Alpha 21 - Quality of Life Improvements

Suggestions
1

Hi, all!
As I have been absolutely absorbed in this game for the past week, I have noticed a few little things that I think would, if changed, greatly improve the smoothness with which the game is played.

  1. A “Descending Ladder” - Basically, this ladder will, from the block it is placed from, infinitely be constructed downwards as long as there is not a solid block below it. This construction perpetuates as the level of ground is shifted. This would streamline digging directly down.

  2. Breaking a ladder would completely deconstruct it in one hit rather than in sections, similar to how cancelled buildings just poof, preventing this unfortunate issue.

    Stonehearth 7_2_2017 11_16_26 PM.jpg1920×1017 174 KB
    (mind this ladder issue was present at 15 ish hearthlings)
    If any of you have ran into this issue as well, you can place ladders on ladders, doing this successively one block down from the top will allow you to slowly knock down the ladders.

  3. When the “Clear” tool is used, to have the items deleted out of the world immediately, rather than having a hearthling come and bop it away, similar to the building deconstruction.

  4. Having the option to replace normal furniture with fine furniture whenever possible/using exclusively fine furniture.

  5. When generating your hearthlings, having 6 body, yet being a passionate crafter of some sort is extremely unfortunate. I feel as though passions would match the stats that are rolled on certain hearthlings. Perhaps a roll of 5 and above on a certain stat would correlate randomly with a passion or expertise that are effected by said statistic. For instance, a 5 mind would tie with a passionate blacksmith.

  6. Being able to edit a building currently in process of construction - I can’t tell you how many times I have generated a building, and then realized half way through construction of it that I have a bed misplaced. it would be very handy if I could edit that building mid construction and fix it, without having to deconstruct the entire building and restart.

  7. A “Clear All” button on any crafter’s crafting screen

  8. A “Renewable Harvest” command - meaning whichever plant is given this order will be permanently harvested whenever they are available to be harvested.

  9. When a Combat Party is given a Defend Location, then assigned to Attack Move against something, that Defend Location should persist, meaning even after you give them the Attack Move command, they return to guarding the Defend Location.

  10. A “Queue Missing Parts” button when clicking on a building under construction. Sometimes, when crafting the parts for my buildings, many crafting requests get lost, or deleted (by my ignorant self). It would be very helpful to be able to queue all missing parts to all appropriate crafters of an unfinished building.

  11. This one might be a bit hefty for a quality of life, but the ability to prioritize some tasks over others would be very nice. I find myself waiting days for my workers to go loot something from a conquered goblin camp, if they ever loot it at all, or for them to go harvest that tree I ordered them to.

  12. A “Call All Merchants” button that calls merchants to every one of your open Market Stalls.

  13. It would be fun if in the Journal tab in your inventory screen there was an option for you to take down notes in a “book” ingame. I have found myself either bringing out a notepad or opening the notepad application on my computer to write down plans for expansion, what items are needed to complete building, or other miscellaneous objectives.

What do you guys think? I, for one, have found this game to be incredibly addicting to play. Stonehearth has some of the best potential in a game I have ever seen, while still providing WAY MORE than enough content right now to keep one interested. I am hugely looking forward to the progression of this game in the future and am excited to participate along the way.

1 Like
2

6 - was available at some point, then got scrapped from the game. I suppose it would not be extremely hard to do that again (especially considering building will undergo a huge rework anyway).

A useful thing, yes. I, too, was sad after it got removed.

1 Like
3

Did you really mean to reply to #1? That doesn’t quite seem to fit with your comment, so I’m wondering if Markdown changed your number to the start of a list.

4

Yeah, that’s some messed up Markdown. I was talking about building edits, 6.

5

While I understand the frustration of getting a trait that doesn’t go well with the stat roll for #5, I think it should remain in place as is. Most people have a passion for something yet suck at that something. Passion doesn’t equate to being good at whatever that passion is.

Again, I understand the frustration, I just don’t see eye to eye with it. Furthermore, there are quite a few of us (I assume) that play with whatever rolls we get at the start.

I think the better answer is, if you don’t like the rolls for your hearthlings, why not just let the player choose the stat and trait rolls.

As for #11, I don’t know how they would implement this. I think that the native A.I. programming should take this into account without needing to prioritize manually. For instance, if you give the hearthling a few tasks, get wood, mine, and harvest berries for food, food should always take priority. Without it, you die. However, if they could take into account the stockpiles of food that you already have but notices that you only have 10 wood logs left, that would become the priority.

Building instantly takes priority for hearthlings, but the resources for making that building don’t seem to as high on the list. It stalls building and by extension, everything else. That’s why it’s better to manage the hearthlings with a few small tasks that all lead to the bigger vision.

I completely agree with 6, especially when the said item hasn’t even been pulled from a stockpile or storage. Moving a lantern shouldn’t be as large of a hassle as it is.

I agree with #9 also.

I would like to add something to your list. I would like to see dressers actually used as storage. Even if it was just armor (Worker’s Outfit, etc.). A dresser is a storage, right?

6

One other thing I would like to add to your list, can be get a “Patrol” for footmen. Set location one, set location two, done. Maybe that way they can patrol the streets and gates to the town instead of a farm where nothing attacks you.

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