Does anyone find the loyalty system fun?

[Pontiff]

Heya, this is not a "this system is bugged" or "nerf this" discussion :) i know quite well there's mods for it and such but i'm going for a vermintide style mortal empires campaign right now and one of the things that have turned kinda infuriating is the loyalty system, Not cause i ♥♥♥♥ up majorly but cause after a while when you control bigger amounts of lands, loyalty seems to drop faster than you can get it up simply through travel time to get to the next enemy, And i'm well aware of the self raiding but it costs turns, Is kinda lame as a mechanic in my honest opinion and only marginaly helps once your lord is on a losing streak from the arbitary system, And i just sat to myself wondering..Does anyone find this system fun? Does it add anything or is it merely a nuisance?

and before anyone brings up the dark elves, at least you guys got a hero to do something consistently proactive against it. Skaven's? Not so much except attacking yourself.. (nice flavour wise for lore at least i'l admit to that)

But yeah! Please front your arguments to why you think the system is fun to play with as i personally just find it well.."Meh" would be the accurate description, I don't hate it but i'm not really getting much enjoyment out of it either.

PS: it get's especially frustrating with radious's mod because army management goes through the roof and skaven suffer alot more than any other faction for it.(frickin' 12 army dwarves stampeding down my way and i can barely keep loyality up for 5-6 armies)

[Pontiff]

guys i think the discussion has gotten a bit out of hand, seeing people posting advice and stuff and very much stuff in relation to dark elves, this was in skaven's regard particiulary first of all (already made a note on dark elves in the original post and the difference between the two factions) and while advice is great it wasn't really what this discussion topic was about, it was "do you find it fun" as i agree with all of you on that lorewise it's super appropriate to skaven, I just wish we had maybe some more bonuses to counteract it as right now it just feels detrimental with little to actually give back. and nope not playing co-op either burningmime :) i'm not having a problem with it though as i said, Just want to know if anyone else finds it fun in it's current state (and hopefully CA can have a look at this topic and perhaps tweak it if more people agree with me that it at least needs some changes)

Now for some constructive critizism, i think it's a good system overall that's why i made this discussion. but specifically there's just one thing about it i'd like to get rid of, the passive loss in loyality. the -1 that just happens for no reason at the games whim. -1 from losing battles, taking their items away & events however? keep 'em in! they are great :D

Cause here's my argument, Yes skaven are known to backstab one another in lore but skaven are also craven cowards, They don't go after lords that do well all that often cause 1 cowardice, 2 if everything is going right. why bother complaining? their side is winning.

The reason i bring this up is cause instead of a fun win and you will gain stuff and landslide if you lose kinda system we are just faced with merely keeping things neutral, loss or the landslide. there's no winning to the current system.

[Jerroser]

I do like the loyalty system in concept and would like it if there were a few other ways to manage it as Skaven. Although thus far in my considerable time playing as the Darkelves I have never actually lost a general to lack of loyalty. Its inclusion definalty does make sense and adds a nice extra layer of complexity that was lacking in some way from the first game when managing your faction.

Although at the risk of getting crucified here I would like to see the sytem expanded on a bit further, perhaps so you will see it happen to the AI occasionally (while currently I'm not sure if it actually affects them). And maybe added to some of the other old world races it would work in, which might actually be a few. Since I can see it happening in Orks, Vampire Counts, Beastmen and Chaos to varing extents. Also making it so if breakaways last long enough they will actually try to properly expand and over take their origin faction.

[jamjarzalpha]

Originally posted by Pontiff:

guys i think the discussion has gotten a bit out of hand, seeing people posting advice and stuff and very much stuff in relation to dark elves, this was in skaven's regard particiulary first of all (already made a note on dark elves in the original post and the difference between the two factions) and while advice is great it wasn't really what this discussion topic was about, it was "do you find it fun" as i agree with all of you on that lorewise it's super appropriate to skaven, I just wish we had maybe some more bonuses to counteract it as right now it just feels detrimental with little to actually give back. and nope not playing co-op either burningmime :) i'm not having a problem with it though as i said, Just want to know if anyone else finds it fun in it's current state (and hopefully CA can have a look at this topic and perhaps tweak it if more people agree with me that it at least needs some changes)

Now for some constructive critizism, i think it's a good system overall that's why i made this discussion. but specifically there's just one thing about it i'd like to get rid of, the passive loss in loyality. the -1 that just happens for no reason at the games whim. -1 from losing battles, taking their items away & events however? keep 'em in! they are great :D

Cause here's my argument, Yes skaven are known to backstab one another in lore but skaven are also craven cowards, They don't go after lords that do well all that often cause 1 cowardice, 2 if everything is going right. why bother complaining? their side is winning.

The reason i bring this up is cause instead of a fun win and you will gain stuff and landslide if you lose kinda system we are just faced with merely keeping things neutral, loss or the landslide. there's no winning to the current system.

Just because you started the discussion, doesn't mean you get to control where it leads.
Some one else hadn't played a faction with the loyalty mechanic became interested when reading your topic, tried it out with Dark Elves, had some problems and myself and others discussed it with them (in your abscence).
That person then left feedback which was meaningfull to the topic. I don't see a problem with that.

But to get back to the topic.
I think the main reason it's not fun, for me, is because as I say it's only an occasional nuisance to me. I play aggressive anyway so generally my lords have high loyalty.
It's somewhat random nature can also be infuriating, particularly when the punishments can be so high (like the attrition Skaven get from loyalty dilemma's).

