Northgard Conquest Mode Discussion Feedback Thread

[JayTwoPointOh [Shiro]]

Hi All,

We are in the process of collecting feedback regarding the difficulty of the Northgard Conquest Mode and would love to get some information about some of your experiences!

So, if you could drop a comment here detailing your experience level (new to the game, casual player, hardcore player), problems you had with the mode, improvements needed, specific battles that frustrated you (and specifically what the issue was) and the clan you were using at the time, It would be greatly appreciated.

If typing a bunch of info out sounds unappealing, we have set up two surveys to get some data based feedback that we'd appreciate you filling out if that sounds preferable to you.

If you played solo, fill out this survey[docs.google.com]

If you played co-op, fill out this survey[docs.google.com]

Thanks in advance guys!

[Taobaka]

I wish you could comment on missions in survey since some of them are really easy (even on extreme) with specific bonuses (e.g having -80% warchief cost, +100% damage to draugr/valkyries, free upgrades to shield bearers, Wolf clan makes Invasion from Helheim a walk in the park), but getting the same mission under different circumstances (playing the Horse clan with only a single starting bonus(the other mission is the infamous Yggdrassil map)) makes it quite frustrating to beat. Some maps probably should only appear in the second half of the conquest. A good option for yggdrassil map to have (if you are not intending to reduce the 3500 food cost on extreme) is giving a player a fixed bonus of silo's storage space.
In general, this mode is quite fun, hope to see more map variety added. :)

[vipersan]

Hello.

Will add some of my observations, regarding Conquest mode in no partcular order.

As for my Northgard background - currently at 270+hours. I completed main storyline on Extreme and have done all 30 battles of Conquest - some of them several times and different difficulties. I play majority of games in co-op with a friend (2 vs AI) or solo.

First and most important observation for me (and my friend) was, that even though it is a co-op game, we were almost allways very far apart at the start and with natural barriers on tiles between us. That feels kinda bad, since we did start co-op game but we were forced to do more than half time of each game basically solo (fending off invaders and environment attacks). Would suggest to revisit co-op map generation, so that there is no more than 3 tiles between co-op players and definitely no natural barriers. So it actually can feel like a co-op and we can help each other in time of need. And not to have to go through 5-8 tiles of wolf, draugar, valkyries and even Wyvern just to go help a friend.

The difficulty in some of the battles is quite high and almost allways very strongly dependand on map generation. If you don't get a lucky spawn, you're not going to make it. We found some battles very difficult on one maps and quite easy on another. It could use some balancing in that regard if possible. For example - there should be a fixed food tile next to starting tile. At least one. Had a game, with zero food tiles arround start point. Also - if you select a bonus of "+30% research speed and earning for exploration of Shipwreck, Ruins and Damaged house" - there is never gonna be a Shipwreck or Ruins anywhere near you. Feels like that bonus reduces the generation of those tiles for that player :). I dunno, maybe it's just me, but it really felt like that.

As a general (and often complained about on forums), would like to see some fixes in AI behaviour. It is annoying to watch AI cheat so obviously. Also - the general game mechanics should be applied to AI too, no matter what. For example - if Ai looses their Warchief, they often can get it back with almost no cooldown period. That is bad and not cool. Also building upgrades for example - AI can upgrade 5+ buildings from one stone node. And before you say: "they bought the difference of stones needed", I can asure you, that they did not. I work with data at work, so I do love to analyze and study statistic charts after a game. And boy - you can see so much wrong stuff there. AI usually can rocket their resource production right from start. In numbers, that are not even possible with same amount of population. I do not consider myself a great player, but I am not really a novice player either. So to see those numbers, that i am pretty sure, that no human can reproduce, it saddens me.

Also - there seems to be a bug on some conquest maps, that AI and even our units can traverse tiles through natural barriers (rocks, ocean and hidden - unexplored - tiles). Had my units go through dark tiles of ocean on "Inner Sea" map from one side to another. And seen enemy dragon units walk through rock barriers between tiles, like they are not there.

