Loving it, but I'm going to have to stop for now because the gate zone has some issues.
When the wall falls and your soldiers move to the bridge they don't move back when the wall is repaired at the start of the wave due to regen, so you have to move them back manually or just concede the wall entirely - which results in your screen jumping as soon as it does fall, which gets annoying fast.
When you do place your soldiers on the bridge, they get shuffled at the start of the wave, which would be annoying by itself, but they often end up in invalid positions and get deleted when you retreat (or sometimes between waves, it seems to happen somewhat randomly)
The garrison tab gets buggy sometimes and often closes itself instead of purchasing an upgrade - this happens more frequently the more that's going on on-screen, and gets particularly bad if there's a lot of screen shake (which I disabled for this reason)
Ranged enemies also seem pretty random in where they are stopping to fire at the wall - I've had archers walk nearly up to the wall itself sometimes and stop halfway across the field where only my Trebuchets can reach them other times.
Windcallers trivialize the game after the gate falls. Just a few of them can hold off the waves indefinitely due to the narrow area. One fix could be adding a small amount of knockback resistance (<1%) to an enemy unit each time they are affected by knockback, resulting in them eventually pushing through if you don't have enough dps.
Hi CrovaxII, thank you, this is one of the most useful reports I got. Most of it is fixed in v0.5.15 / v0.5.16:
- Soldiers on the bridge are no longer shuffled or lost when the wall falls. Your army stays where you put it.
- The garrison drawer no longer closes itself in busy assaults.
- The view slides into the courtyard more calmly when the wall falls, so less jumping.
- Skeleton archers now stand off and fire, and stop once something answers them, so where they stop should feel much less random.
Windcallers: fair point, the narrow gate makes knockback too strong. I like your stacking knockback resistance idea, I'm looking at it for the next balance pass.
I broke the game by maxing out the essence tree completely. I can no longer access the Ancestral Sky because I can only rebuild the wall with no option to rebirth.
Also, could we get an option in the lower left or somewhere else to toggle on or off all of the automations we unlock? This would be a huge QoL improvement since the auto essence tree will pick nodes that lock out other nodes on automatic. Another idea would be letting the player pick which of the "either or" nodes get selected by the auto buyer or just having it skip them for the player to choose manually. Additionally, the auto trainer for the troops will take money before you can buy their skill upgrades since it's not on the automated list. Would it be possible for us to get either another sky tree unlock to let us get skill training and automate promotions or have it added to the current automation unlock?
Hi Draekniloth, sorry you hit that wall. Fixed in v0.5.15: a full Essence Tree no longer locks you out of the Ancestral Sky. The fall takes you to the tree and its heart opens the sky. Your save should work again, tell me if it doesn't.
Your automation ideas are all good ones: a toggle for each automation, letting the auto-buyer skip the either/or nodes, and keeping the auto-trainer from spending gold before skill upgrades. They're on my list.
I don't like commenting when I haven't completed the game but I'm experiencing a strange bug (?) that prevent me from expanding the frontier line for some reason. I've upgraded the stronghold upgrade that's glowing golden on the 2nd ring (I believe that's the upgrade for it?) but it's not expanding like it used to. Could someone explain how to re-expand the area again? It's really annoying not being able to target the archers. or is it because I've been shift clicking the upgrades and it's not properly updating?
Hi Hexx_Vixtar, no need to finish the game to comment, this helped a lot. It wasn't the shift-click: an earlier update cut Frontier down to one deploy column, so the line stopped growing. In v0.5.15 Frontier II and III are back, one column each, so your line reaches farther toward the archers again.
oh really? So I was playing in between the update and didn't realize? damn, I didn't know lol. I was so confused because on my previous play session I could place my units so far away and now I could barely go 1 step further from the starting area XD
good to know I didn't do anything wrong. I might play the game again later (kinda stopped playing because the prestige system is a bit strange and I couldn't prestige if there's nothing to upgrade... or at least that's what I thought the problem is? because I tried to surrender when the middle of the skill tree is turn into the golden star thing but the only option is to continue defending the wall)
Alright, here's some feedback, I'll try to keep it concise.
