How we’re working with beta feedback!

Greetings, Tacticians!

It’s been about a week since the first Lost Eidolons Closed Beta ended, and we wanted to take some time to address some of the feedback the community has been providing us regarding the current state of Lost Eidolons. It’s a major philosophy of Ocean Drive Studio to leverage the feedback loop between the community and the development team as an instrumental tool when creating a game. We have our vision of where we want to take our games as a studio, but we have faith in our community’s ideas and suggestions as well. Teamwork makes the dream work, right?

During the first Closed Beta, over 300 participants tried out the game and gave us their feedback. 65 players gave us a detailed survey summary of their experiences (spanning 87 questions) while 80 Feature Upvote submissions were upvoted 730 times with nearly 100 comments total.

For our first and most focused playtest, this is a resounding success. Thanks to this, our team gained some keen insights on several actionable items, and our list of feedback to work on is still growing as we continue to sift through everyone’s comments. Here are a few below:

Obelia [Feature Upvote – Class Advancement Feedback]: When changing class for the first time, the skills previously assigned were removed and there was no notification to reassign them before the next battle. Overall, the Skill notification needs to be improved. If a character has skill slots available and unassigned skills, player should be notified.

ODS: We’re working on the character management UI, and will especially make note of creating some sort of notification during class acquisition when it unequips all your current skills.

S0LU [Feature Upvote – Animation Feedback]: Only one eye sometimes moves in cutscenes, causing them to look cross eyed.

ODS: To be honest, we were already aware of their somewhat drifting eyes even before the beta, but it wasn’t something we could fix before it was time to deploy the build. This along with animations in general (to avoid that uncanny valley effect) is something that we’ll gradually be working on, as well as reviewing potential other methods to avoid the issue altogether if possible.

Abundy [Discord – Combat Visuals Feedback]: Fights taking place with one of the characters in a thicket often only shows the thicket, with the character and their animation etc. being invisible, maybe the thickets should only be like knee high during the animations or just modeled differently so they don’t break the battle cutscenes

ODS: This is something we’re working on. When the camera pans inwards when an attack is confirmed, the game’s graphics become much more detailed at the actual location of the map. We’re still working out the logistics of visibility though in these types of scenarios, but we know there can be loss of immersion if your character is wildly swinging at a thicket, with the enemy hiding somewhere in it. Or maybe that’s more realistic, but it definitely doesn’t look as cool.

Shawn Andrews [Feature Upvote – Options Suggestion]: Quit to Main Menu option from in battle.

ODS: We’re going to overhaul the entire battle systems menu, to which this option will be included.

Rin.Creative [Feature Upvote – UI Feedback]: The characters; Francisco, Eden and Leon, are wearing shoddy towns clothes but their icons show them wearing very good armor. This is almost a spoiler for what is to come with the characters. As commoner class, the icon should represent this.

ODS: Ahh… what a keen eye. You know, we’ll have to adjust these portraits so it accurately reflects what they’re actually wearing no matter what class they currently are. At the moment it’s just one default portrait. Good looks!

Joyce [Feature Upvote – Options Suggestion]: Can we add a feature that I can save mid-battle?

ODS: This is definitely going to be implemented. We understand that some folks may not be able to commit a full block of time to a half hour to hour long battle and want to be able to put the game down and pick it back up later.

Pat [Feature Upvote – Controls Suggestion]: You are supposed to be able to pan the camera with WASD but it doesn’t work. Also smooth panning is preferred over using WASD to move one grid space at a time from the cursor.

ODS: Among combat shortcuts (as well as being able to remap them), we’ll review the methods of control and operation to make the player’s experience less frustrating and more smooth overall, including WASD panning.

Mechpolaris [Feature Upvote – Options Suggestion]: Add information regarding the difficulty differences when selecting the difficulty at the start of a playthrough.

ODS: True, it would be confusing to select a difficulty if you had absolutely no idea what the difference was between them. We’ll going to least add a description when you make the choice.

These are just a few feedbacks that we are actively developing solutions towards currently. However there’s tons more that we’re reviewing at the moment, such as better visual clarity on battle maps, built-in reminders for weapon advantage vs. armor types, UI clarity in places like the class advancement so that you don’t have to struggle to see advancement requirements, improving weapon types to be more distinguished from one another, and improved controls such as being able to click on an adjacent enemy to immediately launch an attack without having to menu. This isn’t even scratching the surface! Expect us to share more and more responses on your ideas in future articles.

So now, you may be wondering, “What comes next?”

We’re going to take as much time as necessary to develop important adjustments based on your feedback. We don’t think it would be as impactful if we gave you a version of the game filled with many of the issues and concerns you’ve already remarked on last time.

If we could wow everyone in the next beta the same way we wowed some of the Steam Next Fest alpha participants who got to try out this beta build, that would be a win in our books.

Upon making these changes, we’ll update everyone along the way by using the Feature Upvote board to mark the current status of each feedback as well as commenting on your suggestions. Lastly, we’ll provide monthly updates on everything new during our monthly dev update livestreams, as we always have before.

Speaking of which, there’s one coming up this upcoming Thursday! We’ll be checking out October’s newest updates in the game and inquiring Creative Director Jin Sang on his thoughts on many of these ideas you’ve all provided live. Make sure to follow our Twitch channel!

The folks at Ocean Drive Studio would like to once again thank you all in our community for giving us your earnest feedback. Don’t pull any punches along our journey in creating a timeless turn-based tactical RPG. Keep calling us out on the things you don’t like and keep notifying us of the things that you do like about Lost Eidolons.

We will keep improving.

We’re counting on you, Tactician.

– The ODS Team

P.S. – Some extra news! We had some folks ask us if any of the physical collector’s editions were still available, so our team decided to re-open the BackerKit store as a way to celebrate this successful first beta. We’ll keep it open for another month for those who still want to pick up a copy! The physical collector’s edition includes a collector’s box, 2LP vinyl soundtrack, an extra digital Steam copy of the game, and a collector’s art book!

Store URL: https://losteidolons.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

Ocean Drive Studio