SP - World Map My suggestion to make hideouts more fun.

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I don't know why you even bother to wait for nightfall, your dudes just immediately get spotted by every enemy that you step within 40 meters of, and start eating javelins on impact.

Seriously - how does that even make sense, from a strategic standpoint?
Bandit Logistics guy: "Alright, we've set up the hideout.We should plan our defenses."
Bandit Captain: "...How many javelins do we have lying around?"
BLG: "Literally only Javelins, captain. Not a single sword or axe to be found anywhere in the camp."
BC: "Brilliant.We will set up installments of about 6 men, replete with javelins, standing out in the open. We shall further instruct our men that should they hear screaming and the clashing of blades from any of these groups, they are NOT to go over there, under any circumstances."
BLG: "With all due respect, Captain... that's... dumb."
BC: "I know. But it will somehow totally work. We've put out a sign banning anyone with any combat experience or proper armor and weapons from entering the hideout. Oh, and I put our store hours from 8PM to 5AM. That'll fool them!"
 
Some of this design is so bad I don't even know what to say.....this isn't a result of Early access, someone somewhere had to think this was a good idea.
 
The question is why should you select troops.
Arriving with 100 men at a camp.

Companion: "Oh look commander, there are 30-40 enemies, what should we do now?"
Player: "Fear not little fellow, i have a great plan. We will wait until nightfall so no one will be able to see ****.
Then we toss the coin a couple of times until we have 10 men together and go in there to kill them."
Companion: "But we are outnumbering them 4:1 or 5:1 why should we do such a retarted bull****, we could just attack them now or ambush them together."
Player: "Ah, but where is the fun with that. And i will tell you something, should I fall all of you will surrender and run away, hahaha."

Man, i saw teenage modders made better gamedesign choices than i find in this game.

So true. The camp raid system does not make any sense at all. Why can't we choose the time to raid? Why can't we select our army and why do we have to attack with a few random soldiers? Btw fighting this bs on the same map over and over is not fun at all.
 
I think the whole hideout thing needs a lot more work to really get interresting.

Picture if you don't like reading:



Text for more in depth explanation:

1. Finding the hideout.

Right now its exltremly easy to find hideouts. You just want to visit a village and suddenly you spot a hideout at the other end of the forrest. I haven't even skilled scouting and i still randomly spot them everywhere. How does it come that nobody already destroyed them if they are that easy to find.

Finding them should already be the first part of the challenge and could offer some change from the constant hunting and killing bandits.
High bandit activity in a region would be a clue that a hideout is somewhere in that area. You can then find it by following tracks or a bandit party which is on its way to the hideout. Most bandit groups should visit the hideout from time to time to store their loot and to get new men.

2. Actions once you found the hideout.
Once you found the Hideout you now get two choices.

Option A: Try to sneak up
First you get to select units you want to come with you. It is totally up to you how many and which units you want to accompany you.
After you have done that you get placed on the first of two battle maps.
On the first Battle map are one to three scattered outposts each one having a big signal fire. 25% of the hideouts men power are at these outposts. Your job is to elimiate them without the bandits being able to light any signal fire.

If you get detected by bandits two different things can happen.
They realize they are not strong enough to take on your sneaky force so they try to light the signal fire and alarm the hideout that way.
or
They think they are strong enough to defeat your sneaky forces. In that case they attack you without trying to raise alarm. Of course if they realize they are losing the fight they will retreat and try to alarm the hideout.

By sneaking up the player needs to be able to position himself close enough to the signal fires to avoid it getting kindled by bandits. Even if you get spooted a bit earlier you should at least have a chance to kill bandits who run up to the signal fire with missile weapons.

Taking a lot of soldiers with you makes it more likely that bandits spott you early. Also they will always try to alarm the hideout instead of trying to fight you.
On the other hand taking to few men will make it difficult to actually defeat the outposts. So the player needs to carefully choose his companions.

If you fail:
The hideout gets alarmed. Read option B to find out the consequenzes.

If you are successfull you and your entire army will be placed on the second battle map. This time its the hideout. because no alarm was raised, the bandits are scattered. Their numbers are lower because you already killed some of them at the outposts. Your goal is of course to defeat the remaining bandits.

Option B: Attack without trying to sneak up
In that case your army gets spotted of course and the hideout gets alarmed.
Now two things can happen:

1. The hideout thinks it can defend your attack.
In that case all remaining troops from the ourposts retreat to the hideout. The bandits fortify it and the player has to fight some kind of siege battle against a fortified position.

2.The hideout thinks it can't defend itself.
In this case the bandits take their loot, scatter and flee in all directions. The player can now try to hunt down the biggest fleeing party and get at least some value that way. Of course the hideout being abandoned now, still has a small negativ impact on the bandit population in that area.



I know my suggestion is a lot of work.
But honestly right now the hideout attacks are very similar to warband and get boring really fast.
I think they are a great opportunity to mix up the gameplay.
With my suggestion there is the possibillity to get some kind of smaller siege battle very early in the game.
 
I like the general idea of player choosing how to approach hideouts, and the reward for doing it sneakily.

