KickStarter Kingdom Come: Deliverance - Dan Vavra's medieval chad simulator

[Wunderbar]

I wish Kuno from BoB wasn't so fragile.
Bastard kept dying in every fight, and during the final showdown against Hagen I had to reload last save like five times.

Finally managed to finish it with Kuno standing, and guess what? He died shortly after because of blood loss.
Veteran mercenary, my ass. Doesn't even carry a spare bandage.

 

[Quillon]

In medieval times did people really open their shops/go to work at 8 am? Didn't they use daylight to the maximum extend and go to sleep way earlier?

 

[RK47]

Dude, this game has issues with sleeping NPCs.
You can try WHISTLING IN THEIR EARS and those goddamn slavs would still be asleep.

 

[Smejki]

In medieval times did people really open their shops/go to work at 8 am? Didn't they use daylight to the maximum extend and go to sleep way earlier?

Yeah, the game got it wrong. And honestly, this is a relict from alpha/beta times, when our daylight simulation was CryEngine default - 12hrs of light 12hrs of night with sun on a simple circular trajectory.
Nobody noticed until very late and we then deemed the fix too potentially dangerous as it would change daycycles in the entire world.

 

[Quillon]

I just remembered someone telling(can't remember who) that they woke up & went to bed really early in a village with no electricity in 20th century so...

 

[Smejki]

Ah, no, you were right. People, especially during summer time, really got up with sunrise and went to bed shortly after dusk.
By "this" I meant the current state of the game. It really is wrong.
It's 8am, daylight since some 5am, and the fukken apothecary still hasn't opened his shop. I'm bleeding, yo!
(edited the previous post)

 

[Wilian]

Dude, this game has issues with sleeping NPCs.
You can try WHISTLING IN THEIR EARS and those goddamn slavs would still be asleep.

Have you ever met a slav?

 

[deama]

aweigh , would a gsync/freesync monitor be better or the fast sync + scanline sync combo be better? Assuming we can keep the game at a constant fps easily?

 

[aweigh]

aweigh , would a gsync/freesync monitor be better or the fast sync + scanline sync combo be better? Assuming we can keep the game at a constant fps easily?

Obviously a gsync monitor is better because it will dynamically change the display refresh rate to match the fps, thus ensuring they are never out of sync; whereas on a regular monitor if you get a sudden FPS drop then it will go out of sync, i.e. if you maintain 60fps at 60hz, and it drops to 55fps, then you will get momentary stutter.

The only reason I haven't bought a gsync monitor is because I want to upgrade my GPU first, otherwise I would already be using one. In the meantime, using custom refresh rates for different games so I can more easily maintain target FPS and always keep it synced does suffice, technically speaking there are no problems if I don't encounter a sudden FPS drop, but honestly who can foretell the future? You never know when something in the game will cause an FPS fluctuation.

And, btw, you would still need to enable vsync or scanline sync on a g-sync monitor! Another common misconception. Gsync/freesync doesn't vsync, you still need vsync enabled along with the monitor g-sync.

 

[deama]

And, btw, you would still need to enable vsync or scanline sync on a g-sync monitor! Another common misconception. Gsync/freesync doesn't vsync, you still need vsync enabled along with the monitor g-sync.

Why would you need scanline sync on a gsync monitor? Doesn't scanline sync just locks fps to monitor's hz?

 

[agris]

No deama you’re describing regular vsync behavior for a 60 Hz monitor.

 

[aweigh]

Just wanted to say this game is fucking amazing. Was gonna write a whole post sperging about it but got tired of typing halfway through.

The way the npcs are schedueled, how they behave, how the world feels to travel, it's fucking incredible. The moment I knew I was "fully immersed" was when I went riding from the Monastery to do the House of God quest and along the way I stumbled across unmarked graves with treasures in them, 1 ruin with a hidden chest, burnt-out villages with bandits in them that i had to avoid, some bandits that tried to waylay me, and even ran across a beggar walking alone in a forest who asked me to stop; when i stopped and talked with him he was selling me wares.

I love that inside Rattay I was walking across the street and I peered inside the grocer's window and actually saw him conducting a transaction with a town villager, and in another occasion I stumbled inside a shop and was able to use the opportunity of the NPCs trading with themselves to steal stuff when they weren't looking.

I love walking through one of the forests and taking everything in as I'm on my way somewhere and deciding to hunt game in order to sell the meat for profit, or get hides for one of the tanners. Also... I think I love the combat. I can't believe I ever thought it was bad or clunky, cos I fucking LOVE it now that I'm giving the game my full attention.

