Actually, I very much like this idea.
It can also be a good “previous” class for an archer. Makes more sense than promote an archer from a footman.
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While I like the suspense of the small area that is revealed, I can see it getting old. I would rather have instances where I can take advantage of the environment to increase my chances so that some strategy is involved.
The distance a hearthling can see into the fog of war should definitely be affected by elevation and time of day. Scouting would be best done during the day and near a cliff.
Instead of seeing in a flat circle, make it more of a cone angled away from the hearthling. So if the cones angle is say 60 degrees downward then doubling your height should give a good boost.
Alternatively, for things like trees and mountains I think it should be more based on line of sight. So for anything within the hearthlings view angle it will be revealed on the map as well. So the entrance to a forest, only the front line of trees will no longer be within the fog. This will mainly be dependent on the direction the hearthling is facing or turning their head. This is the zombie game approach:
pay attention to the directional line of sight and how it affects gameplay
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Wow! Surrounding terrain that randomizes after 6 ingame days? That’s an awesome idea. Keeps infinite resources available as well as makes for a very unique experience.
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I remember seeing a game sometime ago in which the fog of war was an artistic representation (Allie’s map) of what was hidden. Aproximate but not exact. If you saw a forest and a mountain you knew they were there, but they could be farther or closer or bigger or smaller than what the “artistic” fog of war lead you to believe.
The problem with a scout class, as someone mentioned, is that after a certain point in the game it becames useless. We would need a “career exit” for it. I think they could be a good basic class for the archer instead of the footman. I never liked the idead of melee fighters becoming ranged all of a sudden. We would also need a way to train new scouts once the big exploring is over or we would not be able to recruit new archers.
As for the talismans. This was a prototipe, nothing is decided yet. But I think The settlement should be allowed to craft talismans for a series of basic classes. These “basic classes” could be different from kingdom to kingdom. Talismans for advanced classes would need to be found, but at least if you loose a footman or scout you wouldn’t need to restart.
The same could be applied to crops and similar things. When you start you get to plant one or more basic crops. As your farmer levels he can plant new things but you need to find some in order to start planting them.
I’m not fond of enemies being just random either. I’m with @PyreStarite in this. I prefer them to be more interesant. To have a reason to be there like a dungeon, cave, crypt… If two or more goblin camps are present there could be patrols moving betwen them. And, in the late game, to be a more serious threat to you city, although less frequent. like a siege force or an undead invasion.
Have fun, Kyth.
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I don’t play games like this for permanent never ending exploration, I play them to focus on building up a town, a static place that changes and grows based on my choices. I already don’t like the way classes are locked in the game. The progression sort of works for the europeans, but it’s terrible and unfun having carpenters (your only supply of wooden swords, hoes and other very basic tools) being late game.
People like to play games like these different ways. Some people like to explore the map and fight things, some people want to focus on defenses and let the danger come to them. By spreading job upgrades over the map it forces people to play a certain way, it limits options and forces a playstyle. And I know this game isn’t supposed to be “realistic” but the talisman system doesn’t make any sense, it doesn’t immerse me in the world, it doesn’t seem to fit what is, at its core, a town building game.
The map constantly changing, that’s another immersion-destroyer and another very forced idea. I like having known and familiar terrain, this isn’t a game about exploring it’s a game about settling down, my exploration was at the map creation screen. My people are done exploring on a grand scale, they’ve found the place they are looking for.
How would I addresses these issues though?
Well first of all I’d accept that this isn’t an exploration focused game, or at least not as part of an never ending “loop” in the gameplay. Exploration could be something you’d slowly do over time but once your map is explored, it’s explored. Have increasingly difficult threats the farther from town to slightly gate exploration, but there’s no need to come up with some silly magical map changing system to make it a permanent never ending thing. Fully exploring the map could end up taking as long as fully developing your economy.
