GOD

[GOD]

Important to keep in mind is that not all of factions and locations have been introduced yet, so the problem will mostly solve itself as new content gets introduced. Premade maps sound like something for the community to make once the mod tools are released.

[GOD]

All hands on deck! Incoming wall of text!

Kahsm wrote:

Not being able to have any input into who I’m picking to be my founding members of my Merc group undermines the feeling of being head of a merc group.
But this doesn’t really have to be solved by customization. Just give us a long list of random people and let us pick 3.

No input is because it’s a ‘take what you get’ kind of beginning. That is also reflected in how you don’t choose your starting location and starting gear.
If more control absolutely needed to be implemented I’d prefer something like an extra difficulty setting that affects the total value of your starting team. Settings could be easy, hard and random. Like, easy raising the minimum value, hard lowering the maximum value and random changing nothing. Picking or buying your starters from a random list I can also live with if it absolutely has to be implemented. Customising your starting characters, however, flat out does not suit the design. The current way os starting works, however, works just fine and suits the game perfectly.

Kahsm wrote:

Maybe people aren’t addressing it because it’s a ridiculous assertion. Skyrim, GTA V, Minecraft, Terraria, Mount & Blade. These games are all insanely popular and not what anyone would consider “tight design”. Freedom is what people crave right now. Sandbox is the current fad. Look at all the survival games out there where people just want more and more stuff added constantly because they’re “fun features”. If the devs want to make something else, that’s their choice of course. But your point seems pretty far from reality.
BTW, a lot of good ideas there, hope to see many of them in game eventually. But the low-hanging fruit are the simple concepts that have the broadest possible impact on the player model of the game (The Simulation Dream). I believe customization is an easy win there.

This comparison doesn’t work on several levels. To start, a game doesn’t have to be financially successful to be great and a game that is financially successful isn’t necessarily a great game.

Secondly, those games aren’t designed as badly as you might think. They do, however, have more flexible themes than this game and are less reliant on quality over quantity. That’s why Dark Souls is a better comparison as a successful game, as that game does rely on it. Skyrim for example wants the player to feel free and awesome. This is reflected in the gameplay and world design. You can customise your character, go wherever you want and are a capable fighter from the start. It compensates for any quests that compromise this through the sheer amount of them. They can do that because they have a large team with a near limitless budget and a readymade modding community. Now, I dislike the design of Skyrim, but not because it fails at knowing its audience. GTA V can do the same thing in terms of volume, giving players the ability to follow a serious story or just play around in the sandbox. They can only do this because they have the funds needed to essentially make two games. Minecraft can ignore matching gameplay to story and has design that emphasises interaction with the environment. It gives the players the building blocks to play with and then sets them loose, so the players essentially generate content on their own and together. The core design here is really damn solid. Terraria puts these same design ideas in a 2D world and puts more emphasis on struggling with your surroundings through the adventure elements. Again the execution matches the design ideas. I never played M&B, so I can’t compare it in terms of design, but I doubt that it makes design decisions that contradict what the game is trying to be.

Thirdly, they are all real-time games that emphasise freedom of movement through directly controlling your avatar, who is a single person. Most of them are also first or third person, with one being 2D. This in combination with real-time means that you directly control your avatar and in that way interact with the world. Resulting in you more strongly identifying with that avatar and giving the player a sense of freedom and immersion. Real-time games are also more popular than turn-based games and single and first person are more popular than the top-down perspective.

Fourthly, all of them have relatively accessible difficulty levels and multiplayer (except multiplayer for Skyrim). This difficulty is crucial to their success, as it emphasises the feeling of freedom the player wants. Difficulty limits the actions of a player in a game sandbox game. Less difficult therefore means more freedom for the player. Mass appeal sandbox games don’t force people to play the hard way, but make it optional as mods or menu options. The importance of multiplayer and effectiveness varies per game (as shown by Elder Scrolls Online), but it is of particular importance in Minecraft and Terraria. They add the element of not just creating for the sake of yourself, but to show it off to others.

