Features request for Warriors of the North and KB saga in general

[Sirlancelot]

I think the followings features would benefit the whole KB saga:

Prelude:

Generally and conceptually speaking, it would be really interesting to increase the unpredictability factor of the game, specially, the related with the difficulty. Such change would lead to a more compelling experience to those who want to be kept to their toes and worried about menaces, while at the same time enchance replayability.

No more "no casualties" runs, but actually the opposite: a real chance to lose, a real chance to be forced to play against truly superior armies from time to time, a real chance to obligate you to think twice before doing a movement, a real chance to need to take care about money and other resources.

How would I go for it?

I got the ideas from the randomization of the weapons location KB standard feature.

1. Every time the player approachs OR, if you prefer, every time the maps are loaded (every time you arrive wherever for the first time) , potentially (% of) increase the speed of every enemy unit on the area for a random value.

Also, every time the player approachs, the enemy gets a chance to make an unexpected sprint to catch him/her.

For example:
Area A: contains undead, worms and dragons groups. Dices are rolled and both the undead and the worms groups get their base speed boosted, the former by 125% and the later by 100%, while dragons speed remains the same.

The player enters the undead zone of influence, conclude such opponent is stronger and decides to try to avoid combat without being forced to retreat: even with the speed boost, undead cannot reach his/her position and they don't get a sprint opportunity: the player succeds to follow his/her path without fighting.

Then, he/she enters the worms domain and and try to repeat the same maneuver: worms are not quick enough, but they get a sprint. However, the player finally changes his/her mind, decide to retreat and saves the day.

Some time later he/she returns to the area, and this time go straight to the dragons area of influence to reach some appealing spot: the dragons get a sprint and catch him, yet lose. Then the player plays around the undead group surrondings and get catched again through another unexpected sprint.

2. From time to time, potentially (% of) increase or decrease for a random value the number of some of the enemy units on the area. Sometimes this would lead to reduce or raise the difficulty of the affected area and as such, encourage the player to adopt different strategies depending on his/her game style.

3. From random time to time, as soon as the player enters an area, potentially (% of) add or remove/empty some rewards/appealing spots to/from it. This would encourage players to go after interesting things right after they see them. In addition, would make already visited and plunged areas intriguing to replay.

Obviously the chance to add things should be very low or not be checked very often, otherwise the player would just always behave in a speculative way all the time.

4. As Fatt_Shade suggested AI improvements would also help

5. Nerf/adjust/remove the overpowered spells, spell combos and skills.

[rickah88]

I suggested a while ago, in regards to the "no loss" craze that has taken ahold of most us at one point or another...just incorporate a main quest that involves sacrificing a unit(s). That way 0 losses would not be obtainable.

Of course, people will then do the "Excluding the Sacrificial Quest I did a zero loss on impossible" rant.

How about impress me...ONLY have 1 peasant, and finish with no losses on impossible! That would be impressive! ;)

[Fatt_Shade]

@SirLancelot I`m not sure when will ppl realize that strenght/size of enemy army have nothing to do with no loss playthroughts. On this forum are guides how to finish almost all game with only 1 black dragon= that only 1 unit, and some1 got up to end of Reha island with it, defeating all other battles with spells/pet dragon. In red sands mod it`s possible to finish game only using Asmodeon beholder familiar unit and it gets sick late game with 5000 HP, 25% evade,high crit%, bonus retaliations, life steal and other strong feats. So concentrating to stop some players from doing no loss runs, can repel many other casual players form enjoying in this great series (impy finished game in only 14 obligatory fights, on 35lvl hero). So why waste time and resources to make game impossible to finish 0 loss, who will play it ???
I would suggest for developers to pay attention to enemy AI and move/attack patterns instead simple rise of stats (speed, initiative, etc). Also to introduce time relevance to game, something like in HoMM series, the longer you play bigger are enemy stacks, or something related to your main quests (when player finish side quests, he gets some reward, gold/item..., but after finishing main quests army needed to finish next step rise numbers - something like hero`s reputation spreads, and enemy recruits more units to stop him plot).
@rickah I think it possible with mage hero. Get hero on start, finish tutorial and kite whole game to get lvl`s int bonus and phoenix/inferno dragon and resurrection spells , return to Debir island and go from there game should be playable.