Would love to see the list of bonuses updated or expanded for co-op, as someone allready mentioned somewhere on forums. It is not nice, to see "this bonus is useless for your clan" message at the bonus selection screen. These should be fixed and use some bonus I can actually use. I know it's hard, with all the possibilites of different clans but still - after I've completed all battles I have a feeling, that the bonus pool is large enough to not use some of the "useless" ones. Also - please do add one more bonus for co-op Conquest. If playing solo and you get the option of picking one out of three possible bonuses is very cool, the option of picking two out of three in co-op campaign is not so cool. Would suggest you add one more. Again - I do believe that the bonus pool is large enough.

That is all the time, I can spare at this point :).

[Enjoy The Game [No War]]

The most difficult missions are the first 2-3, then bonuses help. For example, 1 mission for a dragon clan is unrealistically complex. I could not get through with 3 ex attempts (I played 700 hours in the game).
The first game for the deer clan is also difficult, 2 attempts to lose.
The first game for the goat clan is also difficult, with 3 attempts passed.

The easiest way to play for aggressive clans: a wolf, a snake, a bear.

Harder for economic clans.
It seemed to me that at the time of the release of the DLS, the NPS played much stronger than now.

The most interesting thing is to play for the wolf.

[Enjoy The Game [No War]]

False_PR0phET님이 먼저 게시:

My review as a hardcore player. Tryed all conquests on extreme, finished like 3 or 4 conquests on extreme so far. It´s great fun, but involves alot of map fishing for some quests, becuz else some r literally impossible.
My best example is the Goat, 1. mission on Extreme is pretty much impossible as far as i figured, You need 6 food tiles becuz of the upgraded Food storage building required to conquer the mission field.
Even if there r more food tiles than usual, you need to atleast fight and beat 1 AI enemy and probably fight another to get 6 food tiles, what means pretty much have to conquer half the map.
All that in 6 Years to complete so far has been impossible for me, Huge military, lots of stones for upgrades, pretty much fighting 3 AI enemy becuz u need to expand big and aswell saving several thousands of food while maintaining a big military is tough aswell.
Compared to all other extreme conquest quests i played and finished, this one is by far the hardest and still impossible for me. I probably sunk like 10 hours into it so far, Made it a few times to 5 food tiles with decent maps,
Another BIG thing is, the first missions of ALL the conquests i finishd so far, felt like 3x as hard as the entire rest of it, the last missions r usually a piece of cake, same as the most ones inbetween, Shouldn´t it get slightly harder with every step instead of starting with the absolute hardest Map on the conquest?

How did you manage to complete 1 mission for the dragon clan? Extreme difficulty

[Enjoy The Game [No War]]

Giraffasaur님이 먼저 게시:

I feel like a lot of the feedback revolves around the AI cheating loop.

What would happen if there was a challenging AI created that followed all necessary rules, without any cheating?

Yes, I understand that a player could exploit this. HOWEVER, it would be much more similar to the multiplayer experience, where other players can also be exploited.

If I could have one thing, it would be to have two different selections in both solo-play and conquest modes:

1. Select the difficulty of the AI
2. Select if the AI can cheat or not

The hardest conquest I faced was due to insane cheating AI. I'm not great at the game, but I cleared 9/10 scenarios on Extreme difficulty without too much trouble. The last one was an absolute pain, tedious, frustrating, annoying, stressful. Because the AI cheated in a 1v3 situation where they were almost exclusively using skirmishers that were overpowered in the scenario called Hostile Lands.

Yeah, if I could disable that, I would live this.

How did you manage to complete 1 mission for the dragon clan? Extreme difficulty

[KarasLegacy]

Just finishing up the conquest round for Stag (Normal), most of the maps I liked. I will say my favorite was the one where you get shipfuls of people coming in, because it makes the game pace the way I like it (I feel the base game is just too slow to get started).

