I've been reading up on the feedback, user reviews and so forth, and your comments have impressed upon me the need to change up a few things, especially to make the entry into the game easier and clearer.
First off as some people made clear the build limit is preventing folks from finishing the tutorial and experiencing more of the depth of the game. So I've gone and done the following
- Increased the build limit to 35 if you haven't finished the tutorial and 25 if you have.
- Unlocked the Mancer Temple north of the player and Stargazer southwest of the starting area
- Unlocked a few of the minor settlements.
This will allow tutotiral players to have a bit more interaction, grow their settlements to unlock some better units and even have a bigger conflict or just more trade. I also understand that the demo is also probably the only version of the tutorial a lot of folks play so best to make sure they can finish it.
This is off course a tricky situation, but I can say the amount of work to keep the Demo afloat is substantial , it's like a whole separate branch to keep afloat, and between the delays on console and EGS/GOG it is also a bit on the chopping block, so I hope these changes have a positive effect .
WIth regards to the general onboarding I've changed some of the store text and am working on making a playlists of new explanatory short videos and have that up in a few days.
As someone in Discord said, Bulwark is somewhere between a townscaper-like chill builder and a grand strategy game, but this can make it feel like neither. But there is a lot of love from gamers looking for something in the middle of those. So beyond the store I am also adding a new FAQ section to the ingame help and I've added some tips 'n tricks to the menu. (the FAQ will take a few days to get localized). On top of that I felt that the early grind for population is now rewarded too late. So a the lower tier captains and commanders should now come a lot quicker..
here's the changelist of the patch as it now sets on the public beta branch
- added some random tips 'n tricks (existing texts for now) (this will be a new FAQ page in the game help as soon as its been localized)
- move crabtoon +naval harbour to later cuz too hard to beat and blocks other encounters
- removed the continuesly VO about mawspring placement after you get the wonder
- increased population of faction citadels and outposts (to give a bit of a jumpstart to unlock new content)
- lowered the requirements for the lower tier captains and commanders
- added a setting to turn of the advisor completely (and my intros) (cept for the tutorial)
Here's my FAQ/list of top things you should know. I hope once it's ingame (and localized) it will help folks get those tidbits of knowledge I haven't successfully been able to get across to everyone.
[olist]
[*] Grow your population to unlock more content and capabilities
[*] Workers build houses and thus increase population
[*] Stone houses get more population then wood houses
[*] New population gains you splinters (credits)
[*] the number above an extractor is the range at which it provides its resources.
[*] You increase the range of your resources by attaching more walkeays with access to workers .
[*] You can buy more extractors in the inventory screen
[*] Command towers serve to house commanders, and spawns guns along their walls
[*] Higher population unlocks new commanders and captains from the soultree screen
[*] Captains and Commanders are found in the world by explored after being unlocked.
[*] you can buy more units or set a defensive or escort stance in the commander screen
[*] Bigger command towers have a higher unit cap
[*] Building citadels, command towers and harbours to other factions inceases the population of that faction
[*] trading with other factions also increases your alignment with them.
[/olist]
This is still an experimental game, a real genre bender so likely not the last update on this subject ;) Hope folks can let me know if the beta is safe and without bugs, so I can upload it for all and improve the first experiences for more players..
I've been crunching a bit too much so no update on the "edge of the world" content , everything is console porting and onboarding atm. Doing my best;)
Cheerio, Tomas
