Lusitani 5th Empire
At this stage of development, the game lacks in features/mechanics that allow different playing styles, besides that, there is a missing link between the features available. One way to connect the dots is doing a better scene design. A design that places the scene elements with purpose and functionality will add realism and more diverse gameplay.
Some Problems and Suggestions:
1. In battle and open areas, the scenes could serve a higher purpose besides a place to fight or do quests.
- Placing elements (trees, hills...) in a way that hides some of the limitations of the game engine. Instead of invisible borders, placing natural or man-made elements/assets that serve the same porpuse (in depth opinion).
- Again, placing elements that make obstacles could be an option, and not just for the end of map borders. These elements should also provide advantages and penalizations to them:
- These "obstacles" are available (in part) in multiplayer maps, wich are bigger. Now we need to figure out a way to improve it and add it to singleplayer.
- A thick patch of trees or a hill should force an army (players and ai) to go around it or go through the obstacle with a speed and organization reduction.Cavalry can't pass unless on foot.
- Obstacles should provide cover of enemy arrows and limited line of sight.
- A hill gives massive advantage to hand-to-hand and ranged combat, but to get there you must make sure the enemy will not cut you off. Once you or the enemy is at the top, the attacker should re-evaluate the odds of winning. The ai must be able to decide if they have a chance of winning and if it's worth to fight, if not they retreat in a planned and controlled way. Also, the ai/player could siege until they surrender; fight; escape or have reinforcements.
3. Scene maps are inconsistent with the campaign map.
- The topology, time (, weather?) and orientation of the scene map should be consistent with the geographical features of the campaign map, the scene map needs to reflect the same theme and characteristics as the campaign map exact place.
- The enemy will come from the place you see them on the campaign map.
- A battle takes place in a thick snowy forest or near an oasis at 3 am in the campaign. You find that in the actual battle. If this feature is implemented, then a game mechanic will follow. Then you actually need to think if it's worth to do battle or and if you don't have a choice, you know how you will face the enemy because you know the troops you have; what the terrain looks like; conditions like darkness and weather; an idea of where the enemy comes from; and what kind of troops he has.
4. Settlement scenes don't serve a purpose other than quests and enjoying the view; most things can be done through UI and don't require you to interact with the scene. Castles, towns and villages scenes, a ton of work, so little appreciation. The game lacks an "open world" feel in settlements scenes (or really anywhere). Developers need an organization system and guidelines that allows them to create realistic and useful settlement scenes. Implementing established mechanics, adding depth, in a way to interact with settlement scenes.
- There needs to be a higher understanding of urban design. Anyone interested search for: "urban spatial structure";"ancient urban planning"; "ancient city structure"; "ancient city illustrations"; "r/papertowns"; "city 3d reconstruction" or 3d models on sketchfab - there is a lot of detailed real word information and inspiration to choose from.
- All elements should be placed with the purpose of developing an idea or fitting the theme.
- Natural and man-made elements should be the most suitable ones. In a desert themed town (Aserai), there must be a near river, an oasis or other reliable source of water available. There should be bright/sand like assets (buildings, clothing...) to fit the theme. Under the bright day light, most people are at home or under the shades of tents only to keep their commerce safe. Most of the movement is at night, people flow in the town center and there are lights and noise all around the trading center, wich is perfect for thiefs and gangs. This Arabian/Andalusian Nights and other similar scene designs are really good to implement in the game, where tricks like lower quality assets (under the cover of night or when further away) allow for a bigger environment with interesting gameplay mechanics.
- Settlements and buildings should reflect the life style that lives in them. Streets are the rivers where people flow. Streets pave the way to build around them.
- Streets and roads should be wider and better where there is a lot of movement and goods transportation, namely in the trading center, temples, entry or exit points of the settlement and on scenes around the settlement. Most of the inner city/town streets are narrow and with poor organization, this is where the most people live. This highly compacted spaces allow for some big scenes to display without much performance impact because you only need to display the assets that appear in front of you, not deep into the slums. Repeatable assets would go unnoticed if well placed trees and other assets come into play.
- Streets should give the player the means to flow in the settlement and communicate with other elements.
- There are missing mechanics and features that interact with the scenes. Some ideas to fix that:
- Find and talk to Npc's to do quests is the basic option, but not really enjoyable with superficial quests that bring no real value and progress to the game.
- Having the player connect to a specific place is a good mechanic to give use to settlement scenes. The player could choose the place (rather than only the culture) where the character has spent his childhood. Having some Npc community/friends/family in that place, with good relations to begin the game, would create a reason to spend time in that scene and others near that point of interest. This Npc's could play a major role in the progress of the character and would be an intermediary quest line, between the ambition of conquering Calradia/main quest and the side quests. The player could help his community to grow (setting new trade routes, fighting gangs and help to defend against armies or rival communities). Your friends would need your help to solve their problems and succeed in their ambitions. Your family would need help with their small business and need protection because not everyone is your friend.
- UI often makes the scenes useless because you progress faster with a UI menu. In order to link the dots, we need to connect the UI to the scenes in a way that players find value in going through a loading time and wait or walk to the action.
- To minimize the waste of time, a mini map could track multiple objectives in the settlement, that way you could do multiple things in one go and always be in control of what you are doing.
- Other mechanic is doing what simply can't be done with UI, -- Taking care of goods and protecting them from thiefs and gangs that dislike you; having jobs like guarding a town, a business, personal guard and all duties related with protecting and fighting; gang ambushes, extending gang mechanics to riots and deal with them;
- Find a way around buying, building and taking care of your own land, house and business. In later stages, taking care of your own property as a lord should get more depth to it, in order to give purpose to the settlement, besides being just a source of income.
Final thoughts:
I know coding AI, Mechanics and Features is really hard and requires a lot of man power, time and organization.I just wanted to share some thoughts, see if anyone agrees or disagrees and hopefully contribute to the devs work.
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