A16 2969 Comments/Issues

Placement from containers definitely seems fixed now. Leveling combat classes also feels better (might be leveling TOO fast now, though). Overall gameplay feels smoother and hearthlings are doing things that make pretty good sense.

Outstanding issues:

  • Archers behaving very erratically. Sometimes after first kill they will just wander off and never engage another enemy in that encounter no matter what commands you give. This is especially true when you turn off their “job” checkbox in the hearthling list view.
  • Still some combat glitchiness - footmen, knights and clerics will often attempt to take a non-combat task after taking a swing, then bounce back to the fight.

No other major issues I’ve noticed aside from the well-known building issues! Good job guys, good turnaround on bugfixes. =)

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Hi!
The job checkbox now makes combat units go defensive when you check it. While defensive, units should only attack if they are being actively attacked by an enemy.
I’m not sure about the not attcking with the job check box enabled. Maybe Albert will know …
Thanks
-Yang

Really? Because I turned off the “job” checkbox for my other soldiers (footmen, knight, cleric) and they still attack things as expected. My understanding about the checkbox is that it just turns off patrolling so they are free to help with hauling. Which makes a massive difference to the efficiency of a village.

If the intended effect is that combat classes stop behaving like combat class when you uncheck the “job” checkbox, then Archers are the only ones it’s working for. Personally, I think that if the INTENDED EFFECT is that they stop fighting enemies when you uncheck the “job” box, that you then add a new set of boxes to turn off “patrol” behavior then. I want my combat classes to still behave like combatants just not “patrol” anymore. I want them to assist in hauling. Maybe it’s just a matter of job priority - they should only patrol when there’s nothing to help haul? Until we’re able to define patrol or defensive zones manually, we should have some ability to turn patrol behavior on/off or allow combat classes to have some utility besides just walking in circles around farm fields.

Ok, I’m very interested how this works too! I always thought that turning off Job for soldiers would mean that they don’t fight anymore. Please explain.

I agree leveling up may be to fast now
I have 23 heartlings, a town of 20400 net worth. I promoted an herbalist to a cleric and a workmen to a footsoldier. After their first combat againt 2 ogre’s , 1 orc and 3 hounds. they were both level 3. (They had help from the rest of my army backing them up)

I haven’t unpacked the .smod and taken a look at the changes in the code, but my guess based on what I’m seeing is that they went back to the “every participant gets full XP” system until they work something else out. I think the progressive XP share system I wrote-up in a prior post would yield the best results without having to recalculate the XP values on existing mobs.

True. The system you suggeste dlooks good, eventhough it might make it very hard to level up your tenth soldier to level 6.

Actually at a certain point the diminishing returns should stop, say at like 40%. Plus you could always put hearthlings you’re still trying to level into a separate party to get more XP. Keep the max level hearthlings in their own party and only call them in for support if needed.

This change may have also changed whether soldiers will haul or not. Now you have to uncheck it to get them to haul items, as with it checked they patrol instead.

Hi,
I am confused. It has always been the case that soldiers will patrol unless their job was unchecked (since A15). So I think that part is working as intended.
Thanks,
-Yang

Ok, hrm, maybe I’m missing something.

All I know is that before this patch my soldiers were hauling with all their boxes checked, and after it I had to uncheck “job” in order to get them hauling. It might be a bug fix and working as intended, or it might be some weird coincidence of my game the hauling and patrolling priorities, I dunno.

edit: at any rate I guess it’s fixed now !

Hm, my soldierd were always patrollinh, with all their boxes checked.

Can I ask what is the point/purpose of the job checkbox for combat classes then? If they will no longer fight enemies with it turned off, you may as well just force people to change their class back to Worker. It’s a seriously tedious task to go into the hearthlings list every time there’s something to fight and go change those checkboxes, then after the battle is over change them again. And even when you DO do that, it winds up messing up the task priorities for those hearthlings until you save and reload again. I can’t get Archers to follow ANY commands once I’ve checked/unchecked the “job” box in a game. They simply become useless, in fact two my my archers died last night because they wouldn’t follow my “move here” commands and get away from enemies that were wailing on them. Also, in normal mode, I’ve started getting attacked by pairs of orcs and kobold archers with only 12 hearthlings in 2969 - what gives?

I agree wholeheartedly, i stay the hell away from ever unchecking the job box, it seems to break combat units irrepairably.

Turning all of the “job” boxes back on, saving, then reloading the game seems to fix it for me. But only until I decide I need the hauling capacity from the soldiers. Footmen and Knights seem to not break nearly as bad as Archers and Clerics when you fiddle with the “job” checkbox, so I’ve resorted lately to ONLY allowing Footmen and Knights to pitch-in for hauling. Doesn’t seem to prevent my archers from still getting broken, though. =/ At some point they always just stop responding to commands like “move here” or “attack this enemy”.

Wordy post but if you like theory crafting, please give it a read. Hopefully this makes sense but let me know if I should clarify something.

