How to make KCD actually feel more realistic

Gameplay
#1

I personally think that WH did a piece of good work to make the game feel realistic. But there are few things that pulling the realism down a little bit and others that should be added to the game.

Let’s gather your ideas here. What do you think should be changed to make the game feels more realistic and also playable as an open world medieval simulator. I’m sure that it’s not only me who don’t want to play the story again and again :grinning: but simply ‘live’ in the world itself.

Ok so I will make a list of things that I and you think should be changed or added.

I start simple, things that could be easily changed and will go deeper and list more complicated things and features that would be added to further improve the realism of the game.

  • Not everyone should know you. You arrived at the city you’ve never visited before and people start screaming Welcome Henry we love you Henry.

  • Not all-knowing AI. I stole an item in Ledecko and they chase me in Rataj one minute after I fast travelled there.

  • Merchants should not know that the thing you trying to sell them is stolen! Unless you’ve stolen an item from them 5 min ago.

  • Nerfed Strength / XP roof etc. basically nerf system to not let Henry became unrealistic monster.

  • Abillity to whipe a sword by hand

  • Somebody comes to you and offer you a beer when you sit down in tavern

  • at least eating sequence not just black screen

  • Implement thirst

  • Abillity to hurt an enemy by a horse

  • Delete ‘I’m quite hungry’ why should Henry talk about it?

  • Adding blood

  • Adding animals like Wolves, Bears, Foxes, more birds

  • Adding children

  • Adding carts

  • More people on horses

  • Possibility to own a house

  • Possibility to hire people for protection etc.

  • Abillity to set fire / campfire

  • Own sleeping mattress / tent

14 Likes
#2

How to make KCD actually feel more realistic? Include imagination.
/thread

1 Like
#3

Nerf strength

1 Like
#4

-More people on horses.
-wiping weapons to clean the blood off
-thirst
-children
-npcs who are not normal. example: crazy, rebellious, unreligious, always drunk.
<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>
Some additional ideas…ideas that are actually kinda hard to implement and would probably make the game tedious instead of enjoyable, so I understand why it isn’t implemented:

-the inventory. right now henry can shove anything to his pockets and he can jog despite being over encumbered.
so I think henry can have backpack and that the items also have a bulk value that would be considered aside from weight. and then his speed would gradually decrease or increase depending on the weight (not the bulk).
-the “bird in hand” quest could only be done once you have a horse because you can’t hold all those and travel long distances.
<<<<<<>>>>>>>

but yeah, this is already a really good game. i made this realistic in my playthrough by limiting what i can carry and using my imagination, like would i do this if i were henry?

4 Likes
#5

Children and people on horses exactly also carts I would add.

3 Likes
#6

Continuing relationships with Theresa and/or Stephanie after courting them.

7 Likes
#7

hopefully they do it, even if in DLC form.

1 Like
#8

  • Player character has single life without save/load system

  • Ten days of jail time is not enough punishment for mass killing people. PC must be executed and you have to begin new game or try not to be catched.

  • Increase buy/sell spread drastically. For ex. Ask price 100 groschen, bid 5 groschen. It prevents PC to become a millionaire in one day.

  • Increase incoming damage to PC to unprotected body parts as Vavra showed in his vids. The fights MUST last very short period of time. 1-2 hits and you’re heavily wounded and even dead. Increasing enemy’s HP is not the way to make game difficult/realistic. We’re not in 90’s.

  • Remove kettles with food because now it looks like the food is made for PC, not for NPCs. They have to eat their food ASAP and if PC wants to eat their food he should ask a permission to do that. Or it’s considered as stealing.

  • Implement THIRST in the game.

  • Your horse should also be affected by basic needs. Also horse must not be unkillable.

  • In case of horse death, you’re still able to pick your items up from the saddle bags.

  • Remove NPCs ESP from the game completely: NPC must not be able to see stolen items in your inventory, must not know your crimes unless they contacted with a guards.

  • Remove marker on stolen items. It’s completely unrealistic that some kind of magic force marks your items as stolen so NPC somehow sees the origin of specific item.

  • High tier items like St. George’s longsword or Irod’s sword must be custom produced by a specific smith with a proper smithy skills. Probably you have to obtain some materials before that.

4 Likes
#9

There’s certainly scope for improvement in this space and people have mentioned a number of different key aspects not only in this thread but elsewhere. For me things like this are important:

  • More variety of wild animals. Wolves, bears, foxes. Birds… Fishing / trapping also
  • Greater variety of equipment / armour / weaponry from different vendors across different towns. Crossbows.
  • Economy overhaul. Supply / demand, buying and selling price variations etc. More things to spend coin on.
  • Crafting / smithing capability
  • Camp capability. Bed roll and tent on the back of your horse.
  • Relationships
  • General AI refinement
  • Stealth / Crime system refinement
  • Visible blood and gore (unarmoured opponents for example)
    [Nice to Haves:]
  • I’d personally love to see a prestige or class type system introduced too. Dependent on deeds. Acts of valor or heroism. Would tie in with the reputation system, with notoriety working in the opposite fashion.
  • Building / furnishing system. You get given a home (Master Huntsman quest-line) so in theory you should be able to build / change / improve / purchase items for that holding.
5 Likes
#10

I wish I could at least give Theresa a dress, and her actually being able to wear it for a start…:grin:

1 Like
#11

  • More worthwile stealth/theft dynamics. You shouldn’t be able to stealth kill totally silently as you seen done in games, but neither as it is now that if you kill somebody stealthily all in the area knows it immediately in many instances (even while people are sleeping). Also the stealing system is totally unrealistic. It is fine for people to recognize certain stolen items in the same area if they are some special artifacts that everyone knows of (as for example the particular sword a noble always wear), but not all of them and certainly guards shouldn’t magically understand that you are carrying stolen items on yourself. If you are seen committing the crime then it makes sense for guards to check yourself but not in any other case.

