[DISCUSSION] Fan Suggestion Thread

Vigidr said:

The first one totally looks like a Noldor Lords Helmet.

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well it would look cool on them too. But what I meant when proposing those is to maybe offer some ideeas to replace the current in my opinion limited amount of unique winged helmets (like I said the ones curently in game look ... retarded). But my main point was adding some variety and unique looking gear to empire and fierdsvain that would actually feel more ... lordly. And really you simply can't call a unit a Valkirye unless they ride a pegasus and wear winged helmets. Now since the Pegasus is a flat no in pedor, at least give them some actually nordic winged helmets and not the bland adveturer helm.

And since I had the time to think fashion, and since pendor is a light fantasy setting I would love to see some more .... regal looking armors. Capes, or animal pelts hangind from the shoulders (I love the nemean helm, I just wish there was an armor that had a badass lion pelt with the lion's head making up one of the shoulderhuards). I also think there is a gap in armor options here, specifically you have chainmail and then you have plate. Well what about a suit that uses a plate body armor, but scale for limbs, with a front opened skirt made of scale on leather hanging from the hip. What I'm trying to say is some transitional gear would be good. And I love the Noldor gear, but it could use some cleanup. As it stands, they have no features, they look like some flat dress that a child sprayed with random paint. Too much detail IMO.

TL;DR: there are 2 extreme right now: armor too bland or armor too complicated. Also, not enough capes.

And to give an example from the mod itself: the Highlander armor is one of the best looking in the game. It has easy to identify and sharp details that make it unique while still looking like wargear. As oposed to the worst I've seen, the noldor rune armor. I mean you have a sludge of purple and pink with no discernable pattern hanging on your back (unless you squint at it) and the front is a mess of silver, black, dark green, red ... too many colors urgh. I can't even see what kind of armor it is (singe plate, multiple bands, scales, chain?).

EDIT: fanboy sugestion, but when I think noldor rune armor and noldor knights I think something looking like this:

for those wondering why i said fanboy, it's because i'm a huge warhammer fan and this dude is a White Lion (elite shock infantry of the elves)

Some ideas for balancing out troops trees of some factions and improving them overall:

Empire

- Gladiators: Give them armor/helmet similar to the ones Gladiators used in arenas and have specific weapon specialization. For example use 2H weapons only and throwing ones.

D'Shar

- Merge the blademaster/scorpion assassin into 1 unit. Keep the Scorpion Assassin as reference with same armor (increase armor stats) and make it pure infantry unit, with shield guaranteed (remove horses).

Fierdsvain

After fighting against them numerous times they are by far the worst in open field battles. The berserkers are taken out instantly, the Valkyries are light cavalry derping around and only the huscarls seem to do well.

- Maybe remove the huntsman - heavy archer tree and have the warriors upgrade to a unit (level 40) that is similar to the Vanskerry Jarls.
- I find the Vanskerries minor parties more threatening than a Fierdsvain Lord's party

Ravenstern

Since they are fighting in areas with snow it would be more realistic to be more infantry based:

- Remove Ravenstern Horseman / Mounted Ranger from the troop tree.
- Have the Kierguards upgrade to Ravenstern Highlanders.
- Create a new special unit, a heavier version of the Ravenstern Rangers:


* Using the Dragon Plate armor to fit with their theme.

- Introduce a secondary spawn point for the mystmountains, close to the border of Fierdsvain/Ravensten. The area around Poinsbruk can easily become a burden for Ravenstern with so many spawns (mystmountains + jatu).

Generic

- Remove 2h weapons from Mounted Noble Knights & Orders. They are easy prey for archers when they spawn with no shield. Knights of the Lion for example have an awesome shield and it's a shame seeing them spawn with a 2h weapon and taken down easily.

shoshuro said:

Some ideas for balancing out troops trees of some factions and improving them overall:

Empire

- Gladiators: Give them armor/helmet similar to the ones Gladiators used in arenas and have specific weapon specialization. For example use 2H weapons only and throwing ones.

