Kingdoms thoughts.

[BravelilEngine]

Seems pretty cool so far. I like that we have access to all heroes, I think the Kingdoms over world map looks very cool. The custom difficulty is very nice to have. I wish more games would have that feature. I like that we have to defend the inns this time; it fits well with the game and feels more progressive then normal DD2.

However, I was really hoping they would have ditched the stagecoach for this mode, it's honestly the only thing for me that held back DD2. Also, I am playing on normal and a lot of the times I am just driving through nothing, with less events in between. The game can come off a little confusing as of what to do. They explain to fast, and vaguely, but I eventually caught on enough.

So far I say B+. I have to play more to fully understand the new mode better. Thanks for the free big update Redhook!

[Shiku]

Originally posted by Gal Kraft:

So yeah, so far my favorite stagecoach combination is Restorative stacking and production, and food loot +3 and stacking. Haven't landed on a pet yet probably shrieker (spend baubles on fatigue at hospital) or owlet (more production for fatigue items). Makes swapping teams less frequent.

Food production is such an mvp especially in combination with increased quantity (and stacking helps during meat quest). Rabbit is my preferred pet but if it's not there then Shrieker is indeed a very good pet for this mode as well.

Edit: Don't know if that's intentional or a bug but you can buff your off-squads with food and they will keep it indefinitely since the defense battles don't count as regions.

[Aria Kawa]

Some stuff I didn't liked:

-They implemented the relationship bar over everyone's heads in the inn, however this is still not visible when you have to make a choice in a node inside a biome (battle/assistance/curio). Like, duh, why not?

-The bounty hunter implementation was a bit disappointing, he got no skins aor alternative weapons. The lack of paths is somewhat understandable because he's supposed to be the "best at everything", but still feel a bit rushed

-In terms of presentation the final boss is a major letdown compared to confessions, even more if you consider that this mode takes much longer to beat

-No unlockables after you win for next runs

This is still a much better mode than confessions, I wish kingdoms were the base of DD2 back at launch. Imagine something like different maps and inns you have to explore while doing quests until you unlock the entrance to the mountain.

[Gal Kraft]

Everything is already unlocked, item wise.

[Aria Kawa]

Yeah, obviously. It would still be nice to have more unlockables for kingdoms, like skins for partisans or whatever.

Which reminds me, it has been nearly 2 years since launch and the origin skins are nowhere.

[Woldy]

Originally posted by Aria Kawa:

Yeah, obviously. It would still be nice to have more unlockables for kingdoms, like skins for partisans or whatever.

Which reminds me, it has been nearly 2 years since launch and the origin skins are nowhere.

they already get 3 unique models. each.

[Gal Kraft]

Originally posted by Aria Kawa:

Yeah, obviously. It would still be nice to have more unlockables for kingdoms, like skins for partisans or whatever.

Which reminds me, it has been nearly 2 years since launch and the origin skins are nowhere.

oh I see. Yeah. Skins are not my cup of tea, but I get the sense they might do something unique eventually. It's 1/3 done.

As for Bounty Hunter, yeah paths would have been amazing. I'm mostly bummed about the Finish Him nerf (no block ignore or execution 2)

[🟦💀🟦]

Completed one play through of Kingdoms and I really enjoy it so far. I love the roster management, map and quests especially. Definitely a good change of pace to Confessions, though I still prefer that game mode more.

