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I think that is an issue with the background, honestly. The benefit you get is super, super dependent on RNG. Both to even find beasts to slay and then for the bonus to even happen after the struggle. Meanwhile the downside to the background is a flat 10% increase in costs across the board. More expensive food, more expensive tools, medicine, armor, weapons, etc. You even benefit less from trading, which is an entire money source mostly useless to you. No matter what you will always be suffering that 10% penalty, but you'll only sometimes benefit from the bonus.
I feel like my suggestion for a discount at the taxidermist would benefit this background a lot. You'll ultimately lose more money than you'll save by virtue of the cost applying to the vast majority of your purchases, but the cheaper potions and nets will at least soften your economic burden while also strongly encouraging you to rely more on beast hunting.
Sure, it may still be RNG to find the beasts to kill and to get that loot, but you'll always reliably be able to save money turning that loot into something useful.
I'd really like to use my Unhold fur to make cloaks, but the expense of tools, food, medicine, etc all being higher makes that 500 gold cost really unattractive to me. Especially when I feel like I need to sell all the loot I get to break even with the penalty.
But this is all just the perspective of someone who's RNG is being very, very stingy.
Rename the "Beastslayers" origin to "Witch Hunters" origin, start the game with Witch Hunters instead of Beastslayers (as Witch Hunter backgrounds tend to imply that people don't like them due to their brooding nature and extreme methods) and, instead of a 50% chance of additional trophies, make it so that there's a 50% chance of a unique type of trophy that only this origin can obtain from every encounter with beasts. So this special trophy would essentially sell for a massive price, could be used to create special "Witcher-esque" potions (that apply permanent buffs to those who drink them) and obtaining them would instantly boost your renown by, say, 50 points upon obtaining it.
This would make the game feel both challenging and give more of an incentive to hunt for beasts, other than rather disappointing trophy drop chances. It would also make more sense from a lore standpoint as to why prices are so low: you are literally a form of Inquisition that utilises items of power harvested from beasts to make yourselves into beings that are arguably more monstrous than the beasts themselves.
What is everyone's thoughts on this? I know it's a bit far fetched, but hey, the Cultists have a huge amount of great, game-changing stuff in their campaign, so why not the guys that have to kill these creatures?
I like where you're going with this, but I like the Beast slayer concept so would just like them to balance and tune it accordingly.
Your idea would be a nice addition if they added a specific Witch hunter mode. Along with some of what you said, maybe it could have some benefit to crossbows and the typical higher resolve of Witch Hunters. Or maybe a buff against Hexes and Alps.
Right now I look at it as: Hunting beasts gives me a better chance at obtaining trophies that I can use in crafting/selling. I get 10% worse trading prices, which can make it harder to trade or break even on loot value/repair value/hire new brothers. I can see tracks from further away, which means I can hunt down rarer beasts like a lindenwurm much easier.
But here's the core issue/problem: It just gives you incentive to hunt beasts and not a very good one at that. It's literally a challenge run if anything and that might be "okay." But in all honesty it's kind of crap. There's no incentive to hire beast slayers, which can sometimes be hard to get/rare to find. There's no incentive to craft the trophies as the resale value is garbage. Using the Taxidermist = expense with a negative trade off. You're better off selling the raw materials which do not sell for much, and are further exacerbated by the "prejudice" modifier.
What could be done/should be done: Make finding/hiring beast slayers easier. Keep Expert Tracker. Adjust prejudice modifier to be: Hiring other backgrounds such as: Witch Hunters, Beast Slayers, Flagellants, Gravediggers/Robbers, Poachers, Thieves cheaper. But Hiring other backgrounds much more expensive, due to distrust. Allow beasts to have a chance at dropping extra trophies.
That can enforce a gameplay dynamic, that breeds both challenge and a unique playstyle. What I suggest might not be to some people's liking, but I firmly believe the Beast Slayer origin could be x10 times better than where it currently stands.
Making the drawback something you can avoid by making concessions in your playstyle would be a big improvement. Either by making some backgrounds more expensive or perhaps making certain services more expensive. Maybe drinks at the Inn cost more but you get a bigger morale boost than normal after killing beasts.
As is you cannot avoid the negative of the background at all but may not experience the boon, which is a big problem from a design standpoint.
As for changing it to Witch Hunters, I disagree. Witch Hunters don't hunt beasts so the beast slaying mechanics wouldn't make any sense. Witch Hunters hunt witches. Mostly by lynching women in towns and burning them at the stake. I do think a religious background could be cool though. Maybe start with a witch hunter and three monks and have mechanics based around looking for heresy and driving out Davkul cults.
Pretty much what I was thinking as well. I started a thread in the suggestions a few days ago. It wasn't Beast slayer specific but it would help with this problem. If we could actually craft items and sell them for a profit it would really help out with the economic situation.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/1651045226212760925/
Some of the origins are supposed to be harder than others. I agree that -10% prices makes it quite tough, but this is the only origin to have such a penalty, making it challenging in a unique way.
Maybe this also helps open people's eyes to why Beginner Economic Difficulty essentially removes half the challenge of the game.
