Suggestion on Death and Characters

Users who are viewing this thread

Because

Sergeant
After trying the game with death enabled (albeit not through choice) I've had a few thoughts on it and wasn't sure if they chimed with anyone else's views on it.

Death works fine for MC and lords as long as chance is low and applied in all battles not just player fought ones. Lords can be replenished by highly skilled replacements as long as there is a population to sustain them. Lords dying makes the world dynamic. MC dying makes you careful how and when you fight and it's a nice challenge to start again if not (although this isn't me voting to remove the option to disable death and aging as I like the old warband style of game as well).

Death for companions on the other hand is a pain as they level so slowly and have worse skills and gear than decent tier soldiers you command and so have little to no place on the front line and even if you micro-manage them as a group that you send to the back of the field (which you have to do each battle and which means they'll never get better) they are still doomed in the crap shoot that is sieges where they will be randomly thrown against enemy walls, regardless of your wishes.
Companions fit into 2 categories
Combat who are no better than the troops around them (and often worse) and exist purely to provide buffs to the unit they are assigned to.
Non Combat who shouldn't even be on the battlefield.
In either case they will get taken out in a fight again a decent tier enemy soldier as they are mechanically no better and due to the price of gear usually worse. It feels like why bother to invest in a combat companion at all as the buffs from them aren't game changing. When considering the comparatively small number of non-combat wanderers you can recruit in the game they are also potentially impossible to replace, if you have a bit of bad luck, which also seems like poor design when they are the only way you can actually get a good engineer or medic in the game.

The same goes for companions in caravans, who you develop little to no attachment too and so there death is more of an irritation than a emotional impact. Again there is only a limited pool of wanderers who are any good at running a caravan so again they might not be able to be replaced, but their death is pure RNG and as unlike everyone else in the game you need a named character to run your caravans it gets really annoying.

Therefore I'd be much happier if they were treated separately and you could turn their chance of death on and off at least for ones in your party and caravans.

On an unrelated note would anyone else like the option for the damage reduction options players have to be applied to all Lords as well? I really like the idea of Lords being that much tougher in general to make them stand out a bit more? Really good lordly gear would work too of course.
 
So basically, you're suggesting a separate option for companion deaths.

I agree it is a problem, but I don't like this solution as it feels very artificial to me. I'd much rather prefer they change the companions' progression in a way that would let them get reasonable amount of skill in their average lifetime. So losing one would actually feel like a loss, but also training another one wouldn't take a whole century.

Although it's hard to argue against an extra option anyway, because it's, well, optional. It's just I'd like it to be a more natural fix rather than a workaround one.
 
So basically, you're suggesting a separate option for companion deaths.

I agree it is a problem, but I don't like this solution as it feels very artificial to me. I'd much rather prefer they change the companions' progression in a way that would let them get reasonable amount of skill in their average lifetime. So losing one would actually feel like a loss, but also training another one wouldn't take a whole century.

Although it's hard to argue against an extra option anyway, because it's, well, optional. It's just I'd like it to be a more natural fix rather than a workaround one.
I agree completely. The problem isn't that can companions die, but after spending dozens of hours leveling them when you have to replace them it becomes a huge chore.

Doesn't the game replenish companions ?
Yes but have you looked at how bad 99% of the companions are initially? Most are horribly built with a terrible spread of skill points and attribute points and too many red skills and add to the fact that leveling them is a major chore.
 
I agree completely. The problem isn't that can companions die, but after spending dozens of hours leveling them when you have to replace them it becomes a huge chore.


Yes but have you looked at how bad 99% of the companions are initially? Most are horribly built with a terrible spread of skill points and attribute points and too many red skills and add to the fact that leveling them is a major chore.
Totally agree I can rarely find a companion that is not overladen with red skill cap. Very difficult to level them. If you can find a good one they have a good chance of dying.
 
Yes but have you looked at how bad 99% of the companions are initially? Most are horribly built with a terrible spread of skill points and attribute points and too many red skills and add to the fact that leveling them is a major chore.

This is not a companion issue, but rather a training issue in general. There currently is no way to train troops, companions, yourself, or really anyone in the game outside of battles and a few very weak perks. The training field can't do it, the arena can only train yourself to a pitiful degree, and there are no specialized buildings or agents anywhere that allow you to drill people. This both makes no sense and turns rebuilding an army into an unnecessarily bothersome thing, even for the richest people in calradia.
 
Or make player option to make a choice, that "non-combat" companions will not actually fight (if they dont have to), because they are theoreticians and not combatants or something like that.
 
This is not a companion issue, but rather a training issue in general. There currently is no way to train troops, companions, yourself, or really anyone in the game outside of battles and a few very weak perks. The training field can't do it, the arena can only train yourself to a pitiful degree, and there are no specialized buildings or agents anywhere that allow you to drill people. This both makes no sense and turns rebuilding an army into an unnecessarily bothersome thing, even for the richest people in calradia.
It is a training issue for sure but most of the companions have horrible templates and are incredibly difficult to get going. I've seen traders with 2 points in trading 1 charisma, and level 15. I mean seriously wtf is anyone suppose to do with that? One of the most nonsensical things about trying to level a companion is when someone has a weapon skill that is a red skill so I have to switch them to another weapon that they have no points in so they can level. It's completely stupid and makes leveling them even more difficult.
 
