Kolba
Oh, ok.
Users who are viewing this thread
corsairf4u
Sergeant Knight at Arms
Hello , are you considering increasing the amount of bandits ? Because now there isn't much of them
Kolba
Yes, we are definitely going to add another bandit parties to fill in the empty south and the lands of Picts.
Faderulith
Veteran
For sure You must put more work to the map. Rivers are bit square. I like that face painting. More information about your past. Anyway map should be first to do i think.
BloodEagle729
Recruit
Good overall mod, I like how there is an added degree of realism...I feel like the battle taking place is between two Celtic tribes, and that is pretty appealing. However, the geography of the map is a bit jolting and strange...I'd like to see fewer sharp canyons that I have to walk through, and some more general flat area with woods.
Kolba
Fictional weapons? What do you mean? Something like Excalibur?
Faderulith
Veteran
Maybe He means some exotic, rare, unique weapons like rune sword in Prophesy of Pendor.
Uthred93
Recruit
I love this mod but there are some problems like the lords of the factions getting near the sea and never leave it again or all the bridges are in a small island at the edge of the map.I want to know if this is a problem with my installation or are they bugs which you will correct in later versions.
Blaidd-y-nos
Veteran
I've got a few points to make on the mod, as i've seen so far.
a mix of suggestions and bugs, since i thought it easier to condense it in one post and easier to have only one string of replies to keep track of
1) shields break too easily- i swear all the one's i've been using seem to be made out of cardboard.
2) the briton shields (roman style) look like they've been drawn in mspaint... you might want to get a decent texturer on the job.
also, the oval shields i've tried, all seem to be held in the wrong place for it to sit at the right height for protection when braced, although i realise the fact that the engine doesn't really support boss gripped shields, doesn't help matters, the shield straps can still be configured to hold the shield in a more realistic position i.e. lower (the current ones seem to hold them with the majority of the shield way overhead, and less protection lower down, so you not only can't see, but you get your legs shot.)
3) with the character creation page, where you select where your from, i'm quite confused by the names and descriptions of the regions, especially as none of them seem to correlate to anywhere on the world map, which also doesn't seem to correlate with anywhere in britain i know...
4) spears! of all era's of mod settings, i thought a dark ages mod would at least have spears that work well single handed with shields. i.e. the typical m&b problem being: the set range of the spear means on foot you rarely get any significant hits out of it, as it will usually bounce off at just too little range so it hasn't got up the speed. making spears in game rather ineffective.
i'd say the solution would be to have spears braceable on foot, i.e. while your holding the attack button and the spear is pulled back for attack, anything that runs on to it takes damage, based as usual on how fast they were running on to it. this rather than the usual method of having to time it just right. a hedge of spears is always a hedge of spears not just when your attacking them, it's what makes a shield wall of men with single handed spears so dangerous as even if they're not stabbing out with them, it's not something you just run into without getting squewered.
Also, spears could be improved by something to replicate/simulate the shifting of the hand along the shaft to bring different ranges to bear. this would be hell to try and program in perfectly, so instead i'd suggest simply extending the kill-zone so to speak, of the spearhead much further down the shaft, so you still get viable hits in, even if the enemy's slightly in from the spearhead. (note: i don't actually know how the weapon killzones and damage calculation works in detail in m&b, i just imagine this or something similar would probably work.)
5) bugs: hunting knife appears as a sword when scabbarded on the player's appearance.
6) bugs: one of the lords was wandering round barechested... (i've seen in other mods this has been caused by bandits stealing his stuff, and him not being able to get it back/re-equip it... could be similar cause)
7) some of the 'gaelic'? words in the mod seem a little odd, to be precise the one that struck me was the lords' *firstname* 'map' *father's name*, instead of 'ap' which is the early welsh word that is used in the documents i know of. (though it isn't exactly my period.) i know thats not a huge change, but there were others, i just can't remember what they were
not meaning any disrespect, just out of my own curiousity where did you find your celtic/gaelic translations and various terms from? i'd be quite interested.
