Hey all!
As you may have seen, in the unstable Alpha 21 patch we replaced the store with a new concept of starting loadouts. We’ve only had limited time to playtest the loadouts provided internally, so if any of you have thoughts on balance changes, feedback, or alternative loadouts that you think would be better, please let us know!
I’ve only had a limited amount of time to look at the load outs and only had the chance to start a game with one of them.
Load Outs
[details=Food] Good for beginners,
1 Farmers Hoe,
20 Berry baskets,
10 Carrot baskets,
10 Jerky,
10 Gold.
Total gold value using the old load out system, 460.
[/details]
Definitely the best load out,
1 Trappers Knife,
1 Footman sword,
1 Herbalist staff,
10 Berry baskets,
20 Gold.
Total gold value from old load out system, 350.
[details=Gold] For people who want to trade.
1 Weavers spindle,
12 Berry baskets,
6 Jerky,
100 Gold.
Total gold value from old load out system, 330.
[/details]
The balance
The trappers knife is an item that requires a mason lvl 3 to make and enables the player to get furs and food. The weaver (that requires just a carpenter lvl 1 to get) can then make defencive combat items giving your footmen more of a fighting chance and in some cases allows a player to have less footmen so they have more hearthlings for other jobs.
This is the only item in any of the starting loadouts that is 1) so hard to get and 2) has such a prefound impact on how the game unfolds.
So there are 2 options really to balance this out,
On a side note, 10 and 20 gold for the food and merchant load outs is an almost pointless amount of gold.
My suggestion is to balance out the current loadouts to the trappers knife standard.
My re-balanced load outs
1 Cooks Spoon,
1 Farmers Hoe,
10 Meat Stew,
10 Veggie Stew.
[details=Merchant]
1 Trappers knife,
1 Footman sword,
1 Herbalist staff,
10 berry baskets.[/details]
500 to 1000 gold,
The gold load out would have the most gold possible before it would be more than the first daily update.
What each early game trades person sells will need to be considered and maybe tweaked to make sure you can gain the same advantage as the other load outs.
Other possible load outs
1 Herbalist staff,
1 Clerics Tome,
15 Brightbells,
15 bluebells.
This load out is designed to enable the player to get a cleric almost instantly, allowing the player to need minimal footmen and equipment relying on heals to get though the early game.
Other than that all I can really think of at the moment is an assendancy in the dessert load out and vice-versa i.e. A load of the more scarce resources in each biome.
Sorry for the bad formatting, wrote this on my phone on the way to uni 
edit: reformated!
A loadout to cater to the Raya’s Children would be good because the current ones won’t work for the desert. You have to choose between having a footman (merchant loadout) or a farmer (food loadout) which really unbalanced the game. Not even the money loadout makes up for this as 100 gold cannot buy both the sword and hoe from the caravan.
I love how thematic the new loadouts are!
A couple of ideas for future loadouts:
"Nomadic Herders"
This would probably fit better thematically for Rayya’s or the future Northern Alliance, but could potentially be very useful for an Ascendancy player with the right planning. The bundle would contain:
The idea of this bundle is to give a leg-up towards the Sherpherd, but also to encourage a ‘camp’ opening-game as opposed to a rush to settle down. It would really work better if the cook profession was moved out from behind the farmer job, but still it only takes a couple of days to get a hearthling up to level 2 in farming if they have a high Mind so I think it works well enough. The player can spend some time setting up their food supplies, packing away produce for the next stage of the settlement, and then move away from their starting camp into a more permanent home once they have flocks of animals to provide food.
“Military Conquest”
This would be a loadout designed specifically for hard mode, so it puts a focus on survival rather than construction. You get:
While this might seem like a very generous starting loadout, in hard mode it will all be needed! Equipment for 2 footmen is really all you get in this loadout, with the option to give one of them a boost to an Archer as soon as they’ve levelled up, a few healing items to keep them alive, and a courage potion to help rally the town for that inevitable moment when there are too many monsters and not enough soldiers to cover all the gates.
