So, alright. This gonna have them suggestions, them feedbacks, them words. So… General discussion feels like the best place for it. Now, let’s start it off with most burning issue
The lack of “promised” features
I get it. I truly get it. The Team’s First game and all so it is hard to actually scope out the work needed to implement all you had planned for. To me, it’s not that much of a deal, I mean… what I recall, most of the promises are delivered. It’s been five long years and I bet the dev team has been in a rollercoaster during development. I bet few can’t even count the sleepless nights they had waste in order to get some bugstomping and/or feature implemented in time. Not to mention working on a same project too long is seen rather unfruitful from the industry standpoint
The game itself
So far, giving each unstable release a week or two of playing, I’ve come to treat Stonehearth as my “Lite Dwarf Fortress” where I can design pretty little houses and watch those cutesty lings go about their business. I do wish there was relationship statuses. Like friends, enemies and why not romantically involved (without features that would up the age rating, like children and whatever couples may or may not do in private bedrooms of course).
And for mid-to-late game, I kinda wanted to see hearthlings do more idly stuff, sometimes even skimping on work to do something else just to boost their own morale, but the appeal system shall suffice!
I frequently encounter one thing with the crafting, it seems to involve “shared resources” like leather or if you use multiple same-class crafters. Say, a blacksmith is about to craft a knight’s shield, getting the other materials and saving leather for last, but then carpenter goes to craft a chest, grabbing leather before blacksmith reaches it and the required wood. This leaves the blacksmith stuck on the job untill new leather is available, instead of doing some other crafting with materials available. Cancelling and requeuing the job clears that, but it can be little annoying when that happens.
The new building tool is quite powerful and the amount of scaffolding has reduced GREATLY, but still… there is one little thing in scaffolding, hearthlings occassionalyl get stuck in window frames that are 2-3 tiles high just because they don’t build a scaffolding by the holes. One another thing I want in room function is the ability to knock down a portion of wall. I like to build L-shaped rooms and sometimes I don’t want a wall blocking off the two parts. Sure, I can do it with wall and block tools, but for speedy construction… I wanna knock off a portion of walls.
The combat is alright, I do wish there were advanced classes for the basic ones and I also wish there was a need for herbalist once you get yourself a cleric. Infact, maybe cleric’s healing would be just temporary or could just heal X amount of health per hearthling. That however would mean after some combat time, cleric would become useless besides the auras, so maybe barrier spells and whatnot?
I know hunting is a new thing and so it will get some tweaking, but it is frustrating to get attack and notice your entire army is chasing a raccoon far away from the town. I bet it will be fixed that only archers or a new class (like that big game hunter) only hunts
The vikings can be tad hard to play due their combat class advancements and their late game acquisatal of carpentry, reducing you to hope for archer’s bows from trader deals or training an army from one archer at time 'till you get archer.
…Should give Raya’s children some time too, but since they are advertised as trading heavy, it sounds like too much RNG to survive as them.
Also, I do hope the three factions get their own weapon sets (mostly reskins), like instead of two handed sword, Nords get big freaking axe!
So, in the end, what I’m trying to say, that I may have had my own expectations about the game that might have been fully realized and I am just one of the many, but hey…
This game, while not perfect, is good fun and definitely gonna stay installed. Could’ve done much worse and definitely worth the price!
So, with the last stretch ahead for the team, I bet we’ll get the new features all polished up, some tweaks and edits there and here and boom… It’s done and so, in advance, I’ll give ya this:
Thanks, Radiant Entertainment and here’s hoping that someday in far future there’ll be Stonehearth 2: Electric Boogaloo: Bigger and Hearthier. Let your passion burn in new projects on the horizon!