@Brackhar @sdee these prototypes are amazing! I love the idea of connected biomes, but maybe they could connect smartly like the desert is not next to the tundra. Also I think the basic crafter class talismans should stay craftable forcing the player to focus on their town at the start I.e. Carpenter, mason, farmer, blacksmith. And some talismans you would have to venture out for like the engineer and magma smith. Creating a true hybrid with the current and your prototype in order to incorporate adventure but not till mid to late game. Also dungeons would be a cool idea that you could find in the fog of war. Lastly I love the idea of a civ 6 fog of war, you guys really have blown me away with this desktop Tuesday. Keeps up the great work!
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Woohoo, THIS is the sort of DT that gets me the most excited â sure it may be all theory and guessing, but itâs starting to fill in the dots between the Stonehearth we have now and the one we want to have by the end of things.
I agree with the notion that the FoW is a positive addition to the game, but @Brackharâs comment about being able to get the camera down to hearthling level gave me two ideas. The first is simple, and relates directly to the FoW â what if it was literal fog? The game could render chunks of the map as a big block of billowy, dark fog, with the artistic representation of whatâs inside sketched over the top. Instead of a static hand-drawn map, it would be more like an animated scene. Or the fog could be pale and the representations could be shadowy, so it looks like a magic lantern/shadow puppet show!
The second idea is a little more complicated, and a lot more radical, but given what weâve seen from the footman-led exploration I think itâs worth a further look: what about bringing the player directly into the game with their own hearthling avatar?
Weâve had similar suggestions before, I think, but what Iâm proposing is not just a âwalk around and explore the town through your own eyesâ feature, itâs about fundamentally changing the game loop away from a âhands-off ant farmâ to making it literally your town â you play as the mayor, you have a physical presence and can take part in activities, and you have direct control over your own actions so if something really needs doing you can take care of it yourself.
Of course, making the player an active protagonist for the whole game would ruin the effect youâre going for, so what I suggest is to create a couple of toggle-able modes â effectively, first-person mode and birdsâ eye/leader mode. Leader mode would be the current mode, and when in this mode the playerâs avatar goes inactive and sits either at the town flag or some other appropriate location, representing the mayor being locked in their office. At the start of the game (right after placing the marker), there would be a short embarkation/travelling cutscene, and the party spawns at the marker around you. The game immediately zooms out to leadership mode, allowing you to give initial orders and get the ball rolling, but after a couple of minutes youâd get a pop-up notification to the effect of âwell donât just stand around watching, pitch in a little!â coming from a random town member, which encourages the player to switch into first-person mode. They can choose to do so or stay in leadership mode (there would be a suitable line given to the hearthlings for either choice), but I reckon 90% of new players would choose the option to help out so thatâs a great tutorial/introduction to the mode.
In first-person mode, the player clicks around the screen to move, and right-clicking on an item will open its GUI as though it were selected in leader mode. However, right-clicking a speech bubble/flag (e.g. the ones which pop up above tasks, or a patrol flag) will open up a GUI box with the option to take on that task, or leave it for someone else. If the player takes on that task, their avatar attempts to perform it. In this situation, the playerâs avatar doesnât need to worry about being of the appropriate class; but they also donât get any class bonuses â so itâs always better to delegate a dedicated professional to the job wherever possible, the player taking on a job themself is meant for emergencies and the very early game. Itâs generally much more productive for them to be leading the other hearthlings in third-person mode.
Of course, in first-person mode the player is able to explore their surroundings. However, itâs risky to do so beyond the early game, since if the playerâs avatar falls the town is now leaderless! There are a couple of ways to deal with that situation â perhaps another hearthling is voted into the position, perhaps a new leader arrives after a day has passed, in hard mode it might even mean Game Over⌠but the point is that the player should not be relying on their avatar to do the bulk of exploring, and they should avoid fighting with their avatar whenever they can. However, in the very early game it allows the player to delegate some tasks and then head off exploring while the tasks are completed, and it would definitely build up the narrative and suspense!
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Hi Zilla, yes I know you and remember you 
it is nice to see you again
From me too 
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Loved this DT! 
I hope to see many more prototypes (with controversial placeholders 
).
A lot of people have suggested having a scout and almost as many have said that a scout would be mostly useless later in the game, which I agree with. However, if instead we have a ranger (or survivalist or whatever you want to call it) it could become a very useful and versatile character.
Iâm thinking they could be equipped with a hunters bow, a hatchet and rope with a grappling hook.