This is the only game where I've ever allowed myself to indulge in "virtual LARPing". I'll intentionally seek out how the game wants to be played and try to meet its expectations instead of the other way around, like how I'll go out and hunt some game for food or for profit... even though I could just pick some herbs instead and sell them for probably more money and in less amount of time, or ignore the fact that there's a food pot every 5 feet; stuff like that.

Yes, I know the seams show, I know that that transaction between the trader and the villager is completely decorative and that it doesn't serve any function or purpose, but I still appreciated it, and the fact that I only glimpsed it by accident as I was walking by the window probably enhanced it. Yes, I know that beggar I found traveling through the forest is probably set to spawn at the same places throughout the world map, the same NPC, with the same wares, there's nothing special about it, but you know what? I still liked it. I didn't expect it and it was cool.

But the one "random" moment that happened that I think was truly legit was this one: so I finally arrived at the village where the Monastery is and I'm riding my horse to the place, through the village, and SUDDENLY I hear "Hey Henry! HEY! Henry" and I'm like, what the fuck? I turn around and standing there by the entrance to the tavern is motherfucking Fritz and the other guy. I know they will always be there, it wasn't a "random" moment, they spawn there, but it was the combination of the way they called out to me as I was passing by that I really liked, as I didn't *see* them, they saw me, and it was the AUDIO of them CALLING OUT to me as I passed by that made me find them. I really fucking liked that moment.

So yeah, you can see the seams and you can see the strings, but the game still manages to work everything to its advantage. One woodcutter's camp looks the same as the next woodcutter's camp, sure, and I know the NPCs share the same stock lines, but it still works out in the game's favor. It's the only open world game where I think using fast travel does the game a disservice, it is the only game of this kind where I think the play experience is made better by hoofing it on your horse.

EDIT: Another "emergent" moment for me was when I was traveling somewhere I had to find somewhere to sleep for the night and I randomly found this Miller and I stumbled across two NPCs talking about how they had a Cuman trapped inside. Nobody had said anything to me about any of this, I stumbled upon it completely by chance, and it was a fun quest. The only reason I experienced this moment was because I wasn't fast-traveling and because I was actively looking for somewhere to sleep, a really emergent moment that paid off in the game's favor.

Man this is the kind of post I would make fun of when people would sperg out about their virtual LARPing when Oblivion came out ^_^;;

 

[AwesomeButton]

I'm having the same experience with RDR2 nowadays. I know what you mean. It's really so cool that we have two recent games that provide this kind of experience, set in different historical settings, and with such production values at the same time. It's quite a, well, privilige to have such variety, when you think about how games were.

 

[deama]

Anybody recommend any mods? A while ago someone mentioned a mod that increases cuman/bandit spawns, which I thought was a good idea as there were surprisingly few bandits/cumans (I never used fast travel).

 

[aweigh]

Anybody recommend any mods? A while ago someone mentioned a mod that increases cuman/bandit spawns, which I thought was a good idea as there were surprisingly few bandits/cumans (I never used fast travel).

I'm rolling w/:

- roads are risky
- instant herb picking
- volumetric fog shadows enabled
- fix sharp shadows + fix shadow pinholes (increases shadow cascade settings regardless of shadow setting)
- all lights cast shadows (makes all lights cast shadows, normally only enabled on 'very high')
- ambient occlusion fixed (enables AO on all shadow settings, normally AO only enables on 'high')
- early bird npc's (makes npc's wake up earlier)

as you can tell most of those are cosmetic or graphics-related. the game itself, by default, doesn't really need many mods from what I can tell. There's nothing "broken" that needs immediate fixing. If anything maybe use mods that make it harder? harvesting herbs is a little bit OP, but it's the only thing that makes making money bearable in the early-game.

 

[Wunderbar]

Herbs are way too cheap to sell, it's not worth hauling them.
Never had issues with money even in early game - you can always steal stuff from easy chests or poach game. Even playing dice gives you more money than selling herbs.

 

[RK47]

If you want money u can just win the archery competition for easy 20 - 60 gros.
I have that Talmberg sidequest bugged again.
NPC told me to wait for his signal before kidnapping someone but the signal never came even after I waited 2 days.
Then the game failed me on 3rd day.

The best moment is still me promising myself not to stop for any 'needy' NPCs on the road cause they might be bandits. But this time it was the cry of a woman that made me stop and dismount big mistake - 4 armed peasants with 2 dogs emerge and proceed to kill me before I can quickly mount and ride away.

 

[Wunderbar]

I'm nearing the end of the game, and i have a few things to say about what i want to be improved in KC2.

