I want to create MY OWN CHARACTER

Gameplay
#21

Now suppose I DON’T want to replay the MQ as a privileged blacksmith’s son? Why can’t I have the sandbox option to create my protagonist character at the main load screen? Start the game with multiple starts as a lowly beggar, merc, aspiring priest etc etc who is NOT named Henry? The devs could’ve designed all subsequent Skalitz tutorial replays to have a 2 day game timer before it was attacked. If the player wanted, their PC could accomplish all of Henry’s tasks, but as an unknown town villager (typical of Elder Scrolls style).

If player wanted to replay the tutorial with their custom PC and NOT as Henry
You still have all the creative problem solving ways to accomplish Henry’s goals. The only difference here is your success will depend upon how much charisma, courage and fight skill stats you gave your character at the start of the game.

Basically after waking up, your PC would need seek honest work i.e. with Henry’s dad as a smith apprentice. Your PC would have the sandbox ability to:
1.Receive the Kunesh quest as an employer side quest. Be as creative as they want to be in getting the items (be it honoroably via combat or illegally by knockout/looting)
2.Perform Henry’s other side activities (like hanging out with Henry’s friends, training with the merc etc). But just NOT AS HENRY. So NPCs would relate to you slightly differently. i.e sword training would now cost gold instead of being free, which means your PC would have to earn the coin for it.
3.Practice smithing which would be as detailed and interactive an activity like the alchemy crafting. So your PC would need at least a game day to get acquainted with smithing/producing armor/weapons (think this was planed for vanilla but got pulled for technical reasons). So there would be a trade off on how the player managed their work (earning potential) Vs leisure (skill training potential for sword training, riding horses, stealing/pick pocketing, etc) Vs. regular things like eating and sleeping all within the 2 day time limit.
4.Meeting Radzig (not as a cutscene but in real game time). Smith would task PC to practice smithing. Like making horse shoes, sword pommels etc etc. Once the PC’s smith skill hits high enough, the PC would be then tasked by the smith to craft a weapon or piece of armor. Then deliver these supplies to Radzig at his castle. If the quality of your crafted weapons/armor is high enough to impress Radzig, your PC gets the opportunity for a free training session with one of the guards in the courtyard. If this fails:
5.Use your coin to train with the sword merc trainer in town.
6.Since smithing is so extensive, then realistically, this is the only honest coin your PC could make before the town got destroyed after 2 days. But the goal here is to improve your desired skill sets (that you decided your PC should have before the start of the game). This means
7.The player would have to find time (outside work) to train on any other skills like lockpicking, archery etc. before the 2 day timer ends.

If player didn’t care to do the tutorial with their custom PC: You could earn coin however you wanted. Examples:
1.visit the smith and ask if he wants anything done. You could pick up the Kunesh side quest here and/or other side quests Henry was tasked with like getting the ale. Or you could be directed to drop off theresa’s nails at the mill.
2.Get a Thesesa quest (non vanilla ones) to take a horse from the mill to the smith’s & get it horseshoed.
Realistically earn a horseback skill of 1 doing this.
3.Get Theresa quest to bring grain to the tavern cook, or for use as brewing alcohol.
4.Get a (non vanilla) quest from the smith to visit Sir Radzig in his castle (which you NEVER get to vist why WH?) & deliver some armor/weapons supplies. While inside the castle courtyard,
5.Get a speech check opportunity to meet Radzig & charm him in a speech check so that he offers you free training from one of his guards. This could lead to
6.Your PC getting free training in swordplay/archery etc. as Radzig’s gratitude for delivering his equipment ahead of time.
7.If you failed to get this free training, you could still use all that coin earned from your errand boy services. Use the coin you made from your favor errands to pay the merc and let him train your PC instead.