I like the idea of rewarding every style of play, from a turtle to an aggressive adventurer. The problem with talismans and gated tools is a core problem with the tool system. I think the entire tool tree should be much more flat, but with only crude versions of those tools easily made. For instance the desert people could have access to a carpenter early on by the mason building a “stone saw”. Crude versions of tools would work slow or even use resources less effectively. But just like soldiers upgrading their weapons, crafter tools could also upgrade over time to allow much more efficient and effective crafting. Exploration comes in because you could find higher level versions of these tools out in the world. Do you sit at home using your terrible slow stone saw until you build your skills and economy up to the point where you can produce a steel saw, or do you go take on that goblin camp and try to get the steel saw early? Now we have a meaningful choice. And that’s what makes games like these interesting, the choices we make.
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Great video, I really like that prototype with the steep mountains and multiple biomes in one world as well. Excited for the future! 
Also, you say A23 is going to focus on “crafting.” Any specifics? Isn’t there a lot of work done on crafting already?
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What attracted me to StoneHearth originally was the potential for building, not character development, nor exploration, nor combat. I’d be disappointed if the building is forcibly eclipsed by other game styles.
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It is a mod you can use 
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I also like the idea of basic tools that can do one specific thing and do not require a permanent class choice.
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So earlier every was talking about scouts, perhaps in the early game scouts, well, scout. But in the mid to late game they switch over to lookouts. Maybe the game will only alert the player to monsters when they get in a hearthling’s line of sight, so lookouts would be on high towers on the outskirts of town. It could make scouts an important unit throughout the game.
Side note: scouts could be a combination of ranged and melee, deferring to range until an enemy is too close then switching. (It’d make the scouts the promotion to archers instead of footmen)
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I’d like to suggest looking at the Civilization or Civ Revolution exploration mechanic. I certainly wouldn’t like having to find an item to make it, unless it was special. However, it would be awesome to find ruins and get an iron sword before I could make one or a lost Hearthling to add to my population. Special blueprints, money, precious materials - all those kinds of thing would be great.
I also seem to recall something about adventures being incorporated. How neat would it be to find a generated dungeon that you could send a party into? Maybe the town world would pause while you lead them through or you could switch back and forth - not sure what would work best for Stonehearth.
Definitely like this direction, though. But not to the point where it would hinder the community building aspect (which I think is how you are looking at it, too). Love the work, thank you for this game!
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I believe they were talking about seasonal changes or slight topography changes - landslides, river flooding the outskirts, that sort of thing. Not a mountain popping out of nowhere.
Though I may be wrong.
I don’t agree. While you can view Stonehearth as “smaller SimCity”, I’d rather prefer not to. I believe it can be rewarding for both creative builders and daring explorers. If we look at Dungeon Keeper, one of the inspirations for SH, there was an “exploration” of sorts when you searched for the next gold seam. Or tried to find a map secret.
However I understand it may not be a thing for everyone. So how about that: make it an option. For example, the “unrevealed territory” fog is always there until you explore it, but “haven’t been there recently” fog is toggleable. This way you can research the map once, just as you like, then see the changes without having to scout constantly. Or another option, with “temporary” fog obscuring your vision but “constant” fog removed at the start of the map.
Agreed, there is this issue with Rayyas getting their carpenter late. I hope this imbalance will be addressed by the devs. Note, however, that Rayyas are trade-oriented, so they can obtain many things by using Iskender caravans.
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I think that each kingdom primary crafter should be able to make the talismans for the basic soldiers. The carpenter for the Ascendancy, potter for the Rayya and whoever for the Alliance (stonemason for example?). The Ascendancy needs a wooden sword for his footman, while the Rayya may need a ceramic axe (and alliance a stone axe?). As for the rest of the basic classes it depends on how different you want each kingdom gameplay experience to be.
Which talismans should be exploration and which ones craftable?