As for how to make this game difficult without 1-1000 hero enemy leadership ratio try this mod http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=29080 . Matt made interesting changes there with enemy heroes - that really made it difficult to finish no loss campaign (for me at least). Some heroes have bonus resistance for their troops, or -ress to your units, expl high intellect heroes have double spell cast and mana regen, like mage hero higher magic and give -50% magic ress to all your units (imagine black dragon killed by 100 fairies), high attack heroes have -35% physical ress to your units, and +2 initiative/speed for their units in first 2 battle turns, high defense heroes have bonus resistances/hp to units. Who played TheLegend this mod for it, and if you remember Baal fight here he casts 2 demon portal, and gets in averege 15 Archdemons/turn , or Xeons demoness hero gives you -50% fire resistance and cast fire rain/fireball with devastating effects. Modder here made great changes without simple increasing enemy leadership on start to 400% of players hero, but really improves enemy hero AI and give them bonuses same as hero have on some of skills (tactics, frenzy, higher magic, concentration ...). He also made things more difficult with 0 mana/rage inflow after some battle turn so no more 100 battle turns so you can regain mana, and resurrect units. You play to turn 15/20 and after that what mana/rage you have that`s it no more.
So that`s why i said just giving simple bonuses to enemy units wouldnt really make some difference in players going with no loss campaigns, but to try to change how enemy units act.

[Sirlancelot]

@Fatt_Shade:

You are right to some extent. But on some stages of the game you cannot go for "no casualties" no matter the circumstances if you have to face superior opponents. In fact, you can be completely defeated... something that I honestly would LOVE to see from time to time (after all, be defeated is not game over... ;) )

Allow the player to skip all the battles that he/she wants on a regular basis is a real nuisance and obstacle for those like me who want a more thrilling, unpredictable experience.

But yes, AI improvements will help, as usual, and the key thing to definitely get rid of the EXPLOITS and dominant strategies (because that's what we're talking about), would be to nerf/adjust/remove overpowered spells, spell combos and skills.

The other changes I suggest should enchance the variety and randomness of the game experience as well, plus encouraging players to adopt different strategies depending on their preferences and gaming style.

-----------

I use to colaborate with a magazine as a reviewer and no doubt the oversights/drawbacks that I critize the most are the ones we have referred to.

PS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-dZQBeNsUw

[rickah88]

LOL! Great vid clip! That brought back some fond memories!

[Sirlancelot]

I have re-read your reply and notice didn't pay attention enough the first time:

So why waste time and resources to make game impossible to finish 0 loss, who will play it ???

Are you serious about this? Think twice. What are the difficulty levels for, then? Impossible with zero casualties should only be a joke, a parody. Hell, check the "Super-Easy mode" vid I have posted above.

[Sir Whiskers]

1. Every time the player approachs OR, if you prefer, every time the maps are loaded (every time you arrive wherever for the first time) , potentially (% of) increase the speed of every enemy unit on the area for a random value.

Also, every time the player approachs, the enemy gets a chance to make an unexpected sprint to catch him/her.

2. From time to time, potentially (% of) increase or decrease for a random value the number of some of the enemy units on the area. Sometimes this would lead to reduce or raise the difficulty of the affected area and as such, encourage the player to adopt different strategies depending on his/her game style.

3. From random time to time, as soon as the player enters an area, potentially (% of) add or remove/empty some rewards/appealing spots to/from it. This would encourage players to go after interesting things right after they see them. In addition, would make already visited and plunged areas intriguing to replay.


My first reaction is that these changes would reduce, not increase, the strategic depth of the game. Areas would need to be revamped, since currently all areas have stacks with a mix of strength. If it's more difficult - or worse, completely random - to avoid the powerful stacks, players will have to avoid entire areas until they are strong enough to fight the toughest opponents, which means most fights in the area would be just a boring walkover.