So how would a sandbox approach work in KCD? Right after character creation at the menu screen, your character would just:

1.Wake up on a pile of hay somewhere in Skalitz , resolved to to leave the town and improve their lowly lot in life.
Your PC doesn’t know where they’re headed yet, but knows they lack the coin. So they can seek honest work like in the 1-2 day game period
2.working as smith apprentice for the town smith
3.Doing favor quests for smith and other towns people
4.Improve whatever combat/stealth/charisma skills desired in this time. If going the combat route, PC could
5.Ask the merc in town for training. But since your PC is NOT Henry, this service is no longer free (as you’re not friends with him the way Henry is). Or
6.Get it free by doing an armor/weapon supply delivery errand for the smith. Deliver supplies to Radzig at his castle. Impress Radzig if your PC charisma is high enough and you managed to deliver the supplies early. If this fails then
7.Pay for training. Return to the castle later and pay Radzig’s guard from whatever earnings you’ve acquired.
8.doing other favor/errand quests like visiting Teresa at the mill, running errands for the Tavern, grocer to deliver things around town, learning how to ride a horse during this time FFS.

When Skalitz gets destroyed:
When this happes, your PC would have the added realism of fleeing on foot in addition to hosreback if they had acquired the riding skill. Your PC simply makes a run for Talberg, trying to avoid/survive the Cuman army pillaging the town and surrounding villages. But now as an alternative to riding, you have the option to sneak and/or fight your way to Talberg in real game time on foot. If you become injured along the way, you have to beat (a reduced) bleed out timer. And do so with the added difficulty of reaching Talberg within a certain number of game hours or the mission fails. If you opt to ride, then eliminate the Cuman archer cut scene as it serves no purpose. Simply ride as fast as you can while being attacked/chased (by randomly generated NPC mercs along the way) and beat the bleed out timer as before.

KCD gets having consequences for your actions dynamic right. It retains the sort of player driven/cause & effect problem solving, that is fast becoming a lost art in the industry. KCD had the potential to be as complex as Witcher or New Vegas by how it approached solving its quest line, interacting with NPCs and PC development. But it missed the mark by denying the player the freedom to sandbox and innovate by some of the ways I explained above. It limits the player’s ability to fully interact with the game’s environment. To be able to use whatever objects or NPCs the player has at their disposal to achieve their goals. Be it MQ or sandbox gameplay driven.

So by replay value, I’m basically NOT re-playing the MQ. I want the ability to use the highly interactive/immersive game world environment as a sandbox canvass. Which I can then play a completely different game (aka MY game). Much the way you have unlimited potential to innovate and sandbox in franchises like the Mindcraft and Sims. This sandbox feature btw, is the reason why Gary’s Mod still ranks in top 20 on steam—and it’s not even a game!

Replaying the MQ for the Nth time (i.e. after exhausting multiple youtube/personally discovered playthorugh tactics and approaches to solve side quests/MQ) has its limitations. Without the advantage of mods (that increase the game’s shelf life by adding new world spaces, quests, game overhauls, flora/fauna, interesting NPCs etc etc) replaying KCD will become stale.

1 Like
#22

Well, in Skyrim you have no choice but to play as the Dovahkin. You can’t play as anything BUT the dovahkin. You are the Dragonborn and you have no choice about it. In Oblivion, you are the Hero of Kvatch, and you have no choice BUT to play as the Hero of Kvatch. If you join the Companions, there is only one path forward to advance the Companions story. You must become a werewolf. No matter what you do, that is required.

In the Witcher series, you have no choice BUT to play as Geralt of Rivia, a Witcher. You can’t play as anybody BUT Geralt of Rivia. You can’t be a blacksmith or a lord. You are a witcher. You have no choice BUT to be a witcher.

Does that remove the Witcher games replayability?

A. So what? If I go get the Dragonstone in Skyrim, I have to go to Bleakfalls Barrow. There are no options in how I go about it. I go there, explore the dungeon, use the golden claw to get through the door, fight some Drauger then take the Dragonstone to Whiterun.

You have no choice in how you complete the quest. It is the same no matter how many times you restart the game. Same is true with the Companions story, or the College of Winterhold. The story is exactly the same and only one way to go forward. There are no two ways to get the Orb the Psijic Order warns you about it. There is only one way. It doesn’t matter how many times you replay the game, there is only one way.

