Grab some savior schnapps, dried fruit and roast roe deer kidneys, this is gonna be a long one.
Intro - After logging 100+ hours into this game, I have to say I love it. The story, setting and presentation are fantastic. Visually, even on medium settings I’m blown away. if I look out my window and then to the game, its eerily similar. Turns out Bohemia’s rolling hills, forests and fields look a lot like new york state. The combat is fun and intuitive, dialogue sections are good and the skill mini games I have the same feeling on, even lockpicking… mostly. Bugs aside, This is mostly for improving what’s already there, rather than new content and activities overall.
-Hard Mode - As you complete the game, the challenge disappears rapidly. Having a mode with enemies with higher stats, items cost more, crime punishments are higher etc. Pretty self explanatory.
-AI reaction times. Enemies react far too slowly to being shot at with a bow or your presence in general. My favorite is the “Hey what are you doing?” While I have an arrow knocked I have to time to say “This” Then shoot them twice before they start charging.
-I believe bandit camps respawn with the exact same enemies and gear. I’ve cleared a camp in which the leader had the same helmet and pauldrons each time. Another camp I had the same experience, a little randomization here would go a long way.
-Loot - I have so many mismatched pieces of armor and I’ve explored quite a bit, got the cartographer perk and… is there even a full set possible? This could just be me missing something obvious or not finding the right camp. I have a milanese brigadine, gauntlets and pauldrons, no chausses though, Nurmberg gloves and cuirass, magdeburg pauldrons, gloves and chausses, no cuirass piece. I have noble pieces but not a full set, you get the idea. it would be very nice if bandit camps got marked on the map, some do, some don’t. Shops never seem to have new stock, its always the same things, it just resets, again randomization is a big boon here.
-Henry’s late game is OP. For you league players, he’s like pre rework poppy. Early on he’s a punching bag, late game an unkillable god. I started leveling axes and with low skill level, even well geared enemies die from being poked with the handle a couple times. Before this though, progression worked really well. I felt like Henry and I were really starting to get the hang of it and hold our own, but after the first major battle in the story line, the snowball started rolling more and more out of control. The “Realistic swordfighting” loses all its fun. I’m planning on restarting so the game is fun again.
-Survival Elements. These work decently well. Spoiled food shouldn’t be worth anything though, for some reason quest givers and shop owners will buy meat for a decent price that’s been sitting in a chest for a week. Eating from cooking pots needs to be heavily nerfed or only doable in certain situations. I never need to carry food any wehre I go, making buying food or hunting to feed myself pointless. Poached game should not lose its “stolen” flag just because you cook it. The introduction of illness would fit nicely with the existing hygiene, hunger and sleep mechanics. Poor diet, muddy clothes and lack of sleep could open you up to possible illnesses.
-Damage and Injury mechanics. I like these a lot, its a very good design. I think however if you have a limb injured, some marigold and nettle in water shouldn’t fix that, only rest should help or treatment from a doctor should help. If the injury circle thing fills, maybe then you need treatment.
-Horse Combat. This is a tough one. There’s little you can do without AI overhaul. Particularly horse archery, you may as well be unkillable. If you got bad aim its a moot point but I find it EASIER to aim a bow on horseback than on foot. I should not be able to fire a yew longbow from horseback so easily, its kind of silly. Enemy AI vs a mounted Henry is laughable, they are powerless unless you get stuck. Them having more access to polearms would help. Which brings me to my next 2 points.
Polearms - Not much to be said than I wish they were fully implemented. It makes me sad that so many medieval era games overlook polearms or just don’t include them. These things and swords should be front and center.
Bow- Similar to polearms, does not seem to be fully implemented. Perks would be nice and bow classifications would help as well. As simple as a shortbow and longbow would be a big plus. Short bows can be used on horseback, are easier to use, but don’t pack a punch to bring down an enemy in plate armor. While longbows with proper arrows fair better, but are more demanding to use. This could be achieved by changing the stamina drain caused by each bow, the effects of moving while having an arrow knocked and reduce how easy it is to move to prevent the kiting potential bows currently have. Bows should be heavily damaged if you are hit with a melee weapon while wielding a bow as a way to punish attempts at kiting. AI changes could help, but are difficult and it circles back to enemies needing to react faster in general. Bow damage, much like everything else late game seems to be very high.
Weapons in general - They need more specialized uses. Why use a mace against armor? My sword seems to do just fine. Are axes a halfway point between the two? I don’t know because it doesn’t seem to matter much. Maybe early on it does, but late game forget it.
-Unarmed - This seems kind of silly. Any of the “fight club” type quests can be completed wearing full metal armor. I just button mash my way to victory. This needs a little love. I’ve also heard that early on, you can lose a fist fight, while fully geared and your armor can be damaged by it. This may have been fixed by now but that is hilarious.
