Official wish list for King's Bounty 2

[jake21]

I'd prefer a single player campaign that is more rpg'ish (like the first game). Do not have strong feelings beyond that - oh I'd like it to be fun also wouldn't mind a few (many) text based puzzles (like space ranger 2 )

[Puce Moose]

I agree with jake21 - I'd love to see more text puzzles (like the awesome one to acquire the submarine in the grand canal.)

First and foremost, though, is the intense desire to see it remain

• single-player
• true turn-based combat (e.g., no ATB, timer bars, etc.)
• not scaled to player level, scaled to region
• no respawn

There's literally no other current game that I can think of that ticks off those delicious, delicious checkboxes that King's Bounty does.

Beyond that, I'd love to see an expansion on the ambient life; some of my favorite moments involved zooming the camera all of the way in and just watching the hummingbirds/fish/frogs/owls/squirrels dart this way and that. Seeing crabs skittering about on the shoreline, tadpoles lazily swimming near some aquatic vegetation in pools, birds rustling in the underbrush; so many games ignore these attempts to give the environment resonance and non-hostile life, and I love the fact that King's Bounty doesn't neglect this important facet. Expand it!

Along those lines, I'd really like to see more ambient animation in battles; harmless beasties strolling around the edges of the battlefield, flowers swaying int he breeze, etc.

I'd also enjoy seeing more quests with non-violent resolutions; the 'get the bear to follow you back to the ranch' quest from the first King's Bounty was one of my favorite quests of the game.

Expansion of trap abilities. Placing traps was one of my favorite things to do, and I'd love to see charm traps, explosive traps, freezing traps, etc. I'd also love a trapper unit that could place traps as a charged/reload skill.

In terms of units, I'd love to see an exploration of the more unique units. For example, the thorns, the devilfish, etc. I've had enough elves, dwarves, demons, and undead to last me a lifetime amongst hundreds of games, books, and movies; how about some new races?

Thorn race (with various mushrooms, toadstools, aquatic vegetation monsters (how about a killer water hyacinth?)
Owl race (burrow owls who could burrow under and attack an enemy like gobots, screech owls to stun, great grey horned owls to cause fear, etc.)
Fish race (devilfish, mudskippers, flying fish, swordfish, sawfish, piranha.. lots of great possibilities)

I *really* like what they did with the lizardmen; fantastic models, creative enemies (love the gobot/choska) - I hope they break away from the traditional high fantasy mold and run with some new race ideas.

[Heroe]

My wishlist:

Top priority - Removing the most annoying and irritating sound in gaming history(demonologist summoning whistle sound!)
Remove the readme from screen like i saw in crossworlds
Remove the tips/hints from loading screens.
These things above are the most annoying and easy to fix, yet no devs care about these...

Different cities - A bigger cities where character can improve or fight to death

Better item realisation(there was none game in kings bounty where i managed to find full set.Also Items repeats itself in different shops

[Jah]

Originally Posted by Heroe

My wishlist:
Remove the tips/hints from loading screens.

What's so annoying about that? Loading times in KB are pretty short anyway - it's not like you'll be spending hours staring at that screen.

[KarlosCV]

For me KB games are almost perfect as they are so I'm more concerned the devs decide to "go mainstream" and produce another forgettable realtime halfass crap which the market is overflowing with.

But I suppose some things can be done even better:

1. The story can certainly be presented in a more immersive way, I mean text boxes with still head pictures (beautiful as they are) are usable but nothing to be too excited about. I'd also gladly do without some of the more eye-rolling fantasy clichés like divine chosen one trying to save the world and generally encourage the devs to give us a story we can finally care about a bit.

2. The quests can be more variable, not just the traditional find/fetch/kill scenario.

3. As was already mentioned, definitely improve the unit description - what counts as archers, beasts, humanoids, what influences who and how and so on.
I also found useful minor things like a detailed breakdown of Morale composition, would be nice to extend it to the other attributes as well (why my Attack, Defense, Resistances, Initiative or Damage is what it is and what influences it).