- Tutorial was fine by me. I quickly breezed through it, and was happy to learn that units could be upgraded, moved around, etc. Two things that weren't explained, and that I discovered on the late, was that we can also upgrade our wall (although that isn't unlocked off the bat), and how to ascend to the stars for the next generation. A quick notification/tutorial hint for those two, when they unlock, would probably be worth considering. - Wall tower slots (for Cresset etc.) unlocking from the bottom upwards isn't great. It triggers my inner perfectionist trying to keep everything symmetrical 😂I would suggest having the first slot at the bottom, as it is now, but the second slot opening at the top. then the third one second from bottom, then the fourth second from top etc.... - In the Essence Tree, would be great if the vignette bottom right hand corner would dynamically update its essence price when we press shift to fill, to the total essence that is going to be consumed for the node fill. - Overall, I'm having a good time, the game is enjoyable. I'm quite fond of the tone in the different texts, for some reason it just works well for me. Has that medieval flair to it. I appreciate the variety of different mobs, it gets really fun crushing them down when they fill up the playing field. Haven't encountered any particular bugs so far, except some light fps drops from my 72 fps custom (60Hz monitor overclocked to 72Hz) to around the 40 fps mark when there's a lot going on.
Eager to continue my progress, I'm on my second generation now after resetting at 3 legacy points.
You look like a QA tester to me 😄, this feedback is precious! Thank you for taking the time.
Glad the amount of content hit you like that, and I am really happy the tutorial worked for you.
Regarding
Wall upgrades: you're right. In the new update there's now a tip that shows you where to start when the wall works unlock.
Tower slots: haha, I get it. I feel the same way 😂 I'll change the order as you suggested.
Shift in the Essence Tree: good point, the price should show the total for the whole fill. I'll add that as well.
FPS: thanks for the details. If it bothers you, Settings > Graphics > Quality preset: Medium should help in the busy moments. I am also working on making big assaults run smoother.
I'm really glad you like the tone of the texts, I wanted it to feel medieval(that is what I like), so that means a lot. And yes, crushing a full field of the dead is my favourite part too :)
You're on your second generation now, so I'd love to hear more from you, especially about the Sky. It's the part I need the most feedback on: was it clear, does the next generation feel stronger enough? Anything you notice there helps a lot.
Thank you for the quick response. Here's another two points I'd like feedback.
- Upgrading the attack speed (Rate) of my rapid shot archers, I noticed that it quickly stops at at a rate of 4.00/s, rendering further rate upgrades non-effective.
- Bone archers don't always trigger their attack sequence. It seems to be linked to frontier distance. Below a certain distance, they just "slide" towards the wall without actually firing at all.
[Edit : adding one more point]
- At the start of each Age, you loose your troops, yet you cannot spend your Tree points. You need to sound the retreat, to be able to spend them. I would suggest that the start of a new age immediately opens up the tree for point allocation without having to go through the sound-the-retreat work-around.
Hey SilverEyes, both are fixed in v0.5.15 thanks to you:
- Attack Speed (and Crit, Range) training now counts at every level, no more cap at 4.00/s.
- Bone archers no longer slide up to the wall; they stand off and fire.
Shift-click on the tree now shows the price of the whole fill too. Spending tree points at the start of a new Age without sounding the retreat: good catch, that's on my list. You're on the credits page: https://marrowmarch.com/credits/
Let me know how the Sky feels in your next generations :)
Yes, the first night is made to be lost, it's the start of the story. The wall falls, you get Essence from it, and you use it in the Essence Tree to get stronger. From the next run on you can really hold the wall. I know it can feel unfair, so in the new update you can also skip the first night with the link at the top of the screen :)
Good question! The wall gets its own guns later on: you can put ballistas, catapults and more right on top of it. Your soldiers stand in the field so you can choose where they fight and block the dead before they reach the wall. Later on the game, you need to defend the inside of the wall as well. I highly encourage you to spend a few hours. Thanks for the feedback
I'm sorry, but I got frustrated with the tutorial and gave up. For example, at the very beginning, I clicked on the "Armory" tab--but nothing happened! A short while later, a message popped up: "Open the ARMORY to hire a soldier." I was like, "Well, I would have, if you had just let me." It was like that from then on: everything was disabled except the one thing that the tutorial wanted to do. I couldn't explore or try ANYTHING on my own. The tutorial was playing the game, alone, and I wasn't allowed to participate. After the first rebirth, I was hoping I would finally get a chance to play--but, no, the tutorial was still directing everything. For example, when I was required to perform a drag-and-drop, my drag-and-drop ended a little too early; the tutorial would not let me go back and drag the unit to a better location: it just continued on with the tutorial without me. I was so frustrated. At that point, I closed the game and left. Sorry :/
Thank you for the detailed feedback. I'm not happy with the tutorial either. I don't even like tutorials myself, but this game needs one, otherwise people end up closing it because they don't understand what's going on. I'm still trying to find a good way to do this.
