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most of this does sound like things that should be implemented, def worth taking a look at!
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Some thoughts and critiques from a professional game developer and ex-modder of M&B/Warband.
- Thread starter Highelfwarrior
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Love literally every idea. Gah, now I just want to work on a mod with you!
I liked the “gift from a fan” when you enter a city/village idea. I think it’d bring a lot more life to have random encounters like that and it wouldn’t be that hard to have an NPC path to your character once you enter a city and start a dialogue with you. There are also plenty of animations I’m sure one could be used to show the NPC is handing you something or excited to see you. Little touches like that I think can make this game really feel alive and aren’t that difficult to implement.
Press CTRL+1,2,3,4,etc. to select multiple units by the way!
I liked the “gift from a fan” when you enter a city/village idea. I think it’d bring a lot more life to have random encounters like that and it wouldn’t be that hard to have an NPC path to your character once you enter a city and start a dialogue with you. There are also plenty of animations I’m sure one could be used to show the NPC is handing you something or excited to see you. Little touches like that I think can make this game really feel alive and aren’t that difficult to implement.
Press CTRL+1,2,3,4,etc. to select multiple units by the way!
cool list for a mod, but not for a base game.
lakired
Recruit
Some personal quibbles:
I don't like games that artificially scale in response to player progression. I prefer a more "Kenshi" (and M&B) experience, where you start off small and grow into a power. As such, the game should begin with a wider mix of bandit groups that vary in strength. There should already be larger bands that you have to avoid at the start of the game (which take the place of some of the small groups, so there aren't quite so many of those). You should later on be able to hire patrols once you have a castle/town to clear out the riff raff for you.This creates more of a sense of true progression, as not only are you now powerful enough to take on the groups that once bullied you, but you can also start delegating the busy work of clearing looters to others.
The devs did mention that they intend to implement more kingdom instability. However, this shouldn't be the primary method of slowing steamrolling, but more of an interesting dynamic. Otherwise, it will get exceptionally tedious for the player once they start backing a faction (or forming their own) and it just busts out in constant artificially forced rebellions non-stop (lords should have better reasons to rebel rather than, 'uh oh, we're getting a little too successful!'). Rather, other factions should recognize the growing threat and settle their own differences to band together to face them. And once the threat has been diminished, they should go back to bickering amongst themselves. This creates better overall balance, because it allows for the player to be more of the "deciding factor" by either helping their faction overcome the stacked odds through sheer Napoleonic military genius or by Machiavellian diplomatic scheming.
Please, no. I get what you're saying in the comments defending this... there is currently no real reason to go into towns. So all that time invested in making them so immersive and detailed is wasted. And I agree. It's wasted. There's zero need for the town scenes, and they're a waste of resources that could be better spent adding in new arms and armor, more quests, more dialogue, etc. Forcing the player into hunting out the guild master and village headsman in Warband didn't make me appreciate those town scenes more. It made me ****ing annoyed, especially when I'd spawn without a horse and spend ten minutes wandering the city trying to find whoever it is I needed to speak to. In fact, it was one of the most unpleasant aspects of that game. Let's not recreate that here. By the time you've started your tenth playthrough, there isn't a soul on earth that's going to want to do that again, trust me.
I like your suggestion, however, I do think the "stealth" assault option should exist in some form. It could be a quest where you need to save someone being held, which actually better justifies not going in with your full force, but rather trying to catch them unawares. Or alternatively just have it as an option when approaching the camp... you can either do an ambush or an assault, but if you choose an assault, you'll roll on a worse loot table since the leaders were able to see your army approach and escaped with some of the more valuable loot. It's not necessarily a terrible design, but right now the camps are just way too prevalent and not really balanced appropriately (and forcing you into dialogue/melee at the end every time is annoying).
My own mod-mod would also add:
-Option to alter the rate of aging
-Option to alter the XP/skill gain rate
-More dynamic reputation system (in native, people don't react much to what the player character has done for them; e.g. helping a lord in battle, turning over a traitor or enemy king, etc.)
-Toned down forest bandits
-Completely revamped romance system
Otherwise, good mod.
I don't like games that artificially scale in response to player progression. I prefer a more "Kenshi" (and M&B) experience, where you start off small and grow into a power. As such, the game should begin with a wider mix of bandit groups that vary in strength. There should already be larger bands that you have to avoid at the start of the game (which take the place of some of the small groups, so there aren't quite so many of those). You should later on be able to hire patrols once you have a castle/town to clear out the riff raff for you.This creates more of a sense of true progression, as not only are you now powerful enough to take on the groups that once bullied you, but you can also start delegating the busy work of clearing looters to others.
