k. So.
Achievements are practically worthless.
Farmer passive income is so weak it's pointless
Soldier feels *too* idle in that you almost can't speed it up at all
Soldier gold is far far too slow to gain
Soldier is a complete gear check to begin with and is useless later (starts too important and ends not important enough)
Researcher takes too long to get to (and should indicate where the missing upgrades are before you get there)
Researcher has good meta progression.. but feels really bad to play itself
Feel you're forced to afk at certain points in the game as there's no way to make timely progress
Sleep is pretty pointless for the farmer and increasing capacity can sometimes even slow you down
Oh and as a consequence of the soldier armour being useless the thorns perk becomes useless too (as well as the armour before that)
The rare drops seem like they'd be the most interesting feature but they don't turn out that way, it just leads to afking, often far far longer than you'd want, and can't even do so offline
Perma perks also seem a little too hard to get for the time being but I imagine more skills would naturally ease that over time (also the soldier permas need some clarification- was unsure if it would be possible to beat an enemy without skills after buying them, saw it was after getting them, but certainly put it off for a while because of that)
Finally, someone else said about gold/s on researcher for might - I'm hovering about 95 might now, it never said I got any bonus, it was always 0% boost
I did see you said reworking balance was a priority but yeah it needs a lot of work.
Didn't think i'd even play to researcher due to grievances but between some irritating offline farm and at least wanting to be clear when speaking against certain parts of the game (such as if the solution was just around the corner- which it wasn't), hobbled to mostly end of content
Viewing post in High Fantasy Idle Demo comments
Heya, thanks for the write up. I'd like to comment on the general philosophy behind HFI just so things are clear in terms of the direction of the game.
HFI is an idle game, first and foremost. (It's even in the name! :D) The amount of usefulness of the AFK and offline rewards is directly connected to how often you play. If you min/max and play active all the time, then the AFK and offline rewards are likely not going to do much for you. Those systems are in place to ensure more casual players are always able to progress regardless of the amount of time they have to play. The feedback I have gotten from more casual players is that those systems are generally successful. (For late game Researcher, the page gain is kind of insane but that leads me to my next point)
HFI is also still in a demo state, so the content is still pretty limited. This means some of the evergreen systems like achievements may not feel like they are giving enough benefit as of yet. Researcher also only has about half the content of the other two classes currently. As the content increases, these supplementary systems will also grow and provide more and more benefit over time.
Balance/tuning needs another pass for sure, and I'm actively working on that in addition to new content and a perk rework.
For anyone looking for more detailed info on HFI and future updates, the discord server has all of that info! Appreciate the feedback, I'm checking and listening to all of it even if I don't comment on everything.
I'll say I've been critical of this game. However.. It has a *very* solid foundation. There are however glaring, huge issues that would stall your game hard if you were to open it to sale, likely annoying anyone who would purchase the game.
Saying its in a demo state is fine. But you have to realize this is player feedback ON the demo state of the game. If its not connecting with players now... It likely won't when you turn to sales.
Also saying its an idle game is just silly. As you stated, its in the name.. But 99% of the idle games out there atm (of which there are THOUSANDS) they have viable offline gains. Your game just doesn't. Saying your game is idle is fine, but saying you have offline earnings is almost dishonest. Yes you do have them. Are they even remotely valuable? No. Not even a tiny bit. You can be offline on the Warrior (semi early on even) and after a day you get 1-2 levels total. Mostly pointless and def not worth mentioning as a selling point.
Clarification is key for a budding game like this. 3rd class should have a tooltip saying it can be unlocked by X requirement and what it'll do for you overall. Cuz your average player will see the jump from gear requiring 50m to 900b. That being said... Thats just a bad, bad system. You could just have the 3rd class be "increases XP gain" and it'd be fine. *NEEDING* it and not knowing it even exists until you're like 20 hours in is just poor design.
Main issue though is balance. This is 99% of my frustration with this game (again, its quite fun). Having some stuff like Stagger chance requiring numerous levels to invest in.. No one is doing that, lol. Like at all. So that whole top left tree for the Warrior is entirely pointless. You can just remove the stagger mechanic entirely and it'd be fine. Or if you want to keep it in, you'd likely have to triple it in value for it to be considered. Again... Balance is the biggest issue.
Again, if you take anything away from my rant. Know this. The game is solid and has a lot of potential. But it has glaring balance and description issues. If you can deal with those 2 issues, your game has a big chance at success imo.
Thanks for the constructive criticism and honesty; I really do appreciate it.
HFI's next patch is going to include:
- A class balance pass (including offline progression)
- A perk overhaul (balance pass + changing how perks work a little; more on that in the future)
- Further communication/clarification in-game to help steer the players in the right direction and explain game mechanics better
ALL of these plans are based on feedback from the community, which has been immensely helpful! I really appreciate everyone who has taken the time to comment on HFI to try to help make it better.