D'Shar

- Merge the blademaster/scorpion assassin into 1 unit. Keep the Scorpion Assassin as reference with same armor (increase armor stats) and make it pure infantry unit, with shield guaranteed (remove horses).

Fierdsvain

After fighting against them numerous times they are by far the worst in open field battles. The berserkers are taken out instantly, the Valkyries are light cavalry derping around and only the huscarls seem to do well.

- Maybe remove the huntsman - heavy archer tree and have the warriors upgrade to a unit (level 40) that is similar to the Vanskerry Jarls.
- I find the Vanskerries minor parties more threatening than a Fierdsvain Lord's party

Ravenstern

Since they are fighting in areas with snow it would be more realistic to be more infantry based:

- Remove Ravenstern Horseman / Mounted Ranger from the troop tree.
- Have the Kierguards upgrade to Ravenstern Highlanders.
- Create a new special unit, a heavier version of the Ravenstern Rangers:

Spoiler

* Using the Dragon Plate armor to fit with their theme.

- Introduce a secondary spawn point for the mystmountains, close to the border of Fierdsvain/Ravensten. The area around Poinsbruk can easily become a burden for Ravenstern with so many spawns (mystmountains + jatu).

Generic

- Remove 2h weapons from Mounted Noble Knights & Orders. They are easy prey for archers when they spawn with no shield. Knights of the Lion for example have an awesome shield and it's a shame seeing them spawn with a 2h weapon and taken down easily.

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Because heaven forbid the one faction that rapes sieges have a weakness in open field battles. Also removing archers is a flat NO. They need at least some form of long range firepower, no matter how ****. As for the berserkers beeing fragile ... that is the ****ing point! IF one of those guys gets to your infantry line he will take out 2 or 3 before he goes down. The problem here is the VI grouping them in with the housecarls, when a smart player will have 2 infantry gropus (one huscarl one berserk) and use the huscarl shied wall t protect the berserkers untill they can get into the enemy line.

Yeah ... because what the uber snipers needed was ... a plate armored sniper. Dude, wtf?! Rangers are ****ing powerfull enough as they are (I would argue more powerfull than they deserve since they outclass even the bloody noldor trained silvermist KO) and you want to remove their only weakness?

And once more heaven forbid those massive plate armored tanks sometimes spawn without a shield so instead of 50 or arrows to kill them it takes 30 ... oh and another thing? Archers don't kill the KO's. Archers dehorse the KOs and then the infantry mobs them and rapes them. A 2h dehorsed knight is actually deadlier than if he had his shield. So again, no.

The Dshar idee i don't mind much, but really no one makes Scorpions ... top tier infantry is fragile enough as it is, and upgrading them into something without a shield is preety suicidal (unless you are a hardcore tactician that use all control groups)

And the gladiators ... they have the nemean helmet. That is badass enough as it is. They could only get manlier if you gave them wulfbode's armor (hmm ... interesting ideea for a cheese empire playthrough ... to the troop editor!)

I think each faction has their strengths and weakneses already. Thats why the playr tends to be able to win so well on the field against lords, even noobs like me. We take the strength of each faction and make them our own. Ravenstern Rangers, Fierdsvain Huscarls, Knights of the Ebony Gauntlet, D'Shar Blademasters... We can get them all and defeat all, so if you strengthen a faction's strength even more like with armored Berserkers or armored Rangers, than we as the players, get that strength too, and will have an unfair advantage over the other factions.

Xzayler said:

I think each faction has their strengths and weakneses already. Thats why the playr tends to be able to win so well on the field against lords, even noobs like me. We take the strength of each faction and make them our own. Ravenstern Rangers, Fierdsvain Huscarls, Knights of the Ebony Gauntlet, D'Shar Blademasters... We can get them all and defeat all, so if you strengthen a faction's strength even more like with armored Berserkers or armored Rangers, than we as the players, get that strength too, and will have an unfair advantage over the other factions.

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My observations are from joining as a merc level 1 (you can't do much due to crappy equipment) and joining battles between Lords with similar party sizes. So in a way you can see how each faction performs vs each other in the open field.

