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

[MattCaspermeyer]

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

Originally Posted by 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.

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

Originally Posted by Sirlancelot

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...

Originally Posted by Sirlancelot

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.

Originally Posted by Sirlancelot

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\