You have some excellent points about Martin’s forge and probably becoming more intimidating, but you also left out that you can gather your friends to help beat him into submission and he’ll give you what you want.

By your own admission regarding this particular quest, you listed more options for solving the quest than Skyrim offers for ANY quest, period. It’s also entirely possible to ignore Kunesh. the point of the quest is to get the money in order to buy the charcoal. You can just steal the charcoal, harvest some herbs and sell that to a trader and get the grochen that way, or gather food from your house and sell that.

The key isn’t that we have to do a, b and c. The point is that we have an objective and are given the freedom to reach that objective’s conclusion in whatever way we want. The game doesn’t hold our hand like Skyrim does.

As for your criticisms for the stealth system, well that never bothered me. Henry has a basic knowledge of lockpicking but not pickpocketing. He has to learn the technique in order to use it. Just like in combat, you can’t quick-dodge or perfect block until Captain Bernard teaches Henry. Henry has to learn because he never had those skills to begin with.

I have no problem with how it’s designed is because it actually gets easier as Henry gets better. The mechanics are designed to become easier to use as Henry uses them. When picking locks, the sweet spot gradually gets bigger so it’s easier to keep the pick in that spot as you twist the lock. As you improve in archery, the wavy sway gradually goes away and makes it easier to aim.

Henry is not a hero, he is not trained, and he has no training in anything other than being a blacksmith. I have just started my second playthrough and I’m nowhere close to bored with the game because there are so many different ways the quests. Skyrim essentially gives me one way to do every quest and holds my hand the whole time.

#23

(1) yes, sandboxing (or whatever you want to call it) for a couple game days before the assault would’ve been better. Probably would’ve eliminated a lot of bitching and moaning and the need for coddling.
(2) WH painted itself into a corner with the Henry-Martin-Radzig-sword narrative. Some logical inconsistencies aside, it was ok. Serviceable. Makes Henry more vulnerable and dependent on others such as Miller Peshek. Far worse things have been done (eg Sovngarde)

#24

There is a mod on the Nexus to change faces if you’re sick of looking at Henry’s dumb face.

1 Like
#25

I dont think they are prerendered.
They match the framerate and ratio of a range of screens. . And mirror player choice of clothes and possibly pc detail settings…

#26

Sounds like you’re playing on the console? Because you’re 100% Wrong.

I always use the Live Another life mod to create whatever character I desire to play. Which is completely independent of what the Dragonborn MQ destiny is for my character. In a previous game, my PC immigrated to Skyrim to begin a new start at life (using the Live Another life mod)


and its numerous add ons

Right after his arrival at the Solitude docks (where the mod puts you after character creation), he received notification from the Solitude museum curator about a potential job offer. Apparently the museum needed to hire a professional Relic Hunter and adventurer. My PC immediately jumped at this exciting and profitable job offer. After paying for the expensive ship voyage to Solitude from Solstheim, he was broke and lacking 2 septims to rub together in his pocket. So he headed off to the Soltude museum (incredibly complex Legacy of the Dragonborn gallery mod)


where he began an exciting career as a well paid adventurer who specialized in rare and expensive artifacts. This mod is unique because many of its artifacts are located in other off Skyrim game worlds such as in Elyswer (Moon Path to Elyswer mod)

and (Grey Cowl of the Nocturnal)

At no point in time was my PC ever forced to RP the vanilla game destiny of the Dragonborn. However, I recently put playing this PC character on hold for a different character build.

