BONFIRE: Testing ... only testing info here plz

[raknefne]

Aristobal: when checking your saved game, I noticed you had the Lumber Axe but also have done the TALKING AXE quest. Did you find 2 Lumber Axes (you give one to the Axe). Or does the quest not take the axe?
Did you get his 2nd quest...? You get THE STILL TALKING AXE quest after giving the Lumber axe, but ONLY if you talk to him again...

[aristobal]

Originally Posted by raknefne

Aristobal: when checking your saved game, I noticed you had the Lumber Axe but also have done the TALKING AXE quest. Did you find 2 Lumber Axes (you give one to the Axe). Or does the quest not take the axe?
Did you get his 2nd quest...? You get THE STILL TALKING AXE quest after giving the Lumber axe, but ONLY if you talk to him again...

One Axe I got from one of three brothers who sold ships and one I found somewhere. I complete first quest, and after you say I checked and yes I can get second quest to find 50 eggs.

[raknefne]

Originally Posted by aristobal

One Axe I got from one of three brothers who sold ships and one I found somewhere. I complete first quest, and after you say I checked and yes I can get second quest to find 50 eggs.

You have been lucky. It is a random level 1 item you get from the 3 brothers in the starting town. I'll be looking at some of the bugs today. The testing you all are doing are very helpful, Terroin and I tend to do the same over and over, for instance I never sailed to the edge in the left side of the starting map, so we never found the crash bug there, as Erkihlmahl described.

[Xev]

I've not finished Bonfire atm but will tell what I found so far:

Class: Apprentice
- clicking at highscores (fresh installation of KB/Bonfire) -> CRASH
- no crash if any old highscore exists

1st try
Game Type: End game when level 20
- talked to every NPC, collected all chests, got some experience. After winning 1st combat -> Congratulation! You have won the game! End Screen!
- Wow! That was the fastest KB Run I ever had

2st try
Game Type: Endless
Difficulty: Impossible
Companion: Ancient Oak
- Only 1 spell (Lightning Ball). But it works! Lightning Ball together with Ice Wall from rage skills is a good working combo, not overpowered, not too weak, I couldn't believe it. More than this single spell would be too much.
- I overlooked this hint with sawmill and had great problems to get more wood piles. Without sawmill no chance to finish Bonfire.
- The key to play with traps is to build up Trapper award. But the requirements for Trapper are too high, Bonfire has lesser enemies than vanilla.
- We have to live with very low leadership but it's okay. The start is very very hard but this low-leadership-system works!
- The only rage skill in the beginning phase is Ice Wall, it's good enough after learning how to use it well. Later I got Round attack. With having this 2 rage skills the game balance is excellent.
- Main castle must be build up very fast (hint would help) to get sawmill.
- Bonfire is full of kiting situations with well designed room to avoid enemy contact. Very good!
- Companion Ancient Oak is very weak. Only slow spell for close attack. To compensate this he should have more HP.
- Got several crashes only with this try (Lake Fairie, Dryad, Unicorn, Faun). Savegames are here:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/eut5gq...ht_Crash_1.zip
http://www.mediafire.com/file/z765zw...ht_Crash_2.zip
http://www.mediafire.com/file/08na6u...ht_Crash_3.zip
- Had to stop this try because i had no sawmill and couldn't get anymore wood piles.

3rd try
Game Type: Endless
Difficulty: Impossible
Companion: Trick Shooter
- extremely hard start Couldn't find a single doable enemy. There was a big enemy in front of the companion obelisk who could not be enraged to move. So I had to kill this guy with overnumbered units (3 guardsmen) which killed my plan to play all with no loss After getting Trick Shooter all further gameplay was doable with many very strategic combats.
- not a single crash with this try (Demon, Demoness, Vampire).
- I had 140 leadership and had to play with only 1 Vampire, then I got Knight Boots from shop (+300 leadership!). These random surprises are welcome
- Coffins on battlefield summon too big stack of skeletons (57 skeletons = 2850 leadership when all other units are below 600). 1st one who destroys coffin wins the battle.
- Snow Falcon = overpowered unit #1 with it's skill Cold Stream every 2 Turns. Changing to single use would give better balance. Ini+speed are ok. I tested a Snow Falcon together with undead and demons in my party. Falcon gets -5 morale but still full overpowered.
- Evil Eye = overpowered unit #2 with 3 great skills: Lightning Spell (3 turns), Geysir (4 turns), Summon Spellbooks (2 charges). But that's not all: ranged attack with lightning shock, Vampirism with resurrect. Ini+speed are ok. My advice: kill 2 of it's skills and Evil Eye is strong but balanced.
- Winged Shadow is overpowered too. Very high speed, very high ini. One of them should be reduced to 3-4 and Winged Shadow is strong enough.
- I have the feeling that Demons get too much experience from Summon Spell. They are levelling fast.
- Ruin Castle at Hopland with 200+ rats very easy. Ice Wall in front of Rats and they are simple killed by ranged units. I cannot see any advantage of rats atm.
- u-boat is nice. Thx!
- Skillix doesn't work, you told it.
- Companion Trick Shooter is very powerful at close range, maybe he must be reduced.

