Waterloo 3D

[Waterloo3D]

Zak and others, I thank you again for the detailed review and your continued support.

I am talking to Zakblood through other channels and will try to fix the specific issues that he might be experiencing. I am also posting my response to the points that he raised in the detailed review above.

Text in italics are Zakblood's comments. My response is in normal text.

So here it goes:

********
well i said i would post a opinion and here it is,

early it is and still work to do, so taking all this in, it's somewhat jerky atm with only 8 lines in play,


We had two choices : work on a large demo and release before Kickstarter or release several mini demos and work towards a much refined final demo before Kickstarter. We chose the second route because we follow the Lean SW model at Plus Infinity Studios. This means design a small prototype that works and present to the players and keep improving using the feedback. Yes, there are only 8 battalions in mini demo 1. And we will have several more units in the next mini demo, hopefully cavalry and artillery units too




 

[Waterloo3D]

the colours are washed out and somewhat bleached looking and the animation is quite jerky to say the least, not fluid and sounds and looks are very basic i'm sorry to say, smokes ok but with being all white, it looks samey, no flashes of red from the musket fire, not black smoke which filters to grey before becoming white

The musket flames are definitely there. See below. We will perhaps tune it better so that flames become a bit more prominent. And yes, smoke is still WIP.

[Waterloo3D]

noises in game, chat and general battle sounds, repetitive and soon i would have muted it, as no options to make louder or less and tbh didn't sound quite right either, as the chat, the repetitive nature of the commands given were as loud as the musket firing, the voices felt forced and not at all like the units or nations of the time, for me, being the french etc, i would have liked to hear french and something different, even if it was 2 voices and not just one it would have been something, but no all the same, change sides, and it's the same, so yes that still is WIP


In the next mini demo we will provide options for lowering the game music and the voice commands. BTW in this mini demo we deliberately let the multiple voice commands play simultaneously to simulate the chaotic nature of 8 battalions engaging each other. But if it too intrusive we can code it such that voice commands will be played only for the selected battalion.

[Waterloo3D]

the smoke look like small circles which while it masks the other side, the colours all wrong imo

the whole colours used from grass to the uniforms seems to vibrant and gory in nature and not natural at all, comparing these to the films of the battles, the other games of the type and paintings from the day, it looks like a computer game, too unreal but looks, to bright by nature and just not right at all for me.


This is a deliberate decision we took on the art direction. It is certainly a matter of taste. We can provide a setting where the shaders are toned down a bit for a more “realistic” lighting and colouring.

[Waterloo3D]

the tree's are too still and not so well done, eg i've seen better, which is about the same for everything, WIP and early, so plenty of room for improvements, which will come with time, so not a negative post or comment for the sake of it, just a honest opinion from one users and tester.

Trees are very WIP. We haven’t paid much attention to them but will incorporate better quality models soon.

[Waterloo3D]

no ability to move the map or zoom in or out once paused, which is something which everyone would want, RTS, hate the word tbh, but RTS without an ability to pause and give commands, alter zooms and places on the map, are just that, a second rate and none war game RTS, and for me, unplayable, uncontrollable and something i'd not buy, which matters little on the grand scale of things, as i buy little now days and play even less and just test, but if a honest opinion of one who did play matters, this is something i'd like to see alter and the direction moved to, movable maps once paused, minor is nature, but regarding command and control wise, and major point imo.

In this mini demo the players do not have the ability to give commands once paused. We are talking about just 4 battalions Vs 4 enemy battalions. Upcoming mini demos will have the ability to pause the game, move the camera around and certainly give orders. This control mode in mini demo 1 is definitely not the final one. 

[Waterloo3D]

map delay after unpaused, too long, far too long, with no ability to pause and jump straight back into play, the amount of time the game is and will be paused, the time and delay is for me too long as it is, eg to test, pause the game, and then un pause and press at the same time, any key to move the map in any direction and count how long it takes for the map to then move once un paused, it should be instant, not after a second or 2 or longer.


I did not quite understand this part. Let us take this offline through Discord or Skype.

[Waterloo3D]

zooming in and out is worse, the time it takes to do it, is like in slowmode, again, it should be instant.

Zoom in and zoom out speed is programmable but as yet not controllable by the player. I thought the zoom in / zoom out speed was OK on my test PC. But if it is too sluggish on yours we need to dig deeper. Again a case for offline discussion.

[Waterloo3D]

while on the subject of maps, it only moves in 4 directions, not 8 and will no ability to do top down view? aerial view? or spin the map completely? hope these are coming in a later version, or again lack of control, will mean a poorer UI not a better one.


In mini demo 1, camera angles are restricted. But the TOP DOWN camera mode is a definite yes in later mini demos.

[Waterloo3D]

loading time, quiting time, atm it's not optimized and takes far too long, on a SDD with a good pc, this again should be instant, something to aim for, hope it all helps and wasn't too negative, as positive negativity is something i am for in my replies and testing.