Likewise, your third change punishes players for scouting ahead. A player who checks out a new area runs a very real risk of either being killed with no chance to win the fight, or losing rewards simply for seeing them.

All in all, I don't believe these changes would be an overall improvement.



No more "no casualties" runs, but actually the opposite: a real chance to lose, a real chance to be forced to play against truly superior armies from time to time, a real chance to obligate you to think twice before doing a movement, a real chance to need to take care about money and other resources.


I don't understand the objections to no-casualty runs. I personally don't play that style - it's not worth reloading whole fights because I lost a single troop, or using very specific tactics that I find rather boring. I like to experiment, but if others want to challenge themselves with no-loss, go for it. I don't believe an explicit design goal should be making no-loss impossible, though if making the game more fun and challenging has that effect, that's okay.

I do agree that attrition can be a problem in the game. I believe no-loss goals developed in part because it's a pain to have to constantly replenish troop losses, or fight in specific ways to resurrect them before a fight ends (which often causes fights to drag out many extra rounds). It's much faster and easier to clear an area with a few dragons vs. thousands of dragonflies. KB:TL had an "army" mod where a player could pay double to recruit addtional troops without going back to town, but I don't believe it was ever updated to KB:CW. Something like that would encourage me to use more varied troops, IMO.

As Fatt Shade mentioned, the KB:TL mod (HOMM Babies) dramatically changes the difficulty, but in ways that add strategic depth rather than simply adding randomness or punishing players for using good strategy. In fact, that mod forced me to adapt my strategies, and it clearly rewarded good play. It also gave me good reasons to use troops I wouldn't normally use, depending on which wife/babies my hero had. I highly recommend giving it a try. I'm really looking forward to the KB:CW version.

[Sirlancelot]

My first reaction is that these changes would reduce, not increase, the strategic depth of the game. Areas would need to be revamped, since currently all areas have stacks with a mix of strength. If it's more difficult - or worse, completely random - to avoid the powerful stacks, players will have to avoid entire areas until they are strong enough to fight the toughest opponents, which means most fights in the area would be just a boring walkover.

Worse why? Where is the fun if you always know in advance the consequences of your actions (movements)?

Regarding the other subject I remark on bold letters, you would simply not able to exploit the enemy units lack of speed so easily thus sometimes be encouraged (not forced) to play more cautiously. Wiith my system there wouldn't be any 100% safe areas, so the "let's simply retreat and face the theorically less menacing places first", shouldn't guarantee success... opposite of what happens in the raw game by the way.

So actually less walks in the park than now and a real danger of having to cope with defeat and its implications no matter your tactic and gaming style.

Not only that, terrain and landscape shapes, forms and their obstacles would become far more important, as would the type of army you manage, your strenghts and weakness.

Likewise, your third change punishes players for scouting ahead. A player who checks out a new area runs a very real risk of either being killed with no chance to win the fight, or losing rewards simply for seeing them.

Not punishing, just making it more realistic. Real scouting is supposed to be dangerous and therefore the game should address it somehow. Currently you can go and grab far too many things before even raise the sword for the first time... and then going one by one eliminating the weaker enemies and catching the resources left; that kind of playthrough is utterly boring, a chore, and makes no sense to me.


I don't understand the objections to no-casualty runs. I personally don't play that style - it's not worth reloading whole fights because I lost a single troop, or using very specific tactics that I find rather boring. I like to experiment, but if others want to challenge themselves with no-loss, go for it. I don't believe an explicit design goal should be making no-loss impossible, though if making the game more fun and challenging has that effect, that's okay.

I do agree that attrition can be a problem in the game. I believe no-loss goals developed in part because it's a pain to have to constantly replenish troop losses, or fight in specific ways to resurrect them before a fight ends (which often causes fights to drag out many extra rounds). It's much faster and easier to clear an area with a few dragons vs. thousands of dragonflies. KB:TL had an "army" mod where a player could pay double to recruit addtional troops without going back to town, but I don't believe it was ever updated to KB:CW. Something like that would encourage me to use more varied troops, IMO.


