Your feedback: Base Attacks & Campaigns

[Koomatzu]

I've been seeing mixed opinions on the frequency of campaign attacks on player bases lately - in particular with the Holy Nation assaults. Some people are enjoying the chaos of constant attacks, whereas with others it seems to be too much.

Please let us know how you're finding the frequency of raids and attacks on your base. If you can leave any extra info please reply below with:
- where your base is located
- who has attacked/ visited you
- the size and average levels of your squad

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Taschren]

My little mining station is in the Stenn Desert between Squinn and Admag, (clump of iron and copper and 100% stone) with a Waystation to the south and hivers to the north for plenty of selling opportunities; however the base is arid and can't grow any food, so I rely completely on selling copper ore to the nearby towns while buying dried meat to keep us all alive.

In this territory, the Dust Bandits are annoying but easy to cut down and loot for profit, but the Band of Bones are serious business... they're way too tough for me so when they roll through I just abandon base.

I made the mistake of setting up training dummies and turrets, which they stationed when I was overrun and wouldn't leave. Previously, they just found nothing worth looting and left on their own, also the Bones are usually hungry/starving when they roll in, and if there's nothing to eat they don't stay very long. If bonedogs wander in, they get some meat and stick around, so I dismantled my dummies/turrets and they all left - so I could get back to mining.. it's a mining base after all, I don't keep anything in it, just accumulating building supplies and constantly running to the cities to trade loot and buy food.

I like the balance because my squad is tough enough to take on the Dust Bandits even when they have great numbers.. their dialogue options are funny.. but the Bones, those guys are badass and I Nope out of my base, try to kite them into Shek patrols or bonedogs to clean them up. I had to dismantle my defenses because I'm nowhere near ready to take them on.

tl;dr: Happy with a mixture of strong, small raid groups who can kick my ass and hordes of weaker raiders who I can hold off.

EDIT: My top 5 guys have around 20-25 melee atk/def, and 17-22 weapon skill.. (the rest are worse or newb, less than 20 people in my squad overall) I can take a single Band of Bones guy 2 on 1, but I don't have a strong enough squad to repel a full force of them, I just flee my base and wait for them to leave.

[johntarmac]

I voted a little dull.
I like lots of action.

Foglands
Fogmen/Cannibals/Prayer Day
20 size squad
20 to 30 stats

South of Squin near Waystation
Band of Bones/Kralls/occasional bandits/Shek
20 size squad
20 to 30 stats

[Shidan]

I personally voted for the okay, but too easy option, as it fits my personal situation best (base in Shem, mostly lowly bandits and occasional HN army, 70s to 90s stats, top end gear, one character). It's also only really applicable to the campaign style raids, not the walk by ones. Those I find a little too frequent and annoying, though they have gotten better.

I think the best option for the campaigns would be to allow difficulty sliders for it, rather than changing them much directly. As everyone's opinions will be different. I think 2 would probably work. One for frequency, multiplying the min/max hours between raids. And one for the size of the squads sent (I know this is probably already affected by the existing squad size multiplier, but I think it would be a good idea to have them separate, not everyone who wants larger raids wants all squads to be larger).

As for the walk by attacks, I'd say lowering the frequency of those types of squads would be a good idea. Also, making sure nearly all raids (of both types) have methods of preventing them would be good. Kral's Chosen walk by raids are a great example of this. If you defeat their leader, the squads with the walk by raids stop spawning. This type of effect should be used whenever possible, to allow the player to make a conscious choice to do something about their problem. Perhaps a loading screen tip to mention this as well? So players know it is an option.

[Taschren]

I allied with Flotsam and took a big relation loss with Holy Nation.. probably not the smartest move on my first playthrough as it locked me out of a lot of towns and made crossing east-west through the middle more difficult. (P.S. Thank you, Broken Ones... Rust in Peace)

But, if I ever grow too strong, all I'll have to do for a challenge is set up a military base in the middle of the Holy Land and just wait for them to come knocking at my door to tell me all about their savior Okran.

[Koomatzu]

Really useful info so far, thank you all.

Also, making sure nearly all raids (of both types) have methods of preventing them would be good. Kral's Chosen walk by raids are a great example of this. If you defeat their leader, the squads with the walk by raids stop spawning.

Thanks Shidan. This is is actually already implemented for some bandit factions but others like Krals Chosen seem to have been neglected. I'm adding them now, they won't be removed completely though, just lessened considerably.