Nothing stood out for me as particulary easy or hard, it just comes back to the zero tolerance that the game maintains. I feel that if I make any mistake I will just lose the scenario, I need to play things very tight in order to win.

[Corpserule]

Conquest Feedback.

Hey, me and my friend have been playing a lot of conquest, we love the gamemode, but we both have some gripes about it, I thought I'd summerise my opinions in order of what I view as important here, as well as discuss several ideas on addressing those issues.

1. Multiplayer Conquest Issues - We love to play the game as a team, but several things prevent us from enjoying the game when playing together.

Multiplayer Conquest games are almost unfinishable, since the game almost directly REFUSES to load certain missions, one player will join, and the other player gets stuck loading, this will happen 100% of the time without fail, reguardless of what we do to address it. I don't know if these broken missions are guarenteed to be broken if it's a certain type, but once a mission is found to be broken, it's stuck that way. An example, goat/stag conquest second red mission (swamps, building slots reduced), would never load for us, no matter how many retrys. Making the conquest uncompletable (unless the host player decides to solo it)

Multiplayer Conquest is Significantly easier than Single player conquest, (I guess it wouldn't be as much of an issue, if me and my friend weren't competent players. We always play on extreme, since extreme multi is much easier, we can't go any higher to compensate). We've talked about doing a "hardcore" multi run. where failing a single mission would end the entire conquest run, but we both still aren't sure if that's even hard, and the first issue (missions permanently breaking, unloadable), is a deterent from trying.

2. Backend Conquest Missions are too easy. I've finished 3/1/2 conquests, and played a lot of incomplete multi's, as well as gotten feedback from another player. And we both agreed that if you're going to get stuck in conquest, it's either mission 1 (wolf/dragon open) or mission 2 (first random). After that the game tries to rely on RNG too much to try and roadblock you, but normally, the combination of missions not varying too much in difficulty and rewards you get are more than enough to turn any late mission into an easy battle.

3. Rewards are very, very biased in power. The best reward is +2g / (+3g) . This is completely unmatched by all other grey/gold powers. Next is food / wood, after that it starts to get muddier and opinionated, I could draw an entire tierlist of the bonuses, but i'll save that for another post. Anyway, the presence of having this single benefit can trivialise most missions in the game, it can completely shortcut your starting build and is a game changer. This is an example of why mission 1/2 is where you get roadblocked.


SOLUTIONS (that i would like to see)


1. Just raise multiplayer difficulty, if the AI has to cheat more visibly, so be it, i think a lack of teamwork in the AI is responsible for the difficulty drop, players co-ordinate attacks, whilst the AI struggles to co-ordinate defence, when 2 players attack an AI, often no ally rushes to their defence, making it a 2v1. Stack this on top of 2p benefits, like feasts and trade (ai doesn't do this too well), the difficulty drops by at least a whole setting, may even be multiple, compensation is needed.

2. The Second pool of missions after the 2nd red mission should pool from a harder set of missions. It took me a while to notice that the sleeping bifrost mission, which I finished, was nerfed to be more reasonable. However, the original mission was well suited to be in the 2nd set of missions. (original was 4 years, no lore ever. opposed to 6 years, lore until colonisation) Other missions with a harder varient on the same set of rules would be well suited to being in this second set. Having a Hard version of every mission for comparison would be cool.

Having levels as hard as the OG Bifrost may make some missions impossible without the right bonuses on extreme, but consider - the difficulty IS set to extreme - If RNG roadblocks happen, i'm happy if it's par for the course on the hardest difficulty, players feel better blaming their game on bad RNG, gives them an excuse to not feel so bad about their skill. (including myself) It also raises excitement for replayability "can you imagine this mission as a gold mission, i'd like to see that". Is something I'd like to think at some point.


Also, another solution of note. Conquest follows a mission selection of 1-2-2-1-2-2-1 (choices along the line). This always makes the second mission of each set easier, since there's no change from the first mission, in addition to a bonus gained by the player.