The annoyance and nonsense of no-casualty runs rest upon the fact they are possible even on Impossible. Not talking about Easy or Normal, but Impossible.

Glad that we share the big picture concept, though. We both want a challenge increase but have in mind two different approachs to attain it. You basically rather go for it in a classical way, keeping total control of the experience, while I can only embrace the former with a good portion of unpredictability. It's okay.

However, let me finish stating that when you play along the map, you do it so just against the fixed patterns of the enemy stacks of units. There's not AI there. This means not messing with such player advantage isn't allowing remain a good strategy, but allowing remain a dominant strategy/exploit, ie: take advantage of something that is inherently broken or derivated from poor design decisions regarding gameplay.


As Fatt Shade mentioned, the KB:TL mod (HOMM Babies) dramatically changes the difficulty, but in ways that add strategic depth rather than simply adding randomness or punishing players for using good strategy. In fact, that mod forced me to adapt my strategies, and it clearly rewarded good play. It also gave me good reasons to use troops I wouldn't normally use, depending on which wife/babies my hero had. I highly recommend giving it a try. I'm really looking forward to the KB:CW version.

Sure, looking forward to it, yet if good map strategies automatically lead to victory (no chance to fail), will probably dissappoint me.

[Totoro]

I have nothing against other people doing no loss runs. I like challenge but not excessive reloading and stress that comes from my obsessions. Too much of them ruin fun for me and sometimes it's very difficult for me to control my perfectionist obsessions so I could use a little help from game design.

I currently have no obsessions for 100% no loss runs but I do try to minimize losses and sometimes it becomes stressful. I may become obsessed about not losing a single dragon or any level 5 or 4 creature. Then I end up reloading dozens of times after making one wrong move in a battle and it's no fun anymore but I must keep playing because I know there's fun ahead when I finish the stressful battle.

That's why I sort of like OP's idea that it would be impossible to not lose those creatures. I would be relieved if it would be normal to lose a lot of them and having to rely on other creatures as well. However, if you lose a lot creatures you would also have to buy a lot of them and then you become short on dough. It would mean that gold sources should be more abundant or creatures should cost much less.

I would also like if they removed the day counter because that causes stress to me as well.


It is possible that I should go see a psychiatrist but he would probably just tell me not to play games like this and that's not an option.

[Fatt_Shade]

About limiting player to certain areas, and making it impossible to scout around and check whole game with 1st lvl hero try to remember KB-tL : there you could check first 4 areas but MUST defeat giant turtle to go to freedom islands, then you MUST finish Lucky James quest to proceed to dwarf mines, then you MUST finish dwarf prince quest to go to elven lands. So game development and difficulty you go through was much better in tL compared to AP/CW. So instead increasing stats of enemy stacks in areas why not return this kind of play ? You get map for new areas after finishing certain quests, not by kiting or simply picking up map that is unguarded.

As for no loss runs, i dont think we should take them as base to build new game because there arent so much players that do them. But no loss runs are among most commented on forum simply because in them new ideas and strategies are developed. Player that is on easy/hard difficulty may come here for some guidance for particular problem he/she run into, but wont make new tread for it and get 100+ reply on it. But no loss runs are interesting to test and try out with `Can i do it?`idea and then post your achievement, and somebody else try it and do something different and post his thoughts ... And that`s why no loss runs gather much attention, and commenting here not because they give something more in game since they dont (no better rewards, no higher scorers) nothing is different finishing no loss and normal game with losses. If there was only 1 way to finish no loss, then it wouldnt be problem to prevent it. But there are bunch no loss strategies so to prevent them all is to much work.

