Events

[ManaSeed]

“Things never go the way you expect them to. That’s both the joy and frustration in life.”

I think it might be better if have a place to discuss about events, particularly when we have a lot of events in future. Feel free to discuss in any way you see fit.

[ManaSeed]

1) At first glance, it makes sense for trait Gluttonous to enable a brother to have trait Fat. The event dialogues are cute and interesting too. However, it doesn’t make sense in terms of game mechanism. If Gluttonous will make you Fat in the end, then these traits should always come in pair when you choose recruit. Imagine a player struggled hard between choosing a Gluttonous recruit and Fat recruit, just to find out the Gluttonous one has both traits in the end. In reality, there are people who won’t get fat even they’re gluttonous, and there are fat people who aren’t gluttonous. No I’m not fat, just gluttonous. (っ- ‸ – ς)
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2) it’s a clever move that mood will revert to normal over time. But it seems traits gained during event are permanent, so far I’ve only “gained” Greedy and Fat. I think it is far too punishing to put a permanent debuff of -15 max fatigue to a handpicked brother, for funny reasons like clicking one button in an random event, not to mention it’s the only button. If a brother is given -15 max fatigue permanently due to player’s failure or mistake in battle or medicine management, I think a lot of players might accept it. Also, I think it is weird that brothers can be Greedy for several months, after they have increased pay from that trait.

My suggestion: put a time limit on negative trait gained from events, OR put a counter-event to remove the trait with some sacrifice.
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3) regarding event “Pay Raise”, it seems the wages doesn’t increase when my brothers was inflicted with Greedy trait.

Also, when I agree the pay raise, the wages increases by about 10%. When I disagree, my brothers become greedy so their wages increase too (apparently not working). It is like a thug asking you to choose between money and life. Even if you man up and choose money, he will spare your life and take your money after using all kinds of MMA on you. He called them choices, but in the end you have no money to buy battle brothers regardless what you choose.

I suggest one of the choices should not affect the wages at all.
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4) let’s talk about new swordmaster issue, I mean old- nvm this is so confusing. My swordsmaster became old in about 30 days (just for reference purpose). I actually chuckled when it happened. This Is Not Even My Final Form. Later I was touched by the dialogues, and immersed in imagining the scene…….. I APPROVED THIS. But new stats are too punishing, let’s take a look at both version of swordmasters.
　　　　　　- swordmaster ==>　+10 resolve, +20 melee, +20 Mdef, -10 hp, -10 max fatigue, -10 initiative
　　　　　　- Old swordmaster ==> +15 resolve, +15 melee, +15 Mdef, -20 hp, -20 max fatigue, -20 initiative, -1 vision

My suggestion: I personally think it should be -15 max fatigue & initiative instead of 20, the vision penalty should also be removed. Make it harder to trigger the event (increase the required duration or lower the chance). So when it happens, players might see it as an unexpected but memorable experience.
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5) Events, they make you feel like the protagonist in the game. It fulfills some of your desire for first person view/perspective. I’ve encountered about 6~7 events, but none of them has any difficult choice, they are more or less like this:

　　　　　　A) let me help you / let’s do this! / trigger the event
　　　　　　B) shut up and _ _ _ _ off

I never choose B because I suspect the events will end abruptly.

[Rap]

ManaSeed wrote:

3) regarding event “Pay Raise”, it seems the wages doesn’t increase when my brothers was inflicted with Greedy trait.
Also, when I agree the pay raise, the wages increases by about 10%. When I disagree, my brothers become greedy so their wages increase too (apparently not working). It is like a thug asking you to choose between money and life. Even if you man up and choose money, he will spare your life and take your money after using all kinds of MMA on you. He called them choices, but in the end you have no money to buy battle brothers regardless what you choose. I suggest one of the choices should not affect the wages at all.

Just to clarify this; the second option, like you suggested, does not affect wages. You chose not to raise the pay of your mercs, so their wage doesn’t increase. Some may become greedy, however, which plays into future events. This doesn’t mean that they secretly get paid more afterall.

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[Derethor]

On a random note, where would be the best place to post typo’s noticed in events? I wasn’t sure if making an entirely new post in bug reports/game discussion was the best way to go about it. Attached screen is the one I’ve found so far that made me curious enough to ask.

Attachments:

1. 

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[Rap]

Here is fine. Fixed that one, thanks.

Also..

Derethor wrote:

On a random note, where would be the best place to post typo’s noticed in events?