I believe it would benefit more from a 1-3-2-1-3-2-1 model. Mathematically, this gets marginally harder. Imagine a scale from 0-1, with 0 being the easiest mission possible, and 1 being the hardest possible mission. averaging the random missions on the first set this way, you would get (probably) 3 missions, one of 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 difficulty (on average, there's probably an easier mission unlisted, a harder mission you can think of, so you end up with 5 points to evenly distribute.). Then you pick the 0.25 mission (since it's the easiest), after completing that, you get 2 new missions. These 2 new missions are a fresh random, so on the scale it would be 0.33, and 0.66. So for your second set, you're most likely going to have to pick a harder mission than your initial choice. this can make the second choice "a little less redundant" than it currently feels. As well as the player not getting roadblocked right at the start of the game, by offering 3 choices instead of 2.

3. I would prefer to buff all the weaker benefits in the game, rather than nerf the stronger ones. I think the gold can be nerfed, but the food and wood is around how strong I would want a conquest bonus to be. If you just nerf gold down to where it needs to be... (something like 0.25-4, food like 0.5-0.8), then your picks aren't going to feel very impactful anymore.

Choices should be noticeably powerful, as an interesting part of conquest is feeling like your choices both in-game AND on the conquest map, if the game's on extreme, i think making bad choices or bad RNG leading to an incomplete-able conquest is a better design compared to trying to compensate for any possible combination of powerups, which trivialises the later missions.

[DarkSetis]

I hardly disagree on some points. Doing some in multiplayer is very very hard almost impossible. I had a Bear conq where my friend was Wolf and we needed 4000 (or maybe 5?) food to colonise ygrdassil with 4 enemies against us. In 6 years. I literally owned half of the map, and there simply werent enough food tiles to get enough to even cap out (silos) the 4k NOT counting the constant harassment by the comp. This was in hard.
I had problem with mission 1 (boar) aswell on hard in mulriplayer, while extreme snake on solo was no problem.
On the buffs I do agree to some extent but I think that adds to the fun. If there were only OP bonuses all conq-s would be a breeze.

[Corpserule]

Me and my friend did that mission, its 3500 food to colonise it, admitably, it's one of the harder missions in multiplayer, but we still won it first try, it was our third mission. I know it's decently hard because near the end of the game, my friend admitted he couldn't get enough resources solo, so I had to colonise it, and cut down on my military (almost entirely depending on him) in order to procure enough food.

You know that upg silos hold 500 food right?, 6 tiles of food are required, and there's always going to be 6 tiles on a 4+ player map to get the food, we both attacked and killed an AI to get said tiles.

Keep in mind that the buffs i recommend for bonuses are compensated with increased map difficulties. Like i said, having noticably strong buffs IS part of the fun.

[JayTwoPointOh [Shiro]]

Awesome feedback, thank you! Do you mind if i merge this with the conquest feedback thread? It's good to have all this stuff centralized for our devs :)

James

[Corpserule]

sure, go ahead.

[Corpserule]

- I moved this here from a different thread, I had trouble posting it here initially
- I'm presenting it this way, because In order to present accurate results I need to fill out the survey like 6 times, and do not represent a common situation where I fail a mission and come back to it later
- Most missions have been finished at least 3 times, if not more
- Every mission is evaluated on Extreme.
- Played clans involve stag/boar/wolf/raven, for multiplayer, goat as well.
- I've laid out my opinion on later missions being easier before, as a hardcore player, who plays on extreme I find a lot of the missions easy, so the ratings are more to differentiate the missions from each other.
- If the mission isn't here, then I haven't done it, or can't remember any attempts on it

Difficulty Meaning
5 - I'm not confident about winning this mission with no bonuses
4 - A mission that will challenge me if it's right at the start of conquest, but I feel that I win given enough attempts
3 - A mission that's fun, I find it too easy, but others won't.
2 - A mission that's too easy
1 - A cakewalk

TRENDS

- In single player, if a player is against 3 AI on a team, that mission is far more difficult than other missions
- In single player the most preferable mission is a FFA game of equal teams (of one)
- VS neutral is between the two extremes.
- Gem Cutter is an exception

- In multiplayer, VS neutral is the hardest option
- 3v1s (6v2s) are much easier, but still harder than 2v2v2v2
- 2v2v2v2 is a playground assuming there's no ultimate objective, in which case I view it as a VS neutral.
- I was going to do each mission for multiplayer as well, but I'll only point out two special missions, as pretty much everything conforms to above.

