It seems like more and more "quality of life" features like the "quick talk" and the improved "town menu" compared to warband are developped to make us avoid wasting time loading these scenes.
Of course on the short term the QoL improvements are nice and maybe even necessary, and the fact we have a proper UI now is more comfortable, but I feel like it's maybe the wrong approach ?
The more i play the more i wonder what's the point of having handcrafted these beautiful maps if we increasingly drive the player away from them and make them feel more and more barren in comparison to the campaign map and UI.
For all the clunky UI warband/VC had, i felt more immersed in the world as i often needed to walk inside the maps, to interact with various characters and places rather than looking at the campaign map and their ugly menus.
For now there are only three things i can think of that force me to load these scenes :
- Playing le board game with a lord
- Rival Bandit Gang Moving in/Finding the daughter/Finding the spy
- Buying a workshop
Some more anecdotical things :
- Talking with the ransom broker/innkeeper (special dialog for ransoming companions or getting gossips doesnt seem to be working atm)
- trade rumors from towns(wo)men
I feel like a better approach would be to increase the things happening in those scenes so that the player feel rewarded from the time spent loading those scenes rather than feel it's a time waster, with more content that you can't do from the campaign map that would basically offset the time spent on the loading screens. All the routine shores should be automatable or done from the campaign map when you are in endgame/kingdom gameplay, but i still think some thing should only be done inside those scene
I didn't really think it through but some idea i can think of :
- Purchasing a farmstead in a village
- Special NPCs to interact with inside a castle (eg: guarrison captain/recruiter, intendent for sending messages to other lords)
- Visual upgrading of village/castle/towns according to buildings constructed/prosperity vs pillaging
- Scene customisation (eg place different items inside the keep so it feels "yours")
- Setting up defences in preparation for future sieges (could be like a siege drill ?), so that your troops are correctly organized
- More village/town quests
- Undercover gameplay (visiting lover/breaking out prisoners/sneaking in out for illegal activities)
- All the criminal gameplay that was talked about in early demos, which i imagine would require interacting with local npcs and fighting in civilian outfits inside the towns.
- Diplomacy gameplay : I'm thinking of Koei strategy games where most diplomacy actions has to happen in person, whether you go there or send someone to do it, with debates and duels often deciding the outcome when skills of both sides are roughly even. A faction ruler could send you on those missions to go to the another castle to negotiate a peace, convince a ruler to switch sides, ask support for a policy etc.
I know most of these idea would be very complex to implement and i struggle to think of simple ones except more quests, but maybe people here have better ideas ?
i really think that's what will make a difference between a more immersive RPG/simulation game like Mount and Blade and UI heavy strategy games like CK2/Total war.
Of course on the short term the QoL improvements are nice and maybe even necessary, and the fact we have a proper UI now is more comfortable, but I feel like it's maybe the wrong approach ?
The more i play the more i wonder what's the point of having handcrafted these beautiful maps if we increasingly drive the player away from them and make them feel more and more barren in comparison to the campaign map and UI.
For all the clunky UI warband/VC had, i felt more immersed in the world as i often needed to walk inside the maps, to interact with various characters and places rather than looking at the campaign map and their ugly menus.
For now there are only three things i can think of that force me to load these scenes :
- Playing le board game with a lord
- Rival Bandit Gang Moving in/Finding the daughter/Finding the spy
- Buying a workshop
Some more anecdotical things :
- Talking with the ransom broker/innkeeper (special dialog for ransoming companions or getting gossips doesnt seem to be working atm)
- trade rumors from towns(wo)men
I feel like a better approach would be to increase the things happening in those scenes so that the player feel rewarded from the time spent loading those scenes rather than feel it's a time waster, with more content that you can't do from the campaign map that would basically offset the time spent on the loading screens. All the routine shores should be automatable or done from the campaign map when you are in endgame/kingdom gameplay, but i still think some thing should only be done inside those scene
I didn't really think it through but some idea i can think of :
- Purchasing a farmstead in a village
- Special NPCs to interact with inside a castle (eg: guarrison captain/recruiter, intendent for sending messages to other lords)
- Visual upgrading of village/castle/towns according to buildings constructed/prosperity vs pillaging
- Scene customisation (eg place different items inside the keep so it feels "yours")
- Setting up defences in preparation for future sieges (could be like a siege drill ?), so that your troops are correctly organized
- More village/town quests
- Undercover gameplay (visiting lover/breaking out prisoners/sneaking in out for illegal activities)
- All the criminal gameplay that was talked about in early demos, which i imagine would require interacting with local npcs and fighting in civilian outfits inside the towns.
- Diplomacy gameplay : I'm thinking of Koei strategy games where most diplomacy actions has to happen in person, whether you go there or send someone to do it, with debates and duels often deciding the outcome when skills of both sides are roughly even. A faction ruler could send you on those missions to go to the another castle to negotiate a peace, convince a ruler to switch sides, ask support for a policy etc.
I know most of these idea would be very complex to implement and i struggle to think of simple ones except more quests, but maybe people here have better ideas ?
i really think that's what will make a difference between a more immersive RPG/simulation game like Mount and Blade and UI heavy strategy games like CK2/Total war.
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