8 ) get rid of the archers from the arena fights, and make a few authentic wooden weapon equivalent models for the arena, so you don't get late medieval 2 handed swords in a celtic or saxon fight, even if it is the arena, it just bugs me.
Phew, that was quite a rant, do excuse me
anywho, other than those points, interesting mod concept, reminds me a lot of the old lords of war mod, which sadly died due to a computer failure and all files lost, great shame.
I look forward to further versions and improvements
a mix of suggestions and bugs, since i thought it easier to condense it in one post and easier to have only one string of replies to keep track of
1) shields break too easily- i swear all the one's i've been using seem to be made out of cardboard.
2) the briton shields (roman style) look like they've been drawn in mspaint... you might want to get a decent texturer on the job.
also, the oval shields i've tried, all seem to be held in the wrong place for it to sit at the right height for protection when braced, although i realise the fact that the engine doesn't really support boss gripped shields, doesn't help matters, the shield straps can still be configured to hold the shield in a more realistic position i.e. lower (the current ones seem to hold them with the majority of the shield way overhead, and less protection lower down, so you not only can't see, but you get your legs shot.)
3) with the character creation page, where you select where your from, i'm quite confused by the names and descriptions of the regions, especially as none of them seem to correlate to anywhere on the world map, which also doesn't seem to correlate with anywhere in britain i know...
4) spears! of all era's of mod settings, i thought a dark ages mod would at least have spears that work well single handed with shields. i.e. the typical m&b problem being: the set range of the spear means on foot you rarely get any significant hits out of it, as it will usually bounce off at just too little range so it hasn't got up the speed. making spears in game rather ineffective.
i'd say the solution would be to have spears braceable on foot, i.e. while your holding the attack button and the spear is pulled back for attack, anything that runs on to it takes damage, based as usual on how fast they were running on to it. this rather than the usual method of having to time it just right. a hedge of spears is always a hedge of spears not just when your attacking them, it's what makes a shield wall of men with single handed spears so dangerous as even if they're not stabbing out with them, it's not something you just run into without getting squewered.
Also, spears could be improved by something to replicate/simulate the shifting of the hand along the shaft to bring different ranges to bear. this would be hell to try and program in perfectly, so instead i'd suggest simply extending the kill-zone so to speak, of the spearhead much further down the shaft, so you still get viable hits in, even if the enemy's slightly in from the spearhead. (note: i don't actually know how the weapon killzones and damage calculation works in detail in m&b, i just imagine this or something similar would probably work.)
5) bugs: hunting knife appears as a sword when scabbarded on the player's appearance.
6) bugs: one of the lords was wandering round barechested... (i've seen in other mods this has been caused by bandits stealing his stuff, and him not being able to get it back/re-equip it... could be similar cause)
7) some of the 'gaelic'? words in the mod seem a little odd, to be precise the one that struck me was the lords' *firstname* 'map' *father's name*, instead of 'ap' which is the early welsh word that is used in the documents i know of. (though it isn't exactly my period.) i know thats not a huge change, but there were others, i just can't remember what they were
not meaning any disrespect, just out of my own curiousity where did you find your celtic/gaelic translations and various terms from? i'd be quite interested.
8 ) get rid of the archers from the arena fights, and make a few authentic wooden weapon equivalent models for the arena, so you don't get late medieval 2 handed swords in a celtic or saxon fight, even if it is the arena, it just bugs me.
Phew, that was quite a rant, do excuse me
anywho, other than those points, interesting mod concept, reminds me a lot of the old lords of war mod, which sadly died due to a computer failure and all files lost, great shame.
I look forward to further versions and improvements
Morcant
Sergeant at Arms
SirAndre said:
First one are good friends, second is my group' blog, thanks
I've got a few points to make on the mod, as i've seen so far.
a mix of suggestions and bugs, since i thought it easier to condense it in one post and easier to have only one string of replies to keep track of
A good input
Let's answer point by point.