The devs did mention that they intend to implement more kingdom instability. However, this shouldn't be the primary method of slowing steamrolling, but more of an interesting dynamic. Otherwise, it will get exceptionally tedious for the player once they start backing a faction (or forming their own) and it just busts out in constant artificially forced rebellions non-stop (lords should have better reasons to rebel rather than, 'uh oh, we're getting a little too successful!'). Rather, other factions should recognize the growing threat and settle their own differences to band together to face them. And once the threat has been diminished, they should go back to bickering amongst themselves. This creates better overall balance, because it allows for the player to be more of the "deciding factor" by either helping their faction overcome the stacked odds through sheer Napoleonic military genius or by Machiavellian diplomatic scheming.
Please, no. I get what you're saying in the comments defending this... there is currently no real reason to go into towns. So all that time invested in making them so immersive and detailed is wasted. And I agree. It's wasted. There's zero need for the town scenes, and they're a waste of resources that could be better spent adding in new arms and armor, more quests, more dialogue, etc. Forcing the player into hunting out the guild master and village headsman in Warband didn't make me appreciate those town scenes more. It made me ****ing annoyed, especially when I'd spawn without a horse and spend ten minutes wandering the city trying to find whoever it is I needed to speak to. In fact, it was one of the most unpleasant aspects of that game. Let's not recreate that here. By the time you've started your tenth playthrough, there isn't a soul on earth that's going to want to do that again, trust me.
I like your suggestion, however, I do think the "stealth" assault option should exist in some form. It could be a quest where you need to save someone being held, which actually better justifies not going in with your full force, but rather trying to catch them unawares. Or alternatively just have it as an option when approaching the camp... you can either do an ambush or an assault, but if you choose an assault, you'll roll on a worse loot table since the leaders were able to see your army approach and escaped with some of the more valuable loot. It's not necessarily a terrible design, but right now the camps are just way too prevalent and not really balanced appropriately (and forcing you into dialogue/melee at the end every time is annoying).
My own mod-mod would also add:
-Option to alter the rate of aging
-Option to alter the XP/skill gain rate
-More dynamic reputation system (in native, people don't react much to what the player character has done for them; e.g. helping a lord in battle, turning over a traitor or enemy king, etc.)
-Toned down forest bandits
-Completely revamped romance system
Otherwise, good mod.
lol Highelfwarrior, I remember your modding tutorials and your fantasy mod some ...15 years ago?
the link you gave is not opening.
I hope you'll be able to realize your vision. I especially like how your mod tries to avoid loading in scenes, stuff like that slows the game down to a crawl. Let the player do everything through static menus.
Things I would add:
- Getting rid of skill limits, making focus points purely for speeding up development in a skill
- Making roguery a party skill with the clan spymaster role.
- Unlock all blacksmith items from the start and let you pay money in place of stamina
- A flat increase to the rate of XP gain for players, companions, and troops.
- Ability to gain XP in the arena
- More opportunity to gain influence with characters, like defeating large hostile groups in the area, participating in battles, and capturing lords.
Also, i agree with other posters here that you should not force the player to explore the city to unlock traders and such. There should be other incentives to doing so, like hidden gang hideouts you can take out with your companion bodyguards that nets you loot and reputation with notables. Basically, you should explore the city to actually do things in the city, not so you can access a menu.
Things I would add:
- Getting rid of skill limits, making focus points purely for speeding up development in a skill
- Making roguery a party skill with the clan spymaster role.
- Unlock all blacksmith items from the start and let you pay money in place of stamina
- A flat increase to the rate of XP gain for players, companions, and troops.
- Ability to gain XP in the arena
- More opportunity to gain influence with characters, like defeating large hostile groups in the area, participating in battles, and capturing lords.
Also, i agree with other posters here that you should not force the player to explore the city to unlock traders and such. There should be other incentives to doing so, like hidden gang hideouts you can take out with your companion bodyguards that nets you loot and reputation with notables. Basically, you should explore the city to actually do things in the city, not so you can access a menu.
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Or on horseback.
Nice, good stuff, Jordy.
Oh god, this is my main pet peeve!
There should NOT be a loading when you talk to anyone! If you go attack a party, you need to load once to talk to them, then you switch back to the map and then the scene loads yet again.
This is just fundamentally bad design.
In Warband this works so much better, because it's simpler. You activate a party on the map, the scene loads (very quickly) and you get the dialogue window. You click to attack and you move into the battle scene.
Oh god, this is my main pet peeve!
There should NOT be a loading when you talk to anyone! If you go attack a party, you need to load once to talk to them, then you switch back to the map and then the scene loads yet again.
This is just fundamentally bad design.
In Warband this works so much better, because it's simpler. You activate a party on the map, the scene loads (very quickly) and you get the dialogue window. You click to attack and you move into the battle scene.
Very cool suggestions! Hopefully at least some of them will be added.
Keep trying
I respectfully disagree with that bandit groups should merge according to strength. I'm personally against any enemy scaling with level due to the fact that it messes up the village interactions with nearby towns. Sure that there should spawn Bandit Hideouts that spawn looters and such, but I'm not keen on watching big 60 blobs of looters running around completely shutting down villages.
On the other hand, I'd like to suggest that looters that have fled from combat will despawn after a while as they're disheartened after such a blow.
Great idea. Congrats! 
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