As for the critiques, ...
- The Barracks is a mistake. It shouldn't be something you invest resources into as its a necessity to protect your inns, especially from late game lvl 3 raids. This tree made me hesitant to spend resources on other inn trees. I do not like games that do this as it ruins variety in choices.
The only solution I can think of is to have the Barracks be upgraded depending on how upgraded one tree of the inn is.
For example, if I upgrade a tree, lets say provisions, to 25%, I get conscripts (lvl 1 militia). Then I get lvl 2 militias if I upgrade a tree, lets say the hospital, to the advanced section. And finally I get lvl 3 militias when I get an inn capstone. Inns are definitely going to need a re balance if this is implemented, but I'm not to sure how it should be done.
- Militia variety. I think there should be more than just 2 militia characters. The militia fights get really stale after a while and having more of them would be appreciated. They don't have to be unique either. They can continue to be a remix of the ruin's skeletons and tangled army enemies and I'd still appreciate the additions.
- Roster choice. As of now, you can't choose which characters get placed in your roster when you start the campaign. I'd prefer to not have my roster randomized. I know its part of the difficulty, but at that point have this as a difficulty option.
- Poor menus. There is no way to manage the combat and trinkets of all characters at a camp and inn. I have to cycle the 8 heroes in and out of the 4 people sitting. Really tedious. Would like a "remove all combat items and trinkets from heroes" button similar to DD1 as well.
- Quests are vague. I got a lost doing the quests and had to look it up online to know what to do. I'd suggest having map markers or have a quest guide with stronger hints next to the sun icon in the kingdoms map.
- Region randomization. I do not like how the regions are fixed. This forces me to do the same region multiple times depending on where my sieges happen. I hope they make the map regions change either during the campaign or when starting a kingdoms file.
- Beast men backstory. This isn't a necessity, just something I would love to see. In DD1, the ancestor gives back story narration to all the bosses and enemy factions in DD1 to give them some character. I would love some form of this to comeback in Kingdoms, but sadly I don't think this is possible anymore. (Rest in peace June)

Hopefully Red Hook fixes these issues.
Despite this, I still enjoyed the game mode for what it is now. Much more than my recent replay of DD1.

[Pepsu]

I would remove stagecoach completly and make one city which would be your main base and few inns in this gamemode and give you an ability to choose missions like in DD1 or maybe like in XCOM and replace it with a choose your adenture style minigame or even giving characters walking animation in which you choose for example which path to take and just like in stagecoach you would encounter fights, loot etc. like in DD1.

Sieges suck. They should make them rarer but much harder and for example whole team of 12 characters would defend a city which would require you to make 3 teams of 4 characters in different parts of town that would fight different type of enemies when there is a siege and the game would give you soldiers when there is character missing because is busy doing main mission.

[Brad]

Originally posted by Pepsu:

I would remove stagecoach completly

I feel bad for the devs because It's seems like an almost universal player response is to hate the stagecoach. It's not a bad idea but just badly implemented. I would love to see an update overhauling how it works or is represented.

[Foxador]

Originally posted by Brad:

Originally posted by Pepsu:

I would remove stagecoach completly

I feel bad for the devs because It's seems like an almost universal player response is to hate the stagecoach. It's not a bad idea but just badly implemented. I would love to see an update overhauling how it works or is represented.

The problem is that the stagecoach doesn't really serve any purpose what so ever other than just being a means of going from point A to point B. You can easily have them just walking like the first game and achieve the exact same results

Originally posted by 🟦💀🟦:

- Poor menus. There is no way to manage the combat and trinkets of all characters at a camp and inn. I have to cycle the 8 heroes in and out of the 4 people sitting. Really tedious. Would like a "remove all combat items and trinkets from heroes" button similar to DD1 as well.

If all the heroes are at the same location, which I imagine you're referring to since you said that you're just swapping them in and out, it's actually a lot easier to just change all their trinkets on the kingdom map. Just right click whatever hero is on the same tile as your stagecoach and you're taken to their hero page like normal. From there you can just equip the items from your stagecoach onto them like normal

Mind you this only works if your stagecoach is on the same tile as the hero you're trying to equip, but it's a lot faster than trying to hot swap them in and out. Only works for equipping items or swapping skills already unlocked

[Aria Kawa]

Here's a thought of how the game could had been different if back at launch the core base of DD2 were like kingdoms instead of confessions:

The game is divided in chapters, each chapter has you travelling around a randomly generated kingdom with a different mission so you can unlock travel to the mountain at its center and the boss. While you travel, you also need to go around repairing inns and getting ready for possible sieges. Each chapter has different quests, with varying degrees of difficulty that you can choose to tackle. Finishing quests will permanently unlock trinkets, combat items and paths for next runs. Each chapter got an unlockable character after you finish it ---Ch2 unlocks PD, Ch3 unlocks Flag, Ch4 BH, Ch5 Crusader. You can play chapters again to beat quests that you had difficulty with;