;)

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[RusBear]

if I understand correctly you have created the mechanics for the game in which the mercenary receives or removes some of their character traits. While it works through selections in the dialogues. Is it possible to expect the mechanics of the emergence of removal of such traits depending on the action performed by your mercenary in combat. For example, a series of successful murder – you get the trait – master of the sword or axe adds you +5 to melee skill , the mercenary was on the verge of death or have received too many blows – features of fragile or cowardly. I think it would be very good for this game.

[Trig]

So far I haven’t had any negative experiences with the new patch. But I do have a bit of an issue with all the new weapons added. While I am in favour of more and more and more item variety always, currently, if a recruit is using something not all that good, it very quickly gets swapped for something better in the nearest town. Perhaps would be better to make weapons a bit less available in shops, so procuring through loot and fixing broken ones would have the brothers make better use of what they started out with?

Also, more easier encounters in the earliest game would be welcome. Small bandit gangs and such, rather than immediatelly be jumped by werewolves, orcs, etc.

Other than that, it seems to be progressing nicely. :)

[Kalanar]

I haven’t gotten my hands too dirty with the event system yet, but I do have beef pretty early on for two reasons…
I got an event that made a party member fat. No choices or options. The story goes he was eating too much or something but it just as well could have been “The Fat God has made you fat – end of transmission.”
Beef the First: I know realism isn’t typically a good basis for a criticism for a fantasy game, but in the context of my immersion into the world, it seemed strange. My party was about 3/4 way through a grueling march from one extreme corner of the map to another. We had barely stopped in all that time and we were presumably on foot. That’s a lot of exercise. But really the bigger issue is…

Beef the Second: I didn’t have any option in mitigating this problem. I would suggesting adding a few choices such as limiting his rations to avoid the trait at the expense of his mood. I’m sure you could think of a few good ones too. Events are great for flavor, except when they come off as unavoidable penalties.

To put it another way: I would suggest avoiding events that don’t give the player a choice. Even if both choices are bad, at least the player is effecting the outcome, further drawing them into the story.

[Trig]

Kalanar wrote:

Beef the Second: I didn’t have any option in mitigating this problem. I would suggesting adding a few choices such as limiting his rations to avoid the trait at the expense of his mood. I’m sure you could think of a few good ones too. Events are great for flavor, except when they come off as unavoidable penalties.
To put it another way: I would suggest avoiding events that don’t give the player a choice. Even if both choices are bad, at least the player is effecting the outcome, further drawing them into the story.

Yup. I warned of EXACTLY this earlier, when events were being anounced. How a lot of angry reviews of The Banner Saga wrote of random events which penalise the player, without him having any influence on the outcome of the events. And it was precisely because of those angry reviews that I decided NOT to buy The Banner Saga, because I hate it when a game randomly puts spanners in the works, when I have tried to carefully manage a team. Just like having a random “Hugo just died of a stroke”, and there goes your lvl9 knight, event thingie… A big no-no!

[Ferqal]

The event for “Spartan” characters is a bit. . . odd. It essentially just acts like a “have you been paying attention?” test. Find a spartan character, they’re looking weak from not having eaten, do you make them eat?

Well you know they’re Spartan, if you’ve checked their traits, so you pick “leave them alone”. Congratulations, nothing happened, and the person used to not eating is soon back on their feet. If you pick “Force them to eat”, boo, you just got a negative penalty, because you forced someone to break their religious / personal rites.

It feels a bit like taking a test rather than an event. Quick question, do you remember if character X has the Spartan trait? You do? Oh, okay.

What I might suggest is using the happiness system and making it so that leaving them alone makes them “happy” for that +resolve but “tired” for -fatigue, whereas forcing them to eat makes them “Disgrunted” for -resolve (no fatigue change, since they’re not worse then usual). Then suddenly it’s a choice. Let someone not eat and watch as they tire out, but at least they’re happy or make them eat and hear them grumble about not keeping up their diet.
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I think one of the Weapon Master events I got is a wee bit strong? While training a Squire, that Squire gained +3 melee defense. Permanently. That’s a free level up! Hell, it’s better than a free level up because my luck is abysmal and I normally only get +2 to stats when I level up. I love the idea that having a weapon master around trickles down to your troops, and I think it’s a brilliant way of marking out how good they are with a sword. It’s just almost “too good” of a bonus, as such.

(Especially because it happened twice to me, somewhat randomly. +6 melee defense? Yeah, I’ll take that. I’ll take that every time)

Compare it to the event in which two archers square off against each other in competition and gain +1 or more ranged attack. In that event you’re trading Ammonition for it, so it feels more fair. I was unlucky in that I used all the ammo I had on hand when the event came up, so two of my archers gained an increase in skill followed by participating in a battle where they had no arrows to shoot.