The player can defeat anything outhere since you scale better from the AI.

Yeah ... because what the uber snipers needed was ... a plate armored sniper. Dude, wtf?! Rangers are ******** powerfull enough as they are (I would argue more powerfull than they deserve since they outclass even the bloody noldor trained silvermist KO) and you want to remove their only weakness?

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Silvermists have 7 PD & 400 Profs so they outclass the Rangers easily + overall better stats. Also special units appear only in parties of a few Lords.

ps: i never said to change anything about the RR's read carefully.

RRs are much better than SRs in terms of equipment and actual battlefield effectiveness, especially considering cost to kill ratio.

Epicrules said:

RRs are much better than SRs in terms of equipment and actual battlefield effectiveness, especially considering cost to kill ratio.

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Shouldn't be that hard to believe for anyone. There are no significant stat differences between the both anyway, and just having the right equipment can go a long way if a lot of players' experience of Cobra Warriors or Heroine Adventurers' performance is anything to go by.

Also, people insistent on going Noldor usually aren't meant to get more than mere breadcrumbs unless they're soldiers pretty much on par with Hero Adventurers, or the chosen one him/herself, so SRs are probably fine as they are.

The only way I can see any reference to other siege weapons would be to create new scenes with a breach in the walls, which would require new props to simulate broken walls, and would still lack active bombardment during the fight.  However, if one of the dev team were willing to put in all that extra work for alternative battle scenes, that would at least less repetitive.

I also would like to second having a second spawn point for Mystmountain armies above Stoutheart Castle just to spread them out more.  My current game has Poinsbruk being almost invincible due to mystmountain and jatu armies spawning and wandering around the area.

omeganaut said:

I also would like to second having a second spawn point for Mystmountain armies above Stoutheart Castle just to spread them out more.  My current game has Poinsbruk being almost invincible due to mystmountain and jatu armies spawning and wandering around the area.

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With surprise attacks in mind, Poinsbruk is anything BUT invincible. In pretty much all of my games the fall of Ravenstern usually begin with one of two things: Either the greenies seize Ravenstern, or someone - anyone - seizing a Poinsbruk just recently sacked by Wolfbode/Zulkar/K'juda. The current game's seeing the D'Shar banner of all people flying there. That being said, a second spawn point might alleviate this, too.

I also have a suggestion of my own: A good part of the Noldor hate in this part stems from the facts that (i) They cry oppression while letting slip berserk patrols on unwitting caravans/lords/peasants all the time; (ii) Positive relations with them is a prerequisite for victory; (iii) They are OP and just better. The last point is working as designed, and since there is no way to change the second, I suppose we work towards changing the first should work.

I'm suggesting something along the lines of a quest(line) that, when done, will restore Noldor relations with either all kingdom or just the kingdom the player is belonging to, back to neutral. This way, no longer will they attack lords (or at least friendly lords) or caravans and peasants any more. This makes sense in two way: (i) If the player is the Chosen of Madigan and the one to bring peace and prosperity to the world, then he and his kingdom should be buddies with the Noldor - as in at least not attacked when they're not actually doing anything harmful, (ii) It makes no sense for the oh-so-high-and-noble Noldor to act like glorified bandits as someone have noted, especially since their patrols tend to wander really far away and wreck havoc in places they really have no business being around.

If it's a quest chain, I would also suggest its conclusion will result in Quiqfen moving out of Laria and creating a Noldor Depot spawning Noldor caravans to everywhere in the world, as proof that the player has upheld his promise ("If I am king, I shall make sure Noldor are treated like every other Pendor citizen"). Of course defending them is not the player's responsibility. Also this quest would make the Elacrai NPCs MUCH less hostile to the player. It adds a sense of completion to the game: The world is finally at peace, and the Noldor and men are friends (again).

This quest chain actually has a hook: Sadren's "I want to ask more about the Noldor" question, which I guess is dummied out at the moment? Having it turn into the quest hook when you reach 90+ relations would make sense, since he explicitly tells you he'd speak more "when we know you better".