If you feel like giving it another shot, you can skip the tutorial from the menu and just play freely. I'll fix this issue as soon as I can.
Again, I really appreciate you taking the time to give feedback
Thanks. It's beautiful! I can see you've put a lot of work into it, so it must be very frustrating when people don't give it a chance. In my defence, I was *already* frustrated, because my stupid GPU isn't being used (due to some driver issue), which makes graphics-heavy games very laggy for me :/ I was already frustrated.
No need to say sorry at all! Your comment really helped. Because of it I changed the tutorial: now it only gives tips, every button works from the start, and you can move your soldiers whenever you want. You can also skip the first night with the link at the top of the screen. It's all in the new update. I mentioned your name on the changelog as well. I am waiting for your further testings and support if possible.
About the lag: go to Settings > Graphics and set Quality preset to Low. It should run much smoother, and it doesn't change the gameplay. If it still lags, let me know and I'll look into it.
Thanks for telling me! I just posted a new update with the changelog, and the tutorial is much better now: it only gives tips and you can skip the first night. If the game was laggy, try Settings > Graphics > Quality preset: Low. Give it another try if you want, and let me know how it goes :)
This is Early Access: ages I to V are open, and VI to X are on the way. Your progress saves in your browser, so you can come back to the wall any time.
I read every comment. I'd love to hear:
- where you got stuck, or where it got slow,
- whether the first night taught you what it should,
- anything that broke (and your browser, if you can).
There seems to be a glitch with prestiging - my essence tree is full but if I lose or sound the retreat it does not let me prestige in the middle of the essence tree - I am in Age 4
Age 5, nice! The full-tree fix is out in v0.5.15, so the Ancestral Sky should open for you now. Ages VI to X are on the way. You're on the credits page too, thanks for sticking with it :)
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Loving it, but I'm going to have to stop for now because the gate zone has some issues.
When the wall falls and your soldiers move to the bridge they don't move back when the wall is repaired at the start of the wave due to regen, so you have to move them back manually or just concede the wall entirely - which results in your screen jumping as soon as it does fall, which gets annoying fast.
When you do place your soldiers on the bridge, they get shuffled at the start of the wave, which would be annoying by itself, but they often end up in invalid positions and get deleted when you retreat (or sometimes between waves, it seems to happen somewhat randomly)
The garrison tab gets buggy sometimes and often closes itself instead of purchasing an upgrade - this happens more frequently the more that's going on on-screen, and gets particularly bad if there's a lot of screen shake (which I disabled for this reason)
Ranged enemies also seem pretty random in where they are stopping to fire at the wall - I've had archers walk nearly up to the wall itself sometimes and stop halfway across the field where only my Trebuchets can reach them other times.
Windcallers trivialize the game after the gate falls. Just a few of them can hold off the waves indefinitely due to the narrow area. One fix could be adding a small amount of knockback resistance (<1%) to an enemy unit each time they are affected by knockback, resulting in them eventually pushing through if you don't have enough dps.
Hi CrovaxII, thank you, this is one of the most useful reports I got. Most of it is fixed in v0.5.15 / v0.5.16:
- Soldiers on the bridge are no longer shuffled or lost when the wall falls. Your army stays where you put it.
- The garrison drawer no longer closes itself in busy assaults.
- The view slides into the courtyard more calmly when the wall falls, so less jumping.
- Skeleton archers now stand off and fire, and stop once something answers them, so where they stop should feel much less random.
Windcallers: fair point, the narrow gate makes knockback too strong. I like your stacking knockback resistance idea, I'm looking at it for the next balance pass.
You're on the credits page: https://marrowmarch.com/credits/ Let me know if the gate zone feels better now :)
I broke the game by maxing out the essence tree completely. I can no longer access the Ancestral Sky because I can only rebuild the wall with no option to rebirth.
Also, could we get an option in the lower left or somewhere else to toggle on or off all of the automations we unlock? This would be a huge QoL improvement since the auto essence tree will pick nodes that lock out other nodes on automatic. Another idea would be letting the player pick which of the "either or" nodes get selected by the auto buyer or just having it skip them for the player to choose manually. Additionally, the auto trainer for the troops will take money before you can buy their skill upgrades since it's not on the automated list. Would it be possible for us to get either another sky tree unlock to let us get skill training and automate promotions or have it added to the current automation unlock?