[Shidan]

I can understand not wanting to be able to completely stop base attacks, but I have to say, it feels quite rewarding personally to finally do so in the cases where you can.

Finding ways to stop raids on my bases is something I've always enjoyed doing. Be it my Kral's Chosen example before, or Sand Ninjas in the Great Desert. It gives a sense of objective to the attacks, rather than them just being endless waves of enemies to survive.

[Shivers]

I voted for "Okay, too weak and easy." Though I stand in the middle on that, as I feel raids were a little sparse, which may have been my fault.

I settled in Bast with the express purpose of fighting the Holy Nation and the United Cities at the same time. Thought that would be fun. Instead I got really weak cannibal raids that usually died on the way to my base, and very occasional visits from the UC. Nearly all raiding parties got caught up in the battles around my base, which, strangely enough, never found their way to my walls. I settled there hoping for constant chaos, and what I got was a moat. Holy Nation and UC armies ignoring me and killing everything that came near.

When there was a raid, they were trivialized by mercenaries. It was a new start at the time, so my people were weak, and I hired a bunch of mercenaries. They're so cheap to hire and plentiful in the surrounding areas. Even as a weak party, I didn't need to fear raids. That seems wrong to the spirit of the game. So firstly, I would find a way to make mercenaries less appealing, because as of now, having 30+ mercenaries patrolling your base is cheap and encouraged when you're weak. Or conversely, make the raiding parties better.

Perhaps a solution could be to scale raiding parties based on the size/population/prosperity of your base? That would be a good system. The Holy Nation would probably send an extra inquisitor or two if they knew they were assaulting a base with harpoon turrets lined up everywhere and an army of mercenaries.

That's the other issue, when everything is built, and you're able to manipulate your walls, you can create these killing halls with turrets that wipe out most of a raiding party before they reach your gate. Then you don't need mercenaries, you just need bodies on the walls to man the turrets. This also trivializes the raids.

I think the best solution to raids involves mechanics that aren't in the game:

• Have raids split into groups and attack through multiple points of entry. This would require the player to split their attention and forces, but they'd need two gates. Most probably only build one gate.

• As a solution allow enemies to destroy walls, this nullifies the maze of walls and turrets strategy.

• Once they're inside they can destroy equipment and buildings.

• Or implement the planned/unplanned feature of scaling walls as a solution instead.

I'd like to see more consequences to raids, raids that are more resilient to cheese tactics like weird wall configurations and mass mercenary hirings, and I'd like to see parties scale in power based on your base's strength/prosperity/population.

Hope that's helpful even if it went a bit outside of the question.

[AviticusDragon]

Scaling walls would make the base attacks so much more epic since they could scale them in multiple locations. Also if you take the other idea suggested, by splitting up the raiding party so they attack from multiple locations that would make defending a lot more fun. For instance, a raiding party of 50 bandits. 2 groups go to different wall sections to scale it, while the main force attacks the front gate. Etc.

Once you get turrets and towers it's kind of on easy mode as you basically never have to worry much. You can take down the entire raiding party before they get the gate down.

Climbing walls though..that would change how you defend your base entirely! Now you might want a tower in the middle of your base and actually build all 10 turrets facing different directions on top of it for instance.

Edit: I voted too easy as I love a good challenge. My base is in Shem, and the hungry bandits attack with 50+ which is fun. The band of bones come with like 8 guys, so very lacking there. No other raids so far from other groups. Only a visit from the Hounds as well.

[Skeldarkday]

I think the amount of raids are ok. Regarding if they are too weak. Well it depends on the skills of your members, the amount of members you have. So if some are saying they are too weak it will depend on those criteria. But I don't know if it's possible to scale them depending on the skills and number of your squad.

[Kwikwilyaqa]

I'm between "ok" and "other". They are or can be (based on location) overwhelming for newly created characters/cities and annoying flies in mid/late game.

Raids should have at least a "progression" - better gear/more skilled people - based on a score of your own people. The amount of food, cash, people, general quality of armor and weapons and tech level should provide a "score" for your faction and add a multiplier to the assaults (both in people and quality of gear).

And they should not be limited to the area of influence of factions alone. I poke the Holy Nation all the time, murder everyone I encounter, steal all the food I can carry from their cities and... never got retaliation simple because I'm in the Sten Desert, right in the middle of the 3 shell things on the south (only Band of Bones, Kral's Chosen and Dust Bandits attack my place, or should I say "swarm"... I never needed more than one character to deal with their raids). Cases like this should at least cause bounty hunter "nests" hostiles to the player to spawn in your area of influence (in the border of the circle), or some sort of expeditionary force to attack. Needs balance and new features for sure.

