Preparation for upcoming features

[Ben]

With Kenshi being out for some time now, a lot of people have devised their key to success with the existing features. However, we know a lot more stuffs is coming, and some of these features will totally change how people play their existing game. For example, simply by looking at the character stats, there's Endurance and Perception yet to be implemented, and people have foreseen Endurance will be linked to stamina. The popular strategy of luring bandits to town guards might no longer work unless you are near a town, otherwise you might run out of stamina and have to face the bandits anyway. This kinda forces an alternative strategy or improvise on existing ones, but it is interesting to discuss and prepare for these new game mechanics.

So based on the Roadmap, the greyed out skills and anything else that is surely to be included in the game (NOT what you hope to see), let's discuss how you currently play your game and how these upcoming game features will change things for you.

[Hatsune_Neko]

think its gonna change everything. Since my people are training up well i have already changed how i play, i no longer use the bait and run, i go to where i see fighting in the distance then i wait for the victor, then i clean up.
This is mostly due to a Mod i use, i made the bandits stronger and more of them so had to change strategies. I haven't used the bait and run tactic in a while mostly because i know the game play alot better then when i first started playing.

[AviticusDragon]

Endurance should absolutely be in the game, and I for one am excited at how that will change everyone's strategy. The way Kenshi is currently, its very easy to lure enemies to any town and rinse/repeat until you have enough cash. With the cash you buy more companions, and then when you have 20 companions you can pretty much roam around fighting everyone you see. Unless you drastically change the NPC slider which I tend to do. With each character having limited endurance, as you said, may not be able to use the same strategy.

I would also like to see stamina affect combat where people get tired after a while, and their swings become slower as time goes on, etc. However that feature should be carefully implemented as it could borderline the "not fun" factor. But being able to take on countless enemies without getting tired just doesn't seem right. That being said, you know if armies are implemented later on, you could for instance have a force attack an enemy, and then have a backup force ready to attack at full stamina when your first force starts to get tired. That kind of thing adds for an extra layer of strategy when facing opponents.

Stamina will be interesting for skills like assassination and climbing as well. I really hope the walls become 5x larger than they are now, with chances for NPC's to "fall" off of the walls they are climbing (think Shogun 1 or 2).

[Ben]

Those are nice thoughts about Endurance and the associated Stamina stats!

One thing that struck me about all this discussion about armies and such, is that Kenshi is being touted as 'an open-ended, squad-based strategy RPG', so I would imagine the game to be more along the lines of Jagged Alliance and Silent Storm style of squad combat (minus the turn-based fighting), as opposed to Warcraft-style of RTS battles? Otherwise this would turn Kenshi into something almost like Spore, whereby you start off controlling a single character (cell) then went progressively to a squad and then all-out RTS gameplay towards the end. I mean, controlling your own army is fun in its own right, but then it probably loses the connection you would have for individual characters like Nutto, the Fragment Axe-wielding Medic, or Lars the Ninja-blade Blacksmith. I think for people familiar with Naruto, Kenshi is more like the Village within the Country, with powerful individuals to carry out specific tasks like assassination and small group missions.

[AviticusDragon]

Here's how I see squads and armies happening:

Basically you would be able to recruit female and male soldiers from an NPC somewhere. You could perhaps recruit a "soldier recruiter" character that will do the hiring for you. Perhaps you would need to have a "recruitment office" built in your base, and when you recruit that NPC in a town, he then shows up at your office in your base. When you talk to him you can then recruit male and female soldiers. Perhaps you can modify them like any other character, or based on the type of character you recruit, they become "pre modified."

Anyway once you recruit a few soldiers, you could have the ability to "group" them together in a squad, so instead of 15 character portraits, you only see 1 with a number on it. IE: a squad of 15 would just have 1 portrait with the number 15 on it. Perhaps having the ability to assign one soldier as the squad leader. Any soldier a part of that group follows the squad leader around. An easy way would be just assigning the bodyguard command to the squad leader for any soldier assigned to his squad. An alternative is also that instead of recruiting individual soldiers, you would be recruiting "squads", at certain intervals, each with their own squad leader. So for instance, 5 soldiers with 1 squad leader, 20 soldiers with 1 squad leader, etc.

But from there you could add more soldiers to the squad, or send the squad out to perform a task. You would be issuing the commands to the squad leaders, and not every soldier as that would become very tedious.

Having the ability to modify the troops would be nice such as adding equipment to each soldier, but another method I don't like as much is just having pre-modified soldier types, with various armors and weapons - each costing different amount of Cats to purchase. Depending on what factions you are at war with, could determine what pre-defined soldiers you could hire. IE: you wouldn't have access to certain armor or weapon types for instance.