But I wouldn't split it into several scenes - make it one, but large. Let's minimise loading screens and menus, and maximise physical actions.
Fortifications could be always in the scene, but in case of successful sneaking they wouldn't be manned, and bandits would be spread around less defended parts of hideouts.

The troops you choose to take against watch-posts should be those available in the hideout attack. There is no time to waste getting back to the main army before bandits notice some of their mates are missing.
You can always leave some troops behind using standard command system to be more sneaky/look like smaller threat.

The flowchart looks quite terrible indeed, but does the job quite well.
 
I think the whole hideout thing needs a lot more work to really get interresting.

Picture if you don't like reading:



Text for more in depth explanation:

1. Finding the hideout.

Right now its exltremly easy to find hideouts. You just want to visit a village and suddenly you spot a hideout at the other end of the forrest. I haven't even skilled scouting and i still randomly spot them everywhere. How does it come that nobody already destroyed them if they are that easy to find.

Finding them should already be the first part of the challenge and could offer some change from the constant hunting and killing bandits.
High bandit activity in a region would be a clue that a hideout is somewhere in that area. You can then find it by following tracks or a bandit party which is on its way to the hideout. Most bandit groups should visit the hideout from time to time to store their loot and to get new men.

2. Actions once you found the hideout.
Once you found the Hideout you now get two choices.

Option A: Try to sneak up
First you get to select units you want to come with you. It is totally up to you how many and which units you want to accompany you.
After you have done that you get placed on the first of two battle maps.
On the first Battle map are one to three scattered outposts each one having a big signal fire. 25% of the hideouts men power are at these outposts. Your job is to elimiate them without the bandits being able to light any signal fire.

If you get detected by bandits two different things can happen.
They realize they are not strong enough to take on your sneaky force so they try to light the signal fire and alarm the hideout that way.
or
They think they are strong enough to defeat your sneaky forces. In that case they attack you without trying to raise alarm. Of course if they realize they are losing the fight they will retreat and try to alarm the hideout.

By sneaking up the player needs to be able to position himself close enough to the signal fires to avoid it getting kindled by bandits. Even if you get spooted a bit earlier you should at least have a chance to kill bandits who run up to the signal fire with missile weapons.

Taking a lot of soldiers with you makes it more likely that bandits spott you early. Also they will always try to alarm the hideout instead of trying to fight you.
On the other hand taking to few men will make it difficult to actually defeat the outposts. So the player needs to carefully choose his companions.

If you fail:
The hideout gets alarmed. Read option B to find out the consequenzes.

If you are successfull you and your entire army will be placed on the second battle map. This time its the hideout. because no alarm was raised, the bandits are scattered. Their numbers are lower because you already killed some of them at the outposts. Your goal is of course to defeat the remaining bandits.

Option B: Attack without trying to sneak up
In that case your army gets spotted of course and the hideout gets alarmed.
Now two things can happen:

1. The hideout thinks it can defend your attack.
In that case all remaining troops from the ourposts retreat to the hideout. The bandits fortify it and the player has to fight some kind of siege battle against a fortified position.

2.The hideout thinks it can't defend itself.
In this case the bandits take their loot, scatter and flee in all directions. The player can now try to hunt down the biggest fleeing party and get at least some value that way. Of course the hideout being abandoned now, still has a small negativ impact on the bandit population in that area.
y


I know my suggestion is a lot of work.
But honestly right now the hideout attacks are very similar to warband and get boring really fast.
I think they are a great opportunity to mix up the gameplay.
With my suggestion there is the possibillity to get some kind of smaller siege battle very early in the game.

Hideouts would be a objective worth doing if they were this way
 
I like your ideas. Even if they dont do all of them they need to do something. They're awful as it stands.
 
But I wouldn't split it into several scenes - make it one, but large. Let's minimise loading screens and menus, and maximise physical actions.
I dislike loading screens too. But one loading screen between two battles isn't a problem in my opinion. A loading screen everytime you talk to somebody is annoying though.
Would be like in Warband when you attacked a town. First you take the wall, then the street and at last the keep. Three battle maps for one battle. Didn't annoy me but i can see other might have a different opinion about this.


She's just jealous of your MSPaint skills.
Such a flow chart in just 30 minutes of course she must be jealous!
 
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+1 on most of this. Giving you a choice as to how to take the hideout is a must. Your suggestion also presents several opportunities for skill checks. Roguery, for instance, could impact your chances of getting detected if you try to stealth.

The current system is hot garbage.
 
Cool ideas, mainly not sure if hideouts really should get so special treatments when towns and castles are straightforward though. I would kind of prefer a skill check over all these hoops to jump through. In essence: Why should hideouts be more complex than taking a town?
 
I could live with the small party if I could choose my units (or if they took the top from my troop list)!
This would be a good start, but still not good enough for a game we were waiting for. There has to be a way to pick exact units. What if I want to take four out of ten guys with large shields and a couple of archers out of a big pack? Using only unit order on the party screen would mean that in many cases only units of one type will be present in the raiding party. That would be a non release-ready game mechanic to me. But better than random soldiers, I agree.

And yes, playing the same hideout battle over and over again does get boring.

I really hope that developers are getting this feedback and all of this will get fixed in the upcoming patches.

P.S. The game did make a huge step forward since Warband, my respect and thanks to game devs.
 
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