Single Player

Difficulty 5/5

Call of Blood - 3 AI in a team is more than any clan can deal with, this makes the wolf's start unusually hard, being forced to deal with it Immediately, the AI often attacks with 2 armies on top of each other, making neigh unstoppable attacks. The only reason why the wolf can barely win is due to their ability to rush down one of the AI on year 2. This will flatline the wolf's economy, but with the reinforcements, they can stay in the game, and remove a second AI in year 3-4. Even still, the last AI gets so huge that he alone is a threat. It's hard fought through and through.

Gem Cutter - I've only been offered this mission a single time, but it still stings, as one of the last missions I finished in Stag Conquest. Admittably, Stag is ill-suited to finishing this mission, Getting penalised Immediately hurts a lot (not mining gems), when the player isn't making much profit, and investing resources in temporary relief (mining) often costs as much as it yields. You need to scout A LOT to find SOMEONE to trade with, which delays the effectiveness of stored gemstones, and all the AI are winning quickly offscreen... My opinion may be least suited for this, it was completed on my first conquest just after conquest came out (a long time ago)

Difficulty 4/5

Kobold Infestation - This mission showed up late on wolf, (other mission 7), and after fighting a horde of kobolds, I was surprised the AI had pretty good armies. I don't know if they are well suited to this map, but it gave me some grief.

Frozen Gates - This mission originally seems impossible, then you realise that the undead waves lose co-ordination after decolonising... you still have to take the decolonisation hit, but it feels possible at any point once you know that.

Inner Sea - At first, this mission seems harder than Blood moon, looking at the reasons given for difficulty. But in truth, The AI doesn't deal too well with having less land, and the timer is so long it's barely relevent, it's still a 3v1 though, and sometimes the enemies will co-ordinate attacks to monopolise this, so it's definately not the choice I want to pick, given a reasonable choice.

The Cursed - This mission is fun. I don't know what else to say. i kinda want to give it 3.5/5, but it's closer to a 4 than a 3, so i'll put it here.

Difficulty 3/5

Viking's Glory - When you're about to win the AI teams up on you, if you're not ready for it, you'll lose.


Dystopia - place too many villagers in one spot... try to beat all the ghosts at once and you'll lose, otherwise, not a problem. It's an easy trap to fall for though.

Myrkalfar uprising - This mission has a large amount of neutrals, watch as the map becomes impassible, I did this on wolf, all i wanted to do was conquer the AI... 7 rock golems says no. But there's no reason you cant beat this economically (lore ez win), I had a lot of bonuses for this (mission 6), it only showed up once, I won, so i can only estimate its difficulty, It wouldn't surprise me if this was a 2, or a 4

Greed's Price - The Entire game is "can i get the warchief onto the field", if you can do it, you win. Also having the conquest gold benefit makes this mission easy. The objective is very weak, but whether you can even support a single troop is in question.

Difficulty 2/5

New Settlers - Be willing to die off and restart your economy and you'll be fine... keep building houses to fit growth and you'll lose. Dystopia will end your game, new settlers gives you a chance to start over after sickness. this difference is why this is 2, and not 3.

Keep It Simple - This isn't a complete walkover - But even the stag can deal with not upgrading buildings... it might even encourage bad players to play better... it's an easier mistake to overupgrade than under upgrade.

Invasion From Hellhiem - I feel like my opinion should striken here, it's a mission i was offered first on wolf, and didn't even try until I finished the conquest. - I had too many benefits. Even still, i won this with a year to spare, maybe i could have even won in 2 years if I was forced to.