In my current game in Skyrim, my PC has a different backstory. He’s a Nord and the only surviving progeny of poor farmers (whose mother died in child birth). My PC grew up as a child helping his father scrape out a meager existence farming a small, barren plot of land outside Windhelm. But the farm had failed despite their best efforts. They were forced to sell it and relocate to southern Skyrim in search of a better life. They bought a better farm on good farmland just outside the city of Whiterun. This is where my PC spent the rest of his childhood growing up into a young adult. His father was soon able to save up and buy a Dairy farm. Extending his profit selling produce and dairy goods to Whiterun. My PC grew up , until unsettling rumors of war with the empire began to spread all over Skyrim. Then Ulfric challenged the High King to a duel, killing him. …

At which point all hell broke loose in Skyrim. The empire began sending increasing number of Imperial troops to Ulfric’s Stormcloak militias. These imperial troop patrols were soon followed by an alarming number of Thalmor agents which began arresting citizens without charge. In fear for his son being drafted by either side in the impending Civil War (using Civil War Overhaul mod) or worst yet becoming abducted by the Thalmor, my PC’s father sent him to live with his brother in Bruma Cyrodil. Here my PC spent his teenage years growing into adulthood being an apprentice to his blacksmith uncle (using the Beyond Skyrim Bruma mod).

Which is where my PC’s story officially begins as a young adult (and where I take control of his actions). Using the Live Another Life mod, I started the game with my PC living in Bruma, Cyrodil. He was doing well for himself learning the trade from his smith uncle. As he got older, he began helping out the local townsfolk with their errands and quests. By the time he came of age in Bruma, he had become an expert marksman, skilled smith, and seasoned adventurer.

My PC had also kept regular correspondence with his father in Skyrim. But he lost communications for nearly a year due to the Imperial blockade at the border. Then he recently learned of some alarming news from home by courier. The letter had been dated 6 months earlier. It described how the war had caused scarcity of goods in Skyrim, and the farm had taken a bad turn in finances. The farm employees were becoming alarmed by increasing number of stormcloak and imperial troops being spotted patrolling the roads near the farm field perimeter. Then a bloody skirmish occurred in one of the wheat fields where a Stromcloak scout party was decimated by an imperial patrol. The farm employees saw this as a a bad omen. They began quitting in droves ever since, for the safety of the city walls in Whiterun. His father ended by the letter with a desperate plea for his son to remain in the safety of Bruma and not return home.

Quite naturally, my PC immediately bid his uncle goodbye and headed north for Whiterun in Skyrim. After being held up at the border, paying a questionable import/duty tax which involved the imperials taking most his gold, seizing his horse, weapons and armor as contraband, my disheartened PC continued on into Skyrim. Where he was amazed to find a smoldering ruin that used to be Helgen. As the ruin also appeared to be occupied by bandits, my PC continued on to his father’s farmhouse. When he arrived, he was shocked to find his family’s farm had been abandoned and apparently put up for sale (using Heljarchen Farm mod)


Following the note’s direction posted on the property, he immediately inquired at the Huntsman. The the property had been apparently put up for sale by the Jarl’s steward when it fell to ruin. But how?

Yes. I admit to creating an NPC in Creation Kit at this part of my play through. I needed my PC’s to have closure for continuity’s sake. So I added a NPC to the Drunken Huntsman. Who if interacted with, basically told my PC he had been the foreman at Heljarchen farm. But left when his former boss (my PC’s father) got sick and died from a fever several months ago. This caused all the remaining farm hands to leave the farm for Whiterun. The foreman said the old man mentioned having a son in Bruma. However, he had lost contact with his boy for over a year due to the empire blockade’s of the border. So the property was abandoned, fell to ruin and with no heirs to claim it, the Jarl’s steward had put it up for sale. My PC also learned that his father’s other property (Wild Mountain Dairy Goat Farm)


was also up for sale. But thankfully, this property was in far better condition than the farm. Grieving but encouraged, my PC was determined to buy back these properties and make a new start. He didn’t have enough to pay for either property, but would find ways to come up with the gold to secure his birthright. He couldn’t use his smithing skills as building a forge was too costly. But he could use his other marketable skills he developed in Bruma, like being an adventurer. Put this to good use, to get the farm up and running. Hire staff to maintain its upkeep. Then focus on buying the dairy farm back.