Also, also, is it possible to spawn the Noldor lords at Elacrai every time they are not in the field?

In my current playthrough I'm having serious balance of power issues. At day 300 or so, three of the 5 factions are down to only 1~2 settlements. Fierdsvain owns 8 cities and fields 200-300 man  armies, Ravenstern is doing absolutely nothing, Empire loses every war, Sarleon holds  feasts while at the brink of collapse, and D'shar camped out in front of Torbah for the past 90 days and will likely be swatted  by the first faction that dow's them sooner or later.  These three struggling factions, from the looks of it, will be out of the game by the time I get my first castle.

Of course it sort of slipped my attention to try to do things to prevent faction collapse, like rescuing lords or mercing out to weak factions, which I'm trying desperately to make  up as of right now. But I wasn't expecting the balance of power to shift SO early. Most of the time I was minding my business without realizing how inept those losing factions were. Now I've tried three times to get Ravenstern and D'shar to declare war on the green fever, but each time King Valdis ignores the provocation.  I feel so dirty.  And then Raven goes on an declares war on weak Sarleon, which is getting reamed by 2 other factions already! Give me a break! 

It's disappointing to see the  troop tree diversity to disappear this way as most villages on the map only offer fierdsvain troops. I don't have anything against the fierdsvain troop tree, out of which I only need the huscarls (yes I know they also get berserkers, but I don't use them) but the presence of d'shar bladesmen and halberdiers in my army is really something I can't do without.  On top of that you know, I prefer to see Pendor neatly divided until I come along! If I have to spend the rest of the game fighting solely the fierdsvain and ravenstern  it would seriously affect my enjoyment of the campaign.

I never saw factions go this fast in vanilla. Yes, factions would wax and wane, but on their own it was rare until very late in the game. For instance playing as a Khergit vassal for over 500 days, I never really got to the point where any faction dominated more than half of the map, or where any one faction was at the verge of destruction. Admittedly I was taking it slow, relishing battles and trying to siege fairly without the use of exploits, but that's my playstyle.  Since Pendor is a particularly slow paced mod, where the player must take his time to build his character and party before taking on the world, it's very strange to see the balance of power shifting to one side (without even assistance from the player) earlier than it would in vanilla Warband. Other mods I've played, such as Floris, it was unusual too see one faction dominating over the rest until well over 700 days in the game. And it's not just me, I've noticed other people on the forum also having the same problem.

With this in view, I would like to offer a couple of suggestions.

-If a faction has less than 2 settlements other factions would not declare war on it for the first 500 days. Although by itself, it can still declare war on another. This is to prevent two struggling factions from destroying one another, while a neighboring big one moves in to stealthily blitz their weakly defended holdings.
-If a faction has more than say 6 settlements, other factions would likely make peace with each other and declare war on it. This would also make it more challenging for the player to unify Pendor.
-If a faction is way too weak it should receive some sort of reinforcement to prevent it from being knocked out too soon.
-Villages ought to train the troops they game started them with no matter who owns them, instead of instantly changing to that of  a different culture. Either that, or there should be some alternative way to gather recruits from all 5 factions.
-Faction capitals should be extra well defended, with many more troops than regular cities. This is to prevent capital gank which I saw early on in the game, with the D'Shar losing Singal and quickly withering away since. I believe this mechanic was also present in Floris.
-After a faction is vanquished and all its lords are in exile, I envision a kind of "return of the king"  mechanic where  the vanquished faction leader and his vassals spawn on the map to re-start the faction. "For instance, King X assembled a giant army and returned to Pendor to retake his lost possessions!".  Perhaps a bit too big of a thing to ask, especially since I don't know what the hardcoded limitations are.  This, if possible, would also provide a great new challenge in the late game.

Custom knight orders should have more armor variations. Right now we could only give them one set of armor and everyone would spawn with the same gear... like a clone army. I suggest there be an option to add multiple armor sets for your CKO.

I can understand if you want that just for cosmetics (though then it doesn't quite belong here), but it'll be useless unless you use it with a tactical AI submod assigning classes to agents according to their current equipment, not just their troop type (eg. treating dehorsed "cavalry" as infantry).