The game is far, far from being optimised as of now. But we will keep an eye on the loading and closing times.

[Asid]

the smoke look like small circles which while it masks the other side, the colours all wrong imo

the whole colours used from grass to the uniforms seems to vibrant and gory in nature and not natural at all, comparing these to the films of the battles, the other games of the type and paintings from the day, it looks like a computer game, too unreal but looks, to bright by nature and just not right at all for me.


This is a deliberate decision we took on the art direction. It is certainly a matter of taste. We can provide a setting where the shaders are toned down a bit for a more “realistic” lighting and colouring.

I understand that this is a wip and it is important and beneficial to get feedback early on

Smoke is very important to a game like this so getting it correct should be high on the list.


As for colours. Allowing the option for colour adjustment is a good idea. That period is well known for its divers and richly coloured uniforms.

As for trees...Static trees are fine in my opinion. Most games that have moving trees look odd as the trees and grass are always moving too fast

Regards

[Waterloo3D]

clicking on a given unit and then moving the mouse wheel backwards and forwards alters the angle on which is displays the unit selected, but the speed it does it at and the FPS is so low it makes you feel somewhat sick looking at it after a few times, this is with 4 units on both sides, on a larger battlefield it would be anyone's guess how the engine would work, as it is atm, it seems to really struggle with the limited amounts of units in play, which begs me to understand how the game engine will do a larger battle, so not so confidant as i was before seeing this, for me this is a poor demonstration of what if could be like and not a good one or advert either and imo should have been done behind closed doors and not open to the public if your looking for support from them.

Hmmm.. I don’t have any speed issues while going back and forth after clicking a unit. But let us sort this out offline.

[Waterloo3D]

on the part of the UI, the screen layout and buttons used seem good and everything you wish for is there, just some also will wish for the screen to be sizable and also hidden if possible if that users wishes it etc.


it's not too small to be unusable on higher DPI users with higher than my default 1920x1080 test pc used, but needs also to be scale-able for those with higher from day one, not a after thought once released, again imo.

Yes, definitely. But there are several other high priority issues.

[Waterloo3D]

my test pc spec, one of a few i own, with different parts in them for different setups are as follows,

Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0, Build 17763) (17763.rs5_release.180914-1434) (clean install, not an upgrade from previous windows 10 or older versions)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2700K CPU @ 4.50GHz (8 CPUs), ~ 4.5GHz
                   Memory: 16384MB RAM
User DPI Setting: 120 DPI (125 percent)
       System DPI Setting: 144 DPI (150 percent)

none standard DPI used to suit my 32" LED TV - monitor

Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960
Display Memory: 12221 MB
    Dedicated Memory: 4053 MB
       Shared Memory: 8168 MB
        Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)

driver version 418.81-desktop-win10-64bit-international-whql dated 4th of Feb 2019

Model: ADATA SP900 SDD and a combo drive for data

2 TB FireCuda Gaming SSHD 2.5 Inch Internal Solid State Hybrid Drive

Realtek High Definition Audio onboard, with latest windows 10 drivers 2018 etc


log file is rather large as well, so feedback and data from it will have to be compressed and zipped as it's 7.6mb

looking at the logs, may give you some reasons to why it was so jerky on my pc, as tbh it's full of errors in the code for one reason or notm


LogWindows: Failed to load 'aqProf.dll' (GetLastError=126)
LogWindows: File 'aqProf.dll' does not exist
LogWindows: Failed to load 'VtuneApi.dll' (GetLastError=126)
LogWindows: File 'VtuneApi.dll' does not exist
LogWindows: Failed to load 'VtuneApi32e.dll' (GetLastError=126)
LogWindows: File 'VtuneApi32e.dll' does not exist
LogPlatformFile: Not using cached read wrapper


[2019.02.07-10.50.12:065][ 29]LogAnimation: Warning: Currently in Animation Blueprint mode. Please change AnimationMode to Use Animation Asset

to load just a few

with timing and loading issues also pointed out in there

LogLoad: Took 12.879192 seconds to LoadMap

it's the shut down and after pause one that imo needs looking into, as that takes for ever

This is good info about a potentially serious issue. We are looking into this.

[Waterloo3D]

altering the stance of any units, makes the game crawl to a halt and then afterwards any command given, is on a time delay, eg no matter what you press, it doesn't happen, move map right or left, nope

alter stance, nope, pause or exit, again nope, it seems any single command done, reflects in a time delay of any kind of key board or mouse input after the event making it unplayable, unusable and tbh not a demo i'd say is of much use to shine the merits of a new and up coming game and or engine

When you say “altering the stance” do you mean change the formation from the default to something else? Mini demo 1 supports only LINE formation which is the default formation that the units are being spawned in. The other formation buttons should not even work. If they do on your PC that is an issue and we need to fix it. We will discuss this offline.