Messages

256

Suggestions / Re: Focus on Endgame Content

« on: August 17, 2017, 10:54:09 AM »

@Theroleplayer I think for some people (myself included) it's hard to self-motivate like that. I used to delete my alive & well characters and start again because the initial survival is fun, but now I'm too good for that too

The only pleasure I currently get is starting a new char when a new version comes out (can't wait for the upcoming one! ). This means I play a few weeks per year at most.

What is usually proposed as long-term goal has the advantage of enabling a big set of smaller goals to keep people interested:

Animal husbandry: keeping your animals alive, let the healthiest ones reproduce and kill the weakest for food, defend them from predators, sell them for that sweet hauberk, accumulate/process wool.. and probably more stuff.

Family: find a compatible wife/husband, do quests to marry her/him, build a farm, let her/him settle and do the house chores (perfectly linked to animal husbandry above?) while you go adventuring, make kids (and keep them fed! You probably need to mix passive and active hunting with agriculture and fishing to give them a stable supply of food), protect your family from predators/njerpez/robbers, teach skills to kid so that when they reach adulthood they can do some tasks decently, and finally.. when your char dies, you take control of one of your kids, and the cycle starts again.

Settlement: expand your family by accepting friends from other settlements and allow them to build near you: you'd be the village elder and have a whole new set of quests to keep your settlement fed and happy and protected. You could mould the people into hunters, farmers or whatever you deem necessary to prosper.

257

Suggestions / The underdog of weapons: the short sword

« on: August 16, 2017, 04:42:32 PM »

Since Sami has been tweaking weapon values for the next release, I think it's important to discuss how this poor little weapon, the short sword, can be valorised.

Right now:

• Handaxe is beaten ONLY by the battlesword in all three damage categories. I love handaxes dearly, but they are OP when compared to swords (and, IMHO, other axes as well)
  
• Short sword has the same point damage of bastard sword and battlesword, where it should shine, and is beaten by all other swords in cut damage (fair). It also has the worst bonuses in the sword category. And even more weird: it's worse at stabbing than the Handaxe!
• Three knives have more point damage than the short sword, and other three knives have exactly the same point damage, while all six of these are MUCH lighter. Also three of these knives have the same attack/defence bonus compared to the short sword

So, briefly, the short sword sucks. Which in itself is not a huge deal (of course some weapons are going to suck) but coupled with the fact that it's crazy expensive, it becomes a "useless weapon", so to speak.

My proposal would be:

• nerf Handaxes slightly: 3-5-4 is probably more than fair for a tool that is in everyone's inventory. Perfect if associated with a shield.
• up point damage of short swords slightly: 5 instead of 4. This makes it the best stabbing sword, on par with the three best knives

If you are asking yourself whether giving 5 point damage to short swords is unfair to the three best knives, I would argue that:

- all of those three knives are MUCH lighter and cheaper (which is the point of using a knife). Also if I'm not mistaken, light weapons should consume less fatigue when fighting
- they can double as tools, whereby the shortsword is a pure weapon

The only knife that I think gets the short end of the stick is the Skramasaksi, which is supposed to be a Seax, thus essentially a short sword. I have a small suggestion for this, too:

- instead of having damage 2-3-4, make it 2-4-4. That is, exactly equal to the current short sword but slighly worse than my suggested shortsword (but lighter!).

258

Off-topic / Kalevala in prose

« on: August 15, 2017, 12:52:01 PM »

I'd like to get more into Finnish mythology, but I find it hard to read poems. I loved Neil Gaiman's retelling of the Norse myths, and was wondering if there was something similar for the Kalevala, in English?

Even some good narrative could be interesting, actually. Any suggestions?

259

Gameplay questions / Re: How to hunt seals?

« on: August 09, 2017, 10:57:51 AM »

I've sadly never found a group of seals only single ones. If I found a group I'd set up a proper camp with a cellar and hunt them to extinction over several weeks/months

Where are you hunting? I only ever found them in the north/north-west coast.

260

Gameplay questions / Re: How to hunt seals?

« on: August 05, 2017, 10:46:15 AM »

I concur with PALU, with one addition: even if you don't see them, stop every time you hear a "splash" while rowing on the coastline. Then look out for seal footprints (they are a bit hard to spot at first). They should cover a relatively wide area. Place pit traps in there (not spiked) and move on along the coastline. After a while, when you have 10-15 pit traps along a wide berth of coast, come back to check them.

You may also make a shelter and fish at a certain distance from the trap. Not too close, but within sight.

Using this method I was able to hunt quite a few seals, but it's a slow process for sure. My seal-tribe character survives mostly on fish and bear pipes between each caught seal.