The trapper’s knife, the shepherd’s crook, and the farmer’s hoe are the hardest tools to get in the Rayya’s Children playthrough. It would be nice if there was a better way to get them. The one loadout has the knife, but the other two have to wait for a carpenter - and a long time for the crook even then.
You can get the hoe in some of the RC starting shops/caravans (it will always appear, and more than once). But you might miss the chances if you don’t have enough money by then, having to wait for the carpenter. 
True, and I’ve missed it before, for a while anyway. 
However, the crook is still a long time in coming.
I think a military focused loadout is needed. I also like the loadouts of YetiChow, they give one tier2 tools, otherwise it takes mutch longer to get them. So the starting loadouts will have a bigger influence for the early game.
Perhaps it’s a little late to weigh in but I have been testing out the loadouts this week. I find that the only viable option currently for playing is the set with the trappers knife. This set has major advantages over all other sets and even in the desert you might just get enough critters to sustain yourself for the first trader to drop by.
I’d suggest the loadout is extremely unbalanced as it forces upon people choices with no real motivation behind it. It encourages roleplay but does not fix the issue we had with the store. Alternatively I do see a fix for the loadouts to make them more viable.
First off, if theres some cash in the loadout it has to be for a specific item you have to gamble on with traveller stores.
Second, you can’t distinct food between trapper/farmer as the farmer is the only viable solution to foodissues. Without farmers you are nowhere, there is not 1 person who goes to settle somewhere without farming tools. So add 1 farming hoe to all 5 packages.
Third a list of the 5 packages that would add the depth you were looking for by adding “loadouts”.
Farmers Hoe, Trappers Knife, Cook’s Spoon ( food based people who want to dig in and slowly play. This allows them to skip the mason early game at the cost of happiness and useful goods.Fix your own food !)
Farmers Hoe, 2 Wooden Swords, Clerics Tome ( military based, raiding style. Allows for a quick cleric at the cost of happiness over meat. Fix your own food !)
Farmers Hoe, Masons Chisel, Weavers Spindle, Herbalist Staff ( crafting based, economic and selfsustaining early game. Fix your own food! )
Farmers Hoe,box of exotic seeds, 100 gold ( For the people who prefer clean starts and want the true “thrown in the deep” experience. Fix your own food and tools!)
Farmers Hoe, 2 worker outfits,25 jerky,25 turnip,25 pumpkin,25carrot ( Workingclass people start.They get some food to start )
Additionally we would have to test if we don’t starve before the farmers get food done, but I will gladly help testing so we know how much food to add to every loadout.
With an eye on the future this would also allow for strategic multiplayer/coop choices. This list open to interpretation and suggestions are welcome ofcourse.
Cheers,
Maddy
I definitely would like to test these three loadouts in the Ascendency branch.
Here’s these;
Military Defense; 10 Jerky, 2 Wooden Swords, 2 Shields and 10 Gold. Basically to set people up with a good defense and don’t have to wait for the Carpenter to rank up. Good to have two soldiers early on so they can get that early EXP.
Iron Chef; 2 Farmer’s Hoes, 1 Cook’s Spoon, 1 Trapper’s Knife, 10 Gold. No food, but you can quickly get it and also fix the hearthlings up with cooked food early on.
Crafter’s Paradise; Mason’s Hammer, Herbalist Staff, Weaver’s Spindle, 5 Corn, 5 Hunks o’ Stone, 5 Silkweed Bundles, 5 Flowers. This way they can work for a short amount of time and still have some food to eat too.
Medical Breakthrough; Herbalist’s Staff, 2 Bolts of Leather (for the book), 15 Flowers, 20 Berries. Good for those who want to heal early on and get a fast Cleric.
Randomized; Gives a random loadout for you. For challenge/wanting to not pick since they all appeal to you.
Forgive a bit of setup to my answer… I’ll get to the Loadouts bit eventually.
I’ve only been playing Stonehearth since the release of loadouts. So as I understand it you have four main components that drive the early to mid game experience… Kingdom, Biome, Loadout and Class availability.
Kingdom seems to be the analog to race | species in other RPG type games. Ok, but if that is the case I would expect Kingdom selection to have a much greater impact than it does. I have only noticed it changing the order of a couple of class dependencies.