-Hunting. Animals need to run when they are shot or shot at, its that simple of a change that would improve it 100%. Their path-finding can be down right laughable. I herded a group of roe deer into a river, they all got stuck and just stood still and I got paid. Boars and deer get stuck on trees a lot, and the rabbits of Bohemia are the less skittish than domesticated rabbits.
-Reading. I ended up breaking into the monastery to find enough books to reach level 14 for cartographer. I’m having a hard time finding enough books to level reading with. Maybe I missed a shop somewhere?
-Lockpicking. I know a lot of people struggle with this and I felt it was impossible early on. The tutorial led me to believe i had to draw a perfect circle with my mouse at the same speed the lock turned, which is virtually impossible and frustrating. I now know that’s not the exactly the case and I can open practically any lock with zero issue. Its even hard for me to explain how to do it, its really something you just gotta feel out for yourself. Which is great, but maybe it could be explained a little better, or my case of struggling with it isn’t as wide spread.
-Drinking- Nothing wrong with it, I just had to say I love there’s a game out there with an alcoholism skill.
-Alchemy - I love the process of making potions, but I haven’t done much with it because it seems so tedious to level.
-Map improvements. There’s a golden opportunity for immersion and practical usage here. As I said, it would be nice for bandit camps to be marked, but even better would be if I could make notes on my map or in a journal. The reading skill could be necessary here, but what a bonus it would be in so many ways.
-Quests in general. I’ve already said the main story is fantastic, mostly but i’ll touch on that in another thread. It appears that almost all of the side quests have one purpose and that’s to make progressing the main quest possible or easier. There doesn’t seem to be much reason to do these afterward and very few spark a side adventure. There’s one in particular that I loved but i won’t say witch one it was. Maybe I haven’t found them yet, some quests just won’t work which isn’t helping, but I wish there were more side quests that are more about the side adventure rather than just giving a way to earn some cash or xp. There’s also a good amount of quests that become impossible due to plot elements which is always frustrating. It forces you, if you want to be a completionist to do every quest you can before progressing the main one.
-random encounters on the road. These are great in theory, but some are good and others… not so much. I enjoy the riddles, merchants, the wayfaring knights and mercenaries and the ambushes. Some just don’t seem to matter though. The found carcass or body ones, no matter how I deal with them, doesn’t seem to do anything, and that’s if they even work. I think I get some speech xp but little else. I usually skip them now. The beggars I assume if you give them what they ask improve reputation but i haven’t noticed it. I’ve also ran into a merchant in only one area who asks for directions, doesn’t seem to matter what I say, he’s always in that spot. I know these are just distractions and for immersion purposes but they don’t seem to have a consequence one way or the other.
-Reputation - I haven’t gotten into this much yet. I was pretty much a goody goody two shoes throughout the game, so naturally my reputation is quite high. This causes a certain perk “friendly neighbor” i think it is for pick pocketing to be broken. No matter how many times I’m caught, no one calls for a guard. As a small note, at some point over night I went from a nobody to a first name basis with the entire population. I walk into a tavern and in almost perfect unison “Hey, Henry has come to see us!” When did I become the center of a cult? Its really creepy and immersion breaking and even worse when there’s a quest where you have to lie about your identity, but everyone already knows you on a first name basis. I think this is due to completing the bandit missions but its still odd.
-Horses. I really like the idea of going to a stable and examining each horse, finding the one I feel fits me. Well I did. Its stats were great, it looked nice aaaannnd I couldn’t buy it. I can only buy the named horses. I can’t even name my horse? I don’t have to earn the trust of my horse, it can’t die, it doesn’t level its just kind of there. More or less its a car. Really fleshing out horses would be great for immersion and realism. I don’t want them to die, but maybe if they get incapacitated they lose stats for a while, are more likely to toss you off, or need to be brought to a stable to be healed and treated.
-A side note, I’m aware and happy that modding is allowed and is helping to fill in the gaps. I hope warhorse, if need be, makes modding easier and more accessible as to help make this game the best it can be.
Well if you managed to read all that, I salute you. I know it is a lot, and a lot of nitpicking but i do truly love this game. I’ve anticipated it for years, counted down the days and its the first time in a VERY long time I bought a PC game new and i’m as picky as it gets about what studios and publishers i buy from. Aside from nintendo, I don’t trust the gaming industry anymore. I know at a glance, it looks like warhorse pulled what they all pull. Release a game half finished and full of bugs, but I am keeping in mind that this is an indie studio, ableit a well funded one. What you have done here Warhorse is incredible. This project was very ambitious and Its a shame more couldn’t have been finished before release, but keep the patches rolling and I eagerly await future content. Please Warhorse, just don’t do something stupid like charging for a DLC pack that adds in the unfinished content like polearms and bow perks, things of that nature.
Thanks for reading and have a wonderful day.