The developers here need to focus on tight design, because they don’t have the funds needed to intentionally make mass appeal a success. They also can’t compensate with marketing campaigns, expect the players to expand the game themselves or insert massive amounts of content into the game. Their aim is to make mercenary company simulator in land under threat by itself excludes many parts of sandbox gameplay and they lack the means to make alternative modes. Trying to go for mass appeal is therefore an exercise in futility, because this is a niche game by its very nature. Turn based, an inflexible them, highly difficult with no easy mode, relatively simple graphics, limited freedom, top-down perspective, no controllable avatar and no multiplayer or co-op. Their target audience basically consists of hardcore gamers and the occasional convert. Achieving mass appeal would require rebuilding the game from the ground-up and to turn it into something completely different. Therefore those games do not make for a relevant comparison for how to approach the design of this game. They should instead look at games like the Darkest Dungeon, Dwarf Fortress and FTL. Those games achieve their success through finding a niche and then going all in.

Glad to hear that you like the ideas! :) Though stuff like probably never implemented though, unless some people make some full-conversion mods. That’s why I’m against this change. The developers simple cannot afford to implement non-crucial ideas.

Kahsm wrote:

They already do, so this cannot be used as an argument against customization. When you find a guy with the right face and decent stats, you rename him. That’s how customization is done now. No one can argue that customization will change the game, because it’s already done. The question is, should it be less infuriatingly annoying to do.

That’s not actual customisation, just restarting until you get favourable result. Just like how you can copy the save file in Dark Souls and save it incase you do something wrong.

Kahsm wrote:

You’re playing the leader of a company who doesn’t fight with the company. At every other point in the game you get a list of available people to pick from. You can see how they look and their background, just not their extra traits and their stats. Why couldn’t that be done at the start? How would that damage the narrative?

Because you have no influence on which recruits you get to choose from. It’s like how you can choose where to go once the game starts, but you don’t choose your starting location.

[GOD]

Yeah, you’d still want that and I don’t mean making them so fast that they’re pointless. Just slight tweaking, with a tad more speed near the start and end, and a tad less float near the middle.

[GOD]

Yeah, you’d essentially need to turn them into the trait equivalent of legendary weapons. Something that you don’t build your playthrough around when you start it, but an exciting surprise when you do come across it.
Could be quite a bit of work for something you might never see so it’s probably pretty low on the list (if it is even on there), but it would be a really cool thing to have happen to your merc while playing.

This is also pretty much why I’m really looking forward to the legendary weapons. :D

[GOD]

Getting really excited for this banner system. Really adds a lot of flavour to the game!

PsenBattle wrote:

I see theres stil a lot of work left, but Im confident I will be able to set up a complex system allowing for all the above features.
…Just have to find the time :) Anyone got some spare time he can send over to me?

The trick is to stop sleeping. Sleep just holds you back from your true potential. You might start seeing things that aren’t there, but that’s normal and nothing to worry about. Just ignore it when they start talking.

EDIT: Also, if you don’t want huge smilies when you quote, just remove the image link and replace it with the normal code for that smilie.

[GOD]

Minmaxing like that is why, if they’re implemented, I’d have it not be based on something quantifiable like kill-count and either have there be a chance for it be positive or negative with a weak bonus or nerf, or have the trait be both be a blessing and a curse.
Something like: Vengeance. Has chance of being obtained after the merc in question is the only survivor of a battle where you started with at least 12 mercs. The other mercs need to have died in battle (so no fleeing and letting them die to try and grind it). Trait does something like: Mercenary never drops below wavering when fighting [FACTION]. Mercenary cannot retreat from battle against [FACTION].
It should be something special that only triggers under rare occasions and which you cannot reliably get even if you know the circumstances under which it triggers (hence the chance of triggering). Also, if you get it, it changes how you use the merc, but does not make them substantially stronger or weaker. Just different.

