fatigue

[sidhos]

  I'm not really sure how this is supposed to be fun.  I'm sorry, I just don't.  I even downloaded and added the patch that is supposed to remove the fatigue.

So, I'm beginning the game, need to get 5 villagers. I travel to the closest village.  Do some work while I'm there.  On the way to the second closest village, my men are so tired that they are losing morale.  EXHAUSTED it says.  So I camp.  Except camping actually makes things worse. So, I grab a couple more villagers and head back to Praven. I rest until I get the message that my men are fully rested.  Fully, ok?  I start the next step of the quest.  Those 4 bandits are just outside of Praven, less than ONE SECOND away. I fight them. Before I can travel ONE MORE SECOND to go back to Praven and sell the goods I looted, I am getting messages that my men are tired and need to rest in a town again.

Seriously?  I understand the concept of the system, to force players to rest and not run their troops ragged 24/7, but this, as it is implemented, is not fun at all.  I remember now, trying this mod a long time ago, and it has some really interesting features.  Very interesting features, but I'm not going to spend 80 percent of game time "resting in town" to eventually get to those features. 

Edit:  Ok, at least I found why the patch didn't work.  The extraction didn't overwrite, it just stuck another folder into the mod.  I fixed that. 

 

[gsanders]

Camping is something that needs a buff, at least as it was presented.

  If it were up to me, I'd give people with an outdoor background (nomads, lumberjacks, thieves/gypsies, etc) higher skills in camping at character creation,
by several points (maybe 5-8 for a nomad or gypsy and at least 3-5 for a lumberjack).  I don't mind royalty feeling uncomfortable outside their feather bed in a castle each night but if the game had rangers, elves, etc these should have high camp skills.

  My opinion is Rigale needs changes to be smoother in terms of game flow but some of the things introduced are excellent tools for building an adventure.
What you see now is something that I think needs to be worked with.  I haven't finished merging diplomacy and I think diplomacy will change much of the way it flows in terms of doing stuff as you remember from elsewhere.  I'm here mostly for crafting, bard, and harvesting.  I expect a merged Diplomacy + Rigale sometime next week or the following (Valentine's day at the latest), and after that probably some of the changes Cernunos makes now get back patched in.
This is a good time for suggestions, which he may or may not follow.  The merge I make will try to follow his way of doing things as close as Diplomacy allows,
but diplomacy has far more users and where the two were side by side I often chose Diplomacy as the more tested code.  Rigale has a better economy; for politics its Diplomacy all the way.  For doing something useful with your wife, like joining your party - Diplomacy. 

  After releasing a working merge I'll probably make a different version that starts to look and feel more familiar but the first version will be written actually for Cernunos to try, as the main user of Rigale, as close as I can get it to his Rigale.  So there will end up being different flavors of the code - a "stock" Rigale meant as an OSP and a "private blend" that I consider more playable.  At least that's how I see the roadmap for February; this phase should be finished by then.

  - GS

 

[sidhos]

  I love the idea of the features that I read, but the fatigue system (as implemented) doesn't allow the player to play long enough to give anything else a try.  I also posted on the thread about version .11.  The fatigue patch in that post just makes the game go wonky.

  I grew up in the 20th century and by the age of 13, I was very adept at "roughing it."  I can only imagine that the people in this setting (poor people, villagers, seasoned soldiers) would all be familiar enough with sleeping outdoors that they can get some rest.  The wealthy ones in the towns, not so much, I agree.

 

[Cernunos]

I devised this system so that the player uses a town as base camp, and explores around, and goes from town to town, if he wants to travel far, until he becomes real good in camping and wandering, in which case he would travel just like in Native. And if he focuses on traval skills and knowledges, he should traval probably better than in native. I guess it changes the way the game feels, indeed.

 

[sidhos]

I devised this system so that the player uses a town as base camp, and explores around, and goes from town to town, if he wants to travel far, until he becomes real good in camping and wandering, in which case he would travel just like in Native. And if he focuses on traval skills and knowledges, he should traval probably better than in native. I guess it changes the way the game feels, indeed.