So basically, you're suggesting a separate option for companion deaths.

I agree it is a problem, but I don't like this solution as it feels very artificial to me. I'd much rather prefer they change the companions' progression in a way that would let them get reasonable amount of skill in their average lifetime. So losing one would actually feel like a loss, but also training another one wouldn't take a whole century.

Although it's hard to argue against an extra option anyway, because it's, well, optional. It's just I'd like it to be a more natural fix rather than a workaround one.
It is an artificial solution and tweaking the companion XP system would be better.

Making them immortal though seems like it's a much easier thing to do than tweaking the levelling system for them though. As regardless of the sheer amount of XP needed to advance them a level which in of itself would be hard to come by, currently passive XP does not advance skills. As you can only have 1 companion in any of the 4 party slots and they only advance 1 skill it makes it very hard to train up companions in at best 1 non combat skill so you can't have a companion to act as a back up for your surgeon for example.
Currently at least if you want to raise their combat skills you can albeit slowly, although unless you want them all to HA it's still hard for them to get much XP. If that process has a decent chance of killing them, they just aren't worth it.
The only other solution I thought of was to be able to have trainer NPCs who you could pay to raise companions skills say at a cost of 25x new skill level and maybe cap the amount a skill could be increased in single session to 5 increases.

Even if you get around the XP issue you still have the hassle of micro managing them, having no control of them in sieges and that the cost of giving them tier 5+ gear is more than the cost of hiring a whole army of tier 5+ troops who are all better in a fight. Hence I think it would be easier to make them un-killable so they are reliably useable in case the above issues aren't fixed.
 
I 100% agree, companions are a liability to take onto the battlefield, which is made worse by the fact you cannot recover their equipment. Even if that were to change, and you could recover the vast wealth spent on decking your bois out, all of your skill investment in them also dies. If there were some way to preserve their legacy, I might feel more ivested in the whole companion thing, like if they could marry, and have kids that they apprenticed or something... or maybe a cinematic for their death at least, so we can mourn them even a little instead of seeing the end screen and gettin' mad rnjesus saw it fit to take their life.

As it stands though, their ability to die doesn't even matter, because if you aren't exploiting smithing for infinite city money for a lump of steel slapped on a big ol' stick, you can't even afford the money it costs to keep them around with the in-game economy the way it is. I even considered kicking my brother from the clan because I couldn't justify 50 gold a day for his lazy ass.
 
Or make player option to make a choice, that "non-combat" companions will not actually fight (if they dont have to), because they are theoreticians and not combatants or something like that.
+1

There should definitely exist some form of option to have your companions not engage in the battle, as well as the ability of course to recover your companions' gear if you win the battle. I mean, it doesn't really make sense that my medic or engineer with next to zero combating skill would take part in every battle.
 
If your companions can't be immortal, at least you should be able to raise them from death with necromancy. They'll continue as undead with somewhat diminished skills, but you'll keep at least some of your investment in building them up.
The catch here is that the necromantic service is very costly - you'll have to sacrifice your lastborn, so you'll need to decide whether they are worth bringing back. You baby killer.
aZlLrlDz_700w_0.jpg
 
Last edited:
Companions need a lot of work. For one the leveling of them is never worth the time, money, and energy. They die randomly and need to be micromanaged until the game won't let you in sieges, I send them away before I do one of I have any.

Also, I have played quite a few games where there isn't one trading companion spawned. The best I had in the bunch was a 10 in trading. The same goes for medics also. I thought these were supposed to be weighted so you have a mix.

The way they are now companions are just throw away characters you just have replace and are more of a pain than anything. They need almost a complete rework to make them fun.
 
Death for companions on the other hand is a pain as they level so slowly and have worse skills and gear than decent tier soldiers you command and so have little to no place on the front line and even if you micro-manage them as a group that you send to the back of the field (which you have to do each battle and which means they'll never get better) they are still doomed in the crap shoot that is sieges where they will be randomly thrown against enemy walls, regardless of your wishes.
Came here looking for this thread. Had a break and started playing again to see what changes had been made but after a while I started a battle and I lost a companion, so I restarted and lost someone else and all the gear I outfitted him with as well as the exp he had gained since the start of the game. This game is mostly about battles and now it seems I will lose a companion for each battle where I don't have an advantage.

This is making companions completely irrelevant. as it takes too long to level them up to decent stats.
I don't think there has been made good progress the last year since early access started, it was at least fun to play when it came out.
 
You can just play with death turned off, but you do lose on some of the dynamic aspects of the game by having everyone immortal. Still it doesn't work for companions with death turned on currently IMO so not really much of a choice.
 
i hate that my companions are randomly placed and not directly manageable anymore in sieges - the only place where i lose companions regularly, its especially annyoing if those where leading troops that you NEED to compete with soo humangous armies.
 
Back
Top Bottom