[GOD]

The problem with passive skill gain is that the player would start acting really bizarrely in battle if they want to have any control over their stat progression (which you really want, considering how the battles work). Need more fatigue? Better hit-stun an enemy with some guys so that you can run around for a bit. Levelling hitpoints (being near death?), resolve (passing morale checks maybe, but that makes it harder to level if you have less resolve) and initiative (don’t see how) would be even more difficult.

The traits gained through achievements (or failures) of a merc is something I’d also like to see. Would have to be minor bonuses though, since you don’t want to encourage specialisation too much.

Game isn’t coming out of Early Access until next year anyway, so no rush to upgrade. I don’t think you’ll need a beastly machine for it either, as this seems to be the kind of game pretty suited to laptop gaming. :)
Agreeing on that must have potential. In terms of fun I’ve had, it’s already been worth the price of purchase and if they further build on the basics it can become real classic.

EDIT: Seems I got sniped. :P

[GOD]

Sky wrote:

I’m with GoD on this. Without a doubt. The equipment is far more influential at the very start than it is at the very end. If you make the charactes in a generator you will be attacherd to them more than for their fairly weak starting members perk. I can even imgaine how many people will reroll the game just cuz they lost one of their custumized starters who they had big plans with. And this will happen at any part of the game. You are playing not as one (tho you definetely can RP that) but as a whole group of mercenaries who didn’t become this way because they like it, but had to. Just by reading the backstories it is quite obvious that most of them aren’t the mercenary material. This game is not about heroes, it is about mercenaries. The expendable kind. Death and gold are your companions, you are no heroes, you do all the stuff for money, even when it does not seem like that. This is not the MLP land, this is the harsh and bloody dark ages.

The mercenary life IS your LAST resolve, if this will not work out you can just go and die, nothing else is there in the world for you. That is the reason your people gather up, be whoever they were before. Ultimately it does not matter. What only matter is who you become if you survive and prosper. Tbh i’d even bound some of the backgrounds to a minimum party level so you can not recruit the combat experienced people too soon. As the player you would have a lot of time to get used to dying sellswords, lack of resources, fearsome enemies. The moment my group leveled up to lvl 8ish it was not so much fun anymore, there were rare encounters that could make me rotate someone to the back of injuries, and even less when I did lose someone. At that point it all became an OP group of dudes. Ofc that was only because the state of the game at this point. Besides had no time for games this weekend.

PS. That comment about strict parents and no fun made me rotfl. Why do I have the feeling that you will be the first to cry when your beloved custom character bites the dust? And… Just for lolz, what do parents have to do with a game preference and fun? Wouldn’t it be exactly the opposite when you break out of that stricnes every possible way and always have fun?

Pretty much. Customised character creation would a very misleading way of starting the game and encourage the idea that your first three are some sort of main characters, like in most RPGs. That’s why I’d much prefer to see something like that as a mod, so that you can play it as an alternative playstyle.

lfish wrote:

I think that the difficulty also changes the cost of items overall throughout the game, but I’m not certain about that. Difficulty right now only really affects the early game, since after a few large battles you get to a point where the starting conditions become irrelevant. There’s not really enough content and focus to the game at this point to know how hard it will end up being, so discussions about difficulty balancing are probably premature.
I do think that having a little more choice about starting conditions would help quell some of the dissatisfaction people have with a random start, without hurting the game’s theme too much. I do agree that it’s probably ultimately unnecessary though; more a concession to modern expectations about game design than a required feature.

I don’t think it does, but I haven’t checked. Maybe adding something like an additional difficulty level is an idea. A difficulty level for starting gold, like we have now. And a difficulty level for the minimum starting value of your team (gear, traits and backgrounds). It would still be random, but you would have a bit more control over how good your starting team is.
You could divide it into random, easy and hard. Easy raising the minimum value of your team that you’ll get. Hard lowering the maximum value of the team you can get. And random changing nothing.

Xoatl wrote:

Plenty of people have addressed your points. I’m not one because I’m not interested in convincing a fellow player of anything with walls of text. One of the devs mentioned that they’re thinking of having a character customizer for the founding members using a crown system. Pro traits/backgrounds cost crown, negative give crowns I’m guessing. Something like that is a familiar system. I think we’ll see that in the final game. Makes total sense for a roleplaying game, aside from your desire to make it arcade-y.