I don't see why not. Almost every unit in game has a variety of items to choose from. Knights of the Lion for example, has a selection of 2 body armors, multiple helmets, and a whole array of weapons to spawn with. And we don't need a "tactical AI submod" for there to be simple armor variety. If the player decides to give an infantry class of knights the possibility to spawn with ranged weapons, so what? It doesn't need to be reassigned to the archer group. 

I just want to make my CKO look less of an clone army and have variety like all the other units 

Learn to code and understand what MV did, how he did it and why certain aspects of it are limited and you´ll realise that adding a wheel to a crutch is not helpful.

Kushana said:

In my current playthrough I'm having serious balance of power issues. At day 300 or so, three of the 5 factions are down to only 1~2 settlements. Fierdsvain owns 8 cities and fields 200-300 man  armies, Ravenstern is doing absolutely nothing, Empire loses every war, Sarleon holds  feasts while at the brink of collapse, and D'shar camped out in front of Torbah for the past 90 days and will likely be swatted  by the first faction that dow's them sooner or later.  These three struggling factions, from the looks of it, will be out of the game by the time I get my first castle.

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i like this perhaps a spawn of a thousand army of the king's troops would be nice. the last defenders, an extra army you have to fight when you want to eliminate the said faction yourself. i like this a lot

A lot of people on the boards dislike how long it takes to train the CKO to an acceptable level, given their cost and rarity. The reasons why have been discussed lots elsewhere. There are two sides to this issue. On one hand it takes preposterously long to "complete" your CKO, or even get their weapon skills above 300, that is on par with the lowliest of KO's. On the other hand, they are intended to serve as a very late game end goal for the player to pursue. So I propose to actually balance out both - their utility in the early-mid game with potential end game cheesiness. 


This is a cross post from another topic:

Kushana said:

Personally I my suggestion is to modify the CKOs as follows:

Buffs:

-hero training now greatly increases the amount of weapons points per monthly training session. E.G. 50,60 per category instead of 10-20.
-qualis gem is no longer needed in order to set up a second CKO, only gold and honor.

Nerfs:

-The max amount a skill or stat can be trained is limited. For instance at start, your knights can only have say a max  str of 21 and weapon skill of 270. In order to raise this limit, you will need qualis gems. Each qualis gem raises the weapons cap by 30 and stat cap by 3.
-gear is also limited. In order to unlock access to best  faction gear you will need to complete a certain quest line such as getting high relationship points with a certain order or faction, conquering a certain faction, as a reward for defeating a unique spawn or defeating a ruler. E.G. having very high relations with heretics unlocks eventide/ebony armor and weapons. Right now this mechanic only exists for unlocking Noldor gear.


That way your CKOs can be useful and (relatively) readily available throughout the game, while still progressing slowly until they reach uber powerful status. You will also have to take care in improving their weapons and armor stage by stage as opposed to just buying the best items from the outset and slowly waiting for the weapons points to rack up before deploying them en masse.

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I'm not sure if you understand how silly some of those suggestions are, not only balance-wise but also coding wise. You'll notice that ALL KOs in the game have the same requirements for founding a second chapter, regardless of whether or not you already own a fief with a chapter. You need to understand that CKOs have the potential to be incredibly powerful and exist mostly as a late-game tool for the enjoyment of the player if they want to take advantage of it, they aren't designed to be an automatic win-the-game. The other KOs have hundreds of years of history and story behind them, but you are just some guy telling people they're knights now. You're not gonna start off with mass-produced copies of the best armor or weapons in the game, you need to work for it, and honestly it's already rather silly how quickly you can get 200+ men armed with a weapon that you probably won't even see in shops ever, and for only a fraction of the price.

Kushana said:

A lot of people on the boards dislike how long it takes to train the CKO to an acceptable level, given their cost and rarity. The reasons why have been discussed lots elsewhere. There are two sides to this issue. On one hand it takes preposterously long to "complete" your CKO, or even get their weapon skills above 300, that is on par with the lowliest of KO's. On the other hand, they are intended to serve as a very late game end goal for the player to pursue. So I propose to actually balance out both - their utility in the early-mid game with potential end game cheesiness. 