Some are a bit stronger. Well, shields were made that way especially for one thing: they have to get broken by javelins, angons or franciscas. A shield with one or several javelins struck in it would be pretty hard to use, but you can still try to take the javelins out of the board. This would be impossible with an angon (germanic barbed javelin), and the ennemy would take the opportunity to walk on the angon's shaft to lower your shield. A francisca would litteraly explose the shield. This would of course be different with melee weapons. Im quite satisfied by the way it works so far.
You are a bit hard on that
Even if those textures can be improved.You are right about the shield grip however.
We may work out a map with all the needed regions in it. General region is indicated so far, and for the rest here some hints:
- Wessex: southernmost saxon kingdom
- Gwent: small kingdom in south-east Wales
- Ebrauc: briton kingdom around York, who have just fallen to the Angles (York is Caer Ebrauc on the map)
- Ui Neill: northern irish kingdom, holding Ulster and Meath
- Mumain: Munster in southern Ireland.
Ingame you have to rotate a bit the map, with Caer Ebrauc and Caer Leidis beeing at the bottom, that way you will see a map of Northern Britain stretching from the Humber to the Loch Ness.
I have no clue if all your selections can be done, yet they are interesting. I would really like to see more realistic spear fight aswell. This may be done partially by making short spears a bit more common ingame.
Likely explanation beeing that some native armor and weapons have been deleted, and we haven't equipped all the lords with the new equipment. So some of them ends up with nothing.
7) some of the 'gaelic'? words in the mod seem a little odd, to be precise the one that struck me was the lords' *firstname* 'map' *father's name*, instead of 'ap' which is the early welsh word that is used in the documents i know of. (though it isn't exactly my period.) i know thats not a huge change, but there were others, i just can't remember what they were
not meaning any disrespect, just out of my own curiousity where did you find your celtic/gaelic translations and various terms from? i'd be quite interested.
"Map" is actually more ancient than "ap". Both have the same meaning of course. Other variations are "mab" and "ab" which both survives in breton language. That's not gaelic, that's brittonic language (ancestor of Welsh, Cornish and Breton). Gaelic languages are another root of celtic languages, the Q-celtic ones with... mac, mhuic, or maqq (archaic one) for meaning "son of".
Lots of the name were found during research for Arthurian Total War (Rome Total War mod), especially by Ranika and Anthony which were our gaelic specialists. I did also had some of my inputs from more recent research.
Arena fights will be completly changed in next versions.
I downloaded the mod last night, and found it quite interesting. I started with the Beornicians(because I'm in favor of the Saxons), with my father as a warrior. Very interesting when I got to the character screen to find I already had 4 power throw and power strike, along with huscarly proficiencies in polearms, and throwing. "A little Odd..." is what I thought, but I looked at it with little doubt as more than a slight advantage for the player.
Then I began to actually play... alot of confusing things awaited me. like when I went into battle, all sorts of commands, warcries, and gimmicks, at my disposal that didn't appear to work + there were far too many for you to read their descriptions, and use them tactically in the middle of a battle.
I discovered even more oddities soon.
I wanted to check out the troop tree for the factions, so that's what I did. I only thoroughly tested two, but from most of them, I got the idea.
The Picts first of all.(they were the fist I tested) Can anyone tell me why their recruits have 10 athletics? and then slightly decreases as their level increases? Also, their crossbowmen... they suck.
Secondly, I wanted to try my own faction's troops. I looked, and I saw. The recruits have throwing skills as good as my own... why? I then looked at the elite ranged units... Mearc Threat longbowmen... 6 or 8 power draw, and well over 500 archery proficiency... I used 30 of them to pwn a castle.
The Beornician elite infantry, 8 power throw, and an AXE LOAD of melee power.
Basically, I have found no balance whatsoever in the combat.