Not sure who you’re talking about, because the arguments I’ve seen in favour of customisation have been about convenience and the personalizing starting characters. No actual replies addressing my arguments regarding design.
They’re discussing customised creation, but handpicking traits and such is something Psen at least wanted to absolutely avoid. The crown thing was about buying mercs from a randomised list, which I have less of a problem with than with customised creation.

[GOD]

The entire point of the perk combination is to do precisely that though. I don’t think it still doing that constitutes a problem, as it’s not like it’s breaking the game. There’s also no real reason to ever have such a heavy load, so there’s no need to nerf the perk for that reason. You could certainly do it and I guess it gives your merc some extra flexibility, but nothing that completely changes how you use that character. It would be pretty broken if you could carry armour, but you can’t so that’s not an issue. I’m pretty much fine with the way it is. You now a reason to have Bags and Belts on its own and it still synergises well with Quick Hands. Overall, I’m pretty pleased with the changes made.

[GOD]

I’m going to hold off on seriously ruminating on the experience issue until the roadmap that the devs are working on gets posted. I’m with you that it doesn’t work as smoothly yet as it could, but I’m pretty curious about the context of it that us players are missing.

We should get a clearer image of a mercs history with the company once their achievements in your service get added and, like Heth mentions, when combat starts to have a lasting impact (eyepatches?!).

I think Rap at one point also talked about how they’ll tweak the way experience is distributed at the end of battle, so as to reward not just dealing the killing blow. Currently everyone seems to get a base amount of exp for winning the battle and then extra for killing blows.

[GOD]

Going to quote some parts of my own posts in the other thread:

GOD wrote:

Min-maxing is always going to happen, but that doesn’t meant that it’s a good idea to make it easier to do. The degree to which this is possible and what form it takes is very important to how a player learns to play the game. Right now, looking for the best possible synergy in traits and backgrounds isn’t really a thing, because it would take a long time to get it right and then your starters might die anyway. Making it easier would suddenly make it much more of a factor in how the game plays and how it should be balanced.

The point of mentioning Dark Souls is that it is a great game that doesn’t allow everyone to play as they like. Take for example how it has no save at will and no multiple save slots for the same playthrough. You could argue that putting it there for people who want to use it couldn’t hurt, because they just want to try to play in a different way and everyone else can choose not to use it. However, this would result in a fundamentally different game with a different atmosphere to it, even if you don’t use it, because choices that cannot be taken back are different from choices that you could take back if you wanted to. You cannot skip out of restarting at a bonefire if you die. You cannot take back attacking Gwynevere. You cannot see both endings without playing the game again. This adds a weight to the actions that you take that is only possible because of how the game does not offer you a reset button, which would result in the game undermining the sense of inevitability build up with the games overall design.

Jagged Alliance 2 is a very different game in terms of setting and how it handles recruitment within that setting. Custom characters there are essentially the player using their network to call in mercenaries that fit their needs, because you as a person are larger than the conflict that you are now a part of. It’s the difference between a player that acts more globally and a player who acts more locally. It fits the setting and kind of conflict that is central to the game (hiring foreign mercenaries), so it doesn’t clash with the design. A rough equivalent of this would be to have the player in Battle Brothers be a noble who’s sending out a mercenary company to handle the situation of the area where the game takes place, which would be a different kind of game.

Mods are fine because they aren’t part of the core game. In fact, I’d say it would make for precisely the kind of thing that modders should make. Modders don’t need to think about whether or not what they’re making fits the design, because what they’re making is not part of the core experience, so they can make things that the developer can’t. The developers, however, are the ones actually responsible for this core experience as conveyed through the design of the game. They make what everyone will play and what mods can build on, so they have to be consistent in what tone they set. They are also just a small team and need to carefully decide what features are worth the effort of implementing, because that means not spending time on something else. Custom character creation is simple nowhere near as worthwhile as some of the other things that I’ve seen them mention of considering and would undermine the tone of what they have so far.

