Hey thanks for the feedback!
I will say the game is in alpha, and lots of things need to be balanced. There's also still missing features and system reworks happening. A lot of them are on the roadmap. There will be a big balance pass once I'm out of Alpha and have a better idea of all the involved systems.
The Weird:
1. Weekends + weekday + time slot actions are the way they are for time management gameplay, not because its a simulation. While its all subject to balancing, and there will be more weekend actions coming, I'm not going to make it so you can whatever whenever.
2. Throwing up wards is a cool idea!
3. Stasis ritual is quite good, will probably be adjusted during balancing pass closer to / in beta.
4.Combat balancing is currently taking place, and the newest build does rebalance how companions work pretty substantially. Not done yet though.
5. Potions in combat are going to be reworked soon.
The Start:
1. Starting stats will get reworked at some point, the current intro is basically a placeholder. Plans to make it a little more involved, with opportunities to start with multiple dice in at least one skill.
3. Cellar is far from useless, but it's fine if you don't like the current balance. I'll keep adjusting things as development continues, but I don't think it's as dour as you make it out to be.
Mid Game:
1.Dryad is indeed a huge boon! I would say in the current balance getting her makes having food + booze much easier, but that's intended.
2.There are many players who say making money off soldiers is too hard, you say too easy- it can't be both. I tend to find, once you understand the balance, it's hardly a difficult game but it's not meant to be. That being said the balance will continue to be adjusted.
3.There is a Forvalaka POI at night, in the newer builds. Might be you either missed it or are using an older build?
4.For outposts you are paying the work crews to go out and build them. It's a gold sink, just like hiring adventurers, for the mid game.
Winter:
Anything after fall is heavily work in progress. Winter is being worked on right now but I wouldn't take anything there as final. Doubly so for spring.
I also think it bears keeping in mind the game is not supposed to be deathly hard, like, at all. It's mostly pretty cozy with a little bit of friction to keep things interesting. I'll probably include some difficulty options and optional content once I have a better idea of the project as a whole though. I still really appreciate hearing all this though, I like to know where the friction points are so I know what to prioritize in the updates.
The weird
1. I get it it's suppose to be a time management, but if during weekend I am low on wood or food but I can't chop some logs or even go for a hunt, it's pretty immersion breaking that MC and other companions prefer to freeze or be starving. Sometimes you have to work when you have to work.
3. I suppose Stasis requiring a higher initial mana amount to conjure and fading away at 10% strength per day(unless maintained with mana) should work well enough. That way it would still help with condition of the Inn, but not as to basically forget about it.
5. Potions by themselves are fine. Game just lacks the opportunity to actually use them properly in combat. If MC+Scout would have to fight 3 foes in a row and recovery could be only used once per day, having a potion or two to keep resources high would be good idea. Now, they are but for sale.
The Start
1. Good to know.
3. If your game is supposed to be a management I simply find it weird to be forced to build something I am barely using. Sitting for let's say... 4 weeks on a single barrel, until player can properly set up scout brewing stuff, is a waste of resources and time I could put to use into making a garden for example.
If MC managed to craft first barrel, he can make two more. I believe each slot in the cellar could be at least an additional storage capacity until additional barrels. Also I think scout should be the one increasing the quality, speed and even the amount of units per barrel, not the amout of barrels to be used. I feel like there is simply a too huge jump from the struggle to good performance, without much of the management in between.
Mid Game
1. Yes, Dryad is very good, but she's too good, even without all her perks. Mainly because she is increasing the amount of fields from 2 to 5. Which is the same problem as with cellar. It's more of waste of resources and time without a companion to manage it. And once it does it goes from "resources aid" to "resources pool" and when Dryad is fully developed, it's basically a "resources flood".
I managed to get her very quickly. And once she is in the garden, the hardship ends and making food and alcohol becomes trivial to a point of having all 5 slots waiting to be harvested and 3 barrels of wine to be opened.
2. The main problem of making money out of soldiers is inviting them. 20 food and 30 alcohol is a bit more than half of norrmal storage of fully upgraded inn. But I had Dryad and Scout already working at good enough efficiency. So my stock was actually something of 55 food + 30 food in garden and 55 alcohol + 66 in barrels, at any given time. Not to mention you can slightly overstock yourself in the weekend.
Also, having Lucy brewing potions in the evening is mandatory in this case. By giving her alchemical supplies, which are only worth 12 gold, and using only 20 stamina for 3 random potions is too good opportunity to not abuse it, to a point of having at least 5 of each potion ready to sell.
The money making part is simply selling those potions en masse. I haven't done the math, but using 12 gold to earn around 400 gold is rather good investment. Unless you roll military sappers, then it's selling materials for 40 gold, which isn't great, but it's not like I am using those material anyway.
The same thing can be done with regular adventurers, but soldiers come in group of 2 to 4. While adventurers may not come at all or you can get a single courier.
3. I can't seem to find it, so either I am blind or it is eariler version. I am leaning to the second one.
Winter
Good to know. But yeah, it's cozy.
I get it it's not supposed to a hard, but a chill game with management, but there can't be management wiithout some struggles and stuff to improve upon. And, like I pointed out in cellar and garden, it's too big of a jump from having aid to having resource pool. I had military resupplying me only two times, which was pretty unnecessary. I simply didn't bother to harvest food from the garden, since carvan was bound to be on the next day. Once you get well established dryad you get it all, food, alcohol and even weapons and armor. The only stuff to do is to patrol around and train MC.
Anyway, you do great job. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother to even write those two walls of text.
PS.
Outposts.
Again, why I am the one paying for outposts constructions when they are military ones? I can help the military to secure the area, as they wanted. Not to fund it for them.