All of this would take a lot of work and prove very costly. But determined, he used his love of adventure and the outdoors led him to do extended camping trips (using Frostfall/Campfire)


where he became a skilled fisherman (using Art of the Catch mod):

a proficient, skilled trophy hunter (using the Hunterborn, Real Wildlife Skyrim, SkyTest mods)



He specialized in capturing prized wild life game rumored to live in the remote areas of Skyrim (using Animallica mod)


Sold the valuable hides, trophies and game meat to the local innkeepers, traders, alchemists, and grocers around Skyrim. Did a few favor quests and some treasure hunting on the side.

But trade low value items like perishable foods, or rare white saber cat leather Skyrim’s unpredictable and recessed war torn economy was extremely risky. The prices for goods was extremely volatile and made turning a profit difficult (using the Trade and Barter mod):

So my PC began to keep a journal of profit making opportunities he encountered in his travels.
Excursions where he he could stand to make a good bit of gold as a merc/adventurer. So trading with the Khajiit cravans whenever possible. Try to get job leads and quest opportunities for adventure in far off, exotic lands like Elswyer and falskaar:

A broken down wagon on the road to Whiterun with a lead for a place called the Windstad Mine. This looked like a an excellent, promising business opportunity given the war demand:

An old, disused brewery just north of Riverwood. That could serve as an excellent platform to compete with the famous Black Briar meadery:

A non functioning meadery at Ivarstead, whose disgruntled owner might be persuaded to part with the deed:

Fast forward to current date. After some 5 real life months, my PC has become a successful business Entrepreneur with several well developed lines of business. Now as an upstanding citizen nearing the peak of Skyrim’s polite society, he’s become fixated with rich man problems. Like if he has enough prestige, wealth and influence to become a thane? How many taxes his treasury will be fleeced of in the upcoming season? Should he accept the dangerous risk of evading to pay his taxes?


https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/search/57239

Preoccupied about his legacy. Unmarried with no children. Needs heirs to pass on his legacy to continue his dynasty. Needs to make plans to build a family power base to raise a big family. Then one day while traveling to sell his goods in Windhelm, he stumbled across this amazing country manor

and became obsessed with buying it. It was the perfect location and size for his family plans. Now he’s considering relocation to Candlepond Ranch in the Eastmarch. Plans on getting married soon, raising a family (Adoption mod)

and setting up his blacksmith HQ there to support the war effort from there . I’ve yet to run out of Non MQ related things to do with my character to date.

All of these sandbox features I’ve been playing in Bruma and Skyrim have developed my PC’s skills and stats. And they have nothing to do with the MQ in Skyrim. I’ve used existing DLC content and base game faction/NPC side quests in my sandbox gameplay. In fact, I’ve yet to encounter one of those annoying fire breathing lizards anywhere in my game to date

So your claim is not true—unless you’re playing on the PS4 or playing an un-modded version of the game on Xbox

#27

nice scrollbomb bruh

2 Likes
#28

cough cough mods cough cough not the base game

3 Likes
#29

Is this not what answering your Mom’s questions at the start already does?

#30

When Henry makes the sword, prerendered. When he gets hit by the Cuman arrow, same. They don’t match your outfit either. Mods that change your face do not work in prerendered scenes… Obviously? Perhaps not obvious to everyone.

#31

That wall of text is for mods. So you’re comparing a 5th generation game that has been out for years and modded to the hilt with a maiden product less than 2 months out from release. :no_mouth:

1 Like
#32

Because you CAN’T change anything if you change your mind at any point of that in game cutscene where she’s nagging him to death? That you’d literally have to quit the game, start over from the menu screen, go through all those extensive movie intro cutscenes, just to get back to that Respec cutscene?

You basically don’t get to specify which attributes you want. Because you’re being disracted by lines of dialogue. And the 50 shades of grey in which you begin to second guess yourself when being distracted by said lines of dialogue.

So the menu format is far more efficient. It’s far easier to Respec at the menu on subsequent future play throughs. It eliminates an inefficient process that adds no value. Because otherwise, you’re repeating the same lines of dialogue in that respec cutscene. To ad nauseum. Every time you replay the game.

Say you’re limited to only 3 spec points at the start of the game.

If I want Henry to be a dumb brute with Max combat skill, I’d be able to put all 3 into his fighting stat. So charisma/courage/fighting would be 0/0/3.

