Ideas for apparently simple features that would make the game better

[ghrrum]

There are a couple things that I would dearly love to see tweaked and added that, on the face to a non-programmer, would make the game a lot better. The first two I'd add and think would have the most appeal would be:
1. Better party management.
Dear god this needs some improvement. As it is there is just a disorganized mess that takes ages to sort through. Using the troop designations (Infantry, Archers, Calvery, Horse Archers, Etc) as collapsible sub-headings would go miles in making this something more reasonable. Maybe adding an 'auto sort' feature that would divide the units into groups based on what they rank from? The point is, organizing a party with more than three Cultures takes forever.

2. Number keys to select dialog options.
This was a wonderful thing back in M&B 1, it was minor, but it is very much missed. Especially for the repetitive dialogs on repeat missions.

Now some minor options that would be nice.
-While it's nice to see a rival hero's face, looters, brigands, and raiders don't matter that much to me. An option to turn off the 'cut scene' when running down looters to train my recruits would be great. Just reduce it to dialog options in the world rather than having the system load in character models for a string of dialog that takes less than 10 seconds with 8 of that a load screen.

-I don't want your stinkin peasants for herd delivery missions. Minor grump, but sticking them on and having it count towards the party total is a bit frustrating. Dropping them in as prisoners with the option to recruit would make more sense, reflecting that troops are being tied up babysitting. There's a greater impact on your party speed too, making it more a consideration if your party is a turtle.

-Shield repair, if I'm going to spend a bit on a shield in game, I'd like it to last more than one encounter. Adding a chance tied to smithing to recover it or repair it after battle might be nice.

-Who is fighting who. While it's nice to check who your own kingdom is at war with, it's a pain in the butt to find out who is going after who when you're independent. Some menu that can show at a glance who is at war would be VERY useful.

-If we can't go seal team six on bandit enclaves, why not go normandy? Seriously. I've got over 150 guys here, all hardened bastards out for blood, but only 9 can go in a bandit camp? How about adding an option to add multiple raiding parties when you have other heroes in your party and have them start at alternate parts of the map? Maybe adding more start points to those maps would make it more interesting and less repetitive? Put some siege mechanics in where you can simply sit and starve them out?
You've seen those bandit enclaves that are harder to take than most castles in the game and impossible with only 8-15 guys, taking it from a sneaky fun difficult thing and turning it into a meat grinder where you throw about 10 guys into a group of 100 or more bandits. Why not give the option to storm the camp en masse with a good chance that 90% or more of the troop will escape and re-establish in the next 5-10 days nearby?
There's LOTS of options to fix this.


Add your thoughts folks, pretty good chance someone on the dev team will take a look.

 

[ghrrum]

Another just occurred to me, some means to read through the events log. Seriously, I don't catch half the stuff that it shows and it just becomes a thing that gets in the way of me knowing where the 'leave' button is when I finish trading at a town. It would be nice to actually see those notifications for more than 2 seconds and understand what they say. If that is a thing, an option to filter it would also be worthwhile. Without the opportunity to see all of what it says, it's just frustrating.

 

[Jarl Ballin']

This is my list so far from another thread.

 

[ghrrum]

A good list.

Yes and in addition to that I dream about ...

Soon (Weeks, few Months):
To get rid of the bugs, improve performance and better balancing should be clear.
And I know some of the points I talk about under this are already "fixed/included per mod" but should be ingame.

... an opportunity to store items in a castle
... improved AI on the battlefield and sieges.
... building a camp on the map which you can enter. (improves healing rate a bit for example)
... renaming of formations
... Not only Looters, Sea Raiders, Steppe Bandits. More variety, different troop types, appearance and loot after a victory.
... make it possible for Kingdoms to make truce and alliance with other Factions.


Later (after few months+)

... a deeper experience in things like relations, traits, character behaviours, politics, diplomacy, economics.
... more things to do in cities for that you can come back.
... more options for companions like ...
• Send as a messenger (try to improve relation, send gold, insult somebody, get reinforcements etc.)
• better behaviour based on their traits (Dishonourable Companions plunder soldiers after a battle which causes little relation loss with honourable characters in the group over a time for example or special events happening between companions like in warband but more in depth.)
• implement random events
... more quests to create a questpool with different tasks to improve variety


Dreams (perhaps never):

... hoping that the large map which was found will be real some day.
... more goods/items to trade
• spices, other seafood, exclusive local goods (for example rare artifacts in the Aserai desert, real thick and warm Bearpelt near Tyal in the north, Falcons from Vlandia. Of course these were very rare and valuable.)

... implement ships (including seabattles, influences trading, transport troops)
... enhanced weather (including weather is visible on big map, can change while in battle, includes thunder)


Have more ideas but forgot the half like always. Will add it via edit.
That's it so far.

 

[ZydrateTheSmoothCriminal]

A good list.

Curious how many of them were in Warband, or at least partly. Kills me inside a bit.