Hi Draekniloth, sorry you hit that wall. Fixed in v0.5.15: a full Essence Tree no longer locks you out of the Ancestral Sky. The fall takes you to the tree and its heart opens the sky. Your save should work again, tell me if it doesn't.
Your automation ideas are all good ones: a toggle for each automation, letting the auto-buyer skip the either/or nodes, and keeping the auto-trainer from spending gold before skill upgrades. They're on my list.
You're on the credits page too: https://marrowmarch.com/credits/ Thanks!
I don't like commenting when I haven't completed the game but I'm experiencing a strange bug (?) that prevent me from expanding the frontier line for some reason. I've upgraded the stronghold upgrade that's glowing golden on the 2nd ring (I believe that's the upgrade for it?) but it's not expanding like it used to. Could someone explain how to re-expand the area again? It's really annoying not being able to target the archers. or is it because I've been shift clicking the upgrades and it's not properly updating?
Hi Hexx_Vixtar, no need to finish the game to comment, this helped a lot. It wasn't the shift-click: an earlier update cut Frontier down to one deploy column, so the line stopped growing. In v0.5.15 Frontier II and III are back, one column each, so your line reaches farther toward the archers again.
Thanks for reporting, you're on the credits page: https://marrowmarch.com/credits/
oh really? So I was playing in between the update and didn't realize? damn, I didn't know lol. I was so confused because on my previous play session I could place my units so far away and now I could barely go 1 step further from the starting area XD
good to know I didn't do anything wrong. I might play the game again later (kinda stopped playing because the prestige system is a bit strange and I couldn't prestige if there's nothing to upgrade... or at least that's what I thought the problem is? because I tried to surrender when the middle of the skill tree is turn into the golden star thing but the only option is to continue defending the wall)
Holy content...
Alright, here's some feedback, I'll try to keep it concise.
- Tutorial was fine by me. I quickly breezed through it, and was happy to learn that units could be upgraded, moved around, etc. Two things that weren't explained, and that I discovered on the late, was that we can also upgrade our wall (although that isn't unlocked off the bat), and how to ascend to the stars for the next generation. A quick notification/tutorial hint for those two, when they unlock, would probably be worth considering.
- Wall tower slots (for Cresset etc.) unlocking from the bottom upwards isn't great. It triggers my inner perfectionist trying to keep everything symmetrical 😂I would suggest having the first slot at the bottom, as it is now, but the second slot opening at the top. then the third one second from bottom, then the fourth second from top etc....
- In the Essence Tree, would be great if the vignette bottom right hand corner would dynamically update its essence price when we press shift to fill, to the total essence that is going to be consumed for the node fill.
- Overall, I'm having a good time, the game is enjoyable. I'm quite fond of the tone in the different texts, for some reason it just works well for me. Has that medieval flair to it. I appreciate the variety of different mobs, it gets really fun crushing them down when they fill up the playing field. Haven't encountered any particular bugs so far, except some light fps drops from my 72 fps custom (60Hz monitor overclocked to 72Hz) to around the 40 fps mark when there's a lot going on.
Eager to continue my progress, I'm on my second generation now after resetting at 3 legacy points.
You look like a QA tester to me 😄, this feedback is precious! Thank you for taking the time.
Glad the amount of content hit you like that, and I am really happy the tutorial worked for you.
Regarding
I'm really glad you like the tone of the texts, I wanted it to feel medieval(that is what I like), so that means a lot. And yes, crushing a full field of the dead is my favourite part too :)
You're on your second generation now, so I'd love to hear more from you, especially about the Sky. It's the part I need the most feedback on: was it clear, does the next generation feel stronger enough? Anything you notice there helps a lot.
Good luck, and let me know how it goes :)
Hey Enes,
Thank you for the quick response. Here's another two points I'd like feedback.
- Upgrading the attack speed (Rate) of my rapid shot archers, I noticed that it quickly stops at at a rate of 4.00/s, rendering further rate upgrades non-effective.
- Bone archers don't always trigger their attack sequence. It seems to be linked to frontier distance. Below a certain distance, they just "slide" towards the wall without actually firing at all.
[Edit : adding one more point]
- At the start of each Age, you loose your troops, yet you cannot spend your Tree points. You need to sound the retreat, to be able to spend them. I would suggest that the start of a new age immediately opens up the tree for point allocation without having to go through the sound-the-retreat work-around.