And in the end, SirWhiskers remembered great new feature in KB-tL HoMM babies mod : BABIES :-) Every wife have much more potential babies then in original game and every baby is unique in it`s bonuses to your army. Expl : i had Rina wife, and with her had undead kids - Aisilin (great bonuses to evil book spell which is much better then original , 24% more basic dmg from attack spells so if fire arrow make 100 dmg now it make 124 and then you apply hero intellect bonus) , Charna (gives bonuses to ghosts/cursed ghosts +16%hp, +1speed/initiative, attack defence , -16% leadership and unlimited retaliation. I must say this is sickest bonus to unit in whole mod but out of 32 possible kids you have about 3% chance to get her in game) , Vidomina ( -9% leadership to all undead) , and Nimbus ( 18% more bonus from hero intellect to spells).
This all may seem like to much bonuses, but also every enemy hero in game have similar bonuses to his units, you on other hand as player can take 8 wives and every have 30+ kids, so you can have great kids, not so much great (lets say you pick warrior hero and end up with spell bonus kids) and that`s great random treat in game :-) 1 more great thing Matt changed in his mod are spells : he added option that was in intellect description since start of this games but didint work properly. Every 15 hero intellect some spells last +1 turn, this includes stone skin/bless/haste/slow, but also sheep/doom, and burning/poison effects from spells. So fighting enemy primary intellect heroes can be real pain in the ass, expl : Misticus undead hero in Wastelands area have 40 int, so when he cast blind it lasts for 5 turns and he cast it 2 times per turn like higher magic hero skill. Also Matt added shock/stun feat to lightning/geyser spells based on caster int. There are bunch more great feats in this mod, but you simply have to try it and see them all.
So i dont vote for just adding some % bonus to whole area when player come first time, but like in this mod, lots of little changes that can make new game more interesting.

[MattCaspermeyer]

First let me just state that these are some very interesting, provocative ideas.

I think the followings features would benefit the whole KB saga:

Prelude:

Generally and conceptually speaking, it would be really interesting to increase the unpredictability factor of the game, specially, the related with the difficulty. Such change would lead to a more compelling experience to those who want to be kept to their toes and worried about menaces, while at the same time enchance replayability.

No more "no casualties" runs, but actually the opposite: a real chance to lose, a real chance to be forced to play against truly superior armies from time to time, a real chance to obligate you to think twice before doing a movement, a real chance to need to take care about money and other resources.

Mostly likely easier said than done, but a noble goal...

I got the ideas from the randomization of the weapons location KB standard feature.

1. Every time the player approachs OR, if you prefer, every time the maps are loaded (every time you arrive wherever for the first time) , potentially (% of) increase the speed of every enemy unit on the area for a random value.

Also, every time the player approachs, the enemy gets a chance to make an unexpected sprint to catch him/her.

For example:
Area A: contains undead, worms and dragons groups. Dices are rolled and both the undead and the worms groups get their base speed boosted, the former by 125% and the later by 100%, while dragons speed remains the same.

The player enters the undead zone of influence, conclude such opponent is stronger and decides to try to avoid combat without being forced to retreat: even with the speed boost, undead cannot reach his/her position and they don't get a sprint opportunity: the player succeds to follow his/her path without fighting.

Then, he/she enters the worms domain and and try to repeat the same maneuver: worms are not quick enough, but they get a sprint. However, the player finally changes his/her mind, decide to retreat and saves the day.

Some time later he/she returns to the area, and this time go straight to the dragons area of influence to reach some appealing spot: the dragons get a sprint and catch him, yet lose. Then the player plays around the undead group surrondings and get catched again through another unexpected sprint.



Part of this is similar to what I did in my mod - the map difficulty factored into increasing enemy unit stats, however, you want it to be randomized - interesting!

If the player leaves the area, then upon return, new random effects are applied. Sounds pretty interesting...

I guess the thing to think about here, is how can a player exploit this?

Does the player use a save game at a specific point to then "scout" areas and see which stacks leap on them?

Then they reload and exploit it a different way?

You'd have to use a purely random seed rather than what was saved in the game to prevent this, but this is a slightly different paradigm than what the developers are using since they save the seed.

Perhaps, really what you're thinking is to have random stacks appear out of nowhere, i.e. ambush! So then you have your "normal" stacks that you can see, but "hidden" stacks that you can't - they would have to use a purely random seed, although maybe the total number of ambushes would be fixed.