I can change my mind on the fly and make this 2/0/1 several seconds later, without the ridiculous inconvenience of having to restart the whole damned game…

It’s also unclear whether all your stats and associated skills start at zero using the in game dialogue based approach. Especially since Henry had zero interaction with horses in the tutorial. Yet somehow managed to start the game with a riding skill of 1…

#33

Precisely.

Being the older game, Skyrim had to add all those mods before it could be considered a “realism” simulator.

To include mods like OSex and Animated Prostitution, which added explicit, in gameplay sex
encounters with custom animations the player can control. No fading to black screens.

Mods that added bowels and a digestive tract to the player’s PC. So the PC could urinate and have regular bowel movements on a daily basis. The frequency which depended on whether they had food poisoning, or ate something that caused constipation/dirreah (complete with custom animations and sounds). This affected the PC’s overall health, constitution, courage and combat readiness stats.

Then there is KCD, a 5th gen game Over marketed for leading the industry in “realism”. Yet lacks these basic PC needs features in it’s base game? Especially given the gritty context of its medieval setting?

Examples:

1.game allows full frontal nudity and explict sex cutscenes with NPCs. Ranging from horny, highborn noble women to drunk parish priests (for gritty realism shock factor). Check. With childhood 2nd best sweethearts as the climax to awkward foreplay --of an even more awkward courtship. Check. Yet all subsequent PC sexual contact with bathmaid NPCs are censored encounters behind a fade to back load screen? Oh and why do none of the females Hal bangs seem to want nothing to do with him afterwards btw? :grin:

2.game allows Henry to eat and get food poisoning. Check. Has outhouses everywhere. Check.Yet doesn’t allow Hal to use any of them other than to read? :joy:

#34

Well, you are right that I play on consoles. I know PC gaming is far superior to consoles, I just have an emotional attachment to the consoles.

But your entire novel of a response actually invalidates your entire argument. I don’t need a long post to prove you invalidated your own response, I only need one word.

Mods.

You are deliberately altering the game from how it is designed. Remove all mods from the game and play it as it was designed and see if you still feel the same about Skyrim.

#35

Need to make clear this isn’t an attempt of a PCMR hijack. This board really needs separate console and PC forums, because the issues/concerns I have as a PC gamer is completely different from the console. Also as a PC gamer, I tend to take gameplay features (typically added by mods) for granted. Playing KCD base game is a downgrade for me compared to where base game Skyrim was. Especially if you’ve been playing said legacy base game with mods since 2012. It’s like moving into a house that costs $500,000, and finding out it lacks basic running water, an HVAC system. Or finding the only working toilets is an outhouse etc etc.

Basically that thread spam was a rant in support of what the OP posted. It’s how I express my frustration with a game that was marketed as a AAA title. That is STILL being promoted as best in RPG genre where “revolutionary realism” is concerned.

Removing all comparisons of graphics quality: If KCD is supposedly the superior RPG where this realism is concerned, then why hasn’t the base game included basic fundamentals that Skyrim had to add? Especially since the time when KCD was being conceived in its Kickstarter days (around 2014 or so) happened well after modding in Skyrim had reached its peak maturity? So all the fundamental cause/effect game features that mods added e.g.

1.PC hygiene factors related to disease,
2.disease related to PC health/combat readiness/constitution/morale,
3.PC bodily needs systems like a digestive/bowel system related to daily PC need for nutrition/energy
4.Digestion related to PC subsequent daily need to relieve themselves by means of #1 & #2, an of course
5.The ever controversial sexual needs a PC should/should not have based on how the character backstory

Given its 5th gen status, then at minimum, KCD should’ve included fundamental game play features #1-#4 in the base game. #5 was understandably omitted for its controversial reasons. But how the hell can WH include explicit sex scenes buy omit them in actual gameplay? No one can ever accuse WH for a lack of consistency.

A 5th gen game shouldn’t have to require future mods to bring the game into alignment with reality. Expecially if it’s marketing itself as “the” realism simulator. Period.