GOD wrote:

You are free to do anything you want within the framework of the game. However, that framework has to be set up by the developer. The job of the developer is then to accurately assess what freedom is meaningful to the game and what isn’t. I’ve yet to see anyone talk about how they want accurate defecation mechanics, because they want the freedom to role-play an incontinent hedge-knight who soils himself in combat.
That something is convenient also doesn’t neccesarily make it a good feature. Fast travel is convenient, but putting it into this game is a bad idea.

GOD wrote:

What I’m emphasising is the need for good, tight design. That’s how you make a great game, rather than a forgettable one (people still play HoMM 2 and 3, while HoMM 4 is barely mentioned). A feature that seems fun on its own can ruin the kind of play experience that you’re trying to create. I’ve yet to see anyone actually address my arguments regarding that, just that they think it would be a fun addition. There’s tons of things that I think would be fun to add on their own, but that I wouldn’t want to see implemented because they don’t suit the game, would take too much effort and ultimately make it less enjoyable. Stuff like having a group of eldritch abominations drive the populace of a city mad, so you have to kill them or the city turns into a new faction of twisted monstrosities. Having party members who turn undead be recruitable. Recruitable werewolves. Recruitable necromancers. Undead Roman legions rising from their graves to cull the living. Language mechanics for all the different spoken dialects. Orc mode – work your way up to chieftain of all the Orcs and make the human lands burn. Necromancer mode – carefully build up your undead horde; levels and skills of the raised transfer to your minion so finding powerful graves to use or slaying mighty enemies becomes vital. Ally yourself to one of the enemy factions and defeat both the humans and the other factions. Undead Alexander with his army wants to conquer the world once again – highly tactical and well-equipped undead that are always at confident morale, with a powerful leader. Long play games – games that take decades of in-game time and that can have you play as the descendants of your original band; new technology gets introduced as time goes by and new cities will rise and fall. Be a freedom fighter who has to balance undermining the rulers, while stopping the enemy from killing you all (intentionally letting bandits kill a caravan transporting a noble). Start as a small company and build yourself up until you are an army, with scaling gameplay (from individual control to unit control). A far larger world map that shows multiple nations which function as separate factions. Far more diversity in the enemy units – different Orc tribes should actually be different from each other and have different units and fighting styles. Cultural effects that spread and affect things like unit choice, aggression and gear worn (an Orc base that has been next to humans for a long time establishing minor trade and using some human style weapons and tactics, or humans that taken to the hunter-gatherer ways of the Orcs). Lots of other stuff that I think would be really cool, but you get the point.

XCOM is a pretty different game (you are a global player, not local) and in my opinion also not nearly as good as the X-COM games (though Long War helps a lot). The way they added character customisation was also pretty lazy. They could have had you do it while recruiting (you are a world wide orgnisation, it’s to be expected that you can pick from a wide range of recruits), but instead you do it afterwards.

PsenBattle wrote:

Solving this issue by modding would of course be a good solution. The only downside is, that we cant yet say when we will be able to implement the mod support.
Cosmetic customization is still on our discussion agenda by the way. The only thing I really want to avoid is hand picking your perks and traits etc. Cant give you any more information at the moment unfortunately.

That makes mod tools getting added sound a lot more definite than the last time I heard about it! :D

[GOD]

Trig wrote:

This game has the warhammer (bec de corbin) and the billhook, the kite shield and some high medieval helmets, so it’s not early only. Therefore it must span 900-1200, possibly 1300 even. By 1100 the heraldry was pretty codified according to the basic rules, although the device itself, the charge,t he symbol, was left to the discretion of the noble to chose. Check Norman coats of arms from William the Conqueror’s times… I am not against using outrageous devices, severed orc heads, skeleton necromancer birds, werewolf claws, whatever, but the positioning and colour combinations should have some basic heraldic sense is all.