Conclusion
At least in my 3rd try I got no crashes. No problems with quests, no problems with NPCs. But I focused on gameplay/balance/units. And this was great, I learned new tactics and had a lot of fun when testing. Bonfire was hard but I could go to lvl8, discovered 7 of 9 isles. Except 1st combat with overnumbered trick all was impossible/no loss/no skills (except concentration 1). But I used a Snow Falcon and an Evil Eye. In Bonfire combats are much more strategic and flexible than in vanilla game. Random is exciting. Each new game results in new strategies. The replayability is very high!
Thx to Bonfire Duo for a really great job!

[raknefne]

Thx for the long post, Xev. I really appreciate your inpute on balancing! I have something to be discussed:


Ancient Oak: From level 7 it can summon ents. It has not been adjusted from Hylfire... nor has any companions. It can shoot too. IMO I don't like it can't move, sometimes it is in the way, for my other troops... Good idea with more health.

No loss games: I don't play that style, but normally I check the guards in front of the obelisk - if they are too strong, I get the Arena from Arturok, so I can buy my companion instead.

Sawmill: Terroin only buy it like 50% of the time... depending of the game, sometimes it is easier to find wood piles. But a hint is good idea anyway. Also when fighting in Bonbong Land you always get 1 wood pile per fight, but much less when away from "home"... also choosing the Assasins Guild from Arturok that summons free troops level 1-5 for kill proofs helps at least on getting new creatures instead of building buildings for troops, but is ofc random fighters that doesnt change during the game - therefore a gambling...

Discovery of new maps: You have found 7 out of 9 as level 8, wonder if the requirements for buying a new map should be raised? To killing 10-11 armies instead of 8. It is early discoverying the whole world. What do you think, testers? We have also discused raising the price for each map, 0k, 10k, 20k, 30k etc.

Toughness in the early game: We intended to make it survival style for early game, at least players could play on an easier difficulty. I have reduced the chances for level 4-5 creatures on Bonbong Land, so you must have been very unlucky, Xev !

Exp creatures, demons: Perhaps it is because of the talents, any creature with talents that doesn't end turn, like RUN, and combined with Endless Retal etc., for instance Berserker levels up fast too. We don't intend to do much here, yet... because we are working on a new exp system for Bonfire 2... if we make it work it is a revolution!! Yes, we have already plans for Bonfire 2... but want to release this version after testing, since it is very playable as it is. Also adding too much increases the riskof bugs because of limited testing.

[Xev]

Discovery of new maps
Requirements for new map were 8 kills and 10k gold. I was surprised that I had to kill 8 armies only once for all maps. If 8 kills were subtracted from inventory then we need 3/11/19/27/... kills for next map. I was surprised that we had 3/8/8/8/....Kill amounts should be raised.
If you have luck with items from chests or free items at store then gold is no problem.

Great to hear about Bonfire2 project!!!

BTW. Is it possible to make highscore lists by class? Would help to raise motivation when playing same class again.

[raknefne]

Originally Posted by Xev

Discovery of new maps
Requirements for new map were 8 kills and 10k gold.

Another way could be first time
3 kills and 0 gold (first map received from Bandril in Bonbong Land)
8 kills, 10k gold, level 5
8 kills, 10k gold, level 7
.
.
.
8 kills, 10k gold, level 17 (last map at the moment)

and in that combi erase number of kills just gold and level. It is VERY important a player don't get stuck and cant get to another map, if there're no more to fight...

Originally Posted by Xev

BTW. Is it possible to make highscore lists by class? Would help to raise motivation when playing same class again.

Takes a lot modding, I think (Terroin is the main modder). We'll rather use time on some other modding.

[Terroin]

Originally Posted by Xev

Discovery of new maps
Requirements for new map were 8 kills and 10k gold. I was surprised that I had to kill 8 armies only once for all maps. If 8 kills were subtracted from inventory then we need 3/11/19/27/... kills for next map. I was surprised that we had 3/8/8/8/....Kill amounts should be raised.
If you have luck with items from chests or free items at store then gold is no problem.

Great to hear about Bonfire2 project!!!

BTW. Is it possible to make highscore lists by class? Would help to raise motivation when playing same class again.

Xev, Aristobal and all testers - thank you guys so much for helping us improving and rethinking this great franchise.. I dont write so much in here, but appreciate it.

Bonfire is all about replay value - randomness and pushing players to try out new heroes, companions, combos and tactics.. going from completing games to replaying games.. thnx.

[aristobal]

Hopeland, unaccessible neutral troops http://rgho.st/845ymVN7T

is it possible to make that Ram-thor when using his Ram-talent move to opposite end of battle map, it only move 6 hex and have only 1 speed and 1 ini?

is it normal the Ram-thor get +20 def when press Defense button?

[aristobal]

I stop get exp after battle !

save http://rgho.st/8VxjpZsR4

p.s. after next battle I began to get exp. Check my save, it seems I didn't get exp some battles.