The carriage can be used as a fast travel mode between 2 regions in the map on a single day, but using it means you'll skip interacting with curios, miss a ton of loot and get less mastery points on the road --- you also need to pay in trinkets/baubles. The travel is faster with less combat nodes, but you have to play the carriage minigame and if you bump onto way too many objects, you are forced into an extremely hard repair battle and all your heroes get 15% fatigue. Travelling on the carriage always move you forward, you can't travel backwards and visit more nodes

You can also have your heroes travel on foot one region per day --- which switches you back to corridor layout of DD1. Travelling on foot is harder and more stressfull, but the heroes can interact with curios, find more loot and attain more mastery points. Some rare enemies with indelible trinkets can be only found travelling on foot. You have the option to visit more nodes and even travel backwards, however the flame will burn faster the more time you take until you will be forced to fight a shambler or something worse.

Some chapters have quests with a time limit, which require you to use the carriage, others require you to walk around on foot.

[Narrowmind]

Gotta be honest, your ideas are respectable.

[daniloacacio]

Originally posted by HN:

Here's a copy pasta of what I just posted on another post:

Its... pretty poorly designed yeah.
Here's my case:
I got a party wipe. I got greedy, went for a boss, managed to kill it with 1 death, arrived at the inn, realized there was a siege, got wiped.

Ok.
The game then just decide I'm now on the other side of the map, with a bounty hunter.
And... that's it. No other teamates. I have 3 guys on the inn right next to it, but I can't just skip turn to let them come to me, I can't insta move them to the inn I am, I can't just decide where to to create my new party, basically the game wants me to just do a run with a single guy.
Why?

Did they never thought about what would happen if you had a party wipe?
The whole "you can move your guys like pawns on a the map" just doesn't work at all, outside of sending guys to defend a siege when your coach won't make it, but other than that it just feels weird and cumbersome (and it will only get worse and worse with each new classes added to the game).

Why not allow the player to have 2 coach, each with its own team?

Why do even crease a complex upgrade sister for the in, if It's only for that specific in?

Why do we need a fatigue system when the morale did the job perfectly well in DD1?
Oh, because you totally destroyed the moral with that extremely cumbersome and unwealdy relationship mechanic that never received the UI it deserved to ensure it can be tracked easily (why can't I see the NUMBER of relationship between two character when in an event that makes me chose which relation I'll increase/decrease?) and is now totally crumbling because you aren't just managing 4 people now, but a whole lot more than that.

It just feels... rough. And bad.

I never got wiped, but you absolutly can skip turns, so they can reach you. Its even a good tatic becausa it recovers Fatigue

[Connatic]

Originally posted by Foxador:

The problem is that the stagecoach doesn't really serve any purpose what so ever other than just being a means of going from point A to point B. You can easily have them just walking like the first game and achieve the exact same results

...

Hot take, riding on the stage coach saves a them some dev time. They don't need to make a good looking walking/running animations for every hero and new one they come up with.

...Why do we need a fatigue system when the morale did the job perfectly well in DD1?
Oh, because you totally destroyed the moral with that extremely cumbersome and unwealdy relationship mechanic...

Morale? You mean the old Stress mechanic? DD2 is a different game. They split it's importance with the relationship system, which is definitely just as manageable.

Changing stress all around for Kingdoms, and having it work totally different from Confessions, would be counter intuitive. Adding Fatigue was a perfect way to add back some of that "DD1" style stress management, without having to rework the core systems DD2 currently uses.

[Tactical Buttstrap]

Originally posted by Solid Son:

So is it better or worse than DD1?

I enjoy it more than the base game, but it's still infuriating and unfair, and not in a "tough but fair" way.
The game will still punish you permanently (for your run) with a knowledge check. if you don't know that X boss is strong against Y strategy, enjoy your free party wipe and getting sent back real world hours.

Losing someone in DD1 meant you lost a strong character but you still had some you could train up back at base that could fill the slot, and you could minimize the loss with using a lot of different characters so losing your best squad wasn't a death sentence. Losing someone in DD2 means that the game just chopped your hands off and is pretending like you can keep boxing, because the best you're getting is a random replacement with no synergy.

Unless you're playing Kingdoms and you just lose them permanently.