Greetings medievalists!
At the heart of game development lies a deep commitment to improving the player's experience, which means not only adding new features and fixing bugs, but also refining existing systems. We understand that every aspect of the game must work together seamlessly to create an immersive and enjoyable experience for our players. One of the first things we overhauled was the crop system. Previously, your settlers would magically conjure them from thin air with no additional resources required. The system was updated once we established proper storage options, introduced merchants and diplomacy. Only then did it make sense to introduce new resources, add new flora, and properly tie those features to the new harvesting/farming loop. While some may have initially been hesitant about these changes, we were thrilled to hear that the majority of players embraced them wholeheartedly! Eventually, players that didn't like this feature update were able to turn it off via custom difficulty settings. We can't do this for all of the things we overhaul, but balancing feedback and suggestions is something we think about often.
We are constantly discussing new features and what needs to be overhauled with existing ones. The things we choose to do are a combination of a couple of factors: the complexity of the task, the time required to finish it, and its contribution to the overall game experience. Something that sounds easy on paper, like ‘add water’ is, in reality, a complicated feature that needs to be linked to several different systems. Some that you can easily guess, while others require a lot of work happening under the game’s hood.
Then, there are issues that we would classify as annoyances. These do not break the game in any way, but they do make you wonder "why is it not fixed/upgraded yet?" When that happens, usually, there is something occurring under the hood that prevents seemingly easy tasks from being solved.
One of the major annoyances for our players was the inability to edit multiple selected storage/fuel structures. Good news! The next update will allow this. You will be able to edit their priority, material/resource allowance, and even change names. However, this feature will not work for production buildings. That has a separate, more complex logic for each building and as of now, properly prioritizing such systems may take a lot of time without finding a middle ground that would equally satisfy everyone.
The trough is also another thing that was causing a bunch of problems for many players. Were they given good enough priority? Were they reachable? Were there enough resources to fill them? Whatever the case, people reported that animals were starving left and right. Something had to be changed.
In the next update, troughs will be turned into fuel-able structures. Think of them as braziers but for food. That also means you will be able to right-click and prioritize them. To balance it with the rest of the tasks, refilling troughs will be part of the Animal Handling job, as suggested by you. That makes sense - it was part of the Hauling job before, and now we’ve separated the code and synced it with Animal handling infrastructure.
While we're on the subject of buildings that use fuel, do you remember how settlers used to have to grab small wood pile to refill a brazier or candelabra, and then go get another wood pile for the next one? Well, that's going to change. Settlers will be able to take a big pile of wood and use it to refill as many fuel-based buildings as they need. Pretty neat, huh?
We also plan to add a bunch of new sound effects to the game, as you made some wonderful suggestions via the F10 system in-game. Birds will be chirping, cows will be mooing, and settlers’ footsteps will finally be heard. It might sound like a minor thing (hehe, sound), but we think it will greatly improve the game’s immersion.
That is all for this MMT, folks! Your feedback continues to be an essential part of our development cycle. Whether you report via F10, provide suggestions on Steam or in our Discord channels, your opinion helps us shape Going Medieval into something special. Not everyone will agree with some of our choices, but in the end, we hope that the final product will be something everyone can enjoy.
Foxy Voxel Team