About the game - my suggestions for next patches, and so on

[Izual]

Hello everyone,

I've been playing WFaS for more than 70 hours now. I think I spent between 10 and 20 hours of these in multiplayer mode, the rest was in singleplayer.

I wanted to write this thread because I noticed a few very annoying things in this game that could be easily changed with a patch, or at least with good hints given in forum replies

First of all, renown. How to get renown? I've browsed WFaS forums all over the internet, and what people tell you is "fight against looters/bandits, 5 vs 20" or something equivalent. Hell, it seems weird. I don't know renown formula, but I know it involves for example troops equipment. This is, in my opinion, stupid. My 60 (fully equipped) polish cavalrymen, fighting against 300 Swedish, will only bring me around 5-10 renown. Renown (in real life) is people telling your tales, and your personal glory. Winning a 60 vs 300 fight, even if you had better armors than your opponents, seems pretty impressive to me, and I'm sure people would tell this tale all over the taverns! Renown should be more about the number than the equipment. This way, you wouldn't have to disband all your men in later game in order to earn renown by fighting bandits. I have to insist on this point, in late game earning renown is slow as hell. I'm talking about hours and hours to get a few extra men in your party. This is strange, because I'm also fighting many times against Swedish armies (I've 60 men, and they often have more than 150 and up to 300). Winning these battles bring very little renown, which is really not cool. Renown is so important in this game that I'll probably end up in abandoning it, rather than spending hours to earn few renown points.
To improve it, I suggest removing equipment from the formula. At the Battle of Thermopylae, no doubt Greeks had better equipment than the 250 000 Persians. Yet, they certainly earned a lot of renown points Another annoying thing about equipment, is that it is already very expensive. Each of my men costs me 1000 thalers in average, which allows me to be efficient in battles (60 peasants versus 200 Swedish reiters wouldn't really do the trick). I pay ****loads of thalers to be efficient in battles, and what? I don't earn renown because my troops are well-trained and well-equiped. Incredible. I'm sure developers do not want players to abandon their armies in late games to fight looters in 1 vs 20 fights. Which is what everyone does in order to get renown, whereas players for sure would prefer to earn some in epic battles.

The second thing I'd like to talk about is battle maps (edit: in singleplayer mode, of course). I don't know you, but I'm tired of fighting all the time in a random plain OR on a castle wall. One of the most enjoyable things in this game is strategy, which is a bit hard in a random plain, for example if you want a clear line of sight for your muskets. My suggestion is simple, multiplayer game has "random steppes" and above all "random hills" (I think it's random hills, might be random mountains). Why not implementing these maps in the singleplayer mode? That'd let us use a bit more tactics.

I think that's all. Rest of what I dislike in WFaS is personal to me, and I wouldn't suggest changing me. The two suggestions above would make the game really much more enjoyable, in my opinion. That's a great game, and I don't want to abandon it. Thanks for reading!

 

[Izual]

Up - for the sake of Warsaw, Polotsk, Dubensk and all the others!

 

[gh3tt0 gangst3r]

i think it would be good to change the game. it is so hard and boring trying to get renown in this game with out doing those 1v.20 bandit fights. i think they really need to change that.

 

[jackx]

Early on, get renown through quests, not fighting.

Escorting caravans works great - sure, it's only 2 renown, but you can usually combine it with a profitable caravan trade of your own, so it's 2 renown for the effort of clicking through three additional dialogues.

The key is to not "farm" or hunt for any specific quest/caravan trade etc., but to be highly opportunistic... passing by a village at night, check if there aren't a few cattle thieves you can shoot... going to send a caravan, check if the mayor doesn't have a task (usually escort) that requires going in the same direction. Same with delivering messages - always check, only accept those that lie along your trade route. Avoid anything that involves actual risk or time-consuming effort and thus keeps you from running caravans all the time (so no hunting bandits/looters, clearing villages from bandits as those can be tough fights etc.), and you'll be rich quickly, and find that by barely firing a shot, you've also acquired decent amounts of renown and xp, the latter not just for yourself but your companions as well.

 

[I]

Honestly, to me, renown is an afterthought. The only use I can see for it is to increase your army size and I focus more on quality of troops than quantity. I have about seventy winged hussars, thirty of which are veterans and they always manage to destroy everything quite effectively. As for the realistic aspect of renown, I'm guessing that it's more of a game aspect than what it really means. It's more for balance and a nice way to make your army larger than people knowing who you are, because after a certain level of renown, everyone knows who you are anyways, there aren't really any new dialogs for higher renown.

As for your issue with battle maps, I think that the main reason they don't have different terrains is because all of the overhead map looks the same. In Warband there were mountainous areas and deserts on the overhead map, all with battle maps to match.