Bandit raids too frequent

[Nodakear]

Hello,

I searched the forum and i couldn't find a specifick topic about this particular problem i find with bandit raids or if there is a slider already for it, but the bandit raids on towns and especially the player is too frequent in my opinion.

I start in a town, bandits attack, i barely survive as bandits go straight for my character and sometimes the guards attack them and sometimes they don't attack unless i get attacked first, by then i'm usually dead. (Well, unconcious) So, i wake up, bandage myself, goto bed, rest up, grab the gear of the bandits, sell them, buy my first follower and there's another bandit raid. Again they go afte rme and my now newfound ally and again i need to bandage myself, rest, steal the loot, sell it and new bandits come.

So, i noticed that bandit attacks happen every day, no matter which town i am in. Running around the world to other towns also gets me bandits in high pursuit. I even had my followers resting in beds and went on looting and selling with my main character to find out that bandits had spawn inside the town, right on top of my resting followers and they got utterly destroyed because they were already down and were continuesly hit by bandits whcih kept them down. Resulting in them needing the bed again and made them pay for it till my money was gone. (That happend automatically, i couldn't stop that. They got knocked down while in bed and got fined for being in teh bed after being knocked down. Dunno if that's a bug right there...)

So, my suggestion is, instead of making bandits spawn and attack cities, how about making bandit villages that once a week have accumulated enough bandits to raid a town nearby. That way you can actually build up and start building your own town and have basic protection for a possible bandit raid because the rate at which bandits come now is kinda ridiculous, i wasn't even able to leave town for several days due to bandit attacks and the need to rest up so i could run again.

Anyways, like i said, i couldn't find any posts about this problem so i hope i didn't make a double post but i just wanted to bring this to the attention of the developer as i do like the game and would hope this gets fixed so the game gets playable again.

[Rikter]

I noticed something like this with the wild dogs. When I'd visit an area with a wolfs den or two, the dogs would CONSTANTLY assault the area. At one point there had to be 30 dog corpses and 20-30 living dogs prowling about. It didn't stop until at least 100 were killed.

[Alafff]

Dogs are attired by scent of dead bodies , including theirs own , So it go into a vicious cycle , until almost every dog that is adolescent or adult died.

I guess Town need a corpse furnace

[bk3000]

You getting you but kicked constantly is not a design flaw, it is the design. You are also getting stronger from the beating you receive as well. This is Kenshi. You start off as a nobody and slowly work your way from the butt kicked to the butt kicker.

Using a bed is an optional, but faster way to heal.

[Hatsune_Neko]

wait until you meet the wildlife and they attack you.
bandits will be the least of your problems.

[Nodakear]

So, being attacked on a daily basis is normal? Because that's rough, even if you choose a start that's supposed to be easy..... It's not easy getting ur butt clobbered because u can't do anything about it and even more frustrating if the guards seem to do nothing to help even, i run around them with bandits high on my tail and the guards r like "Hey, look at that guy being chased by bandits... should we help?..... Naaaahh."

So, maybe tone the attacks down a bit? Or at least make the guards AI work better so they attack bandits everytime and not at random 1 time they do, the next they don't? Or when i get hit first because when i get hit, i stop running and then they all jump me and i'm down again. And i don't know about u guys but playing a game to me is not spending hours on bed trying to recover and then get knocked out of my bed because the guards don't guard.

So, in my humble opinion, this still needs to be balanced so ur not spending most of ur time in bed trying to recover. I like a challenge but this is just ridiculous.

And if u don't agree with that, that's fine, i just hope the maker of this game reads this and does agree with me so this game stays playable even for the casual gamers who like this concept for a game too.

[Hatsune_Neko]

being attacked on a daily basis is normal. though some times you can go like many days with no attacks and then other days have nonstop attacks.
as for Guards not helping, they do. least they do in my game and i'm running on v0.74.7

Also why should all the guards help you? I would like having some not help me. because i didn't pay them or something. ( protection money ). this would fit very well into the world of Kenshi. course have them attack certain groups they don't like.
but also in time diplomacy will be added and be more effective. where you can declare a type of peace with bandits and city states and such. ( some might require vast amounts of money though )

As for the spending lots of time in bed. thats normal. i do it all the time when i start out. if you want to train you gotta take the lumps. and taking lumps means you will need to spend time in a bed to recover.

in late game when your well trained, this all gets changed around, you start hunting for bandits and things to attack. and spend very little time in a bed.

