Oh, your assessment on the accessibility of the system is spot on. I just found your style of critique grating in this particular instance.
The initial point of this system was to drain lessons, so while your idea definitely makes it more inclusive (and thus likely more successful) it does deviate from the initial design philosophy which was 'reward people with Iron Elite', ostensibly.
‘Least I won’t have to carry it no more. You see how bloody heavy it is?’
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
One of the points I was trying to make is that this could be an awesome gold sink (which the game needs) rather than a lesson sink (which the game doesn't really need because excess lessons affect nothing).
I fully expect this to drain one resource to provide some other sort of commodity (fame/prestige/whatever the hell the endgame here is). IMO they just picked the wrong commodity.
Your first mercenary, in a tutorial quest explaining the system, should be free to train.
<div>Message #2062 Sent By: (imperian) Received On: 1/20/2018/2:59</div><div>"Antioch has filed a bounty against you. Reason: Raiding Antioch and stealing Bina, being a right</div><div>ass, and not belonging anywhere near Antioch till he grows up."</div>
It's been fun and it's sort of an interesting diversion. I don't mind the low-end rewards because I really see this part of the system being the 'leveling up your newbs'. You can see by your fight logs that they are in fact, incredibly incapable newbies. I don't expect to get EPIC LEWT OF IMMENSE power on a low end difficulty that really took me a total of 12hrs. Maybe I'm weird, but I have absolutely no problem with choosing an 8hr mission to avoid a high difficulty ability.
-It's a good lesson sink.
-It's a good gold sink.
-It's a good time sink. People log on to check their mercs.
-It's still in development. You're pretty much the beta testers.
You have to be careful with the rewards or you end up with another '%#%-Im-behind-the-8-ball' scenario. I'd rather they were flavour rewards like a adventures themed Pokemon I can use to taunt and say "Haha Khizan, I beat dungeon X." than something I can use IG. Its a distraction. Let's keep it at that.
You have to be careful with the rewards or you end up with another '%#%-Im-behind-the-8-ball' scenario. I'd rather they were flavour rewards like a adventures themed Pokemon I can use to taunt and say "Haha Khizan, I beat dungeon X." than something I can use IG. Its a distraction. Let's keep it at that.
Collectables would be fun. Especially pets or rare Mercs or something. Just, anything more than a tiny bit of gold and exp.
I vote for an achievement for most failure. I lazily flailed away at it without putting much though into it. I figured I'd go with the monkey/typwriter/thousand years route. 's not good.
Could we get some kind of "You can give your mercenaries another command!" type of warning when an action resolves? I find that I'll often give them a 10 minute command and then get caught up in something else, resulting in my completely forgetting about them until hours later.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
I could make a timer, but that wouldn't solve the problem with longer options, where I might set a 3 or 8 hour option and then want to power my computer down while I run to the store or go to bed or whatnot.
I could make a system to timestamp my last order and then check that time every so often, but that's a pain in the ass compared to an in-game warning.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
I looked into it when I returned but was pretty turned off by the whole thing. The syntaxes are annoying/hard to remember. The information about the system itself is split and hard to find.
There's lots of simple things that would make this better/easier to use if implemented
Equipment sets that auto equip the entire set of gear on your your dude.
Premade templates/classes that setup dudes a certain way. (Sneaky, hitty, casty, hybrid)
Look at the syntax and make it more reasonable.
Group summary that shows me a merc #, health,x/X points maybe checkmarks for each item slot to indicate they have an equipped item in that slot
Make dudes who get stuck in an empty lane not totally useless. Let them attack one next closest relevant enemy for reduced damage or something.
Basically, clarify the system to be much more usable. Quite frankly, while I'm not the most patient guy, I just got annoyed midway through setting up my team and decided not to use it until it got more user friendly. If something was done to improve it, i'd probably use it. I was excited when I read about it.
Comments
The initial point of this system was to drain lessons, so while your idea definitely makes it more inclusive (and thus likely more successful) it does deviate from the initial design philosophy which was 'reward people with Iron Elite', ostensibly.
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
I fully expect this to drain one resource to provide some other sort of commodity (fame/prestige/whatever the hell the endgame here is). IMO they just picked the wrong commodity.
Hooray.
Come on, guys. Let's keep it simple. We're just a fledgling criminal enterprise. One of you kids needs to carry a hammer or something.
that's my favorite thing out of the new changes already
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
I could make a timer, but that wouldn't solve the problem with longer options, where I might set a 3 or 8 hour option and then want to power my computer down while I run to the store or go to bed or whatnot.
I could make a system to timestamp my last order and then check that time every so often, but that's a pain in the ass compared to an in-game warning.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
I'll still going through the Part 1 adventures, until I get prepared enough to go through the Part 2 ones
If it weren't for Mercer's posts, I'd forget to check the for hire list.
I've been having problems getting Swim and Force guidebooks though
Probably donated at least 6, 7 lockpicks back to the Mercenary Union
I've been having problems getting Swim and Force guidebooks though
Probably donated at least 6, 7 lockpicks back to the Mercenary Union
Setup a guidebook exchange?
WTF is this?