Beggar to Emperor

The list of features for this game are ambitious and come very close to what I would consider my ideal game: - Mount and Blade-like open world sandbox where you go from a lone weakling to building up a powerful army and travel around trading, getting into fights, recruiting characters, etc - No generic troops / red shirts... every NPC is named and somewhat unique, with their own name, traits, skill potentials, relationship with the player, ability to get stronger, etc. - Ability to engage in a wide range of activities, like smithing, fishing, farming, mining, etc... I usually just go for the fighting and a little smithing, but even if the systems aren't super deep at the moment, it makes the world feel more immersive. - Factions occupying settlements and territory on the map, which engage in warfare and diplomacy, capturing each other's settlements, etc.... and the player can join and fight for one of those factions... or possibly start their own (I haven't gotten that far yet, or maybe the feature isn't in yet)? So, I'm very impressed with how well executed this game is, and surprised that seems to have garnered no attention. There are details here that show the developers are putting a lot of depth into the game. For example, at one point I received a notification that one of the cities had gained independence and formed a new kingdom, which I was not expecting. The day-night cycle is gradual, which isn't groundbreaking, but once again, I didn't expect it for an early access game with such a wide range of features. Also, from the updates since early release, I can see that they are working to address feedback about not knowing what to do (by adding tutorial/start quests, which helped me) and also feedback about the start being a slow grind by adding the ability to choose which organization you start in (so you can start as Royalty instead of a Beggar). Don't get me wrong, it's early access and it seems like there's still a lot of work to do, but what's there now is solid, if a bit of a grind and a bit confusing at first. Once I figured out the gameplay loop, I could understand it and progress. For example... it's nearly impossible to build up a large enough army for most fights with just your personal "Members" (mostly due to food upkeep... which probably needs a balancing update), you need to get to a high enough rank in your organization (Smithy, Knightage, Royalty, etc) and build up enough fame to ask lower-ranked members of your organization to follow you.... then their armies will join you in your battles. This is a bit confusing because you could also just recruit lower-ranked characters in your organization, but I think when you do that you just the 1 person and the "Members" just sort of disappear? Some feedback on things that could be improved in my opinion (mostly balancing and tweaks): - There seems to be a lack of fights with weaker/lower tier enemies that aren't in very large numbers (like 100+), making it very difficult to win fights early on (or even later on) without "forming armies". Even as Royalty with 20 "Members" with high-tier gear and high skill, I can't win a fight against 100 vagrants... they swarm and overwhelm. - The rewards for winning battles seem underwhelming... maybe some gold and equipment of the defeated army in addition to fame and spoils would be helpful... even the amount of fame and spoils rewarded seem underwhelming. - The way that groups of "External Faction" units just appear in towns is a bit odd... but I'm guessing this might be placeholder? - The world map would be improved with roaming NPCs armies that you can intercept and interact with (attack or trade) (maybe this is already on the roadmap?)... this could also help address the lack ability to find weaker groups of enemies to fight and the odd-ness of "External Faction" groups in towns. - Days progress way too fast. Probably about 1/3 of the day is spent just walking from the smithy to store. I wouldn't mind, except you get kicked out of buildings at night, so you have to sleep to be able to finish what you were doing. - As I mentioned earlier, food upkeep is quite difficult to keep up with (especially with days going by so fast)... the store in a single settlement doesn't even restock meals fast enough to feed 10 members for more than a few days, so you end up having to travel to another settlemnt or a hunter's lodge or fisherman's hut to get more meals... the travel time of which usually takes another day or 2. - Smithing seems to be required to progress in strengthening your army.... there's no way to purchase the higher-tier gear without purchasing it yourself - Combat isn't terrible, but it's not great either. I think probably the single best improvement that would help make it better would be to make attacks go in the direction of the vector from the player's avatar to the mouse pointer location, instead of it being in the direction the sprite is facing based on keyboard movements (and knock-backs). In addition, the knock-backs from enemy attacks seem excessive in my opinion, but I wouldn't mind it as much if it didn't completely turn my character around and cause my attacks to go in the opposite direction. - I'm guessing this is on the roadmap as well, but the kingdoms/regions could use a little more flavor, like distinct armor styles or preferred weapon types. - Do NPCs just disappear when they leave your army, or can you find them again somewhere? Maybe they could return to where you recruited them from or go to some other hub like a tavern or something? - It would make sense to me if relationship had an impact on loyalty? I think this game has a lot of potential and I look forward to seeing / hope to see it continue to improve.