First, I have to say that I’m a builder too. I play to build, manage and I defend when attacked. If I get attacked too often it becomes a nuisance to me. I only explore when I’m building something big that takes a lot of time. To do something in the meantime I take some of the soldiers and wander around. That is probably the only time I leave town.
For me, talismans found in the map should be for special professions, like the magmasmith, geomancer or heroic tier 3 soldier classes. A nice bonus, but something that woundn’t break your progression if you didn’t have it. Other players may prefer to need to explore more.
Other things that could be found are blueprints or recipes for crafting and cooking, new potions, special turrets, decorations, stronger doors, different looking uniforms…
Example of a tier 3 heroic soldier: Standard-bearer. A Tier 3 Knight upgradable from a lvl 6 knight with a new talisman, Legendary standard. You can only have one. It gives bigger bonuses than the normal knight and with a bigger range. Losses the shield, replaced by the standard but can be equiped with a stronger and costly armor to compensate the lost defence. Armor craftable by smith lvl 6. If he falls in combat he drops the standard that can then be picked up by other soldier and brought back home or by the enemy causing a mayor debuff in all hearthlings. This would trigger a quest to recover it…
Have fun, Kyth.
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One way to satisfy different game play styles is to have different modes. This could be on top of the already existing modes. Each level of game difficulty could give fewer readily available jobs. Easy would give you practically all the jobs except the higher prestige levels. Normal would give you access to the farmer/trapper(thinking ahead for NA), soldier, carpenter/potter. Hard would give you the basic scout and carpenter/potter and you would have to find each one for ever member whom you want to be that class. Obviously a balance between fun/frustration needs to be struck here. Perhaps instead of entirely random placement you want to have lower tier ones closer to your camp.
I like the idea of animal dens, crypts etc defending the job talisman as well as “Bring the person here that I might bestow my gift of knowledge” sort of class-up. There’s risk, but that’s what save games are for.
Fog of War is great but I’d like to see lighting play a part. Perhaps placing lighting down would give a view radius. Right not it’s just pretty. I wouldn’t mind having enemies that will steal unattended lanterns. Goblins love their shinies and I hear entlings are rather annoyed when you make their cousin into a lamp. Rocklings of course will steal your stone lamps.
Looks good. I like the ideas!
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Yeah. Plus there also comes a point where the explorer has no where else to explore. Stay tuned.
For clarity, the purpose of the playtest was not to test finding talismans, the purpose was to have something players would want to explore to find, and talismans are the only thing that fits that bill cheaply and easily in the game right now. We learned a lot about what it means to make taslismans findable only, and some of those lessons we will take with us to when we start looking at redesigning the class hierarchy, but the implementation here is not intended to be representative of a decided direction for talismans.
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Hello Everyone.
It is I, Zilla, but with me being gone for long I doubt most of you remember little old me! Sadly, me being gone means I’ve missed out on meeting the new team members, and most of the new updates as well 
I do keep up to date by watching the Desktop Tuesdays on YouTube though, and this one really caught my eye. Mainly because I thought of ways that I believe could really improve this system, and make exploring awesome! I already love the idea of this system to promote exploring, but I feel a few tweaks to it could be made.
Exploring for Talisman: While I realize this was probably just for place holder to give people a reason to explore, it got me thinking. What if you did put the talismans for jobs in unmarked locations for the players to find? What if like choosing a supply type in the beginning of the game, where you can either have more food or gold, what if a new system about schematics were added?
These schematics would be for tools, like hoes, bows, swords, and more. Before you start a game, you would get a few schematic points, and you would then choose which schematics you would want to start off the game with. These schematics would be needed to craft the tools instead of having to find them, so then it removes the worry of not having enough footmen to build an army, because if you have the sword schematic with you, your carpenter can make more swords.
When players find the chests, they’ll open them up to not only find the talisman so they can upgrade one of their citizens, but they’ll also find the schematic for that specific talisman so they can make more of that class. This system would make it so while players at the beginning would have access to some basic tools, to progress farther into the game, like if they wanted a blacksmith, than they would have to
explore and find the blacksmith hammer schematics.
