Roads are dangerous mod? I got this one and an Immersive balance mod and the gameplay is 100% better maybe more 
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I play on the PS4 Pro 
Ergot poisoning, or too much moonshine, or just plain mental illness / dropped on their head.
I agree that, for the first 100 hours, the randoms seem to be a bit . . . “lacking” but the more I’ve played it the more satisfying I’ve found them to be. I’ve been attacked by squads of trained and capable fully kitted mercs (probably Westerner deserters from Siggie’s army) who literally forced me to flee (despite being quite well armed, armored and leveled) to a couple unarmed numbskulls who gave me an opportunity to practice unarmed and stealth (knock him out, wait for him to wake up, stealth take down) and everything in between.
When/if you have played it like 100+ hours and have kept track of every rando you experience and can tell us what proportion are the unarmed schmoos then you have a basis to complain.
Think about it from their perspective - all they see is that they’re six and you’re alone. They have no idea that you’re actually level 20 and a master swordsman. And peasants with polearms can actually be quite dangerous. I think it’s fun.
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not buyin’ it. you’re riding atop the best stallion 
in the land (Jenda) and equipped with the preeminent armor 
and weapons 
that money can buy. at very best, it’s a high risk, high reward situation.
what makes it worse is what happens after they make their intention known. you create space (ride horse down path) and nail one of them in the head with an arrow 
, the others chase after you. 
kill another. the remaining continue kill yet another. repeat
now if the riffraff shot out the horse and tried to immobilize you… maybe. but they don’t
can’t speak about Czechia but generally common criminals in the US give a wide berth to guys driving down the road atop military grade transportation and armed with military grade equipment. btw, it would be a masterstroke if WH could code a nuance… the more ‘military’ like you are in appearance, the less likely the NPCs attack and more likely to flee combat
played over 1000h. the unarmed schmoos seem to trigger about 30% of the time at the red boxes (at least the one on the S portion of the forested Rattay-Sasau loop.). the other times are Cuman or armed bandits. btw, riding back and forth between the blue circle (battle spawn point) and the red box (ambush spot) in question is a glorious way to harvest bad guys and their equipment… the distance resets the trigger
Fair enough. The random encounters should perhaps surrender more and/or sooner. Surrendering is obviously implemented into the game and there are several examples where it works very well (like the bandit camp just east of Rattay).
agree. like many things in KCD … a little more nuance/complexity/variety in NPC behavior and the game would change from (very) good/great to positively sublime
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I’m glad you were the “bad cop” once again. You do it much more deftly than me 
Of course I agree: more nuanced NPCs would be great. I also don’t think that them programming the entities to do what people are asking for would be “difficult.” There is after all, at least one perk which makes it more likely enemies flee. There must already be some chance that they flee from the outset (or shortly after combat initiates). Maybe they just need to tweak these dynamics a bit?
I actually find that I spend a fair amount of time chasing NPCs around trying to kill them to take their half rotten carrots and cheap hatchets! 
Of course, one thing that has to be kept in mind is that: there are plenty of complaints on the board or the internet more broadly, that there are “not enough” random encounters. There is even that mod (which now seems to be broken by an update? I couldn’t get it to work . . .) which is supposed to add more randos to the roads, which tells us: Enemies that run away more often–and perhaps even before the player can get off their horse and initiate the fight–are likely to upset as many people as would be pleased.
ADDIT: and I’m not sure what you mean by
the red boxes (at least the one on the S portion of the forested Rattay-Sasau loop.). the other times are Cuman or armed bandits. btw, riding back and forth between the blue circle (battle spawn point) and the red box (ambush spot) in question is a glorious way to harvest bad guys and their equipment… the distance resets the trigger
Is that something on the map in normal mode? I played for about 80 hours in normal but now 240 or so hardcore.
look at the map
I had never seen that; but of course it makes perfect sense with my experience playing the game.
Shame they didn’t include any roaming randos . . .
a couple thoughts.
(1) Henry is the only one on a horse. running away won’t be easy. and, leaves the bloodlust factor up to you in terms of whether you pursue or move on
(2) shouldn’t be an absolute behavior. should be conditional. depends on what henry ‘looks like’. poor schmuck Henry … attack to the death. middling Henry… give it a shot but flee/surrender once initiative lost. knight in shining armor Henry… unless youve got archers to take out the horse and polearms to swarm Henry, just run
static randos are part of the problem. they spawn like hell (at least to me) but you have to visit hell. roaming randos (within quadrant/sector Henry’s in) will vastly increase perception of event frequency. probably so much, one could probably even reduce the overall number of rando events
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Yeah, once I distinctly heard them calling me a disgusting Cuman I think because i had on some pieces of Cuman armor like leg armor. I, of course, owned them pretty quickly. I tend to kill all bandits, Cumans, Etc. who attack me even if they surrender because hey, they don’t seem to give me any leeway.
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Well, some peasant ambush will trigger the surrender option ( similar to when a guard wants to search you) and you can talk them out of it. You’ll find out some of those are peasants grouping together to protect their loved ones and their belongings from roaming bandits and cumans and mistook you for one of those. Tell them you work for Sir Radzig and they’ll apologise.
Your adoptive dad was right: sometimes, talking is the better option to avoid useless bloodshed 
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Well, now I feel bad. 
lol, just fucking kill them, theyre peasants; open season
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My complaint is the opposite: after a certain level you get bandits in Milanese plate. Come on. They are way better equipped than the nobles. I get it that some special in story bandits should be well armed or armored, but not every thug you run across.
For your complaint I would like to see the AI think it through. If there are five peasants maybe they think they can get lucky. Losing a couple wouldn’t be too much of a price to pay for your horse, weapons and armor. OTOH two guys with sticks would probably not take the chance.
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i get what you are saying but i think the game would be a lot more boring if you didnt get in fights with equally well equipped enemies
There are mercs that can keep up to jeda at a trot all day in full plate. And take 7 100+ puncture arrows. I like the log across the road ambushes. I actually got killed by the peasents east of sasau. They dragged me off my horse with a bill guisarm and then they all had some kind of pole arm and by the time I was up they had me surrounded and I think I got to poke one before the 6 of them had me blue and then dead.
Yeah, amazes me too… heavily armored guys finish an intense melee battle and then run after you on a horse like world class sprinters at the Olympics