EDIT: Just to clarify about my "one character that deals with raids": she alone killed all (all, not one single alive) the cannibals in the cannibal plains in one or two hours of gameplay (so... late game: masterwork armor, no robotic limbs, using a falling sun with 50 in heavy weapon or the meidou nodashi with 55 katana, base stats on 70-80). But 1/8 of this character can do the same about random raids (or even lower - it's all about the gear and defenses). Other characters (20 in total in the squad) is a mix of late/mid game stats with really good gear.

[Vandala]

The problem I have with raids is that they don't feel organic.

I can understand getting raided by cannibals once or twice, but by the 30th raid I start wondering where the hell they're getting these people from to throw at me. You'd think at some point they would just say fuck it and stop attacking, especially if they never get anything out of it. But at the very least you'd expect them to simply run out of people to attack me with. But no, they just keep coming and there is nothing I can do about it, I can wipe the whole cannibal plains free of life but they'll just keep coming anyway. I can't build a base that is hidden either, some how they will always find you no matter what.

The world doesn't really feel like an organic world, but more like a clockwork that just keeps ticking endlessly in the same way no matter what I do in it.

[swillo]

So many bases in so many games and every thing is different it's a work of art, but could use some tweaking.
(Sorry its so long)

Base one in cannibal territory is raided very often, they rarely break through my gate but I have really needed to devote attention to beefing up turret support there. This one is good, I feel I should be pestered constantly by cannibals if I live there.

Game two is based in holy nation territory, and there are all female and some Shek living inside that base. This brings frequent HN raids but they are mostly turned away. Through they are able to break the gates pretty easily. May need to upgrade to some thing more then level two. This base is mostly a traders hub, but they don't get any traders. They also spend more time dealing with river raptors and hungry bandits then HN Paladins. The level of "base visits" here is less then I would expect for setting up in the middle of Okran's pride.

Base three in Hedge is constantly pestered by tax collectors and trade caravans. From both UC and Traders Guild. I pay them both off and so only have to deal with the slavers who show up. I actually think this feels right. I'm in the sweet spot between three cities and so should have constant interactions with them. It would be nice if the traders had more money so I could sell them more stuff when they came by.

Base four is way out on the edge of the vain. They live a very peaceful life and have never been raided by anyone. come cannibals were going to stop by one time, but they never got there and decided to go home. Their worst problems are when a new update spawns a gutter nest too close and they have to eat meat 24/7 to keep up with all the carcasses. It would be nice to have some visits from my hive neighbors once in a while to trade.

Base Five is on the crest of the hills in the skitter sands, and is the most interesting. It gets lots of raids from blood bandits, tax collectors, and with a recent update sand ninjas have become my close neighbors. I was hoping they would be stealthy about it but they tend to just charge the gates like the rest.

Base six is a new one. It's really just a hunting camp, between the vain and fog islands. They have been raided several times by "the fog" and since they are new and few they have been overwhelmed twice. This lead to desperate chases to save abducted teammates from horrible ends. They have also been visited by prayer day. Which has been wonderfully awkward. One such visit showed up just in time to save them from the fog. Guess I should have prayed more fervently that time. This is one place I have been thinking to hire some mercs to guard while my hunter and his dogs are out doing his thing.

Base Seven is near the shrieking forest. This place is rarely visited by "Base Raids". It has had some traders make it to them, and an occasional "can head" visit, but it's under constant assault from hoards of screaming naked people. This one the bodies are piled high at all times. I can't stem the flow of blood and limbs. every time I open the gates to clear bodies more come flowing in. Seriously the toughest base to keep going. But still great fun. It would be tougher/more interesting if when the bandits actually broke in and attacked the base they actually broke or took things. currently they get in and run around the base but don't actually do damage to any thing or take anything.

Base Eight is in the southern wetlands, I gets tax visits and a few swamp ninja raids, but not much else. I think it should get more visits from traders and possibly slavers because of it's nearness to UC cities.

I have several other bases but most of them are around the HN fringes and have few visits. I think that they should have more.