Difficulty 1/5

Too Many Wyverns - Normally the AI realises you're winning and starts targetting you. In too many wyverns you can either go from unnoticed to victory in the blink of an eye, or just conquest the AI instead. (the second is better)


Lazy Villagers - The game is about trying to make sure people aren't foraging in most cases, the game supplies you enough resources to do just that. you can colonise 3 food tiles pretty quickly. You just gotta make sure you limit your population cap, a mistake still probably wont end your game, unlike Dystopia. (this mission may place the player at an ADVANTAGE compared to normal) - This is definately a mission where being a hardcore extreme player helps though.

Swamps of Death - This mission is more annoying than challenging, I can see how expanding can make a player overextended

For Odin's Glory - Just kill the AI, then forge the sword.

Master Supplier - Is there any disadvantage... Isn't this purely an advantage?.

Bifrost - Literally went from a 6/5 Difficulty to a 1/5, i had to check old conquests in order to see the nerf myself. It now offers so much time you can casually stroll up to Bifrost, colonise it whenever you want, and still expect to win. Probably make sure you have 1 blessing first though.

(6/5 - I'm certain it's not possible without bonuses).

Multiplayer

2 Missions of note, both are ~3/5 relative to single player, other missions are closer to 1/5

Colonise Yggdrasil - This mission asks for an unbelievable amount of food in a short amount of time. Multiplayer missions are hard when you aren't fighting the AI, since only ONE of you can supply the food to colonise Ygg, your team-play has less of an effect towards the goal (it's actually a great mission for teamwork, but i you cant 2v1 the tree's food cost, it's feast at best).

Jotnar Invasion - Ok I'm at the end of this post, i can't load multi right now, and don't want to check for it's correct name. But it should be obvious which mission this is.

This is notable as the only mission me and my friend has ever lost. We lost because this mission is designed to make your economy fail as much as possible, with its high hostility and rapid invasions. But most of all, the giants die twice as fast as single player (invasions of 2 giants), meaning the game only lasts 3 years or so max, with a weakened economy, most things cant even make a profit in time. We won on the second attempt though, while it's hard to make a profit, the mission doesn't ask much of the player. I don't think of it as hard, it's more of a notable slipup

[Kerrigene]

It seems to me that some Clans got really hit hard for new and casual players. It makes some conquest really unfair vs more then one team. The AI seems to go almost always after you (the player) instead of other AI. I guess that would make more sense on harder difficulities but on lower it kinda makes me wonder on how to beat them. To make it worse if you play 1v2v2 on easy I would like to see more that the AI would beat up each other more then go 1v4. Kinda makes the game even harder on Clans that have been hurt a lot for new/casuals.

Also can we get less upgrades for Skirmishers for non Snake Clans? Please replace that for giving buffs for Clan specific upgrades. Makes it more enjoyable tbh.

[Vixxynn]

The first conquest stage for Kraken is nigh impossible and freakishly imbalanced compared to Bear clan. You are supposed to protect Jötnar against an allied front of 3 enemies who are all rushing to attack the Jötnar camps. I have tried so many times I now think its no longer fun.
Compare this to the last stage of Bear clan: Where you only had to deal with 3 allied AI's and had lots of bonuses you picked up in earlier conquest victories.
No criticism should be with a solution:

My suggestion is you place the Defend Jötnar stage later in the conquest stage.
AND/OR
Give a trade bonus
AND/OR
Dont make the AI's allies.

I don't object to the challenge, but the difficulty should have some sort escalation, not welcoming you with a trainwreck.

[Enjoy The Game [No War]]

Yes, I agree, comparing missions with each other, some become much easier than others.
  If you can’t complete 1 mission, lower the difficulty.
I played for the kraken clan at maximum difficulty, made friends with them faster than the opponents killed Yotunov, but I simultaneously fought with the opponents, distracting, destroying enemy units.