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saatan45 -> Suggestions on QoL, features and bugs of a returning player (11/15/2020 6:58:16)
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Hello,
I played DragonFable, AQ and MQ many years ago and now ended up playing DragonFable again. While I really love the game, there are some things that just make me want to pull out the hair from my head.
Since I've got a lot of suggestions (mostly QoL and a few feature requests) and a few bug reports, I decided not to clutter the forum with multiple posts, but instead add them here. All of them can be described quite shortly.
QoL, general feedback
There are a lot of mechanics and features currently, which could have a greatly increased QoL for the players (and some of these should not be limited to DA only players). Many of these things are simple things such as having an additional button and reducing mouse clicks of a user story from 3 to 1 (or something similar).
1) When first entering the game (after choosing the character) the open screen is quite daunting ("The Journey So Far", "Happening This Week"). While I do not have concrete suggestions on how to make it better I just want to mention that I felt quite overwhelmed when I first logged in and saw that screen. The first thing I wanted to do was to close it. Now I use it very often (the main reason is to use the "Travel Map" option).
2) After completing various quests or cutscenes (for example in the Artix quest where you run around as small Artix with an axe and kill zombies to escape the Green Mist), the equipped items get reset (and sometimes also the companions). It is really annoying when this happens. The game should remember the last equipped items, companions and the class. Instead of focusing on the gameplay and story, I constantly feel like I need to fight with the game instead. While equipping items can be done fast enough (still bothersome), finding the companions around the map again becomes a chore. Not all of the companions are available in the "Guests" list.
3) While it is possible to "Save Equipped Items" in inventory, it would be nice to have the option to "Load Saved Preset" as well. This would reduce the negative effect of the previous point. In addition it would be nice if we had the ability to save multiple presets. This should also include the worn non-default class. It is already possible to save equipped items. Why isn't it possible to save an equipped class armor? When I choose Necromancer outfit as my main outfit, I would like it to be active when I log in the next time as well.
4) When equipping another class armor, the worn items get reset. Most likely, the player will equip the same items again. It would be nice if the worn items would not reset. If I am however incorrect and players actually do change other items as well when changing classes (i've never done it...perhaps it is a mid/late game thing), then it would be nice if they still did not reset by default, but if there was a button in the inventory called "Unequip All", which would...unequip all items.
5) Quick slot items. Often times during the quest or even a battle with multiple monsters, it is required to change the weapon multiple times for maximum damage. It is quite tedious to have to open the inventory and find the correct weapon (either via scrolling or search) so often. It would be nice if the combat UI included a few quick slots, into which the player could add multiple weapons and then very easily switch between them during a quest or in combat.
6) Have the ability to choose multiple items at once when adding/removing them to/from the bank.
7) After finishing a quest and receiving a new item, when the inventory is full, the player has an option to either destroy some items or not accept the new item. I very often find that I want to compare the dropped item to a currently similar item in my inventory (e.g a Wind weapon to a Wind weapon). I simply do not remember all of my weapon's stats. And it is quite annoying that I cannot see the stats of the item I am about to destroy. This means I have no good way to compare the dropped item with the item I am about to destroy in my inventory. Please add the possibility to view the stats of the items when choosing to destroy them.
8) The music button icon's logic seems to be on its head (perhaps I am just used to the other way around). Since music takes some time to load, and I think initially it was off (in the Necropolis final quest), I though the music was bugged. The icon in the top right screen showed a musical note with animated sound waves. So I thought the sound was on. I clicked on it (and thought I would click on it again immediately right after to reset the sound), and it started loading the sound in (I think it even told me a warning that loading the music can take some time). I though this was weird because I thought the sound was already loaded in. Now the musical icon had a red cross on it and I thought it was disabled, so I immediately clicked on it again. This brought it back to the state where I saw a note with animated sound waves. At this point since music was not playing I thought it is bugged. My suggestion: make the icon show the current, not the next state that would come when pressing the button.