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CKO is the most interesting feature of the game and the only way to get Knights who can get close to Noldor levels if you plan to play a really long game. Also it is a newly founded order so they should be low skilled compared to existing Knighthood Orders. I also believe CKO should not be allowed to get better from Shadow Legion or the Lions who have been around for so many years.

My suggestions after grinding PoP numerous times:

- Equipment times:

This is an issue that the majority of the players have, they don't want to wait so long to get them equipped for example with a decent piece of armor (i mean even a heraldic mail with tabard takes long and it is a normal armor stats wise).

A legit way would be, if you are a Grandmaster of an existing Order you can talk to Alexios in the Stronghold and ask him for craftsman secrets. This would be a 1 time option that reduces equip times.

- Proficiencies:

Having even your Sergeants with noldor bows and up to 400 proficiencies is way too OP. Would actually put a limit to prevent the player getting uber-elite troops and maybe remove upgrades cause the first 4-5 are very easy to afford.

Also slightly increase their starting stats so that they don't look like farmers.

Epicrules said:

I'm not sure if you understand how silly some of those suggestions are, not only balance-wise but also coding wise.

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Way to kick someone to the ground. If my suggestions are impractical coding wise, then point out why. Honestly I don't see how an overhaul of how CKO's boost their WP should pose such difficulty, the rate of which I see as the biggest issue with them right now. 

Epicrules said:

You'll notice that ALL KOs in the game have the same requirements for founding a second chapter, regardless of whether or not you already own a fief with a chapter.

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Really? I never even saw the option of creating another chapter of my CKO. When I asked this question here, I was told it requires a Qualis gem. I hold that there should be better use for spending a Qualis on your CKOs.

Epicrules said:

You need to understand that CKOs have the potential to be incredibly powerful and exist mostly as a late-game tool for the enjoyment of the player if they want to take advantage of it, they aren't designed to be an automatic win-the-game.

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I don't think you read my post entirely. The problem as I outlined it, was that  by the time you set up your CKO gold shouldn't really be an obstacle, so you usually end up buying the best available weapons and armor from the outset. But getting them to even squire level weapon proficiencies takes quite a while longer than it does to equip them with the best set. I propose the opposite model - raising their WP, at least initially, should be relatively, and I stress RELATIVELY, quick and easy, while top level gear should be harder and longer to acquire. I desire to see upgrading come in stages, such that "affordable weapons and armor" would actually be a viable selection of gear now, rather than just a purely cosmetic one. I agree that raising their WP to Noldor, or even KoTL levels should be expensive and take a long while, and possibly also prestige and additional Qualis gems. So I propose a logarithmic scale of progression of WP's rather than a linear one. I think it's a bit unfair to call this suggestion "silly" considering it can be worked into existing game mechanics (e.g. the aforementioned Noldor gear unlock).

Epicrules said:

The other KOs have hundreds of years of history and story behind them, but you are just some guy telling people they're knights now. You're not gonna start off with mass-produced copies of the best armor or weapons in the game, you need to work for it, and honestly it's already rather silly how quickly you can get 200+ men armed with a weapon that you probably won't even see in shops ever, and for only a fraction of the price.

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Regarding the implausibility of "instantly" raising an elite body of knights, history begs to differ.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gendarme_%28historical%29

King Charles VII of France basically issued a summons for such an elite group of knights to have on hand for his various military campaigns. He didn't take 100's of years to set up, equip and dictate tactics and training to said class of cavalry. It's not beyond reasonable to imagine battle hardened and experienced knights and adventurers choosing to enter the order. Remember that a knight can only be inducted into the order from the top tier infantry and cavalry, who are already distinguished units in their own right. Sure other KO's start more powerful and better equipped, but as I said, I don't see what's wrong with spending a huge amount of money and rare magical artifacts to get your CKO equaling or exceeding them in the historically brief period of your career in Pendor.