So I'm all in favor of base visits. Lots of them, In as many different forms as you can imagine. And raids should come up with some new ways to attack bases. Like ladders that can be placed on the outside of walls making them scalable. Or sand skidders that can tunnel under walls, or ninja that can sneak and open doors or climb over walls, or sappers that cause wall sections to collapse. But by far the toughest ones to deal with are the ones that grab characters that have been KOed and run away with them instead of fighting. Food raids by hoards of hungry or starving bandits would be more interesting if they took the food and ran. Many times they should know that I'm too powerful to fight heads up, but they could still reek havoc if they just got in took what they could and ran.

And not all base visits should be announced ahead of time. If it's a sneak attack, then it should only be announced when the attack is noticed by someone inside the base. It's good to know when some mass raids or caravan visits are coming. But surprise attacks that need to be spotted to know they are happening would be a real nice tweak.

And trade caravans could be smarter. like the script could check and see if my stores are low on iron plates or wheat and send someone with those things for a premium price. Or if I have lots of booze they could offer to take it all off my hands if I give them a good deal.

[tkobo]

raids have a lot of things that need improving...
To start with

*raids should cross enemy territory to reach you.If you kidnap "tengu the odd", "eyesore the unshowing" should be willing to travel anywhere on the map to get to you.

*Raids should try and sneak in on occasion.For instance,Night raid by thieves in sneak mode,who pick your gate and go about robbing/stealing and or kidnapping/killing inside your base.

* the small annoying raids should just take a look,and walk away far more often.Maybe setup a camp outside you base,out of defense range,and siege your entrance for a while.Right now they seem far too suicidal for there to be any chance their faction should still exist.

*hostiles that are on repeat raids,should be recognized as hostiles by your defenders....One case in point is the beserker clowns...a repeat raid in which its designed so they just stroll right up to your gate and start a conversation,no matter how many times theyve done in this in the past,and then attacked.
My guards should order them to stop further from my gates the first raid,and fire on them when in range every raid after that.

*caravans from unfriendly factions,should not commit suicide trying to "trade" with you.

Thats enough to keep you busy for at least 6months....On a related side note,"guard gate" should be a job,and make a char stand just inside the gate and repair it as its attacked,and then defend the gate area if its breached.

[Koomatzu]

Thanks for the feedback/suggestions so far, most helpful We've added a slider in the experimental version and you should see a few refinements in the next update, but keep it coming!

As for factions not travelling outside of their zones if you kill their leader etc... This was added recently but please let me know if you're still not getting any revenge action.

[PerfectDeath]

I'll have to try out a new run to really see. I can understand the scale of base attacks being overwhelming to a new player who just wants to get right into base building without getting a core squad of fighters.

My current game has no problem kicking out raids as my core group had already been trained up before the base was built. Base is currently to the east of The Hub near a lost HN settlement, I so far face:
- Hungry Bandits: lots of these guys, they hate me by now.
- Dust Bandits: they hate me too but their raids tend to get stuck on route...
- Black Dragon Ninjas: fought these guys, they are very numerous but not that skilled. Tougher than the dusties though.
- Holy Nation preist: No idea why they came from the south... Their prayer day came the same time as the black dragons so I took the long prayer session to avoid two big fights since the dragons were just about to attack.


My usual plan before setting up a base is:
- Train up core merc group (strength training, mining to feed them, athletics training, etc)
- Find science and research tech (especially the plate beating tech)
- Use a neutral or friendly city as a base for tech and production
- Recruit plate beater/leather tanner to train armour crafting (iron ore -> armour plates = good training and money)
- Recruit weapon crafter (avoid the MkII weapon workshop which needs fabric and iron plates) to train (buy the iron plates if needed, I often delay this step for when I set up the base and refine iron ores)
- Tech up better resource production, power, and farming before committing to the base to free up manpower from refining ore, stone, and water.

Because of this, I end up needing a base to supply me with fabric to kick my crafting industry into high gear. (training the farmers means early fabric production is low)
The core merc group can't leave on big expeditions anymore until I can scrounge for new recruits who can take over the defense. =P

So, if I didn't have a merc group of my own, I'd definitely look to hire mercs in bars to help out. This is probably something most players don't do and they end up over run. =\

[Sol Lignum]

Here are my late two cents. So many things, so little time.

Since difficulty sliders are in, i guess it's pointless to rattle about sizes and timings, so a few potentially helpfull notes, instead.