4. Item management - can subscribe to that. It's frustrating to have several half-completed sets and never find the rest of the items.

I left two most important things for the end:

A) The later stages of the game are always far too easy and only some heroes and bosses present a reasonable challenge. The first half is wonderful because it forces the players to try different strategies and finessess and really use all those special abilities and spells. Later stage battles are basically decided in the first two rounds, then another two or three for cleaning and ress...a bit boring.

B) MAKE OTHER RACES/UNITS MORE USABLE - IMO some units and whole races are too underpowered/underused, mainly because it's very difficult/frustrating/impossible to ressurect them. The whole point of the KB games is to lose as few units as possible, so you don't have to trudge up and down (a bit less frustraging in AP, with the ship and reserve improvements) to replenish the stock. The demons are notoriously fragile in this respect, also the undead can be ress only with the eviln spell which is slow and frustrating and and the "heal" ability of vampires and ghosts is usable maybe in the first 1/10 of the game, then it's totally worthless (I lose 20 of 21 vampires after one whack from an enemy and the last unit replenishes its health - big bloody deal).
Also some of the abilities are annoying on the AI side and worthless in your army (like some units after heavy losses avoid attacks or the troll changes into stone after death and so on).
After 5 replays (TL and AP) I found out I always drifted to using similar units and strategies (with the same hero classes of course) - always paladins, mostly dragons and bowmen, because they're the most convenient in most situations.
It would be nice if the game encouraged you to use demons, undead, dwarves, orcs, goblins or lizards in certain environments or situations (seriously, has anyone EVER used Dwarves, Foremen or Miners?) and/or discouraged you from using the traditional fixtures like paladins or dragons more often (it's better to drop dragons for battles against demons for example but I'd like to see much more of that).

[Dwagginz]

I'll think of some "better" ideas later.

1. More female troops. Yes, I'm a bit of a perv :p But seriously, I think that there aren't enough female troops around to really make the female items any use.

2. Higher quality translation, w/ better dialogue system. Not a fault with Katauri as such, but I felt that a lot of dialogue was just walls of text. A better translation will also help correct some minor faults - It's a good translation, don't get me wrong, but I feel it could be a little better.

3. Customisable protagonist. Allow us to play as a male or a female, and perhaps customise their armour. I'm not suggesting the in-game representation, nor the portrait, should change with items found in-game, but it'd be nice to have, say, the Paladin Amelie but with her "normal" hair colour (i.e. black/brown)

4. Troop replenishment. One of the problems I found was that it can be very difficult to find a certain unit. Some of us aren't good with keeping our troop numbers (i.e. We can't do no loss), and it can be hard to replenish our favourite troops. I think it can be solved a few ways. Firstly, having a castle where you can "order" troops you need. Secondly, stores replenish their number of troops after a certain number of hours.

5. Going from point #4, how about a "main" castle for us? It could have a number of features, such as a similar system to HoMMV's tavern where you can find different companions.

6. Romance, perhaps? It might be a little out of place, perhaps not, but it'd be nice if a certain number of companions were "romance" options. There'd be no benefit to them (To keep things fair), but it'd just be a bit of fun. So, for example, there could be a Demoness who's a romance option and to win her heart you'd have to kill X number of troops. Because of the level of randomisation, it'd have to be of a certain type. So, 10 Human Units as another example. For simplicity's sake, how about allowing all for both male and female characters? So "Bill" could win a male's heart, "Amelie" a female's heart.

7. Not being royalty! We've done it in three games, it'd be nice to be something else such as a Lord's child or similar.

[onepiece]

@Dwagginz; liked point 4-5. A real base you could develop, get new quest as you progress, interact with characters, do some battles for fun (test new strategies or units and at the end of battle you don't win exp or money but also don't lose units)
Point 6 could be but I don't see much possibilities considering the past games (also I don't think Bill is the best name for your heroic avatar XD)

Point 7 is strong now in my list. Could even try a Dragon Age origin (multiple origins) or Fable II (start as a poor bastard and end as a king/queen) although I hardly think katauri would do it (please??)