When theyâre not out on adventures they can serve as hunters. The common, small critters that the trapper traps can be hard to hit and run away when you miss, so the ranger is less effective. They may however shoot larger animals that are more rare but give more resources.
When away from town they hunt to get food for the day and might set a trap or two before going to sleep. They can also pick berries, mushrooms and so on. Maybe the more experienced they are the less likely they are to pick something poisonous.
The hatchet can be used as a crude trappers knife. They can also use it to hit a tree a couple of times to get a log so that they can make a camp fire.
The rope can be set up as a temporary ladder. Makes more sense than building ladders everywhere and also, if the ladder is not removed then it opens up paths for enemies. The rope stays in place as long as the ranger is close to the top or bottom, so others may use it as well.
They could also have the ability to go stealth and/or hide in bushes and treetops, to hunt, avoid enemies or serve as a lookout.
They should have no problem with sleeping on the ground, be faster than others on rough terrain and they should have plenty of stamina (if there ever is such a thing, donât know if there is now).
In combat they prefer to use the bow, but makes less damage than archers. In melee they use the hatchet. It would be damn cool if they could use the grappling hook in combat as well, to drag an enemy out of place and temporarily stun them.
When sending a group far away to deal with a threat you should bring at least one ranger to provide food and a decent camp. Without it the others will be exhausted after the first night. If combat units are limited to marching as long as there are no enemies nearby (which makes sense considering heavy armor and weapons) then they will often need to make camp at least once, even if the map isnât huge.
There is a risk of combat units getting stuck on a cliff if the ranger dies. Donât know if you need a fancy solution to it or if you just turn them into workers so they can build ladders or mine out stairs.
Play styles and difficulty
How about instead of the current way to select difficulty that (as far as I know) mostly just affect the amount of enemies, you instead choose what kind of people is in your group. Builders, conquerors, explorer, or a combination. The game then adapts it challenges. If itâs not a group of explorers then the game wonât expect you to explore. If they arenât conquerors then thereâs probably only minor threats around. If they arenât builders then thereâs less emphasis on building something nice so that you can instead focus on building defenses, or maybe nothing at all if they are just explorers.
The difficulty is a separate setting. Easy, normal and hard. It gets harder for builders to find resources and traders have higher prices and pay less. Conqueror face more enemies. Explorers find more difficult encounters.
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A interesting case. An example that almost instantly comes to mind is cutscenes from Warcraft 3. You can âpushâ the camera closer to the ground at any time but itâs not useful for playing. In cutscenes, though, it is used quite often.
As far as I remember the WorldEdit, there was a tunable setting for âcutoff fogâ for cuscenes. It left some area around the camera clear, but from a certain point the surroundings were blurred, as you can see in this video. Itâs a rather primitive but quite resource-efficient way to do it. It was 15 years ago - since then the computers made quite a progress, so now they should handle something more intricate. The general idea, though, can be visualized as something like this.
Yep, like this. Just wanted to give some pictures in addition to words.
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Yessss! Itd be such a cool tool for modders to use!
I was totally thinking about this too. If we beef up the scout into a âNavigatorâ class could serve multiple purposes:
- To literally navigate the environment
- Engage in diplomacy with enemy factions as a non-combat solution to certain situations
- Guide exploring parties through instanced adventures like a dungeon crawl.
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I think this would be a great addition, a reason to scout regularly.
This would also be interesting, because I could see this instead of the poison killing hearthlings, make them more hungry or unable to eat for a few days so you would have to keep an eye on them.
maybe for about 4 days or so, they should definitely have some range debuffs
all in all I like these ideas, but I am not sure putting them all into one class is a good idea. maybe find a way to split some tasks to another class. a class that needs to do everything all at once and yet can only do one thing at a time, as it turns out, is not very helpful
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Exciting! Itâs always cool to see ideas evolve, even if theyâre suppose to be prototypes.
I have an idea for the talismans though!
This idea was something i was considering for the Mythical Creatures mod but i suppose itâd be good to get it out there for the team at this occasion
The idea was sorta like a trasure-hunt in a narrative way, the idea was like this :
Scinario : A NPC fall sick from a⌠Snake Bite! Oh no! Itâs a special snake and only medici from a mandragora can cure it!
You are tasked with finding a mandragora that spawned somewhere in the world and to kill it and retrieve the herbs to make a cure!
If the player succeeds the NPC lives! And he/she will gift the playerâs town with a âSpecialâ item!