True on stuff having been implemented from later time periods, which is why I’m in favour of heraldic banners getting put in, but I’m cautioning against making them mandatory. As in, your company being required to have a properly heraldic banner. Because while those rules were prominent around 1200, they weren’t around 900. I don’t mean that that is what you were suggesting, but I was noting it for Psen so that he didn’t feel like he was totally misrepresenting the early medieval period. Keeping heraldic sense for design in mind is still a good idea, because those art designs existed for a reason and were based on older banners and art principles.

PsenBattle wrote:

Hi Trig,
all these Banners were created using our future banner customization tool wich players will be using when starting a new game.
They consist of the following parts:
Banner shape, Base color, Pattern Color, Main emblem, secondary emblem.
All Emblems have to be combinable with all banner shapes and with all color patterns, otherwise a lot of work will go to waste when painting special emblems which work only in combination with certain color patterns.
Of course these banners dont look as intriguing and as authentic as if i had painted them by hand.

When I start working on the final Banner generator I’ll consider your points and maybe change some of the set up to allow for more authentic combinations.

Cheers!

Nice! Allowing for authentic combinations is a good thing to have for those who know how to make them, plus maybe some examples for those that don’t if a help tool is implemented. I actually wasn’t expecting an actual banner tool to get implemented, since so few games have it and when they do it mostly consists of letting you recolor other banners.

[GOD]

Xoatl wrote:

I believe the end product will have an optional customization option for the founding members. The “divisiveness” comes from a vocal minority like GOD who had strict parents that never allowed fun. It only ever makes sense to have it in the game.

What I’m emphasising is the need for good, tight design. That’s how you make a great game, rather than a forgettable one (people still play HoMM 2 and 3, while HoMM 4 is barely mentioned). A feature that seems fun on its own can ruin the kind of play experience that you’re trying to create. I’ve yet to see anyone actually address my arguments regarding that, just that they think it would be a fun addition. There’s tons of things that I think would be fun to add on their own, but that I wouldn’t want to see implemented because they don’t suit the game, would take too much effort and ultimately make it less enjoyable. Stuff like having a group of eldritch abominations drive the populace of a city mad, so you have to kill them or the city turns into a new faction of twisted monstrosities. Having party members who turn undead be recruitable. Recruitable werewolves. Recruitable necromancers. Undead Roman legions rising from their graves to cull the living. Language mechanics for all the different spoken dialects. Orc mode – work your way up to chieftain of all the Orcs and make the human lands burn. Necromancer mode – carefully build up your undead horde; levels and skills of the raised transfer to your minion so finding powerful graves to use or slaying mighty enemies becomes vital. Ally yourself to one of the enemy factions and defeat both the humans and the other factions. Undead Alexander with his army wants to conquer the world once again – highly tactical and well-equipped undead that are always at confident morale, with a powerful leader. Long play games – games that take decades of in-game time and that can have you play as the descendants of your original band; new technology gets introduced as time goes by and new cities will rise and fall. Be a freedom fighter who has to balance undermining the rulers, while stopping the enemy from killing you all (intentionally letting bandits kill a caravan transporting a noble). Start as a small company and build yourself up until you are an army, with scaling gameplay (from individual control to unit control). A far larger world map that shows multiple nations which function as separate factions. Far more diversity in the enemy units – different Orc tribes should actually be different from each other and have different units and fighting styles. Cultural effects that spread and affect things like unit choice, aggression and gear worn (an Orc base that has been next to humans for a long time establishing minor trade and using some human style weapons and tactics, or humans that taken to the hunter-gatherer ways of the Orcs). Lots of other stuff that I think would be really cool, but you get the point.

lfish wrote:

I get the irritation at not having character creation, since it’s one of the features I love most in rpg-style games; but overall I agree with GOD that it’s not an important or useful addition to this particular game.
Being able to determine with any kind of specificity the attributes of your individual units undermines the feeling of being the head of a mercenary company, forced to deal with whatever recruits and difficulties come your way. In my estimation the fun and theme is not about designing any particular hero, it’s about managing a group of flawed grumbling men, and turning them into a fighting force. I would argue that, while the IMP system could be fun, it was actually damaging to the theme and consistency of JA2.
I think the actual problem that legitimately undermines some of the game’s fun, is that you’re getting a huge and completely random difficulty spike or drop based on no choices at all in the very beginning of the game. I think that a good solution (that has already been suggested in another thread somewhere) would be to have a wide choice over the ‘flavor’ of initial recruits, and a bit more connected backstory to exactly how your mercenary company was formed, and have that choice directly determine your difficulty. There could also be a choice of purely random recruits with the generic backstory.
Just for a couple examples, which I haven’t put much thought into:
“Holy Warriors” (Mid Difficulty) Monks and Flagellants – mid crowns – A group of clergy and zealots that have decided prayer is no longer sufficient to protect the weak
“Plowshares into Swords” (Mid Difficulty) Farmhands, Daytalers, Mill workers, Fishermen, Militia, Hunters – Low crowns – Upjumped peasants that have fled their lord’s land for a chance at glory and fortune
“Professionals” (Low Difficulty) Veteran soldiers, Deserters, Militia, Swordmasters – Mid crowns – Soldiers that have abandoned or mustered out of their units for a bigger payday
“The Guild” (Low Difficulty) Masons, Bowyers, Apprentices, Historians – High Crowns – Former craftsmen and tradesmen that first banded together to protect culture and the industry in the region from the devastation that surrounds them. Found the work more profitable than their former trades.
“From the Gutters” (High Difficulty) Beggars, Killers on the Run, Cultists, Thieves, Poachers – Low Crowns – The low and disenfranchised, turned to mercenary work out of desperation
“Second Sons” (Very Low Difficulty) Bastards, Disowned Nobles, Ambitious Nobles, Hedge Knights – High Crowns – Minor or former Nobility, striking out to make their fortune in the real world
Anyway, just my two cents on the issue. I trust the developer’s instincts so far, so I’m sure they’ll make wise decisions moving forward.

It’s usually one of my favourite parts of the game too. Loads of fun to look at all the options you have and come up with all sorts of different characters to play. Then come back once you beat the game and try something else. Really looking forward to Serpent in the Staglands for that kind of thing. However, I can definitely see why this game doesn’t have it.

Can’t you already influence that difficulty though by choosing the difficulty you start on? So far I’ve found that it is your starting gear that is more influential on how difficult the start is, rather than your traits (unless they’re utterly abysmal, which rarely happens). The difficulty setting changes nothing beyond your starting gold, so you’re essentially deciding how good your start is going to be. I’ve been finding myself appreciate that more and more. It’s a very elegant solution.

[GOD]

I’ve been playing the demo for a bit and I wondered about the old wïederganger skins. Are you planning on using those for anything or have they been scrapped?

PsenBattle wrote:

To be honest I’m a bit unsure here. Would a travelling band of mercenaries use the heraldic rules of the nobility to paint their company banner? Or would they just go with the most “awesome” design they can come up with?
Do you have any ressources on historic mercenary bands/banners? Even if they dont really match the period it would be helpful.
Cheers!

It’s important to note that the kind of codified heraldry being talked about here only started to take shape near the tail end of the period that you are dealing with – that is 1100 and upwards, so not early medieval. Some of the ideas that were to result in heraldry taking shape were most likely already around before that, considering the history of war banners, but the rules mentioned above didn’t exist yet.
I also agree with how a newly formed mercenary group would not necessarily care about heraldic rules, even if they knew them. They could also be using a banner with local importance or a traditional symbol of strength. Adding some wouldn’t hurt though for the purpose of playing someone who does care and there are some really nice heraldic banners to be found. However, it’s not an absolute necessity in order to make your mercenaries come across as believable.

[GOD]

I really like the idea of side-activities getting suspended when on a forced-march. Not sure how you’d calculate the extra supply usage, but giving supplies more uses is something that I’ve been waiting for to see implemented. Camping mechanics I recall being planned in some fashion, though we’ll have to wait for the feature list to know for sure.
Seem like we’ll also get to see what their ideas on movement speed are! :P

[Author]

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