The locations for these schematics could also be interesting encounters. Sometimes they could be monsters guarding a chest, or sometimes it’s a trader willing to trade you the schematic and talisman for something. Maybe it’s a wrecked caravan surrounded by goblins. Having small encounters like that would really flesh out the world much more.
Fog of War: I really like the idea of clearing fog of war to explore more of the map. To make it prettier, I would take inspiration from Civilization VI’s fog of war on the map. How it looks like an actual map that hasn’t been discovered yet. With designs on it like sea monsters and compasses, to make it feel as if you’re continuously filling out this map for a atlas or something.
That’s all I got for now, but if I have more ideas I’ll definitely tell you all!
I hope everyone has a good day or night!
- Zilla
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Thanks to everyone for all the ideas!
One note! I think Richard has hopefully clarified this already but just in case you missed his comments above, I mention twice in the Desktop Tuesday that the talisman stuff is placeholder for other designs:
“If this worked, he reasoned, then in a final version of the system, there would be lots of items, not just talismans, that would require exploration to discover, and lots of kinds of challenges, not just combat, that would challenge you as you tried to collect them”
And:
As you do, please remember that everything in these prototypes was written to address two specific questions and was thrown away thereafter, that even gameplay things like the talismans and the changing loot are placeholders for more complex concepts
As we talk more and more about prototypes, please train your ear and brain to see the placeholder stuff for what it is, so that we can have a conversation about potential without getting stuck on the details of the placeholders. I fully expect us to be able to talk about abstractions together, but I suspect that fear of the internet not being able to engage at this level is why other game teams tend not to show their prototypes publically.
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I’m super invested in the idea of changing our vehicle for unlocking new items away from a “level to get recipe” model to a “find/buy/research a recipe” model. It would allow us a ton more flexibility design wise, and it’d also open up some cool spaces for things like rare recipes, one time use recipes, etc. No idea what this would look like in its final form as of yet, but directionally I think it’s very compelling.
This is one of my favorite fog of war visualizations too. One thing that I want to mention, since fog of war looks have come up a few times in the thread already, is that Stonehearth has a unique problem in that you can bring your camera down low enough that you can see the horizon line. I can’t really think of a game that has non-transparent fog of war that let you do this, and most common visualizations for fog of war fall over in this scenario.
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What a way to start the morning! Its been a while since a DT post had this intense feedback so fast 
I found it very interesting to watch the video and get a good look behind the curtain on what you are juggling with in development of concepts.
Looking forward to see what other great ideas you come up with.
Thanks 
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Hi all!
First off i been playing/testing this game in alpha for a very long time but i never gave any input nor taken any time on the forums to engage in the community chatter. I play around 3-4 matches of Stoneheart / day and got tons of lines on my notepad scribbled down with tactics on how and what to focus on early game/mid/late. - Fog of war will be a game changer and a game challenger! : Fantastic!
I like the idea Fog of War and the active scouting to keep up on whats happening around the town (even tho i rarely build a town, more of like scattered tiny houses around the map). However with that we need more ability to move the Hearthlings around since they suicide walk to a task and then back with very little interaction as it is now, perhaps it could work in the future - perhaps not. The only unit’s we have now is the footman/knight/archer, through the Move-Here flag placement.
The Talisman system; well even as a placeholder idea its not really what i liked when i viewed the video. You already have the Giant standing next to a chest, sure let him have a silverspoon recipie to be unlocked by blacksmith and utilized by the Maxed out Chef to craft the highly sought after Moules Marine. But going from x to get class item y just and then the ability to lose a heartling in early game …not so much but grife… and i like Hard Game modes.
I suggest you Flesh out your Idea of the Talisman System and let it sit on a shelf to ripen.
The Fog of War - Active Fog of War can go into live testing tomorrow imho.
Thanks for reading.
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