You Kolba, should take Native as an example for balancing your troops. 580 is ridiculous, even for elite longbowmen.
I suggest decreasing that to 200... 300 at the most, and do the same with all elite troops specializing in a certain proficiency.
Also, keep the ranged skills on all elite troops to 6 or under, based on how specialized that faction is with that unit.
All in all, you should nerf a lot of things, fix that Isle of bridges, and try not to make the map look like a colorful potato chip.
Then I began to actually play... alot of confusing things awaited me. like when I went into battle, all sorts of commands, warcries, and gimmicks, at my disposal that didn't appear to work + there were far too many for you to read their descriptions, and use them tactically in the middle of a battle.
I discovered even more oddities soon.
I wanted to check out the troop tree for the factions, so that's what I did. I only thoroughly tested two, but from most of them, I got the idea.
The Picts first of all.(they were the fist I tested) Can anyone tell me why their recruits have 10 athletics? and then slightly decreases as their level increases? Also, their crossbowmen... they suck.
Secondly, I wanted to try my own faction's troops. I looked, and I saw. The recruits have throwing skills as good as my own... why? I then looked at the elite ranged units... Mearc Threat longbowmen... 6 or 8 power draw, and well over 500 archery proficiency... I used 30 of them to pwn a castle.
The Beornician elite infantry, 8 power throw, and an AXE LOAD of melee power.
Basically, I have found no balance whatsoever in the combat.
You Kolba, should take Native as an example for balancing your troops. 580 is ridiculous, even for elite longbowmen.
I suggest decreasing that to 200... 300 at the most, and do the same with all elite troops specializing in a certain proficiency.
Also, keep the ranged skills on all elite troops to 6 or under, based on how specialized that faction is with that unit.
All in all, you should nerf a lot of things, fix that Isle of bridges, and try not to make the map look like a colorful potato chip.
Blaidd-y-nos
Veteran
your right about javelins of course, though i think the francisca comment's a little exagerated, not much i'm sure, but even an axe thrown into the shield shouldn't 'explode' it
still, that's why there's the 'bonus damage to shields' property, would it be possible to boost the bonus that gives? that way having somewhat more endurance vs melee weapons. just a thought, i think we may just have to agree to disagree on the shield strength.
You are a bit hard on that
You are right about the shield grip however.
I appologise i was a bit harsh there, but in comparisson with some of the other shields' beautiful textures it does stand out rather a lot...
AH.... right... fair enough
Well they are just suggestions as the thread says
but good luck, and any you can implement i'm sure would benefit the mod greatly Ah, very interesting, i've always wanted to learn one of welsh's ancestor languages, though i never seem to have the time for my existing projects anyway... such is life.
excellent
P.S.
while i would put it more tactfully, i also second RalliX's assesment of balance.
Morcant
Sergeant at Arms
Actually the mod isn't completed yet. It's going to be way more polished. We had several weeks of private beta testing to get ride of the major bugs and Kolba decided to go for a quick public release on 31st December, a bit as a Christmas gift. So this public release has still many things of a beta release, yet it also brings a complete new map, even if not yet finished, and thousands of new items.
Among many other things, there is of course a lot to do to get the mod balanced the good way. So every comment about game balance or anything else is really welcome.
However, don't be too harsh. Kolba throw really a lot of time in the mod and I don't think too much negative commentaries would please him. He probably have enough with his 'historical referent' never happy about the lenght of the javelins or the shape of the shieldboss!
@Blaidd-y-nos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsZnTCQptWc
Maybe you know about that documentary. Of course just one test is no definite proof, but the power of the axe is quite impressive. The plain wood shield really exploses, but of course it is not very thick, nor it has rawhide on it neither on the rim, which explains its weakness. But the rawhide covered shield shows considerable distorsion.
Back to game mecanics, I don't know if it's possible to do this that way, Kolba will say.