On combat

Spoiler

Duh, everything has already been said about combat system - it's designed around fighting one on one, while 90% of encounters are "Henry vs a minimum of 3 bandits". Personally, i think that the combat was intended that way: instead of participating in janky fights player is supposed to run away from ambushes, and use stealth/bow/poisons when it comes to clearing camps.

However, running away is not cool, especially for a such a badass experienced knight like Henry in KC2. KCD already features a way to manage 1 vs 2 fights (player can command his dog to attack one guy while fighting the other one), KC2 can further expand it by adding <s>a pack of dogs at your command</s> an ability to temporarily neutralize some foes while focusing on the main threat (a shield bash on a cooldown, that only works on low-level peasants?). Another thing is something like a group style from Witcher 1 - maybe a perk that allows you to deflect strikes from every direction.

Enemies can be divided into better-defined tiers by AI - cowardly peasants will attack you by taking turns (like with "Dreadful" perk), bandits and mercenaries instead of directly attacking you all at the same time will try to distract you and the stab in the back, and only soldiers (guards, cumans) will use military tactics such as flanking, etc. Tiers can be also differentiated by NPC's skills - for example, only bandits will use poisoned weapons (so when ambushed, player with no antidot in inventory will have a strong reason to just run away), or only rare knights will use masterstrikes (which will make combos actually useful, since in KCD using combos was a sure way to get yourself masterstriked).

On progression

Spoiler

Due to nature of TES-like skill progression, Henry easily becomes a master of everything by the end of a game. Currently there are several problems with character progression:

1) a lot of perks seems useless while others are way too good and a no-brainer to pick. I blame the abundance of skills, guess devs aimed for goal "every skill must have at least 10 associated perks!", then they've spread perks thin and ran out of ideas or time. For KC2, Reading skill can be removed and some of its perks can be transferred to Speech, some other perks can be buffed, merged together or removed/weaved into skill progression. KCD wasn't some slasher with a huge emphasis on combat, so there is no need to have a ton of combat-related perks. Similarly, KCD is not a hardcore survivalist sim, so i don't think there is a point in having a ton of survival-related perks like Ascetic/insomniac/contemplative, especially since some of them just flat out remove certain mechanics.

2) perk points are exclusive to a skill, which on one hand means that player can't buy an alchemy perk after levelling sword fencing (hi skyrim), but on the other hand it makes decision making easy considering the first problem. There are also enough perkpoints to buy almost every perk in a perktree, the only thing you decide on is the order of unlocking. And there are some good mutually-exclusive perks like Burgher/Savage, but there are too few of them. Because of all that, every endgame Henry is the same.

For KC2 it would've been great for every skill to feature at least two different perk paths - for example, Bow can be used as a nuke/sniper weapon (slow but powerful longbow, after acquiring longbow sniper perks player will get, i dunno, a crosshair, or an arrow trajectory) or as a low-damaging but fast-firing weapon (small recurve composite bows that gives you a great mobility). Defence skill can have mutually exclusive perk paths about better dodging while wearing light armor / tanking hits with plate armor / using shield; Alchemy can be divided into poison-making / buff-potion brewing; Drinking can be about becoming a functional alcoholic (bigger buffs while under effect of alcohol with penalties while sober) or about resisting alcohol and other poisons.

3) Another problem with character progression that is somehow apparent in KCD is that skills can be upgraded by repeating some simplistic actions (praising your dog and giving him meat, dulling and then sharpening a sword on a grindstone, etc). I've always wondered why TES series did not introduce reduced xp gain from grind - they've already added Novice/Apprentice/Expert tiers in Oblivion, it would've been nice to tie those tiers to xp gain (as soon as you hit apprentice level you can no longer learn from crafting shitty iron daggers, as soon as you hit expert swordmaster you can no longer gain xp from slashing regular peasants and low level daedra, etc). Something like that can be implemented in KC2:
- Bow 1-5: can be levelled by target practicing;
- Bow 6-10: can be levelled by participating in archery contests;
- Bow 11-15: can be levelled by hunting and actual combat;
- Bow 16-20: can be levelled only by shooting opponents from a large distance or by scoring headshots.
Now, something like that could've been already implemented in KCD for certain skills, i've never tried experimenting and looking at a skill progress bar. As of right now the system is already superior to TES because you gain xp from doing quests in a certain way (+ Stealth xp after escaping from Talmberg by using guard disguise), but there's still room for improvement. And the issue of overlevelling and turning game into a cakewalk can be avoided by gating latter tiers with NPC trainers (like in piranha bytes games).