If there is fewer bandit attacks then you have fewer chances to train. Remember, your not the hero or even the villain. you are just you. someone who picked up a sword and has to go thru the process of learning how to fight.

One of the best times i had in Kenshi was when i was in clownsteady. A couple bandits came in and got massacred by the guards. The Dogs smelled the blood and came by. this started a massive battle, Dogs, and beakthings and even a Leviathan came into the fight. i had wave after wave of dogs coming in because of the amount of bodies that covered the ground. and then bandits came in, hungry ones to. Sand Ninjas came in. even cannibals came in to look around.

The fight took so long that of my group of 10 ( think thats the amount ) i had 1 die because he bugged out and got tossed to a rooftop where i could reach him to heal him. it took me 7 hours ( real time ) to fight this battle. it was the most fun i ever had. all my people became well trained that day.

And if that wasn't bad enough, i had been using my Larger Stronger Mod. so it made everything even more epic!.

This game is hard at the start unless you know how to play. it can even be boring cause of all the training you need. but the reward when you get to do things like i did. makes up for it all.

[Rikter]

And if u don't agree with that, that's fine, i just hope the maker of this game reads this and does agree with me so this game stays playable even for the casual gamers who like this concept for a game too.

You could go into the Forgotten Construction Set and create a new starting character with higher stats to make things easier.




From there, I made a quick picture guide on what to do. I may or may not have left some stuff out by accident, so you'll have to experiment with it. Also, don't forget to save!

Quick Guide On Forgotten Construction Set

[Nodakear]

Well, as a casual player i like the concept of this game and for me, gaming is playing a game and not sleep in a bed for hours (game hours, i can speed that up, i know, and i do) and thus for a casual gamer i would at least like to see an option when u start a new game, to set the frequency of the bandit attacks. That way both casual gamers and die hard gamers could enjoy Kenshi.

And don't get me wrong, i can do it, i am already starting up my town with just 5 ppl in total as of now. It's just that i'd like to build up my town a little bit more in peace. I don't want super peace like, "omg, nothing's happening, laaaame." but just being attacked like once every couple of days would be more..... relaxing. So, bandit raids slider? Just an idea. Just throwing it out there.

And using a program to "buff up" my char from start is like.... cheating my way around sumthing i should be able to manage in game by lvling up a bit. Get knocked down, lvl up, get stronger, take revenge. That kind of idea. But a bit easier then how it's now going. Even tho i do manage it a bit, slowly, very slowly...

Anyways, that's it, i hope this game will be for casual players aswell so i hope this gets noticed by the developer and the idea of a bandit raid slider will be taken in consideration. The game is interesting already and i would like to play it when it's finished, can't wait to see what else is going to be added. And if need be i'll struggle my way through hordes of bandits to see what's new.

P.S. Ohya, about the guards not attacking. I would kinda assume that since they r here to guard a town, they should attack bandits on sight, at which point i can and will help in the fight to train my char. But i would like them to do their job more so, so that i can rest in a bed without getting attacked while trying to get back to full strength. That's what really bugs me a bit, because if i get attacked again while i am trying to rest up, my char has the potential to bleed to dead, especially when u have no extra followers/squadmembers yet. (i am one of those guys that doesn't like to see his char permadie. )

[Aereto]

It would be a worse and tougher fate if you and your units fell in an area where there is no help in sight, which the experimental branches start having npcs who start healing unconscious neutral and allied factions.

If funding is an issue, especially with beds, buying a house in a town that gives you trade route advantage and placing beds ensure that you have a place to sleep for free. Earning funds can be a risk, as you need sharp senses to know when you are being engaged. However, you get to enjoy athletics gain that you could use to outrun as much foes as you can.

In the .6x stable, it got interesting back then. As a result of picking my battles carefully and choosing who will I learn from the hard way, I ended up having a save file with one unit only, having 70+ str and dex, 90+ atk, 50+ toughness and defense, and near equal katana and heavy weapon proficiency, wielding the edge type 5 plank and light katana. I even got some turret skill put in, because I was crazy enough to make a one-man fort with turrets to stop bandits bashing the gate open. To keep them at bay, I took a hungry bandit as a personal training dummy, unarmed but armored, to train to the point that my tactic is stake everything to a single accurate strike than 100 blind strikes that even a dust bandit boss or a group of hungry bandits with fall unconscious under one rightly timed swing. Had enough dust bandits sending threat messages, so I replied with turret fire. That was done under massive trial and error basis, but I have that important prime directive to live to fight another day.