For the modâs sake this would be something magical but for the game the Quest would be anything that suites or is randomly generated, and the reward can be⌠say⌠a recipe for a Talisman!
This will make each new talisman (or recipe for it) not be pre-located, and be randomly placed and not brodcasted to the player from the very beginning with some odd icons withing the FoW (maybe they appear/spawn after the quest is given or isnât there at-all, so the player has to guess, or itâs within the explored area givne that itâs wide enough)
What this does mean though is that the carpenter/potter and footmen have to be given from the start(or at-least one footmen), and since quests might be far in between it may encourage givng the player a recipe instead of a single talisman, but this also means the recipes/talismans can be obtained without having to risk a footman since the player can easily tell if the objective requires combat or not (also meaning that there can be quests that donât requre combat)
This can also be done in alongisde the âchanging environmentâ since quest can be a consequence or the reason of said change, so there can be some context to the change and the quest
This doensât mean pre-locatd treasures canât be a thing of-course! They can be good friends! âŚmaybe
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You need to be very careful as this is crossing several gameplay concepts such as building, logistics, combat and exploration. Different players are going to enjoy these different concepts to various degrees, but if you force them to go through one to reach the other that will feel more like a restriction than content.
By requiring players to claim talismans from guarded chests you are forcing players who may be more interested in building and logistics (ie developing the supply and demand of the town) into combat. This is removing a gameplay choice from the player. Combat gameplay should reward combat related rewards. Examples may be unique armors or weapons, or possibly new combat class talismans.
This is not to say that crossing gameplay concepts should never be done, but it this seems like a rather extreme barrier from one to another. One way to do this is to provide rewards that can be obtained via two methods. Consequently this can cheapen the reward a little, like when a players is rewarded with something theyâve already gotten.
Exploration is a little different, however, as it generally requires other gameplay concepts in order to provide challenge, however combat should not be the only one used. Implement restrictive terrain that requires either new buildings or production of certain materials to overcome.
For example, to expand on exploring underground, implement a miner class that requires a pick axe. Make it so they require higher levels to dig through different materials. Maybe the pick axes break so you have to maintain a supply of them to continue. Another, simpler example, require bridges to cross rivers.
Also, exploration should provide the opportunity to expand as a potential reward. Maybe allow claiming of remote buildings.
One last thing, while Iâve given several restrictions here, itâs always fun when a game somehow manages to work itâs way around such pitfalls. If you find a way to make exploration challenging in itâs own right, without the use of other pre-existing mechanics, that would be pretty cool.
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Iâd hate it if Stonehearth permanently went in this direction, but I do kind of want this as a mod. Whateverâs in the final game definitely needs to not take up as much of the focus. But right now part of me really wants to play this version for a bit.
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agreed.
I canât wait for actual rare ores and a faster way to mine stone and dirt.
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Iâm glad @sdee directly brings this up in the video. She specifically says she doesnât want to pull us away from building our settlement towards the end of the video.
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An older game, Maelstrom, had the option to play the game from the RTS camera that it was meant to be played from, but you could then go into first-person view and play the map from an FPS standpoint of your commander; essentially fighting along side your troops if wanted.
Bringing that to StonehearthâŚI personally am going to say no. I donât see a real point to it. What do you really get from seeing your buildings from the point of your 'lings? Short of adding mini-games to the game with âhelping outâ, I donât see this benefitting at all.
I remember youâŚvaguely. At least your name sounds familiar. Sorry I canât pinpoint more to your name.
Similiar to this post.
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It was also present in Dungeon Keeper, in the form of âPossessionâ spell, where you could âenterâ any of your creatures and fight alongside them. This feature is also present in DK2 and War for the Overworld. I, hovewer, too, am hesitant to bring that to Stonehearth. FPS combat in my opinion is not Stonehearthâs style. There is hardly an explanation for that lore-wise (unlike Dungeon Keeper where you were an unseen but omnipresent Keeper with few physical manifestations but vast psychic powers).
It would probably speak to me if it came down to FPS exploration⌠but then again, we already have Terraria, Starbound and Minecraft. We can always play them if we want that experience.
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How do you choose the place to start your settlement if thereâs Fog of War?