I find leveling too fast now. I can get a level 1 footmen to level 3 or 4 depending on the fight. Since we get one or two fights each day or night, sometimes more if we’re unlucky, I liked the slower pace of leveling as I had to prioritize which units to promote first. With exp given out as it is now, I’m going to try getting one of my hearthlings to level 12 or 18 for an hp boost to see what that does and how fast I can do it; that’s going max footman then knight and/or archer.

To simplify the math, I think it would be better that each combatant get the same exp value from the mob, rather than a division based on how many present, but those exp values per mob should be lowered.

Scaling for normal difficulty, if we have the potential to encounter say 2 groups of mobs each day and/or night, how many fights or even days should it take to get any class to level 6? Where would people feel comfortable on that scale? Keep in mind, we progress the game and difficulty by hearthling count or net worth so we have some control in how strong we make the opposing force. Once we have a good progression speed, then it’s a matter of decreasing the exp given per mob. Not an easy balancing task I’d imagine.

Napkin math below and I’m not double checking too much for a gold star so please feel free to correct me if I 'm wrong:

  • 2414 exp to get to a level 6 footman
  • 5370 exp for a level 6 archer or knight,
  • 4249 exp for a level 6 Cleric

Looking at just a knight or archer getting to level 6 and dividing experience needed per day:

  • 7 days - 767 exp each day
  • 14 days - 383 exp each day
  • 21 days - 256 exp each day
  • 28 days - 191 exp each day

Currently, I have 21 hearthlings in normal mode and I think my guys are getting 600-700 exp for each small encounter. I’d like to see it take somewhere between 14 and 21 in game days to max out one of our current classes. I think the experience needed for job levels, not total levels, 1 through 6 could be tweaked too. Job levels 1 - 3 could run off the current calculation but levels 4 - 6 could be a different calc requiring more experience. This way we could quickly level our footman to replenish a loss while also keeping higher ranked abilities slightly out of reach.

Thoughts? Am I out to lunch?

@yshan What do you think? I see your note in the combat service so I’m guessing the fine tuning of exp is your area?

oh and @ursapolaris, Those kobold archers and orc’s you’re encountering look to be a new ambient encounter based on a net worth of 6000. Wasn’t in the previous builds by the looks of it.

But I only have 12 hearthlings and my net worth is around 3400. (I know because I’ve fallen short of getting my 13th hearthling at 3450 for 2 days in a row before I saved and closed the game last night).

Basically my testing strategy it to play a completely clean/new game each time there’s a new release. I always worry about tainting the current build by loading old saves. It doesn’t give me much room to try new/different strategies, but I do alter my gameplay a little each time (adding lessons learned). The big lesson I’m learning now is that trying to multi-purpose a single hearthling across 2-3 jobs is a bad idea. ;D Because their “effective level” is the addition of all the levels from various jobs they’ve had, making their XP go up to the point where having one hearthling that can hit level 6 in 2 (non-combat) jobs is next to impossible. I tried that tactic to deal with getting overloaded with materials and not having enough hearthlings to process them all. When you have to make 1/3 of your settlement combat jobs, you don’t hit the stride of being able to have one of every crafting job dedicated until around 18-20 hearthlings. Which is way too long to wait when you’re trying to build net value and get your soldiers geared-up.

I’d still make an argument for an “easy mode”. I still feel that having to make more then 20% of my settlers into combat jobs is unrealistic for a settlement and city-building game. Historically societies are more around 5-10% of their people being trained warriors - some even less than that.

I’m not sure how Radiant will square the coming jobs against the current combat job needs considering there are so many more job classes coming. I can’t supply my crafting needs and food needs without at least this line-up: 2x Farmer, 1x Cook, 1x Trapper, 1x Weaver, 1x Carpenter, 1x Mason, 1x Blacksmith, 2x Worker. That’s already 10 Hearhtlings and we haven’t even considered combat, plus I prefer to have 3-4 Workers at any time to make mining and landscaping projects come along in reasonable time. To support combat I need 1x Herbalist, 1x Cleric, 2x Footmen, 1x Knight just to get started. There’s another 5. Ideally I’d add a second knight and a second cleric to that too. So we’re talking 17 hearthlings to hit the stride. Until then, things are awfully tight and you have to make sacrifices - it seems like they’ve also made it harder to amass net worth and get new hearthlings lately, which means you can have hundreds of each type of resource you’re missing crafters for build-up in the meantime. =/

I kind of agree, levelling seems increadibly fast now. I would like a reduction as well, liked it better pre-patch.

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Yeah, the early game is about decisions, I agree. But that’s actually the reason why i enjoy it most, having one more farmer can save you or kill you, if it means not having that extra cleric etc.

On your comment with 20% soldiers is too much, you are surely right, from a historical standpoint. From a class split in stonehaerth though, more than 20% of all jobs are combat related, so that might justify the ratio.

I don’t know if that will hold true once all the jobs are in, though. There are a ton of crafter/gatherer jobs missing right now according to the development roadmap.