Long term, adding a "battle map" would probably be needed, so that you could send armies to do things like:

Attack any city without having to be in viewing distance
Select an area on the map for the squad to "raid this area for supplies" (attack enemies, gather loot and bring it back to base after army inventory is full)
Select an area on the map to patrol
Travel to location and hold position
Many other possibilities

Once you issue the command, the squad leader then begins their quest, moving out from your base to their objective. You could of course select the portrait of the squad leader and re-issue a command from the world map, not just the battle map.

That's how I see it, however I'm sure Chris has a plan in place for how this is going to work.

[PnzrNorm]

One thing that struck me about all this discussion about armies and such, is that Kenshi is being touted as 'an open-ended, squad-based strategy RPG', so I would imagine the game to be more along the lines of Jagged Alliance and Silent Storm style of squad combat (minus the turn-based fighting), as opposed to Warcraft-style of RTS battles...

I actually envisioned that, whenever the capability of 'multiple squads' is implemented, it would be an RTS version of the tabletop Warhammer or Warmachine games.
Its a terrible comparison but just imagine if the models used in tabletop games had character sheets from D&D (i.e. a LOT larger and more intricate).

Honestly, that style of play wouldn't break my connection with chars on an individual level, there would just be a lot more of them to 'get to know'.
Imagine how the daimyo in Edo Period Japan were able to remember the characteristics, strengths, weaknesses, etc. of all the generals in the country as if they were close, personal friends. I imagine playing Kenshi with 200+ chars under you control will be similar to that scenario.

[Ben]

The greyed-out 'Assassination' and 'Stealth' skills hint of Commandos-like squad missions, whereas the skill 'Mass combat' likely refers to coordination during big fights. The implementation of these skills will definitely satisfy the expectations of a lot of people, although my concerns are still about the ease of multi-managing different squads or armies. I can imagine a dilemma in deciding if I want to personally direct my people to successfully infiltrate a fortress to assassinate the target, or watch and coordinate my armies to overwhelm the enemies. I don't suppose there is a multi-camera function for me to observe everything at once?

[PnzrNorm]

I don't suppose there is a multi-camera function for me to observe everything at once?

Feature Request much?

[Ben]

On second thought, I think it's a bad idea as it would turn my screen into a security system with CCTV on all my units!

But jokes aside, I'm sure the system will be stabilized eventually so that constant character switching doesn't tax the system to the point of crashing. However, it would seemed certain 'missions' will require full control of your squad while praying the AI is able to fend for itself in all other aspects, such as when one is focused on navigating the assassin to avoid a maze of guards when an attack on your trading caravans occurs. It would definitely be unwise to leave your assassin just standing in an awkward position while you try to coordinate the defense of the trading caravan, but at present, personally managing a fight while employing certain tactics does enable one to overcome certain numerical odds fairly independent of fighting skills.

[EternalAmbiguity]

Those are nice thoughts about Endurance and the associated Stamina stats!

One thing that struck me about all this discussion about armies and such, is that Kenshi is being touted as 'an open-ended, squad-based strategy RPG', so I would imagine the game to be more along the lines of Jagged Alliance and Silent Storm style of squad combat (minus the turn-based fighting), as opposed to Warcraft-style of RTS battles? Otherwise this would turn Kenshi into something almost like Spore, whereby you start off controlling a single character (cell) then went progressively to a squad and then all-out RTS gameplay towards the end. I mean, controlling your own army is fun in its own right, but then it probably loses the connection you would have for individual characters like Nutto, the Fragment Axe-wielding Medic, or Lars the Ninja-blade Blacksmith. I think for people familiar with Naruto, Kenshi is more like the Village within the Country, with powerful individuals to carry out specific tasks like assassination and small group missions.

I personally think it sounds great to have that possibility to open up to a huge, huge number of people in your control that can wage wars and control the entire map. Not many games can run the gamut that way (from small to ginormous).


As for how some of the skills will affect my gameplay...I think the Assassination stuff will be very interesting. Also, I don't know for sure, but I really hope that Chris is planning on putting in some robust questing. Stuff that can better immerse me in the game world, can build it up to more than just a bunch of separate cities with random NPCs and random factions, and more than just a city-builder. I hope if we're going to call this an RPG it's actually going to be somewhat of an RPG, not just an RTS with experience and attributes (they already have those).

