'd like to return to this format at some point - not least because I have a better microphone now!
Definitely a good idea to bring more to Youtube, in my opinion. I'm more of a critic, so I don't often praise the game, but there's a lot behind the scenes that goes into EotU which most people overlook because they'd need to be following the game's development pretty closely to hear about it. The rail system (only learned about this from the newsletter), new colony AI, job assignment for workers and minims, the AI behind most arachnids (including whip spider and harvestman movement), and the new movement code could all do with some elaboration in some sort of showcase series. Couldn't hurt to say more about the systems mentioned in the interviews either, as I think we've only heard about the general idea of each so far.
I need to bother Liam enough that he takes some time out to tell me more about the music! You can see in Liam's video interview about how the music system works (or at least how it worked at the time; it's been through a lot of iterations since). As the community person it usually falls to me to make such posts - I pester the guys until they relent and spend some time giving me material.
I'd love to know how Liam has "evolved" his music over the course of development. Much of the music that came out for the demo and before comes across as amateur, but all the music currently in-game feels far more professional. What changed between then and now?
and I genuinely think insane is, on any level past 1.x, too insane
Pssh, they're not that hard. 3.2 with the grey lane progression route was a bit much though, thank goodness for double lane strat.
Yes, the mantis has been through many nerfs already and it is probably due more. Its devour ability makes it super tanky. It should be a much rarer creature, I think - and that factors into the above paragraph about balance.
Tbh I'm not sure they're that bad. Devour abilities in general just happen to be very strong if you're not at a "critical mass" that's sufficient to take them on. They will either be an absolute pain that rips through you, or you'll be able to steamroll large numbers of them. This might just be my preference for difficulty though, as leafcutters suffer far more than other ants when they're capable of winning fights. Victory is often still a loss in practice.

People should complain about crickets more tbh, they can be much worse since they'll almost always get their AoE off before they die. Most people don't notice this is a big deal since you're more likely to "win" against a cricket than a mantis early on.
 
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pakitane16

Colony
People should complain about crickets more tbh, they can be much worse since they'll almost always get their AoE off before they die. Most people don't notice this is a big deal since you're more likely to "win" against a cricket than a mantis early on.
In 3.1, you generally avoid combat with nature, and nature tend to avoid enemy harvest trail. In 3.2, the mantises destroy the army ants by day and the whip spiders destroy our army by night. We even have wood ants in Aggrandise. The crickets aren't a huge obstacle in these levels so nobody really minds them as much. If only we have a side mission where all can see how horrible they are lol.
 

Scyobi_Empire

Colony
Extremely Helpful Person
Ecosystem Beta Tester
[QUOTE="I'd love to know how Liam has "evolved" his music over the course of development. Much of the music that came out for the demo and before comes across as amateur, but all the music currently in-game feels far more professional. What changed between then and now?[/QUOTE]
I'd like to know the same thing bbut, Jeff's 'ant song' is... Interesting.
 

JohnSlugDisco

Administrator
Staff member
Developer of EotU
(QQ: Apart from stronger enemies, and more underground critters, does difficulty affect anything else?)
In freeplay difficulty is very different to the campaign. In the campaign it effects all sorts of things and is tailored to the level itself. For example 3.2 it effects the size of enemy packs, the number of army ant scouts, how much the army ants are pushed back per kill and more.

In freeplay it is more standardised
 
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