Post by Muriago in Ravenhaul comments

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Thanks for reading. Hope is helpful!

About that last point, I see how that's a design decision that could be taken. Leaving more room for "mistakes", and not every raven been worth to improve as you mention. I guess the main problem I see is the combination with point 4. Given your lack of info by default on what contracts lay ahead, those mistakes are more a cause of that than actual mistakes. Having unlocked all patrons once gives a very big advantage in a following playthrough. And while is normal that experience in a game helps you, it feels a bit "unfair" that is something you can't really tackle in that first playthrough at all.

That been said, it ocurred to me that maybe a way the granularity could stay and be maningful is if you include some variability in the deliveries (weather conditions affecting the birds, or maybe the contracts themselves would not neccesarilly exactly always have the same distance and time range for delievry as happens with paymens now). It would mean that every little extra in any category could be useful and one would have to decide what to prioritize.

bippinbits16 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

There is also one thing in there that i like. Basically you encounter new contracts from patrons, but no bird you have is ready to deliver them. This does not hurt you. It does however challenge you to think of a "bird setup" that could handle these contracts. So then you start to plan and think, play around with different upgrades in you head. You "build" a bird to fit the new requirement.

I think i find this more interesting that being able to prepare the right bird ahead of time. You can still do this on a second play though, as you say.

I also do not want you to stock up on birds early and then finish the game with your once established team. I'd like for people to buy a few birds over time, with each patron maybe. Potentially also retiring some birds. But that's more of a feature for a full game :D

Muriago15 days ago(+1)

I can agree with the idea of "You "build" a bird to fit the new requirement." rather than preparing ahead of time. Thats the way you actually play the 1st playthrough now, as you don't really have a choice. And given your budget is very limited early on, it makes sense that this is how you would evolve. And to be honest given the limited and randomised access to birds its difficult to fully do it.

The problem is that the difference in practice (given the current status of contracts/birds available etc) isnt that big. Like preparing ahead of time just requires you knowing that certain cutoffs are very important and stats between them don't add much value. To put an specific example, something I did in following playthroughs once I knew the contracts was not buying ravens with much more than 600 km range. That alone meant that even with my limited budget I could get some that lasted me until the end game. With pigeons it was similar, knowing 1000km is enough for most things, I focused just on other stats and only went for the longer range ones when I had a bigger budget to buy the good ones that can do those hard contracts.

But thats more a balance problem than a design one most likely. In a "full game" (not like this isnt really even if limited in scope hehe) I guess you could have a more clear progression easily, that could even affect the birds offered. to aid that progression better. You would start with varied but overall easier contracts to complete (good ratio of time/range) but that still require birds with varied skills, and where versatility maybe is more important, and as you progress the ratios tighten and you really need to either build more specialized ones, or pay a premium to get some that can do the hard contracts and yet be versatile.

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