[Snowpig]

I try to add something to each point mentioned in the first posting,

For example, simply by looking at the character stats, there's Endurance and Perception yet to be implemented, and people have foreseen Endurance will be linked to stamina. The popular strategy of luring bandits to town guards might no longer work unless you are near a town, otherwise you might run out of stamina and have to face the bandits anyway. This kinda forces an alternative strategy or improvise on existing ones, but it is interesting to discuss and prepare for these new game mechanics.

No more guaranteed running away will result in more careful looking-around and avoiding groups which could be fatal. In my opinion especially the in the desert during daylight (10AM - 8PM) it should be almost impossible to run long distances. Maybe the dev implements a sort of drinking/thirst system - no water in the desert -> character starves and dies. This would make enemy groups which loot food/water/snatchs bodies even more deadly.

Luring bandits into gate guards: bandits should only attack a group if they "think" they have a chance - by numbers/by skills/by condition. If bandits face a stronger enemy, they should flee. Town Guards o.t.o.h. should have only a limited range they follow/aggro enemies - their primary task is guarding the town/gate - not running endlessly to pursue a hungry bandit.

The effect will be, that starting characters will focus heavily into looting unconscious bandits/guards &c - which might become boring in the long term. Here would help a sort of mission system, where the town offers small/easy tasks for low-level characters who want to earn their first cats/skills.

I actually envisioned that, whenever the capability of 'multiple squads' is implemented, it would be an RTS version of the tabletop Warhammer or Warmachine games.
Its a terrible comparison but just imagine if the models used in tabletop games had character sheets from D&D (i.e. a LOT larger and more intricate).

Honestly, that style of play wouldn't break my connection with chars on an individual level, there would just be a lot more of them to 'get to know'.
Imagine how the daimyo in Edo Period Japan were able to remember the characteristics, strengths, weaknesses, etc. of all the generals in the country as if they were close, personal friends. I imagine playing Kenshi with 200+ chars under you control will be similar to that scenario.

The problem is that it is already not so easy to keep track of the characters as long as you have only 20 of them. Even then i started to cloth them differently - depending on their "profession".
But speaking of the example with the daimyo: the daimyo did know the characteristics of his generals, but surely not the ones of his foot-soldiers - or if he knew, then only on a sort of generalized level, like "the squad of Yamamoto-san is well trained - the squad of Tanaka-san consist of lazy, sake-drinking idiots who might cut themselves because of their lack of training..."

So maybe it would be an idea to make a sort of tiered character-system: these 20 named characters you have are potential "squad leaders" themselves. You can recruit generic "1-stat"-goons and assign them to one of the named characters. When you give your named character some order, it will be passed to his goons as well. The named character o.t.o.h. is responsible for their training and equipment. You (as "daimyo" ) only define a sort of type of the squad (light, heavy, ranged, medic/support, ....) and leave the details to your named character. This would keep the RPG-aspect (character-sheet for the named character + his "squad") and the RTS-aspect - as you would shift around quite large group of people. o.t.o.h. you would not be forced to micromanage each and every single goon in your super-squad of 200 soldiers/farmes/miners/medics.

But this management requires a lot more feedback by the named characters. They should (when asked or autonomous) give feedback on their status or ask for duties/stuff/budget.

[Lo Ki]

think its gonna change everything. Since my people are training up well i have already changed how i play, i no longer use the bait and run, i go to where i see fighting in the distance then i wait for the victor, then i clean up.
This is mostly due to a Mod i use, i made the bandits stronger and more of them so had to change strategies. I haven't used the bait and run tactic in a while mostly because i know the game play alot better then when i first started playing.

I'm in the same position in terms of my general strategy. Waiting for bandit assaults and catching them when they're still spread out works, as well. I usually have 4+ people attack the lead bandit, and then direct the other members of the squad to pick the others off as they arrive to the battle. I try to split them up and make it a numbers game.

[PnzrNorm]

The problem is that it is already not so easy to keep track of the characters as long as you have only 20 of them. Even then i started to cloth them differently - depending on their "profession".
But speaking of the example with the daimyo: the daimyo did know the characteristics of his generals, but surely not the ones of his foot-soldiers - or if he knew, then only on a sort of generalized level, like "the squad of Yamamoto-san is well trained - the squad of Tanaka-san consist of lazy, sake-drinking idiots who might cut themselves because of their lack of training..."

So maybe it would be an idea to make a sort of tiered character-system: these 20 named characters you have are potential "squad leaders" themselves.

That's actually the system I am going to adopt whenever multiple squads is implemented. Each squad would have their own somewhat-uniform gear and a task to accomplish.