#36

While I’d like a game like that, I don’t think it’s fair to say WarHorse should have made the game this way. That is simply not the game they wanted to make. You could make those same arguments about many, many games. WarHorse never gave any suggestion the game would be a sandbox game like that, and in fact we’re very clear from the early stages that the game was going to be Henry’s story and that’s what they delivered.

What you want is a different game in the same setting. I would also like that (in addition to WarHorses games for Henry’s story) and I think a lot of other people would like a game as you describe. I suspect we will see some total conversion mods in the coming months for this exact purpose.

Edit: after reading your latest post, I think you either have misinterpreted or made some assumptions about the game that were never the intention of this game. Realism simulator? I don’t recall WarHorse ever suggesting that. I also think your perfect game would not sell very well which is another major concern for WarHorse. Not many people want to manage their characters digestive system.

1 Like
#37

:apple::tangerine: - a medieval simulator would enforce the socio-political-economic aspects of serfdom. Skyrim is BS fantasy; to call it a simulator of anything other than BS fantasy is disengenuous at best. WH is historical fiction embellished with fantasy. Neither replicate serfdom (especially its Czech flavor) well in terms of shaping NPC interactions and considerations.

1 Like
#38

KCD is stripped of overt fantasy (that’s at the core of Skyrim), based (loosely) on actual historical event and intends to mimic the combat mechanics of the time. That is pretty much the essence of KCD’s realism. Some want to make more of it than that to appease their own agenda

#39

Geez, you can’t read the parenthetical notes at the ends of these lines of dialog, which tell you what they do? Not even on your Nth playthrough when you already know this is coming and have already decided on what type of Henry you want this time around? Don’t mean to be rude here, but if you can’t handle this simple and easy character customization system, then you’d probably fail miserably with a more complex customization system :slight_smile:

As to changing stats later on, that’s simple: Do the things that raise the various stats. Spend a day punching cows, or running everywhere, or doing vault jumps all down the length of a long fence, or talking to everybody in town. The opening dialog does EXACTLY what you want: It gives you a couple of points to play with. Because ALL your stats are pathetically low to start with, these minor initial tweaks have no significant effect in the long-run. Because ALL your stats, even those you chose initially, are pathetically low, it doesn’t take much to improve them a few levels even without grinding everything in Skalitz.

You can also change direction at any point in the game, provided you were careful in your perk choices. You can always spend some time improving the attributes and skills you haven’t been using. Each skill has its own set of perks so there’s not much conflict between them. It’s only the attribute and main level perks that can really force specialization, and that only happens if you pick certain perks. So if you’re wishy-washy on what you want Henry to be, don’t take the either-or perks that close off the options to change directions later. OTOH, if you are certain, then you’re not wishy-washy and won’t be changing careers later.

Then, of course, you can always have multiple saves (Playlines) simultaneously. AND, at least on PC, you can create these in Windows Explorer without having to completely restart the game each time. Just start the game once, get Henry some decent starting stats, money, and gear, then go into the saves folder and copy that save into new playline folders you make yourself.

I currently have 4 playlines I created this way. I played until I finished “The Good Thief”, then cloned that save into 3 others. So now I have the following:

  • Main Quest Henry who travels only in connection with the main storyline and only does a few side quests
  • Tank Henry, who did the main quest through “Ginger in a Pickle” to unlock Bernard’s training, and is now trying to exterminate all bandits and Cumans. Once he’s a god, he will then do the main story.
  • Dirty Bastard Henry who is a horrible mass-murderer and thief, who has no intention of ever doing the main story.
  • Witcher Henry who believes in better living through chemistry. He makes up for lower skills and stats by chugging buffs and using lots of poison. He hunts a lot while picking flowers and chases down every treasure map he can find, since he’s always wandering the woods anyway.

The nice thing about having multiple saves like this is that I can easily switch between them from the main menu. If I get tired of picking flower, I can go on a killing spree, or vice versa.