@PuceMoose and @jake21; More puzzles are welcome. Also love to change the camera and look at the exotic land and see the smalls details (the squirrels in the trees, the snow that falls, the fish in the water, etc.). More of them are welcome.
Traps could be a very interesting strategy (new unit "trapper", ability : Put traps!)

New "full" races like the ones you put (Holy S***!! It's Killer Hyacinth!!) could be very fun. Then would like to request some arabic ones (like from Rise of Legends, loved the design of the units there)

@KarlosCV; new and more complex quest (the likes of go there/return/go/return and kill X -do search this are too boring and common). Some quest that have an impact on the story (save x so he will help you later but not as a seller like the in TL)

More heroes or special battles in the last quarter could help (also better AI)

The problem with the other races is that they rely on certain items and spells to have full power (paladin, dragon, etc. are already way strong as they are). Thorns, dwarves, undead, etc.

The miners and foremen, with the cooper flute and some other dwarves items are like a stampede, droids with the engineer and the correct items become nasty and thorns need diploma of botany and etc. Some units are more useful as the more complete the game is since you have more possibilities to make them become useful. The same with enemies (dragon eye, sword of the dragon, shield of rekross, dragon hunter's shield and bracelet of fury mince the dragons). The problem is having the correct items/spells/units/skills when the situation arrives.

@Heroe; I don't think item repetition is bad. Most of them won't have a replica since is too much of a coincidence that there are 2 of them. And 2 allow for some new strategies to different units so is just plain luck on what you get.

Also the tips in the load screen is good for people who are beginning to play the game (What's wrong with it? ) Maybe they could be deactivated in the option screen (in my opinion the game needs more variety of load screens and tips, they repeat too much)

[odyody]

bosses more easy

[onepiece]

Then it seems it's time for the creator of this thread to once again give his (almighty XD) opinion.

Since it seems the dev's won't be doing a 4th KB (KB; KB:AP, KB:MotO...) it seems plausible that we now can say whatever crazy thing we want to do or see in a future, or even in the present game (MotO).

Odyody; really? Easier bosses? Bosses are not that overpowered in case you are aiming for normal playthrough, that is you can lose a few units in a battle and won't CARE you don't achieve a perfect score (as if it exists) . Those aiming for no-loss game will have a good time planing new strategies and realizing that even in the hardest difficulty, the boss are not impossible and in fact very easy if you are really experienced and know how to play and plan your strategy.

Valoel; good ideas, now I would just like for someone to explain it very easy to me how to mod the game an keep it alive (hell, Titan Quest and Inmortal Throne have like 4 complete mods create by the players themselves even after IronLore closed it's offices; I haven't even seen a single REAL mod for KB) But I also have interesting ideas but that, probably and sadly, won't ever see the light because the dev's can't do a good editor and/or explain how it works.

Fatt Shade; well I'm taking both a break and somewhat lost hope in KB2 XD. I hope Katauri doesn't end with Royal Quest (RQ) as Ascaron did with Sacred 2 (a project far too ambitious with too many faults, that despite being fun wasn't profitable enough to keep the company alive).
It was far more safe for Katauri to do KB2, since by the time they complete RQ there would be to many games far similar to it, when there would be like a single game that would have competed against KB2 with online multiplayer (someone wants 8vs8?)

New ideas? Well it seems I've run out of it (maybe if the forum looked more alive and the dev's said "Hi, we're working on KB2 !" I would be having new ones)

For now, let's just rest until Katauri come back to us and say: "I'm sorry, I was too prideful and forgot about you, our players. Now it's time to redeem myself developing, the long awaited, King's Bounty 2"

[Darkeonz]

Since all quests and such are text based, I really would love if there were some sort of tool where users could create their own campaigns. It should be that hard. It would be pretty awesome if they could make custom games. Even games where they can edit certain units and such for a specific game type