Currently, you just kinda look around for a nice place to start because the map was revealed, but with Fog of War does that mean you donât get to choose a starting location and just get randomly spawned in? That would really suck for those who have a specific play style and get set into a place that negates their ability to do certain things like dig into the side of a hillâŚ
Maybe the Hearthlings get spawned in, but instead of having a placed flag, you have a flag carrier get x amount of time to look around and find a good starting area. I donât know how well that would work or how much work it would take though since I just enjoy playing the game and following the updates. Maybe thereâs a better way to have a settlement placed with Fog of War?
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an easy way to solve this is have the player spawn at one of the edges of the map, of their own choosing, they would still know where general landmarks are, but not specifics
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Thatâs why itâs a fairly radical suggestion â Iâm not talking about just the FPS camera, Iâm talking about pivoting the entire game slightly so that instead of being a disembodied god-like controller, the player is represented/embodied in the game. So when the hearthlings or some wandering NPC wants to address you with a question, they refer to you with the character name you set during avatar creation (which would be a sub-stage within the embarkation screen), when thereâs a food shortage youâd find out because nobody brought you dinner for a couple of days in a row (of course, if youâre in leadership mode you could still spot the shortage for yourself before that point, but if youâre focussing somewhere else then the hunger pangs will interrupt your focus), when in FPS mode the player can outright talk to the hearthlings â it would be like the dialogue options in an RPG, rather than a dynamic conversation, but youâd still get the chance to hear directly what the hearthlings are feeling and give them advice or orders to deal with that, or just encourage them and try to make them feel better.
Terraria, Starbound and Minecraft have all tried to create the feeling of being included in a town, but most of the time the NPCs seemingly have their own lives unrelated to yours and you just go around the world playing either the murder-hobo or the benevolent monument constructor who occasionally buys supplies/equipment. The Minecraft mod Millenaire probably comes closest to what Iâm suggesting here, but again thereâs no reason beyond personal interest to stick with a particular village in that mod.
What Iâm imagining and suggesting is to make the game explicitly revolve around the player rather than the group of hearthlings they control. The playerâs character has to rely on the hearthlings for help to survive and thrive, just like theyâre forced to rely on the player currently. So itâs not meant to be an opt-in, opt-out activity you take up to kill time or to get an edge on the early-game difficulty curve; it would be a core gameplay loop â you build the town up so your life is more comfortable, now that you donât have to focus so much on survival (someone brings you meals in your house, you have guards patrolling the town, etc.) you can spend more and more time focussing on the future rather than the present. I donât think the survival elements should overpower the existing gameplay, but it would be a strong encouragement to players to âtake care of businessâ correctly â itâs not just some hearthlings at stake anymore, this is now the playerâs story and theyâre right down there in the thick of it.
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Thatâs precisely why I am against it. Donât get me wrong. Iâm not saying what you suggest is âbadâ. I just donât like it 
You see, I donât view my folks as âjust some hearthlingsâ. Instead of associating myself with a certain individual, or a disembodied âgodlike entityâ, as you suggested, I associate myself with the collective as a whole - and with each and every one part of it, all at once. Itâs like writing a book. You donât write it about a single person, unless itâs Robinson Crusoe. You write it about a bunch of characters, moving, thinking, interacting with each other. In a sense, you are the town you build. Having a single avatar strictly defined in time and space for me means sticking to a very⌠confined perspective.
And Iâm not talking about the Field of View here.
You already kinda can do it. Nothing stops you from placing flag, then moving it when you find a more suitable place. And âlimited timeâ has form of an âembarking happiness bonusâ - for some time your hearthlings are not bothered by sleeping on the ground that much (maybe it needs some duration tweaking if the fog is to be implemented). Still, visually a concept of a âflag bearerâ is attractive, but I would prefer the whole group of hearthlings with it at the very start - just like a âSettlerâ unit in Civilization. âWeâre a bunch of nomads on the moveâ, then âItâs a cool place, we like itâ. Some time to wander, look for a better place⌠which leads to
That depends on how the fog is implemented. If it is, as some suggested, a âblurred imageâ, a sketch that gets more details as you come close, then it may not be simply a black screen at the start. When we choose part of the map for settling on map screen, we see the ârough sketchâ - might as well translate it to the game itself. Like itâs not a black screen at the beginning, itâs âsomewhere here should be mountainsâ and âsomewhere here should be a lakeâ. Itâs like if a passing caravan or a traveller described it to us, inspired a group of hearthlings to grab their tools and find the place theyâve never seen with their own eyes.
So in the end there is this hill we were aiming at digging in. Itâs just we donât know his exact shape or size on the very start - we discover it after we actually get to it on the map.
How about that?
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I canât love this idea more!!!
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