Certainly something to contemplate...

2. From time to time, potentially (% of) increase or decrease for a random value the number of some of the enemy units on the area. Sometimes this would lead to reduce or raise the difficulty of the affected area and as such, encourage the player to adopt different strategies depending on his/her game style.

Hmmm... sounds interesting, I guess decreasing may not quite be a stride towards making the game harder.

Could this be exploited?

Could I simply keep reloading and then always go for easier stacks?

Now the purely random seed required in the previous feature (where it was possibly beneficial) is used where it is possibly a disadvantage. This is tricky...

It does vary things more, I'm starting to see a theme here, I think.

3. From random time to time, as soon as the player enters an area, potentially (% of) add or remove/empty some rewards/appealing spots to/from it. This would encourage players to go after interesting things right after they see them. In addition, would make already visited and plunged areas intriguing to replay.

Obviously the chance to add things should be very low or not be checked very often, otherwise the player would just always behave in a speculative way all the time.

I guess the question here arises: what are you really after with this recommendation?

Are you trying to encourage a certain playstyle?

Once again, your common theme is to add variance, which sounds like a great idea.

But also think about what ways would a player exploit this.

Should I keep reloading until I get some good stuff?

Once again the purely random seed is a double-edged sword and potentially open for exploitation...

Possibly an option to allow this and previous features you mentioned in the game menu, with either a fixed or random seed?

Is this worth it?

I think your general theme is that you'd like more variance and less exploitation. The save game feature makes minimizing exploitation exceedingly difficult due to the random seed being saved in the save game file.

There are potentially ways around this, i.e. don't use the saved seed for certain features you'd like to see, but now this becomes open to the statistics of the randomness. Another possible source of exploitation.

I remember playing old D&D games like Eye of the Beholder and simply reloading the save game before a level up until I got the maximum hit points for the level up.

Are your suggested changes opening up KB to this type of reload until I get the best style?

I also remember in Baldur's Gate where you could export and import items for your starting characters - whoops! That design feature was easily exploited...

You present some interesting and provocative ideas (as can be seen from the responses), but I guess the thing to think about is how can they be exploited and how can they be implemented to minimize exploitation?

These aren't necessarily easy questions to answer, but they do get the mind thinking!:)

/C\/C\

[1darklord]

Ah interesting! I actually find the game difficulty just right on Normal, I've never tried a higher difficulty. I don't use any single stack or other OP strategies, I don't try for no loss either.

I wouldn't enjoy extra randomness that would require you to reload the game several times to get an optimum or not be able to continue, but variety is good. I'm in favour of anything that increases AI options etc.

Daniel.

[rickah88]

I think my biggest 'feature' request for KB:WotN would be to have the actual game released...sooner rather than later. ;)

[1darklord]

I think my biggest 'feature' request for KB:WotN would be to have the actual game released...sooner rather than later. ;)

Heh Like I said elsewhere, I'd settle for it being released at all! :eek:

Daniel.

[Dicetrain]

Just some small things would make it a lot better.

1) Customizable font size. It's too tiny for me, I actually ended up skipping a lot of side quest stories even though the writing was good when I would read it.

2) True 16:9 of course. ^__^

3) Full 360 and top-down camera rotation in battles. When it gets really crowded with large units, things can get confusing.

4) Instead of just an arrow path for what cells a unit will travel, the destination cell should be highlighted blue, and then you should be able to hold a key to lock that while you aim to what cell you want to attack.

I ask for this because there were some times (especially because of the limited camera angles) that I ran to the other side of an enemy when I didn't want to and torched an friendly unit behind the enemy with my dragon.

5) If you have visited a shop, then clicking on the placemarker on the map should show you what items were available there. There were so many times I went back to get an item/unit later but forgot where it was so I ended up traveling around between islands checking every shop in the world. It would be a lot smoother if I could check via map before actually traveling there.

6) Similarly, if you are traveling back to someone you talked to after completing quest objectives, it should highlight this on the map in case you forgot due to juggling many quests at once.