Even then, the latest of the .6x should have guards that attack hostile factions on sight if it enters their contact range, though shop guards may also join... as does recruitable units who even engaged dust bandits despite having combat skills of 1.

[bk3000]

P.S. Ohya, about the guards not attacking. I would kinda assume that since they r here to guard a town, they should attack bandits on sight, at which point i can and will help in the fight to train my char.

That actually is how they are supposed to behave but I think it was bugged in some versions so they didn't. What version are you using?

I think I sort of fixed it in the versions where that was a problem by making a mod that made the different town owning factions HATE HATE HATE the bandits/ninjas/cannibals so they did attack on sight like you would expect.

to set the frequency of the bandit attacks.

It can't work like that. The bandits are not "spawned" at certain intervals that can be changed. They're all generated at the start of the game at different locations and they actively seek out towns while walking around. Of course they might find something else to fight in the mean time. Different types of bandits will fight each other etc. It is all controlled by an AI logic, so a slider cannot apply.

However there is a squad size slider and global population slider in the options. I guess you COULD lower those if things got too intense for you. Change those and I think you would want to import to a new game - probably importing any research you may have done and maybe the buildings too if you have a base (although they could be buggy so hit <Ctrl><Shift><F11> to rebuild the navmesh after everything loads and you have paused it).

Also when importing to a new game the advanced options has a chance of death slider you could lower. Keep in mind that will also help your enemies survive you.

You could do these things to make it easier, but if you instead choose to stick with how things are now, it will be all the more rewarding for you once you learn to handle the attacks.

That's what really bugs me a bit, because if i get attacked again while i am trying to rest up, my char has the potential to bleed to dead, especially when u have no extra followers/squadmembers yet. (i am one of those guys that doesn't like to see his char permadie

I would suggest then getting medkits when you can. Get better with them or if possible it is better to just hire a trained medic if you can save up for one - since they come with expensive advanced medkits (which you could sell some of if you need the cash) that more than justify the expense of hiring them even when new.

A guy with a medkit(even a cheap one) - if he is fast - could run away and heal everyone up once the bandits leave. That way you don't have people bleeding out. Equip him with sandles for speed and make sure he isn't encumbered with heavy stuff. Make him do lots of running long distances to increase athletics. Actually do that will all your guys. You want everyone to be able to run fast. Make em run back and forth between two cities (preferably no where near any nests).

Another thing you might try - if you are currently resigned the the fact you will loose fights - turn on block only mode. They will certainly win since you aren't fighting back, but with you defending better the fight will last longer giving you more ability growth. If you can get the guards to actually DO anything then that means you stand a better chance of lasting through the fight as well.

[Nodakear]

I got the latest version as i have Kenshi via steam and steam always updates when a new update comes out, so it happened in th enew build, but i think it's because i imported an old save to the new version. I think Kenshi doesn't lik ethat much. I started anew and things r going better, still lots of attacks but at least the guards start attacking now on sight.

I also thought i read that bandits got spawned now for the raids. Since they did seem to spawn right on top of my recovering squadmembers in town while i was in teh same town walking with my main char to the shop to sell. Suddenly liek 10 bandits were in the building with the beds and chopping my squad down continuesly and then they went into bleedout and sumhow automatically went back to bed and i got charged for the bed again and again and again and i couldn't stop them from doing that so my funds rapidly went down as the bandits kept knocking them out of bed and they went back in.... Is that a bug?

And how do i buy a house inside of a town? Not that i need it now, now that i am building up my own town finally again

I should check those sliders, i did notice the take less dmg and chance to die sliders, which i have indeed put down a bit on this new run. Seems to work wel now, i dun die so fast anymore. Well, get knocked unconcious i mean. Still manage to save myself when i go down and just wait for the unconcious counter to reach 0 and get back up.

But squadsize sounds interesting, getting raided by groups of 20 against me 5 isn't going to make me win just now

Thanks for all the extra info and support. And now it's back to Kenshi for sum more building.... and probably dieing :p

[Hatsune_Neko]

left click on a door in town
it will tell you if its for sale or not and if it is, how much.