Hey SilverEyes, both are fixed in v0.5.15 thanks to you:
- Attack Speed (and Crit, Range) training now counts at every level, no more cap at 4.00/s.
- Bone archers no longer slide up to the wall; they stand off and fire.
Shift-click on the tree now shows the price of the whole fill too. Spending tree points at the start of a new Age without sounding the retreat: good catch, that's on my list. You're on the credits page: https://marrowmarch.com/credits/
Let me know how the Sky feels in your next generations :)
the first night your forced to loose when you place the 3 archers how your told to
Yes, the first night is made to be lost, it's the start of the story. The wall falls, you get Essence from it, and you use it in the Essence Tree to get stronger. From the next run on you can really hold the wall. I know it can feel unfair, so in the new update you can also skip the first night with the link at the top of the screen :)
shouldnt the defenders be on top of the wall not standing out in the field
Good question! The wall gets its own guns later on: you can put ballistas, catapults and more right on top of it. Your soldiers stand in the field so you can choose where they fight and block the dead before they reach the wall. Later on the game, you need to defend the inside of the wall as well. I highly encourage you to spend a few hours. Thanks for the feedback
I'm sorry, but I got frustrated with the tutorial and gave up. For example, at the very beginning, I clicked on the "Armory" tab--but nothing happened! A short while later, a message popped up: "Open the ARMORY to hire a soldier." I was like, "Well, I would have, if you had just let me." It was like that from then on: everything was disabled except the one thing that the tutorial wanted to do. I couldn't explore or try ANYTHING on my own. The tutorial was playing the game, alone, and I wasn't allowed to participate. After the first rebirth, I was hoping I would finally get a chance to play--but, no, the tutorial was still directing everything. For example, when I was required to perform a drag-and-drop, my drag-and-drop ended a little too early; the tutorial would not let me go back and drag the unit to a better location: it just continued on with the tutorial without me. I was so frustrated. At that point, I closed the game and left. Sorry :/
Thank you for the detailed feedback. I'm not happy with the tutorial either. I don't even like tutorials myself, but this game needs one, otherwise people end up closing it because they don't understand what's going on. I'm still trying to find a good way to do this.
If you feel like giving it another shot, you can skip the tutorial from the menu and just play freely. I'll fix this issue as soon as I can.
Again, I really appreciate you taking the time to give feedback
Thanks. It's beautiful! I can see you've put a lot of work into it, so it must be very frustrating when people don't give it a chance. In my defence, I was *already* frustrated, because my stupid GPU isn't being used (due to some driver issue), which makes graphics-heavy games very laggy for me :/ I was already frustrated.
No need to say sorry at all! Your comment really helped. Because of it I changed the tutorial: now it only gives tips, every button works from the start, and you can move your soldiers whenever you want. You can also skip the first night with the link at the top of the screen. It's all in the new update. I mentioned your name on the changelog as well. I am waiting for your further testings and support if possible.
About the lag: go to Settings > Graphics and set Quality preset to Low. It should run much smoother, and it doesn't change the gameplay. If it still lags, let me know and I'll look into it.
Same here.
Thanks for telling me! I just posted a new update with the changelog, and the tutorial is much better now: it only gives tips and you can skip the first night. If the game was laggy, try Settings > Graphics > Quality preset: Low. Give it another try if you want, and let me know how it goes :)
Hi! I'm Enes, and I make Marrow March on my own.
This is Early Access: ages I to V are open, and VI to X are on the way. Your progress saves in your browser, so you can come back to the wall any time.
I read every comment. I'd love to hear:
- where you got stuck, or where it got slow,
- whether the first night taught you what it should,
- anything that broke (and your browser, if you can).
Thanks for holding the wall.
There seems to be a glitch with prestiging - my essence tree is full but if I lose or sound the retreat it does not let me prestige in the middle of the essence tree - I am in Age 4
Hi sporthuntor, thanks for letting me know.
This is actually a known issue. I fixed this yesterday night. I am planning a release for this. I am sorry that happened to you as well.
Butt I am also very happy that you enjoyed the game (I am assuming) and kept playing until Age 4.
I would like to get more detailed feedback from you.
Age 5 now...great game!
Age 5, nice! The full-tree fix is out in v0.5.15, so the Ancestral Sky should open for you now. Ages VI to X are on the way. You're on the credits page too, thanks for sticking with it :)