I understand, and I have no problem with the concept.  My problem is with the implementation.  As it currently stands, a new player spends vastly more time resting than playing the game.  I'm supposed to increase my camping skill?  How? If I actually set up camp, my troops get more tired, morale continues to drop,  troops desert, and my party becomes almost completely immobile.  At fully rested, leaving a town, troops get exhausted so fast, exploring, much less traveling to another town (that you haven't found yet), is out of the question.

Forgive me if I am coming across too harsh.  I gave the mod a try before, because I find all of your ideas to be very interesting and intriguing, but I won't play as long as I have to rest 30 seconds after every 10 seconds of exploring.  It is your mod, and I respect  that, but I think it would attract a lot more players if the fatigue feature wasn't so harsh on a fresh start.

 

[zykox]

I devised this system so that the player uses a town as base camp, and explores around, and goes from town to town, if he wants to travel far, until he becomes real good in camping and wandering, in which case he would travel just like in Native. And if he focuses on traval skills and knowledges, he should traval probably better than in native. I guess it changes the way the game feels, indeed.

I understand, and I have no problem with the concept.  My problem is with the implementation.  As it currently stands, a new player spends vastly more time resting than playing the game.  I'm supposed to increase my camping skill?  How? If I actually set up camp, my troops get more tired, morale continues to drop,  troops desert, and my party becomes almost completely immobile.  At fully rested, leaving a town, troops get exhausted so fast, exploring, much less traveling to another town (that you haven't found yet), is out of the question.

Forgive me if I am coming across too harsh.  I gave the mod a try before, because I find all of your ideas to be very interesting and intriguing, but I won't play as long as I have to rest 30 seconds after every 10 seconds of exploring.  It is your mod, and I respect  that, but I think it would attract a lot more players if the fatigue feature wasn't so harsh on a fresh start.

If you had played a little more, you would have noticed, that fatigue becomes less of a problem later.

You increase your camping by...camping. So the longer you play, the better it gets. Also, terrain plays a factor and the specific knowledge "plains lore", etc. will increase that.

Fatigue is also offset by the fact, that the AI doesn't move during the night.
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Wandering is also a skill, so depending on your skill level, you'll get tired more easily. Again, terrain plays a factor AND how well you know that area.
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In party options, you can elect to play a song for your men, and choose a song to remove fatigue. The higher your bard skill, the more effective.
You can play every 24hrs, and practice makes perfect. ^^
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Basically, get pathfinding (or a companion with it), it makes getting to towns/castles much easier early- to midgame.
Don't get too many low level troops, because you'll become as slow as a snail, and fatigue will hit you before you get somewhere.

Get 6 horses to increase travelling speed. There is also a corresponding knowledge available to increase travelling speed.
Don't carry too much heavy food without relative party size, at will slow your travelling speed even more.
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"Realism" is a wonky topic...this is Warband, which has by default completely broken realism, with many many stuff affecting ONLY the player.

But think of it this way: Resting in rural areas was not such a big problem for people in the middle ages, yes. But, those times were also very dangerous with numerous bandits and wild animals along the road, and resting off-road certainly was a challenge even for farmers (who usually just stay in their little village and in their hearty homes).

So the fatigue system simply reflects the dangers of resting out in the wilds as well. There may be no real roads or villages to rest in, but there are also no animal attacks, and you can spot bandits like a mile away.
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So don't worry, bear with fatigue for 1 month, and it will become much much better.

 

[sidhos]

"So don't worry, bear with fatigue for 1 month, and it will become much much better."

But why put a player with a fresh character under that?  To be quite frank, only a masochist would find that entertaining.

Yes, I understand the act of camping will eventually increase your camping skill, BUT by the time it does that, you have completely wrecked your party.

Also, you misunderstand my comment about realism.  I could care less if a game is realistic or not. I want it to be entertaining.  However, if the modder is going for realism with a fatigue system, it needs to be balanced out by the "fun factor."  I just don't understand forcing a new player to endure such incredibly harsh penalties for the first 30-60 minutes of gameplay.  I don't understand why it is so hard to understand that this is a recipe for disaster and I would be willing to bet it is the primary reason there isn't enough people playing and testing the mod.

Anyways, that is my opinion.  No sense in constantly repeating it.  Thank you for the advice and tips.