There's also a disconnect in way it works, in that winning battles makes someone loyal.
Logically I would have thought winning battles would make someone over-confident and more likely to rebel.
A mechanic where a Skaven lord who has done well would then have to return to the lord to be sprayed with the faction lords musk (swear fealty for other races) might be better.
As well as it happening when you enter the unit exchange screen, I think there should be an option to force the lord to leave his army. For lore resons maybe this should be a paid for kidnapping. Mechanically this would be the same as if the lord was wounded. The lord is replaced by a new recruit and you can't re-recruit the old lord for X turns.
All lord recruits would therefore start at 10 loyalty and that would gradually decrease with success and dependant on difference in power between their army and the main lords army.
I think that would offer a nice risk/reward without being too punishing or overly reliant on RNG.

[Pontiff]

Originally posted by jamjarzalpha:

Originally posted by Pontiff:

guys i think the discussion has gotten a bit out of hand, seeing people posting advice and stuff and very much stuff in relation to dark elves, this was in skaven's regard particiulary first of all (already made a note on dark elves in the original post and the difference between the two factions) and while advice is great it wasn't really what this discussion topic was about, it was "do you find it fun" as i agree with all of you on that lorewise it's super appropriate to skaven, I just wish we had maybe some more bonuses to counteract it as right now it just feels detrimental with little to actually give back. and nope not playing co-op either burningmime :) i'm not having a problem with it though as i said, Just want to know if anyone else finds it fun in it's current state (and hopefully CA can have a look at this topic and perhaps tweak it if more people agree with me that it at least needs some changes)

Now for some constructive critizism, i think it's a good system overall that's why i made this discussion. but specifically there's just one thing about it i'd like to get rid of, the passive loss in loyality. the -1 that just happens for no reason at the games whim. -1 from losing battles, taking their items away & events however? keep 'em in! they are great :D

Cause here's my argument, Yes skaven are known to backstab one another in lore but skaven are also craven cowards, They don't go after lords that do well all that often cause 1 cowardice, 2 if everything is going right. why bother complaining? their side is winning.

The reason i bring this up is cause instead of a fun win and you will gain stuff and landslide if you lose kinda system we are just faced with merely keeping things neutral, loss or the landslide. there's no winning to the current system.

Just because you started the discussion, doesn't mean you get to control where it leads.
Some one else hadn't played a faction with the loyalty mechanic became interested when reading your topic, tried it out with Dark Elves, had some problems and myself and others discussed it with them (in your abscence).
That person then left feedback which was meaningfull to the topic. I don't see a problem with that.

But to get back to the topic.
I think the main reason it's not fun, for me, is because as I say it's only an occasional nuisance to me. I play aggressive anyway so generally my lords have high loyalty.
It's somewhat random nature can also be infuriating, particularly when the punishments can be so high (like the attrition Skaven get from loyalty dilemma's).

There's also a disconnect in way it works, in that winning battles makes someone loyal.
Logically I would have thought winning battles would make someone over-confident and more likely to rebel.
A mechanic where a Skaven lord who has done well would then have to return to the lord to be sprayed with the faction lords musk (swear fealty for other races) might be better.
As well as it happening when you enter the unit exchange screen, I think there should be an option to force the lord to leave his army. For lore resons maybe this should be a paid for kidnapping. Mechanically this would be the same as if the lord was wounded. The lord is replaced by a new recruit and you can't re-recruit the old lord for X turns.
All lord recruits would therefore start at 10 loyalty and that would gradually decrease with success and dependant on difference in power between their army and the main lords army.
I think that would offer a nice risk/reward without being too punishing or overly reliant on RNG.

A bit overly hostile there eh? just trying to lead the thread in a certain direction :) no offense meant mate. cause it was devolving into the same "is loyalty broken" or "how do i do loyalty" thread which there are -several- of already. discussing wether or not it's actually fun as a mechanic? that's a new approach.

as for your solution approach? i quite like it as a thought :) perhaps a bit hard to implement over simply getting rid of the random "oh you lost -1 for no reason" thing they currently have.

[VoiD]

I don't really care about it, I played skaven, most lords come with 1 loyalty, so you get an event, accept everything and the lord turns loyal, never had one betray me on a legendary skaven campaign in ME and legendary DE campaign on the vortex, it doesn't really do anything in terms of gameplay.

[jamjarzalpha]

Originally posted by Pontiff:

A bit overly hostile there eh? just trying to lead the thread in a certain direction :) no offense meant mate.

I suppose what I posted could be read as being 'hostile'.
It wasn't meant as such.

What you posted was interpreted by me as being a little over-zealous.

Originally posted by Pontiff:

guys i think the discussion has gotten a bit out of hand, seeing people posting advice and stuff and very much stuff in relation to dark elves

Your referencing me there (as well as others, who just seemed to be trying to be helpful). Now for the most part i've been trying to keep things on topic when I've posted, but i don't really have anything more to say and I'm not just gonna ignore those that appear to need advive for the sake of keeping things on topic. Especially in a thread that seemed to be dying anyway.

I think you're a reasonable person, I took a bit of an exception to what you said but I don't think you were trying to be mean, and neither was I.

[guntoting_lawbreaker]

I love the Skaven but, the loyalty thing sucks.

[Locklave]

It's tedious and annoying.