Looters: simple addition to make them better: they actually LOOT...

[Dearmad]

So I'm soloing around the map with my 20 horses and about 1000 units of whatever items I'm trading moving at a pitiful 2.0 speed at best.... And I get jumped by 30, 40 or 50 whatever looters.

No problem. They all gonna die. They ain't gonna get a single item of my loot, even though they are looters.

I snipe them with my trusty bow from my horsey, then when I run out of arrows, I retreat. Then re-engage but I got more arrows... and eventually wipe them all out. No sweat.

What would make the map and the encounters more dynamic, and force me to behave like a more reasonable person in a caravan? The looters ACTUALLY LOOT. I have baggage and untended animals when I spawn on the map. The looters' target is to attack me (say about half of them) while the other half goes at my stuff on the map. If they kill m they get most of my loot when they capture me. If the looting portion of the looters touches my baggage on the map, they should run off: retreat. When they get to a horse of mine, they should spank him and make run to the map edge too! Potentially lost (but see below). I'm busy with the distraction half. Once they "retreat," the distraction half can try to get away too.

Then back on the strategic map, if I'm alive but they were getting away with my stuff, well, my speed should be about 0 for a few hours in game time (yes you read that right, ZERO speed for about 2 game hours). Why? Because I'm having to reload my merchandise on whatever horses I have left, regathering the horses they scared off, etc... So basically they gonna get away with crap because I took a stupid risk.

This would make for some actual tactical map play- I would need to stay by my stuff and protect it. And/or (more realistically) HIRE a crew of men to, well, you know, Warband with me and PROTECT ****.

TLDR:
The system as it currently is is pretty non-immersive, and just sort of stupidly pointless. They all die. I never do. Because I have no stakes on the field. When, in fact, I SHOULD have a stake on the field that is the point of the encounter: my loot. They gotta steal that crap.

Loot.
loot.

 

[kapko]

This is far from "simple addition". It would completely change the gameplay + how would you do it in big battles? It would be so OP if you could just walk up to an army with 50 riders, derp them around a bit, then steal all their food and watch them all die without it. You can attack after a their numbers dwindle and so on.

And if you want to say: "Only looters can loot." You can bet players would storm TW to give it to players too. Many are already requesting a proper bandit playthrough features.

This idea is not simple at all. Maybe, it would be fine for a mod or simply have it as an option when starting a playthrough (like a difficulty option), but the balancing of it would be one hell of a fight. Players would abuse it like crazy.

 

[bm01]

I think it would change absolutely nothing gameplay wise. There's no way looters would be able to go behind your lines to get some stuff and then flee without dying in the process. It would in fact make them even easier to deal with.

Looters should loot, not fight (unless they know they can win). Battles should leave behind them a targetable area that must be selected in order to actually get some loot. Call them "battle aftermath" or whatever. Looting them should also take time, so sometimes you may not want to loot for too long and just leave stuff behind. Looters should be attracted to those abandoned looting points. Balance wise it could be difficult to adjust, but this would give the player a new way to interact with the world. It's also way easier to implement.