Hello. I just started playtesting Havencraft. So far, it is looking pretty good. There are some things that I’ve found either a little confusing or else that I think could be improved, so I wanted to post them here for consideration.
- When manually gathering stuff (berries, wood, stone, etc.), the things you gather can fall all over the place and not get picked up automatically. You have to run around trying to pick it all up. This can be worse if you are surrounded by bushes or trees and have to try to go around to another side to reach the items. I think it would be better if you could just always automatically get anything you gather without it dropping to the ground.
- When you unlock the mining task with the stonemason, it would seem that you’d use a work plot related to the stonemason to do the mining, but it is instead under the forester work plot. Maybe if the name of that work plot wasn’t forester, but was something that might fit mining as well (and if anything else is done there, that also) so it is more clear. I only figured out who to do the mining when I happened to manage my forester, who I had set up to do things without needing to be managed, so I hadn’t thought to check her. You do eventually get the mining zone from researching copper, but it is still confusing from stonemason’s unlock. Maybe the mining zone should unlock at stonemason and only allow copper mining once you unlock copper?
- The inventor work plot requires the research station to be in it, but that isn’t clear. The person working there has the option to make the research stuff, but not to do research, so it seemed that you’d only need the inventor bench. It took a bit for me to figure out that I needed to put the research station in there as well. I finally saw the notice at the left of my screen that showed what was needed, so I figured out to put the research station in there. I think that’s not in a very noticeable location. Perhaps it could be in the manage screen for the worker instead of just saying it’s not ready?
- Some things in the radial menus aren’t very clear what they are just by the image. For example, the foundation would seem to be the flat block, which is really the floor block. Maybe have text added to those? It could either be always visible in the radial menu or only on the item currently selected.
- It can be a bit of a pain to manage the different people. Unless I’ve missed something, it seems you have to go to each one in order to manage them. It would be really helpful to be able to manage them from one place (the map, or somewhere else).
- Having to constantly expand or move the forester plot whenever all trees or rocks are gone is a bit of a nuisance. Maybe you can set a main area, but then they can just go outward from that area to gather stuff instead of needing to make the work plot cover the entire area? I know that might mean they harvest something you don’t want harvested, but it would be easier to need to set up a “do not cut/mine” zone for such things rather than having to keep redoing your forester work plot.
- The work plot signs can end up being in the way for certain “work plots.” For example, the house plot looks odd with a sign, and if I want to have work stations inside buildings, trying to place signs that aren’t in the way can be a pain if you want things to look nice. Maybe you can name the plot without needing a sign? Signs could even be optional for those who like them being visible there, or they can be a decoration that you can place without being tied to the work plot itself.
- It would be nice if you could automatically use any ingredients within a work plot’s storage area without needing to grab it first if you’re crafting something yourself in the work plot.
- Cutting trees or mining yourself could use some work. Having it restart a swing because I click too quickly is frustrating. And if I just hold the mouse button so it keeps swinging, the swings are slower than swinging by clicking. Maybe make it so you don’t restart a swing if you click too quickly, but instead just ignore the click if it’s too quick?
- The hopper is for moving stuff, but it isn’t really clear how you should set it up. It is a short piece, so it would seem that you’d only move things a very short distance, which doesn’t seem to make it worthwhile. Unless it’s intended to “expand” your storage by daisy chaining multiple storages together so it overflows into the next? If so, that can make sense. I could see it as a way to get a resource into another work plot, but with such a short distance, that doesn’t seem very viable. Since the hopper is angled instead of straight, you wouldn’t connect multiple of those together to go longer distances. So am I right that it’s just for expanding storage for an item? It might be helpful to give a better or more detailed explanation of what it’s for on the research page. Edit: I did figure out to use it to fill a furnace by reading another post here, but that wasn’t clear in the game.
Anyhow, that’s just what I’ve seen so far. I don’t want to get too much information in here because I know that can just get confusing, but I these were some things that appear pretty quickly when playing the game. Overall, I’m liking the game so far. I’m just getting started, so of course I don’t know how things go from here, but it looks good so far. I’m sure I’ll be back to post some more thoughts later.
Oh, and it can be a pain to accidentally delete something because you had the club in your hand without realizing it and then clicked on something. Even though you get that item back and can place it again, that’s still frustrating. Maybe removing something could require holding the mouse button for a couple of seconds or something? I know that does make it harder to quickly remove a lot of things, so maybe it could be done similar to Empyrion, where you set your tool’s usage from a radial menu? In this case, you’d set it to “harvest” or else to “dismantle” and it would only do what it is set to. Just a thought.