2 Likes
#40

Well you’re right they never did. But if industry gaming trends are any indicator, then it’s clear the majority of RPG gamers prefer a Skyrim-esque sandbox play style V. a highly constrained but historically accurate RPG.

There is a reason for that. Consider Steam, one of the most popular PC online distributors where you download new titles. And where I got my copy of KCD.

Consider the gaming trends in daily PC gamer stats as of today:
http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

• Look at where legacy Skyrim is ranked (#36/100)

• Where KCD has been down ranked to date (below Skyrim SE as I earlier speculated last week)

• Where Skyrim/SSE is ranked (#45/100) <–this is supposed to be the theoretically superior version (i.e. better graphics & modded game performance) of legacy Skyrim btw

• Where Skyrim overall is theoretically ranked (i.e the total Skyrim + Skyrim SE gamers playing online atm) had Bethesda not split the Steam player base by releasing SSE. <-- Note this is a LOW number because the stats tend to peak after 4pm EST due to N. American gamers going online after that point each day So based on the total number of current players (20,311), this theoretically ranks Skyrim at #19/100; unchanged from where Skyrim has consistently ranked on average in the top 20 since 2011.

And now for the nipple twister:
Just look at where Gary’s Mod continues to rank on the Steam user stats to date (#14/100).
This title has NEVER fallen out of Steams top 20. EVER. Even when big whale AAA titles the likes of GTAO, Fallout 4–and yes KCD–came out. And Gary’s Mod isn’t even a game!

My point: there is a reason for this sort of longetivity. And it has everyting to do with how flexible/receptive the devs made the game by means of sandbox game play and mod capability.

This reason is also not just limited to the PC platform. You see, Bethesda has finally figured out the industry game changer. Which WH Studios – after all these years of watching the growth of this industry leviathan – have apparently failed to grasp to date.

As you well know, the console gaming community vastly outnumbers the PC one. But it’s the PC gamers and the smaller PC modding community which is the software dev’s Golden Goose. You see, the PC modding community is what has–and will continue to be–the driving force for the success of a franchise brand and longevity in the market. The PC modding community is what historically empowered software devs to reaping billions in sales for new titles—without having to spend a dime on marketing. Because by default of continuously providing FREE, professional level DLC to the gaming community, the modding community guarantees millions in savings from FREE advertisement and PR marketing kickbacks to the Dev.

Which is why Bethesda reaped billions in sales on its over hyped Fallout 4 title on both PC and console. Because Bethesda knew it could 100% rely on Skyrim’s popularity (an RPG game) to guarantee Fallout 4 (an FPS game) marketing/sales success. From TES Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowind fan boys inspired by their heavily modded TES games, to cross over into the Fallout universe. From console gamers who where inspired after watching Youtube play throughs of heavily modded New Vegas/FO3 and Skyrim/TES games. For many of these console gamers, getting Fallout 4 was a foregone conclusion. Their expectations for Fallout 4 were likely high based on what they could see of these modded title play throughs on the web.

So Bethesda’s overhaul of Skyrim to 64 bit OS Skyrim SE was a deliberate industry maneuver for a very marketable reason. Bethesda’s move to create an officially sanctioned, centralized mod download forum, was done for a deliberate reason (hint hint: so that it could make SSE and Fallout 4 accessible to console gamers at zero dev cost to Bethesda & Zenimax). Bethesda basically used Skyirm’s long lived success (thanks to modding) and TES franchise brand to exponentially grow its smaller Fallout franchise brand. Period.

TL;DR: Mods drive a game franchise’s sales, brand and popularity by extending their shelf life/longevity. The gaming industry market is all about supply and demand. Where game enhancing/modded content is concerned, supply is on the minority PC platform. Demand is on the console

So if what you say is true, about the WH devs designing KCD to not be “that” kind of game? If the devs decide to retract their pledge to release mods (so the player base can self correct whatever deficiencies they perceive in their game)? Decide to keep this rigid game play design with non existent sandbox game play? Well IMO, KCD will soon go the way of the T-Rex, the Dodo, the Typewriter maintenance man, and that other non KCD game called No Man’s Sky…

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