[bk3000]

I got the latest version as i have Kenshi via steam and steam always updates when a new update comes out, so it happened in the new build,

Well even on steam you can opt into the experimental branch which has added multiple squads, slavery, and *CENSORED*. I don't remember if wildlife is in stable or not. I'm still not sure you want to do that yet though.

but i think it's because i imported an old save to the new version. I think Kenshi doesn't like that much. I started anew and things r going better, still lots of attacks but at least the guards start attacking now on sight.

Occasionally loading old saves can be problematic in new versions but that importing is not. In fact that's probably the main purpose of the import function. But it is also to occasionally reset/repopulate the world.

[Set]

wait until you meet the wildlife and they attack you.

Sure........and their spawn rate is overpowered.....

[Destructed3]

My Experience with the bandit attacks right now is this:

i go to some town, since I have some loot to sell and a bandit leader to turn in. The spoils of the town I come from, that was attacked by one or two raiding parties and a caravan that was taken down by bandits in the desert. The attacks on the town I went to started way before I arrived, the guards are fighting a horde of dust bandits another one is taken out by two sand ninjas. Since there are corpses everywhere, a pack of dogs attacks, too.

GREAT! More loot. Unfortunately there is no chance of turning bandit leaders in, since the police chief is chasing one of the dust bandits to the other side of the world and my guys can not keep up with him. I decide to sell my stuff and want to get some more people to my party since I seem to need them, but unfortunately a third party of dust bandits allready attacked the bar. I decide to leave this mess behind me again, but unfortunate again I run into a fourth party of dust bandits just outside the town.

in my experience: if I would manage to escape this town, the situation in the next town would be exactly the same.

For me the situation is unbearable for some reasons:
- the attacks feel compeltely pointless
- how can towns survive with just the couple of guardians like they got until now? aka I experience the world as implausible right now.
- raiding parties seem to wipe the world

I know that bandits looting or taking over towns is a thing to come, so my first point will be solved sooner or later and I m looking forward to it

For the towns, I hope they get more defense in the future or they find a way to reduce the bandit attacks on a reasonable amount.

[MandaloreTheUltimate]

With Kenshi, it doesn't really matter whether or not the bandit raids are frequent. It's stated pretty clearly that the game does not evolve to your liking as you level up. The game world when you're level 1 will be the same if you're level 20. You just have to learn to adapt.

[Destructed3]

That is no reason not to talk about it. I for example think as half-a-rpg Kenshi should present me a world that I can accept as somehow authentic.

Right now I walk through a world where towns are permanently (by this I mean during every single minute, not just in regular intervalls) raided and I really cannot explain myself how it is even possible that they don t cease to exist within the first 30 minutes of play. Going shopping while bandids and townsfolk are murdering each other is ridiculus (in fact I could accept that shops close during attacks).

I can think about a number of fixes, from reducing or restricting the number of attacking raiders to massively boost the defense of towns to get some feeling of credibility back.

I don t think Kenshi should present nice places, and I don t think Kenshi should be ridiculus. That s why I m complaining ... Also the frustration not being able to do a single step in a town without spawning another pack of bandits adds to this.

[Loengrinn]

So as someone who's played this game at a couple intervals in the development, I can tell you the game did NOT start out with the number of attacks you're describing, nor the severity, and anyone saying otherwise hasn't been playing since early enough into this game's development. Now, that being said, I did not start playing this at RELEASE, but I found it pretty early on in Steam and have touched on it from time to time waiting for it to be reasonable to play, which is has reached that point IMO recently, since which I have been playing avidly.

Now, that being said, the point that others have made about taking beatings and getting back up IS part of the experience, and that IS how you get stronger (someone mentioned the block mode, which I highly recommend for anyone who has very low combat skills, this let's them develop defenses, and once those are reasonable, you can turn that off and they get better at fighting all around). I started off with the rag-tag group who wants to build their own town. I was fortunate and found a very easily defendable place very early on. I gathered a large amount of followers, got some decent gear for my fighters, trained a bit on dummies and set off to find a new place. Ended up importing my game because getting too far from my original settlement caused crashes, but after a ridiculously long trek from Bark to Catan and running into so many groups of enemies that I lost count, most of my team was really well developed in combat. In fact, my main party that I send on expeditions at this point had 2 guys capable of fending off 6 enemies at once AND taking some down in the process. My best fighter actually fights entire groups of bandits on his own and comes out on top, albeit battered, bruised and bleeding (profusely, admittedly).