I laughed.

But that felt fair and reasonable! They had just used all the arrows to practice, getting better, and if I had been more prepared or re-stocked before fighting, my gain would have been a lot. A sword master just giving random troops bonuses is less neat.

So perhaps apply an injury to the character gaining stats when trained by a weapon master? “You leave them to it, and hours later you can still faintly hear the exasperated voice of [XXX the YYY] telling the battle brother to keep his sword arm straight. [XXXX has gained +2 melee defense and an injury from over-training]”. Packages of medical herbs are expensive, after all, and time consuming to use.
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Ration Loss events are bit strange too. I lost 30 rations a few times, but since I always keep as much as possible I didn’t notice and it didn’t affect me at all. It’s also just a single package of rations, since they come in bundles of 25. It’s a bit of a non-thing, because the effect isn’t big enough to matter and you’ll only really notice if you’re wandering the very edge of the map and bad luck strikes.

I think changing it so that ration loss is instead an effect on your troops might work slightly better. “Half way through the evening’s meal, [XXX] spits out an otherwise bland gruel, a bit of rock and half a chewed maggot. With faint horror, you realize your provisions aren’t up to par” Every battle brother gets mildly disgruntled for -5 resolve or so, Spartan characters are unaffected (they don’t eat!) while Gluttonous characters are doubly affected (they ate a lot). Let it fade after a day or so.

Instead of ration loss which is a less than useful metric, it captures the influence it has on your troops which is of supreme importance.
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Finally, Superstitious characters have a chance of becoming Fearful and getting -20 Resolve.

-20 Resolve. That is utterly confounding, and I think far, *far* too much. That’s worse resolve than Deserters! It makes them near useless because the slightest shock will cause them to break and flee. How about making them convinced of their impending doom and instead making them temporarily have the Dastard trait? That way, they start at wavering for a bit of a skill loss but they aren’t *useless* and you can take steps to mitigate it (Hold Out! Perk). It also ties into the trait better, I think, because they’re convinced of their imminent demise and so won’t be confident in a more abstract, superstitious way. They aren’t really “afraid” of the bandits they’re about to face, they’re afraid that killing the bandits will grant 7 years bad luck and cause a plague of black cats to follow them around.

Alternatively, make it Dastard and the one that means they won’t ever be Confident. That’s a net loss of 15 potential skill and defense, which is worse than -20 resolve but also something you can at least control and mitigate by tactics.

[Holy.Death]

Trig wrote:

Yup. I warned of EXACTLY this earlier, when events were being anounced. How a lot of angry reviews of The Banner Saga wrote of random events which penalise the player, without him having any influence on the outcome of the events. And it was precisely because of those angry reviews that I decided NOT to buy The Banner Saga, because I hate it when a game randomly puts spanners in the works, when I have tried to carefully manage a team. Just like having a random “Hugo just died of a stroke”, and there goes your lvl9 knight, event thingie… A big no-no!

It’s not that simple.

While some people might dislike random elements there are a lot of games that use random factor as making game less predictable and thus more interesting – that’s exactly how chance to hit works, for example. Problem is not with having chances but with being unable to influence them. It’d be much better if more factors were introduced that’d spice up the event system. Having same events happening and doing exactly the same stuff isn’t too interesting after you see them a few times.

That’s what makes Crusader Kings 2 choice system much better: your character can have a trait that forces him/you to pick up a specific outcome (or forbid taking the other). Or you can randomly gain and lose traits that grant bonuses and penalties to various tasks, effecting your characters’ efficiency.

That’s why I think that the event system in itself is a good thing, but that potential is still waiting to be fully unlocked.

[Jaysen]

Just a quick little clarification regarding the events from our side:

– Almost all of the events happen according to certain triggers, there are very few that can be considered a general event and even those are often bound to something like being in a certain tile like a road or forest.
The triggers can be quite complex and just because the player does not instantly realized “why” an event occured, does not mean there is no reason for it. For example some events only trigger when you have a certain amount of crowns or provisions, both high and low. Also, meeting all the requirements for a certain event does not give you a 100% chance of it happening. We intended the events to add flavor and interesting occurances and interaction within the party to the game and we do not want players to be able to trigger certain events on demand.

– The outcome of your decisions in the events may vary for most events so if one time something happened it does not mean this will happen like this the next time. We did this to increase replayability and spice things up a little so that even very seasoned players experience a little change from time to time.

– If all triggers are met, some events are more common than others. Not all have an equal chance of actually showing up.

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