Gearing your party via enlistment - a bug, exploit or "nothing we can do"

[Lycanus Darkbinder]

I'm curious if this is one of those faults of Warband that Floris has no control over, a bug or an exploit.

I joined a Nord army and made it to Huscarl in about 1 real-time hour. I quit and noticed I lost all my equipment. Since it was far better than what I had, here's what I did:

• Join the army
• Rank up to Huscarl
• Ask for temporary leave
  
     
  • 
           
  • At this point I sat still on the world map so my former commander would be easy to find
       
• Open the party window and select any companion
• Place all my Huscarl gear in their inventory
• Rejoin the army
• Tell my commander I want to resign
  
     
  • 
         
  • At this point the game beeped at me because it couldn't find my Huscarl gear to take back
       
• Open the previous companion's inventory and take all my Huscarl gear
• Repeat as desired

I then performed the same routine with Vaegir (Marksman) and Swadia (Knight) to rank up and get gear for my companions that are archers and cavalry.

So not only did I get to keep the gear without taking the penalty from deserting but I got:

• Good gear for my low-level companions
• Weekly pay from my commander
• Lots of XP, weapon proficiencies, etc.
• About 50k in denar from selling post-battle loot

 

[Windyplains]

We could track what your rank was, what gear that rank gets and search all of your companions' inventories for it to remove if found.  The problem is you might legitimately have some of this gear so such an effort would only penalize folks and the exploit isn't enough to be worth fixing.  I'd say it falls under the "you cheating in a single player game has no effect on my game play".

 

[Ikaguia]

or you could make the player pay for what he couldn't give back.

 

[Lycanus Darkbinder]

We could track what your rank was, what gear that rank gets and search all of your companions' inventories for it to remove if found.  The problem is you might legitimately have some of this gear so such an effort would only penalize folks and the exploit isn't enough to be worth fixing.

True

I'd say it falls under the "you cheating in a single player game has no effect on my game play".

Crap, I forgot that Floris wasn't for multiplayer. That's the only reason I bothered to test this. Well, if you ever decide to port to multiplayer then this can be the frist bug report 

 

[Duh]

or you could make the player pay for what he couldn't give back.

Only if he had enough money, for other cases we would have to code another bunch of consequences. But as windy said, its up to the player to use the exploit or not, this wont be "fixed" as its not worth the needed effort.

Also nice to see you around ika

 

[Bankoleva]

Honestly considering all the things and time you go through just to get to those ranks, i just consider it icing on the cake. It's not like you sign up and get the rank and gear in 2 days. Takes atleast 1 month of promoting and at least 1 battle per rank to get there, so getting 10,000 denars worth of gear is a nice bonus IMO

 

[Lycanus Darkbinder]

Honestly considering all the things and time you go through just to get to those ranks, i just consider it icing on the cake. It's not like you sign up and get the rank and gear in 2 days. Takes atleast 1 month of promoting and at least 1 battle per rank to get there, so getting 10,000 denars worth of gear is a nice bonus IMO

Don't get me wrong, I actually had a lot of fun doing it. As a Swadian recruit I actually knocked my old Nord commander off his horse in battle.  Even more fun was when I resigned from Swadia and ran into him on the map he said "It's good to see you again. I've heard stories of your prowess" 

The main reason I made the post was because I was thinking from a multiplayer standpoint and I thought it might be exploitable. I forgot Floris was singleplayer.

 

[eastpaw]

Might I suggest a really simple "fix" for this? When you try to quit, you are given 4 choices:

1) return all your equipment (only possible if you have everything in your inventory),
2) pay for all your equipment in gold, (only possible if you have enough money),
3) take a moderate relations hit with the lord in question and a small relations penalty with the lord's faction (for demonstrating you are untrustworthy), or
4) reconsider quitting.

Option 1 and 2 cannot be combined - the quartermaster would have none of that nonsense.

While this exploit really isn't a big deal, putting in these options should help with the immersion. I also believe this isn't a lot of work to code - though I am a Python beginner and have no experience with M&B modding and could be dead wrong.