My base is halfway from Blister Hill to Bad Teeth, in the heart of HN. Despire of that, and despite of absence of any previous encounters, somehow i managed to get Noble's Wrath coming for me. Funnily enough, although they've been targeting my town, in the end they "arrived" to a nearby wolf den, and stayed there. Not sure everything's alright there

Then, when dusties arrived with their demands, the leader didn't have an option to speak to him, cursor went straight red. Perhaps because of our relationship has dropped to -84 way before peacefull solution was introduced. So i think, to prevent frustration, at some point they should indeed just attack straight on with no hesitation. Or peacefull option should override any grudge instead. Either will do.

Also, i'm not sure if it's a bug or feature, great addition either way, but local faction patrolling player's town can make life easier or harder, depending on relationship. I'm plaing with no walls, so military patrols and wandering caravans are stopping at and hanging around my place very often.

And i'm not sure if it's relevant, but at some point i've stopped getting lone wanderers willing to settle at my place, and no traders, safe for random roaming ones, are ever visiting me.

I agree that all raids should have means to make them far less frequent at least, if not to stop completely. And if player is too lazy\unaware of the option, then faction leaders should probably come to player's gates themselves eventually. At least some of them, accompanied by a big bad ultimate raid to end them all, death or glory kind of thing. I believe in feeling of progression and impacting the world, so steady and healthy supply of enemies just doesn't feel right.

So there you have it, all i can tell about raids. All in all, at least HN raids on default settings feels spot on by frequency and formidable by force, it's not pleasant to be on the enemy side of these guys. I'm having a band of 25 people with some masterwork\specialist\Catun No. 3 light-medium gear, with combat skills mostly in 30-ies, and they're pushing me down, slow and steady, thanks to abovementioned patrols and occasional traders feeling lucky.

[Stevegates]

I enjoy it but it would be nice if the world scaled their stats with you, even if its a little slow. I know we're not supposed to be different from the NPCs but it definitely doesn't feel like it when my man Bruce Willis is standing in front of the gate while 15 bandits swarm him and he's wearing his heavy armor and punching them to death, then they get back up just so he can punch them again.

The higher tier bandits, forgot their name.. Something with skulls? is nice. They have 37~ strength and have martial wristwraps if that helps. I have to retreat and lure them out a couple at a time to get my base back.

Also I want to emphasize I said world, not just bandits. Otherwise if bandits scaled then they could easily overrun towns and other animals.

I think the best way to scale the world if you do it is to get the average of the top 50% of the players team. Meaning if you have 20 people, 10 are level 5 combat and only work in base while the other 10 are Bruce Willis punching things with 50 attack, it would get the top half (10 Bruce Willis') and then based on their average stats it would alter the enemies. Hungry bandits could be 10+(1/2 Avg Lvl)=35 +/-x for diversity as they are now. Dust bandits could be 10+(3/4 avg lvl) and be harder than hungry bandits. Beak things could be 75+8x avg lvl and we wont notice a difference. =p

On a semi apparent note, I ran into beak things for the first time today. I had to reload cause 5 of my people ended up without legs. Rip

[Turpis Rex]

- where your base is located
- who has attacked/ visited you
- the size and average levels of your squad

-My current base is in the Leviathan Coast on the beach to the left of the bay right in the middle of the biome.
-Only Attacks I've received so far have been Cannibals coming from the cannibal plains
-I've got about 25 people (non-humanoids included) with 7 of them being the core group and having about 40-50 attack and defense stats and about 50-60 major stats (STR DEX PER) that they use

I've never actually come to blows with the cannibals though as all I have to do is send a scout to watch them try to cross the Leviathan coast. From that point I simply wait until a herd of Garrus comes by and slaughters the 60~ strong group of cannibals, then I send the scout back home while the cannibals drag blood trails all over the place.

[small note] The most dangerous thing I've faced here (besides beak things) is large packs of swamp raptors. My NPCs aren't attacking them on sight because they aren't provoking us, but then they come into my buildings and onto my rooftop gardens and the second they start eating my food the farmers try to attack them and get swarmed and usually go critical because they try to 1-3 man fight a group of 25 swamp raptors. The problem is easily solved once I realize it's happening, but when I have the speed up high and It's night time, or when I have the camera somewhere else, the raptors just waltz in through all of my defenses and then get to mutilate my farmers.

[Hvizeu]

Most of the raids are very easy to fend off with a well placed gate and harpoons, the only one that tramples me every time is the Inquisitor campaign from the holy nation, but its understandable.

As for the others, i believe that just adding some more ranged units to the raid squads would fix the issue as they would be able to take down some of the harpoon shooters and actually getting to hit the gate without getting destroyed.