261

Gameplay questions / Re: Need help with a certain character build

« on: August 03, 2017, 02:26:04 PM »

I usually start either in spring or autumn, depending if I want to start in an agricultural way (spring) or hunter/gatherer (autumn). Let's assume you start in spring.

Your first needs are knife and axe. How do you pay for it depends on what you start with. One way or another, I get a knife and a axe very soon and thus am quickly able to produce fox traps. One unlucky time I had nothing, so I made a knife and then made a javelin with the knife, then fished (very inefficiently) for weeks to keep myself alive and buy little by little more durable things. Then sold all the durable things to buy an handaxe and eventually a small knife.

All this time, you protect yourself from the cold by keeping a fire going near the sea, lake or river-side shelter you live in (and fish from).

With a few fox traps I buy dried/smoked food. I can now survive for several days without troubles. I explore to find a place to settle and/or immediately go after my first prey.

I start making traps all around the shelter (the ones without cord, and starting with the smallest types). With those you should easily capture birds and small animals if you stay there to fish or make fox traps. You start accumulating bird leather and you can eat the meat, or roast it and sell it for more durable things (I find it more efficient it to eat it while making boards and then fox traps).

Little by little you'll get lucky: you'll kill a reindeer/elk/bear, and use the fur to make yourself some warm clothes. Otherwise, keep selling your fox traps and buy the clothes in villages. Wool and fur. (the generic "fur" is pretty good).

If you want to go the agricultural way, you should buy seeds now. But if I were you, since you are still learning to survive, I'd do it like PAUL and postpone to the next year. Until winter, just accumulate warm clothes (from hunts or paid for with fox traps), find a nice place to settle (you need water and trees nearby) and disseminate the surroundings with traps.

Building a cellar is a good idea. Also protect your chosen area with fences, and if you feel like it, start building a log cabin.

262

Solved'n'fixed bug reports / Re: Linen trousers cover feet

« on: July 24, 2017, 05:07:15 PM »

There's plenty of weirdness there (not only coverage, but also weight). A fix to all cloth types is in the works, as far as I remember (@Sami can correct me if I'm wrong). Not sure when it will come out but it was discussed "recently", in the last year.

There's plenty of discussion about this in the old forum if you want to dig

263

Gameplay questions / Re: I have only axe and knife for crafting...

« on: July 13, 2017, 01:37:33 PM »

Bowls are not actually bad, it's a decent, relatively simple-to-make trade good, and it trains your carpentry skill.

The queen of trade if however the Fox Trap. Same value of a Board but much more lightweight. The con is that you have to (most of these apply to bowls too, to be honest):

* fall tree
* split trunk into boards
* make traps from boards (one by one)
* if I recall correctly, it trains the trapper skill instead of carpentry (it may actually be good for you..)

It takes some time. After you get good enough, however, it's practically a game breaker. Buy a cow or bull when you can, then make a lot of those, then go to Driik and buy masterwork stuff. Enjoy.

PS: I have the actual trade values but can't access them now. On the old forum you can find spreadsheets with values.

264

Modding / Re: Creating Uniquely Named Items

« on: July 11, 2017, 05:15:28 PM »

In my experience you don't even have to restart the game: just modify the file (if it's only the dog name, just change the name) then open the game menu for crafting and it's there. I think the game reloads the modifiable game files very often, eg at every action.

265

Gameplay questions / Re: Buying animals

« on: June 25, 2017, 01:48:19 PM »

Is it possible to make animals breed?

Not yet. Animals in villages are also fixed, eg they don't respawn, so make sure you don't kill all the cows/sheep you buy

266

Off-topic / Re: Drawings of my travels in UnReal.

« on: June 20, 2017, 11:53:41 AM »

Stunning. I love them.

267

Suggestions / Re: Focus on Endgame Content

« on: June 20, 2017, 11:21:57 AM »

I get bored at some point, and I often day dream while playing. The game itself isn't my goal -- it's the thoughts I have while experiencing the game.

I believe the game designer is creating a dialogue tree for the game. I'm not exactly sure how it works. Something to look forward to maybe.

There's already a dialogue tree including simple greetings, directions, quest, job offer and trading. What's missing is more "personal" interaction, maybe. Like, reputation with a specific person that unlocks different types of dialogue. That's very complex to do in an interesting way, though.

268

Suggestions / Re: Focus on Endgame Content

« on: June 16, 2017, 10:34:49 AM »

Has anyone really managed to take a character to 12+ years? I have been playing the same character for almost two years or more IRL and he is only in his 4th winter...

I think it's very common to either abandon old characters because endgame is boring, or to send them to a suicide mission of some sort. So the lack of current old characters isn't indicative of a lack of need for endgame features - but the other way around