Minor nitpicks

Spoiler

- Charisma was woefully underused in KCD, given the amount of charisma-related mechanics (potions, equipment, perks). In most cases using Speech was better.

- Economy is broken. Everything you loot worth a lot and weights little, merchants have a ton of groshens if you're a constant client, and there is no money sink (even after restoring Pribyslavitz i still had a lot of spare money). During a war time with bandits and looters running around everywhere, looted armor and weapons shouldn't bring you so much money imo. Broken economy kinda ruined a lot of aspects of the game - playing dice, participating in contests, poaching, haggling, asking for reward - everything became useless.

- This may sound controversal, but i thought there are too many numbers and minor stats - the game could've use some streamlining. Why have Slash/Thrust/Blunt stats on your sword, if Blunt will be always 1-2? Why not just have two stats - Swing and Stab (since swing always deals slash damage in case of swords and blunt in case of maces, and stab always deal thrusting damage)? Every piece of equipment has a noise/conspicuousness/charisma number, but it'll be better for an item only to have a single label without a number - I've never bothered comparing those numbers anyway, every time I had to stealth i just removed armor. For example:
"Milanese chestplate"
*noisy;
* shiny;
* gives charisma.

- There is not much point in having so much equipment slots if all pieces of equipment just give you same armor/charisma/stealth stats. As i said above, equipment can be streamlined - clothing will only give you charisma bonuses, gambesons and coifs only give you buffs when weared in combination with proper armor, and plate/mail/brigandine gives you real protection (with charisma bonus if you chose beautiful shiny plate, and charisma drawback if you're wearing some ugly-looking mail looted from a bandit).

- for such a realistic game where your peasant Henry can't fight or read at the start, KCD surprised me with the lack of armor-wearing skill. It takes training to properly wear plate armor, but you can just equip it as soon as you find one. Having plate armor gated behind perks will make character building more diverse, since some players may opt against plate and will use lighter armor.

- it bugged me a bit that horse saddlebag doesn't count as your inventory, and every time i've put a quest-related item (like a poached game) on my horse i received a journal notification about no longer having said item.

 

[deuxhero]

Why have Slash/Thrust/Blunt stats on your sword, if Blunt will be always 1-2? Why not just have two stats - Swing and Stab (since swing always deals slash damage in case of swords and blunt in case of maces, and stab always deal thrusting damage)? Every piece of equipment has a noise/conspicuousness/charisma number, but it'll be better for an item only to have a single label without a number - I've never bothered comparing those numbers anyway, every time I had to stealth i just removed armor. For example:
"Milanese chestplate"
*noisy;
* shiny;
* gives charisma.

Does a sword deal 2 blunt damage and X slashing damage? That would make sense realism and mechanically (even if your armor stops the slash, you still got hit with a heavy metal object, even if it's not particularly great for that). It also lets the UI in the equip menu line up the slash/pierce/blunt resistance of each of your armor with the same for your weapons. If that's the case though, some swords should have had further blunt damage than others, even if it's still minor.

Also isn't armor stealthiness not only dependent on those stats, but the colors blending in (black isn't always the best)? I recall it mentioned in a tutorial.

But the one "random" moment that happened that I think was truly legit was this one: so I finally arrived at the village where the Monastery is and I'm riding my horse to the place, through the village, and SUDDENLY I hear "Hey Henry! HEY! Henry" and I'm like, what the fuck? I turn around and standing there by the entrance to the tavern is motherfucking Fritz and the other guy. I know they will always be there, it wasn't a "random" moment, they spawn there, but it was the combination of the way they called out to me as I was passing by that I really liked, as I didn't *see* them, they saw me, and it was the AUDIO of them CALLING OUT to me as I passed by that made me find them. I really fucking liked that moment.

When I first encountered that, I immediately wondered if it would differ if the player is wearing a closed face helmet. Anyone know?

 

[aweigh]

Does a sword deal 2 blunt damage and X slashing damage? That would make sense realism and mechanically (even if your armor stops the slash, you still got hit with a heavy metal object, even if it's not particularly great for that). It also lets the UI in the equip menu line up the slash/pierce/blunt resistance of each of your armor with the same for your weapons. If that's the case though, some swords should have had further blunt damage than others, even if it's still minor.

I'm not completely certain but from the way the game text explains the damage types and the different combo manuevers, I *think* that if you hit with a blunt attack on someone you will use the blunt parameter even if you're using a sword: like for example say you use the 1st attack combo you can learn on an opponent (center-stab, left-side swing and then lower-right swing), the game text describing the combo says the 3rd movement is a BLUNT attack, so I *think* that for that specific 3rd component of that combo only the BLUNT parameter will be utilized; which makes that combo practically useless if you're using normal shortswords or hunting swords, but much more effective if you're using a mace or a morningstar.