The Class system seems very janky. Please, pardon my frankness. I really don’t see the point in requiring somewhat-to-completely dissimilar class experience in order to access a class. It seems to me that Loadouts, along with merchants, should be the primary provider of access to the Talismans needed to unlock a class for a Hearthling. Additionally, there is no minimum attribute requirements for class entrance. That does not seem intuitive as a player.
Biome certainly impacts the early game due to resource availability. That’s good. I’d like to see more. I expect more will come with the NA and rabbit people? But certainly I could see Biome (and Kingdom) as modifying the likely hood of certain types of merchants. If it does so already these may need tweaked as it seems entirely random to me.
Finally Loadouts. Loadouts basically set up the path to stability - the order you are going to assign Hearthlings classes and what resources you are going to focus on. However, the Kingdom choice seems to automatically add a talisman as well (Saw for Ascendancy, Cutter for Rayya’s), making talisman inclusion in a Loadout less impactful.
Frankly I’d like to see starting talisman solely left to Loadouts, class dependencies flattened (no dual classes), Kingdom selection impacting Hearthling starting attributes, and attributes determining class availability. However, while I’m waiting for that 
I think you would be best served by having Biome selection determine the guaranteed talisman (Saw/Cutter) and then have loadouts that support play-style (one for builders, one for fighters, one for the acquisitive)
I can’t say I agree with everything you say, but it’s nice to have a fresh perspective on things.
@coasterpaul is more of a nice guy, but I’ll say what he doesn’t. Your look at the game is beyond wrong. Loadouts don’t matter currently as only 1 of them is viable. Biome does not impact your game as every map has it’s own fruits and resources all you have to do is know what those are in the certain biome. As there’s only 2 biomes, again you’re beyond wrong.
You do understand the races, but don’t seem to understand that the class order is so much important for the progress of certain races. As there will be beteen 3 and 6 races in the vanilla game this will be something that matters in the long run.
Talismans in loadouts = no game to play
I recommend you play some 200 hours before you start guessing at the options There’s many discussions about the thing in the game and reading those first could make you that much wiser.
Now I don’t mean to be rude, I do see your feedback and what it should represent. The issue is however that your experience in this game is lacking and you name things that don’t really work as such.
Feel free to question me or discuss the topic at hand, I am simply trying to identify the problems.
Cheers
Dear @Brackhar ,
I have played on all 3 current kits extensively, and I will gladly later let you know my findings
I personally agree with @Seregaer on the topic of kingdoms and loadouts, in this way:
It says nowhere when you pick a kingdom, what perks you get with them (carpentersaw/potters cutter) And then when you want to choose the loadout, you need to decide what classes you want to start of with. Why not make a loadout with the carpentersaw for example that only can be choosen if you have taken the ascendecy? and vice versa the RC? It would just feel more natural to have it on the same page of the book…
This however is information you can find out after just 1 game with each race. The lack of tutorial is not a reason to cut up the game mechanics in random bits that are practically non-existent.
Yes it’s confusing we don’t know Ascendency > Carpenter and Rayaa > Potter
No this doesn’t justify cutting up the game.
If anything this is a lack of tutorial and information, not as much a loadout issue. What you’re asking would then give every loadout 1 generic tool and not really change anything gameplay wise.
Hope to have explained properly.
Cheers
I see what you point out… But i still feel like its a strange way that talismans in the begining is given out. It has nothing to do with the gameplay maddy… It has something to do with how i percieve the loadout system.
In first instance I was talking about @Seregaer his post. Then I responded to you.
Could you explain how and why you see the loadout system as it is.
So the difference between the kingdoms is in fact just what starting talisman they have right? So we choose the kingdom to play after the talisman… then on the next page we once again choose what talisman we want to start out with…
Why is it the talisman that differs the two kingdoms? What if it was something else, a bonus of some sort, 2 extra wood per tree or increased chance to craft a fine item?
In my view the talismans would feel more included when they where all equals in the loadout selection…Just look at the issues with the trappers knife!
I am not sure how this would become more natural or logical in my view, but maybe something along those lines i just wrote 