Among many other things, there is of course a lot to do to get the mod balanced the good way. So every comment about game balance or anything else is really welcome.
However, don't be too harsh. Kolba throw really a lot of time in the mod and I don't think too much negative commentaries would please him. He probably have enough with his 'historical referent' never happy about the lenght of the javelins or the shape of the shieldboss!
@Blaidd-y-nos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsZnTCQptWc
Maybe you know about that documentary. Of course just one test is no definite proof, but the power of the axe is quite impressive. The plain wood shield really exploses, but of course it is not very thick, nor it has rawhide on it neither on the rim, which explains its weakness. But the rawhide covered shield shows considerable distorsion.
Back to game mecanics, I don't know if it's possible to do this that way, Kolba will say.
Kolba
I don't have right now time for answering your questions, but the game will be much more balanced in the next version. And all bugs will be fixed.
And please, DO NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT MAP!!!
And please, DO NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT MAP!!!
TimotheusTJB
Sergeant
Even though it may not be possible to add this i have a suggestion which i posted on the chaos war mod forums suggestion thread
It would be interesting if you could have a quest like that to free a lord/king from a castle/town. Later on another guy makes a suggestion on how the quest would be like but i dont think it fits this time period. I'm thinking maybe something like your sent into the town disguised as a traveler or salesmen and sneak into the town prison or after making it into the town you attack the guard grab the key get into the dungeon talk to the lord. You give him a weapon and you and the lord fight your way out of the town. It should be a rare quest and after completion a lot of money rewarded. Oh and one more thing If it is by any chance put into the mod it would be best that the guards are made quite strong and you and the lord only have weak weapons like maybe a staff or wooden stick with throwing knives, to make it very difficult. Preferably 5-7 guards to get through.
Though it certainly needs polishing and lot of work, this one mod has the potential to be my new favourite mod. I've been wishing for a good historically accurate dark age mod since I first got my hands on M&B. My congratulations on the release to Kolba and Morcant
For now I'd like to share these insights
- Now that throwing weapons (javs, argons, axes) have been realistically brought down to 2 or 3, shouldn't arrows be brought down too, like 8 - 10? On a side note, instead of pumping up archery skills so high up, maybe you could try the "Roots of Yggdrassil" approach by increasing bow damage instead and decreasing accuracy, the latter as some units seem to be armed with SVD Dragunovs rather than bows.
- Starting equipment and skills seem to be a little far too good too. Unless a chieftain's son, I would expect to start with nothing more than a tunic, shoes, seax and spear. And none of them of the "balanced" kind of weapons.
- I'd make mail and horses even more inaccesible too and leave them only to last tier units.
- I do very much welcome the new easily destructible shields and totally support the move.
- I found Bernicia to be a little too uncrowded of mostly everything, though I was particularly looking for small looter-like groups, as I usually stem away from leading anything larger than a 10 - 15 men large "gang".
Anyway, keep up the amazing work. I'm totally looking forward the next version.
For now I'd like to share these insights
- Now that throwing weapons (javs, argons, axes) have been realistically brought down to 2 or 3, shouldn't arrows be brought down too, like 8 - 10? On a side note, instead of pumping up archery skills so high up, maybe you could try the "Roots of Yggdrassil" approach by increasing bow damage instead and decreasing accuracy, the latter as some units seem to be armed with SVD Dragunovs rather than bows.
- Starting equipment and skills seem to be a little far too good too. Unless a chieftain's son, I would expect to start with nothing more than a tunic, shoes, seax and spear. And none of them of the "balanced" kind of weapons.
- I'd make mail and horses even more inaccesible too and leave them only to last tier units.
- I do very much welcome the new easily destructible shields and totally support the move.
- I found Bernicia to be a little too uncrowded of mostly everything, though I was particularly looking for small looter-like groups, as I usually stem away from leading anything larger than a 10 - 15 men large "gang".
Anyway, keep up the amazing work. I'm totally looking forward the next version.