So TLDR i think it depends on the attack combination, the specific movement AND the weapon parameters. Also Wunderbar that would be why there are 3 stats even on "non-blunt" weapons, because the combos change up the properties of the current weapon movement, and combos can produce special combo-specific results or blows as well, but like I said this is how I *think* it works based off reading the game text and the in-game descriptions. I could be reading more into it than what's actually coded, but it seems pretty clear to me from the description of that 1st combination manuever that the 3rd blow from that combo uses the BLUNT parameter only, so my reasoning seems... er, reasonable.

 

[aweigh]

you can always steal stuff from easy chests

Heh, yeah I'm doing that now and it is completely broken. Stealing stuff is ridiculously OP. The reason I wasn't stealing before is because I play with a controller and thus unintentionally enforcing hard mode on myself because the lockpicking mini-game is basically impossible on a regular controller (it wasn't designed with an analog stick in mind). Now I move my hand over to the mouse when I need to unlock something.

One thing the controller does better than the mouse tho is providing tactile feedback when you change the direction of your attack during combat, I found it felt really "off" when I tried doing it with the mouse and not as satisfying.

EDIT: Herb-picking makes your STR stat rise tho which I find hilarious, but incredibly useful. I have herbalism on 19 rn and it's given me 3 STR points.

 

[vota DC]

Anybody recommend any mods? A while ago someone mentioned a mod that increases cuman/bandit spawns, which I thought was a good idea as there were surprisingly few bandits/cumans (I never used fast travel).

Few cumans since you seen thousands of cumans invading but enough bandits if you consider local population.

 

[Paul_cz]

snip

Smejki, any idea why the quest failed here?:

Yikes, I should have stayed far away from the In God’s Hands quest. What is it with Sasau?

So I arrived in Sasau a while ago and got the lowdown on Johanka’s problems. Examined all the sick and wounded, Henry didn’t say much about them. Spent loads of time figuring out different ways to come up with 100 meat (hunted a bit, harvested a few fish, ended up buying most of what was needed and stealing the rest). Delivered the meat, Johanka was ecstatic. Dealt with the Custodian after being steered there by Brother Nicodemus, but whatever bribing him to give supplies to the monks actually accomplished wasn’t clear at all. Figured out what to do about the insomniac and the wounded quarryman, helped them out.

As soon as I helped the quarryman, though, boom, mission ends with one failure mark, says to go tell Johanka I can do no more. I do so, and she freaks out and basically tells me to fuck off because everyone died. Big fat failure. What the hell? I have no idea what I missed and got no credit for the things I’m sure I did right. What a huge waste of time. Probably going to reload a save right before giving Johanka the bad news, and go do other things.

Still love the game overall, but this really sucked.

(Personally I was able to complete this quest successfully and helped everyone, so I have no idea. Maybe he took too much time? Or some bug?)

 

[RK47]

'Examined all the sick and wounded, Henry didn’t say much about them.'

Did u even bother asking the monk about what's wrong with the patients or you just look them over and decided Henry's commentary is a sufficient diagnosis?
There's definitely a time limit to saving the sick.

 

[Smejki]

snip

Smejki, any idea why the quest failed here?:

Yikes, I should have stayed far away from the In God’s Hands quest. What is it with Sasau?

So I arrived in Sasau a while ago and got the lowdown on Johanka’s problems. Examined all the sick and wounded, Henry didn’t say much about them. Spent loads of time figuring out different ways to come up with 100 meat (hunted a bit, harvested a few fish, ended up buying most of what was needed and stealing the rest). Delivered the meat, Johanka was ecstatic. Dealt with the Custodian after being steered there by Brother Nicodemus, but whatever bribing him to give supplies to the monks actually accomplished wasn’t clear at all. Figured out what to do about the insomniac and the wounded quarryman, helped them out.

As soon as I helped the quarryman, though, boom, mission ends with one failure mark, says to go tell Johanka I can do no more. I do so, and she freaks out and basically tells me to fuck off because everyone died. Big fat failure. What the hell? I have no idea what I missed and got no credit for the things I’m sure I did right. What a huge waste of time. Probably going to reload a save right before giving Johanka the bad news, and go do other things.

Still love the game overall, but this really sucked.

(Personally I was able to complete this quest successfully and helped everyone, so I have no idea. Maybe he took too much time? Or some bug?)

no idea. i know this quest is kinda messy, sorry. if you give a save shortly before this state or right after, I can at least have a look at it.