Nor does the current set up actually encourage you to use consumables more. In fact quite the opposite, as you need to sell your beast mats to compensate for your otherwise weak economy. For it to really guide players into focusing on potions and beast tools you'd need something like the taxidermist bargain I talked about before. Cheaper potions, armor upgrades, and nets seems like it'd be a decent counterbalance to the increased cost of everything else, but only if you heavily made use of them.
I'd also argue that simply making everything more expensive across the board isn't a fun way to increase the difficulty, nor does it fit into the fantasy of playing as a band of beast slayers turned mercenaries. When I think beast slayer I don't think "struggling to buy tools and equipment". I think actually hunting beasts. Getting more loot from beasts is nice and thematic, but it is poor compensation for the huge upkeep cost increase.
If any background thematically increased the economic challenge it should be Northern Raiders or some sort of Den of Thieves or Bandit Lord background.
As someone who cleared crises on Beast Slayers even before the trophies buff, it's not nearly as hard as you're making it out to be. IMO all of the 2-skull origins are intended to be "challenging" in unique ways, and the only thing that's uniquely challenging about the Beast Slayers origin is it's the only one with a built-in crap economy.
The idea behind the ridiculous number of trophies you now get from killing beasts (way more than you used to) is that you both have enough to sell and to make trophies. I had more than enough to make lots of trophies even before the buff and it's just silly now, so that's another line of reasoning out the window.
Although I don't think "the economy sucks! woo!" is the most thrilling penalty, I didn't dislike my experience with Beast Slayers and I found the economy fine (on Expert / Expert / Low / Ironman) by around day 80ish. You just get so much money from contracts at that point that it's hard to do badly. Also, if you know how to size up cities and improve relations, you get much better prices in the long run too. (Further note that this was on a totally random seed and I was biasing myself more toward hunting barbarians than beasts, so it was hardly a fine-tuned run.)
Northern Raiders is probably one of the easiest backgrounds economically, and their loot droprate seems reasonable given you're stuck on one faction for much of the game.
Also, I don't think it's right to expect people to share a mindset on a game with you. The origins are there to provide different experiences, which is why they exist. If this was a game made purely for the challenge then there wouldn't be difficulty ratings or modifiers. We are discussing a way to make this particular origin less generic and more fun.
Beastslayers get absolutely nothing that changes the way you play and that is what we want to fix. I don't even play on Veteran difficulty because I just want a fun RPG experience. I feel that a lot of people here feel the same or at the very least aren't complaining about the difficulty, moreso they are complaining about the lack of fleshing out this origin has.
I disagree, there's nothing unique about having your trade quality cut. I play Vet/Vet/Medium/Ironman, because I enjoy the scaling of Veteran. My problem with the origin is not the difficulty, it's the fact that the origin lacks flavor or fleshing out. That's the issue I'm picking at, not the fact that difficulty of it is "hard."
If the Origins were to be designed as challenge runs, we would have something similar to Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead "A Really Really Bad Day" start. Or maybe, Project Zomboid's presets of how the world has gone after 6 months of a zombie plague. But they're not designed at all as such, not from what I can see/tell.
If a "terrible" economy is going to be built into an Origin, it needs to done in a way that isn't half assed or boring. I believe there's a much more meaningful way to affect a player's economy than the current provided route.
My suggestion from above was:
Expert Tracker: Good, keep it.
Make Beast Contracts more available. Only the insane take on the wild.
Prejudice Modifier: Hiring other backgrounds such as: Witch Hunters, Beast Slayers, Flagellants, Gravediggers/Robbers, Poachers, Thieves, Raiders, Wildmen cheaper. But Hiring other backgrounds much more expensive, due to distrust.
Allows Beasts to have a chance at dropping extra trophies. Frankly, the % chance before the buff was fine.
How expensive are the other backgrounds? 20% more expensive. The backgrounds I listed for cheaper ones are 15% cheaper. So if you want to hire a Hedge Knight, be prepared to take an even bigger hit at your cash reserves. This affects who you can hire, and how soon you can hire them. It can set a theme for your entire company, just how Peasant Militia does.
Why would you pay that Hedge Knight 20% more? Because he doesn't want to be cocooned and dissolved by spider acid or fears dying in a very "inhumane" way by ghouls, etc. At least with fighting Orcs, Goblins, Humans, and the Ancient Dead you die by the blade not by the jaws of the enemy.
By affecting the backgrounds, you've affected how the game is going to turn out. You will have to improvise with other backgrounds or adapt in a way that doesn't require you to have those backgrounds. That is meaningful to both your economy and to the core of your game/story. Not -10% worse trading prices.
Now with the update to better sale prices on beast trophies will help a lot too. At least I can afford to do stuff now.
Another thing I noticed. I thought all loot on the battlefield automatically went into the loot screen after the battle. Apparently this is not the case, so I guess you need to try and pick them up during the battle.
I just killed a Barbarian king and moved my guy over the corpse and saw the big old rusty axe. I couldn't pick it up because my inventory was full, coincidentally that was the final round and it did not show up in my loot screen. Too bad because I think they sell for over 400 crowns.