  • Plate armor should receive huge penalty to stats (or either not be wearable at all) if not tailored to yourself. Proper plate armor should be made by an armorer appositely for yourself (it is also fine to sell a non custom fitting armor and then rework/rebuy it to yourself, naturally at a great price as if you bought it new). Other types of armors too, but proportionally less, depending on material. You shouldn’t be able to pick a full set of plate armor from another individual or from treasures and don it as if it was made for yourself. Not only this is totally unrealistic but also gameplay speaking it would resolve a lot of balance issues without the need to alter design encounters and item placement. I suggested this solution many times prior and I think it is one of the easiest things to implement while hugely increasing both realism and balance. It’s a win win solution.

  • Slower skill progression, so that you cannot simply become a master of everything. This would be even better if tied with a reworked system on stats, where your choices in the beginning of the game actually have an impact on your ability to increase the main stats (along maybe introducing a ceiling for the others).

  • Rebalanced economy (that would fit perfectly with the point above). Custom plate armor should cost a fortune, for example, and this joined with the above would render progression much more worthwhile. Naturally also balance selling costs of meat etc.

  • Introduce horse charge mechanics. This is really needed. It’s impossible to see an horse galloping at full sprint against a non armored target and nothing happens (actually the horse stops). Proper charge dynamic is a must in a medieval setting that tries to emulate reality.

  • More helmets variation, they are hugely lacking, more so than any other kind of armor.

  • Proper romance options.

1 Like
#12

First thing that I want to say, just in case any of the game-development-team actually read this: I wouldn’t mind paying for this stuff in future DLCs. I understand you can’t keep adding features on to a game until it becomes “KCD 2” without charging for it. Bug fixes should be free, new features, I’m happy to pay for.

I usually come up with loads of ideas for “improvements” for games I like. But I’m not sure anyone ever reads them. :slight_smile: I read all the posts in this thread. There’s some very good ideas (that were repeated). I have given my thoughts on other’s people’s ideas that I liked the most.

1. Get rid of NPC psychic powers. They shouldn’t automatically “know” when things are stolen. Only if someone has told them, or they witnessed the theft.

  • A workable, but not impossible-to-develop system, might be that there is simply a delay between when you stole the item and when the NPC’s “know” you stole the item. The further away the NPC is from the scene-of-the-crime, the longer it takes for them to “know”. It could take days or weeks for NPCs in far-off places to know.

  • If you sell a stolen item to an NPC who doesn’t “know” it’s stolen, and learns that it is stolen after they bought it (through the “time delay” described above), they either report it, and you get arrested. Or, if they’re not very scrupulous, they just keep it and nothing happens.

2. Thirst. This is more important that hunger and should be implemented.

3. Horse charges. There’s a reason that many knights were mounted in warfare. Because it kicks-ass. A charging horse should scatter opponents like ten-pins (if it’s a properly trained warhorse).

3 Likes
#13

Most ideas are know to me, but haven’t thought about the abnormal people. Great find. I indeed miss the local drunks, village idiot, should be a bunch of criples among beggers, et cetera.

And just for the fun it could give us, give Hans a court dwarf. Would love that!

1 Like
#14

This should be in KCD 2.

#15

I suggest:
-hading shafts
-shaft hoisting with whims
-underground winzes with winches
-drifts with incline towards the adit (for draining)
-visible reef inside the drifts but not in cross-cuts (atm everything looks the same)
-realistic stopes following the strike and dip of the reef
-authentic mining method for the period is benching

so would you, please? WH

:rofl:

#16

Imagination

#17

for me, the most wanted is adding 3rd camera view mode

1 Like
#18

I think that kind of misses the point. How would that make KCD “feel more realistic”? It’s not witcher 3 or GTA. Visibility being cut-down by helmets, not being able to see behind you etc., are part of what makes the game unique.

Would be cool to be able to watch an “instant replay” of your fights in 3rd-person though. :slight_smile:

5 Likes
#19

but, as mentioned earlier, I trained with holmgang hamburg, and its not the limited vision that bothers you with a helmet in combat, its the weight and the effects it deals to your feeling of speed… very hard to implement.

#20

I’m sure you’re right about weight and speed. In fact, I’m so sure you’re correct, that I’m pretty sure knights in full-plate armour were basically tanks, and it was most effective on horseback (where the horse was your feet).

In other words, your’e so correct about the movement and weight, that their movement was so restricted, they basically just relied on the armour the save them from being hit, rather than avoiding the strikes.

I’m also there’s lots of different variables, and it would depend on the helmet design. There were thousands of different helmet designs throughout history. And although I never trained with a medieval helmet on, I do remember a university history professor telling us (many years ago now) that the limited peripheral vision with various helmet designs throughout history was in fact a very real issue.

It’s a trade off between protection and visibility. You can’t expect to see much at all wearing one of these! I’m more than happy for your vision and you ability to move to be both hugely nerfed when wearing this type of armour in the game.

2 Likes
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