9) (I did read the forum rules and this suggestion kind of goes against it by suggesting a paid feature to be available to free players, but since I feel quite strong about this, I will post it anyways. I hope this is not enough of a reason to delete this whole post.). I really feel like the "Save Equipped Items" should not be a paid feature. As a free player it is really annoying to have to do something as basic as having to equip your items as the first thing when you enter the game. I want to experience the stories and gameplay instead of fighting with the game's mechanics as the first thing when opening the game. Players should pay for interesting content or improved features, instead of unlocking necessary features. I feel in today's world and age, certain paywalled features should be overlooked as they feel cash grabby. If there was a possibility to have multiple presets, which can be chosen when logging into a game and these were behind a pay wall, I guess it would be okay (it is additional stored data that costs money), but I think a single preset should be available to everyone.
Features
1) Young Ash knight. (Just so you know, I experienced this before I loaded a future version of Falconreach where Ash was grown). After I talked to Ash, I discovered it is possible to train him as a separate character. My first impression and hope was that "wow! I can train him and he would become a stronger companion.". So I did the first quest with him as a character (saving the princess) and got him to level 5. After that I immediately changed to my main character and invited him to my party and went into combat. I hoped that the skills I unlocked while playing his character quests would be unlocked when he is a companion. I was wrong and a bit disappointed. It would be really cool if I could put effort into training him as a separate character (something that is totally doable right now) and my effort would be rewarded by having that progress available as him being a companion to my main character. I think it would be a really cool addition. It's almost as if you could train multiple characters and then have them in a single combat.
2) Multiple characters in a single combat. While writing the previous point I started to think where it would make sense to use your multiple characters in a single combat. Then I remembered that I played a quest where it was possible to invite your friends as team mates and then fight against some kind of a boss. Now I realize that this fight isn't "realtime" multiplayer because the friend's characters are still controlled by you (or are they automatic? I don't know, I didn't try). Well, what if instead of inviting your friends, you could simply invite your other trained characters. While I don't know the technical details then is it really that different code-wise to "invite" a friend character compared to "inviting" your own account's character?
Bugs & Performance
1) I remember when I played this game 10 or more years ago, there were certain cutscenes and items that dropped the frame rate very very low. The same thing happens today on contemporary hardware. While again, I do not know the technical details, it feels very weird that a game that had reduced fps 10 years ago on a 15 year old hardware, has the same frame rate drop today. An example item is "Rose Cloak I". I literally cannot show it (Thank you for providing the player the option to hide items...otherwise it would just make the game unplayable for me) because it brings frame rate down. Even if I lower the quality setting to Low. If you say this is due to outdated technology then I guess there is no other way around this.
2) The healing platforms in quests stop healing any invited allies after the player's HP and MP is filled. This really feels just like a bug and is quite annoying. Oftentimes it is the allies who are targeted by enemies and not the player. And losing the allies after they die is quite annoying because they have to be visited again to invite them to the party. This makes me not want to lose them. However, if only they are targeted by the enemies, and I have no good way to heal them to the max after the combat because of this bug then it just adds unnecessary tension.
3) A funny bug related to the travel gryffin. When choosing the location on the map to travel to then when the character is running (you click somewhere on the ground so your character starts to run), and you press the travel button (which starts loading the scene) while the character is running, the character's position is not correctly reset on the back of the bird. While the sitting animation is correct, the character is not on the bird lol.
4) When equipping an item (I tried with Rose Cloak I, which btw is part of my "Save Equipped Items" preset), the Show button does not change to "Hide" even though the item is visible on the character. If at this point the inventory is closed and re-opened again, the Show button has correctly changed to "Hide". If however, the inventory is not closed and I press the "Show" button (even though it is visible on the player), the button's text doesn't change (you can still see the "Show" button). When you close the inventory at this point, the item is hidden. At this point it does not matter whether you closed the inventory or not, if you press the "Show" button, it correctly changes into the "Hide" button and the item is visible again.
I really like this game and hope it continues living! One way to do this is to provide as good experience to your players as possible, as they are the ones who keep playing and paying for it. And certain low QoL features might just scare away new players. So I think it is important to make the experience feel good and intuitive to everybody.
I hope that as a reflection of my experience as a returning player, this post was useful.
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