The frequency of attacks is one thing, and while I can't state the original intent of the game's designer, I can agree with the sentiment that daily attacks by multiple groups is simply unbelievable in the world setting. If that was the reality of this world, cities would not be able to spring up at any point, let alone develop into what they are at the start of any game. Now, a large enough group of enemies, or enough happenstance attacks would overwhelm defenses, so I don't think towns should NEVER fall, but they SHOULD be able to withstand quite a bit of punishment, otherwise the stability of such a world falls apart and loses it's credence.

The part that I do want to address, however, which was the real point of my post at all, is that town guards are SUPPOSED to attack bandits and wildlife as soon as they spot them. I may have misread this, but I believe someone said it doesn't make sense for guards to step into these fights, and while there may be some truth to the "reality" of it making sense that they don't protect you, the game tips even tell you specifically to lure bandits to the town guards to help you start out. It's actually been a beginner tip since I first came across this game, which means the developers not only told you "do this" but designed it with that specifically in mind at least at some point, if not from the very start.

Now, with all that being said, the frequency of attacks is actually something you'll look forward to as your team develops and you create a town of your own. I'm currently at said point. HOWEVER, be aware that when you go to start a town, bandits actually SPAWN on top of you, if not nearby, and this is TRIGGERED by the creation of your town. I can attest to bandits SPAWNING and not WANDERING into my towns as I've seen them literally show up from thin air right next to my first building on a plateau with ONE entrance which I had guarded by my strongest fighters. I was also zoomed out with maximum sighting distances set in the options, so whoever said that bandits only wander is wrong. Whether that is the goal or intent of the final products is entirely beside the point, that the game currently functions in this manner and is causing the original poster grief IS.

This does make sense in many respects, as far as bandits specifically targeting your new town when it's still in the early stages, as an established and sell defended town, such as the ones that are built in-game from the start, would be harder to attack and sack. Which lends credence to my earlier thought that the established cities should not be overrun within the first couple days of a new game starting, as that makes any other logic regarding the establishment of a city null and void. If that's how this world works, who would bother building anything if all it takes is a couple groups of random bandits to kill all the well-trained guards and get past your hardened and entrenched defenses? It simply makes no sense if you actually stop and think about any of this.

But getting back to the point of this post and the thread itself: Something is amiss in whatever version you're playing. WHAT, I couldn't say. I play through Steam as well, so my game stays up to date, and I can tell you that when I first picked this game back up, bandit attacks weren't so frequent that towns were overwhelmed at any point (not that I'm against that at all, in fact it sounds not only plausible, but fun) but the guards actually defended the town from bandits and wildlife ON SIGHT. Expect to get attacked, expect to get your butt handed to you, repeatedly, for quite some time. In fact, bandits are a joke compared to dogs, and beak things are whole different story, and I haven't even tried a leviathan yet, so whoever took one of those down, kudos! But you are correct in that I don't think the intent was that you would get attacked while resting at an Inn (believe they're called Flophouses in the Kenshi world) to the point where you not only don't recover but bleed out without the guards even lifting a finger. The police/guards not attacking hostiles does have a thread in the bugs forum (I actually posted in that one myself), and as I've said, I very much doubt that it's supposed to work as you are currently experiencing it.

[Destructed3]

I like the fact that Kenshi is a dangerous game. I love the fact that I join caravans if I want to travel save. I complain because the world isn t able to handle its own dangers.

Let s talk specificly about Traders Edge, which is more or less overrun in every single game I start. The police chief is always way outside the town, hunting down endless waves of dust and starving bandits. Bandits even seem to spawn in some houses in Trader's Edge, as a result there is constant batteling there, even though the police is still not back. I get that this town is supposed to be exceptionally dangerous, still looking for traders in piles of beaten up folks while the plastic surgeon fights another wave of bandits isn t feeling good.

Fucking up the players town is one thing, but if the "original towns" regularely aren t able to defend themselfes against bandits, I get a problem with taking the world of Kenshi seriously. At least this should be reflected in some way, like Trader's Edge becoming a Dust Bandit Fortress at some point.

The same goes for animal spawns. I experienced towns that were completely cut, because the animal poplutation got out of hand and you had to fight through about 40-50 Beak Things to get there. Again this should at least be reflected in some way, i. e. by giving bounties for hunting down animal squads (you could turn in a trophy like dog tails for a small bounty at the police station) or even the population starving to death.