Bugs and Balance Issues

[ex_ottoyuhr]

Bug reports and issues with game balance (which qualify as bugs in my book ) should go here.

Known Bugs and Issues:

* The opening game menus refer to a story that's not there.
  I'll be developing storyline materials presently; in the meantime, if people want me to remove the opening material (and/or are getting confused by it), just say the word.

* The opening game menus also present you with a small ocean of incomprehensible names and choices.
   Manual and introductory materials coming reasonably soon -- and I'll draw up spoilers for the chargen menus. A few of those options really are pretty inscrutable -- though that was partially deliberate.

* Occasional "stuttering" or freezing on the overworld map.
   I think I know the cause; I'm working on it.

* Gibberish in the town stewards' dialogues.
   This should be solved next version.

* City garrisons aren't being paid.
   A stupid mistake on my part (created two slots for town garrisons' wages); fixed next version.

* Mudslide in Delmarinen!
   Fixed in the next version. I could have sworn I'd already caught all of these...

* Recruting a bandit/deserter party doesn't ensure that parties currently pursuing them will stop doing so.
   I'm not 100% sure that this can be fixed... but then again, I'm 90% sure, now that I think about it. If it can be fixed, look for a resolution next version.

* Relative rarities of masculine and feminine armors are fouled up.
   I haven't started looking at this, but it shouldn't take too long to figure out and deal with -- it should be fixed (and item rarities in general should be better) next version.

* Cities accumulating unrealistic amounts of money set aside for the player.
   "Our treasury is 1200 rallen. ... We have 14,368 rallen set aside for your use; would you like that money now?"
   I had envisioned first going to a city as being a sort of bonus for the player, but I hadn't meant it to be this much of a bonus. Whoops... (Cities will 'plow back' money over a certain amount saved for the player in the next version.)

* Too easy to blow one's political position.
   Next version, declaring war or breaking alliances will prompt you to ensure that you really want to do this.

* Too much forest in Lun.
   Yes, more colorful map geography is good, but I've lost track of two of their cities. There'll be a little more woodcutting around Ostien and Labin next version.

* Invasion forces are insultingly weak.
   I had intended them to be less than totally reliable in taking cities, but not this much less...

* Multiple invasion forces heading for a city will all attack the city, even if one of them (and/or the player) conquors it.
   To be fixed next version.

* The "One Defender" bug -- cities take about a day to get their defenses on-line, and will sit around prior to that with a garrison of two Common Maidens and an Experienced Honseli Spearman.
   This is an unforeseen side effect of the rules; there's need for a "priming read" before cities start getting serious about attacking each other. This and the stuttering problem will probably both be most effectively fixed by having the player rest for a day before beginning the mod proper. (This won't be a problem in the final version, where opening storyline events will consume at least a day's time.)

* Common Maidens are useless -- and far too easy to hire.
   They're a little more useful next version.

* Weapons and armor are disproportionate.
   I'll tackle this probably the version after next, if people can "hold out" that long. Please let me know about any particularly offensive items (the 0.1.x cuirass kantis, for example ) in the meantime.

* Bows are underpowered, especially for the player.
   This will be dealt with  next release.

* Your wife, who's already in your party, is also in a room in the castle in Baheisir; you can ask her to join you, in which case she will and your party size, with two people, will be recorded as three.
   To be addressed next version. More stuff from the story implementation that I kind of forgot to remove...

* Over-armored Sivaic scouts.
   I've lightened their equipment once or twice before, but it looks like I haven't far enough yet. Next version...



* And doubtless more issues I've missed...

By the way, from here on out, I'll try to credit those who point out bugs and issues (and I'll try to go back through the thread to give suitable credit to those who've pointed out these); in the meantime, let me know if you see your idea up here...

[DarthLlama226]

When I try to rescue a city while it is sieged, a fatal error pops up and cuts me out of the game.

[ex_ottoyuhr]

Really!? What's the error message? I've not heard of anything like that -- I thought I'd fixed the siege problem.

However, make sure you're using 0.2.2, the version currently downloadable; 0.2.1 crashed when one attempted to join siege battles...

[Cirdan]

This is a variant of the city being attacked by your forces or your ally's, but when you hire a party of deserters already being tracked by friendly parties or already tracking friendly parties, the tracking party/ies will continue tohunt their targets and eneventually engage in battle, even if they now serve the same lord.

[ex_ottoyuhr]

Cirdan,

Oh... great. That tearing sound you hear is me tearing my hair out at the thought of the amount of overhead I'm going to need here. I'll take care of it next release, but I hope that nobody minds a limit of 255 deserter parties.

[Papa Lazarou]

I guess this is a balance thing: it seems to me that there's too much cavalry in the mod. Lots of cavalry is fine I suppose, but I find that the amount has made it next to impossible to play on foot (I use battle size of 120 by the way). The main problem is that raising an army of infantry is difficult, since many (maybe most) trees are cavalry, even from commoner level. With a party of only 1st tier, I still find that its at least half horsemen. If this is the whole point of the mod than that's all fine and dandy, but personally I think cavalry is most enjoyable when you can use it strategically - not just ending up in a scrum of horsemen fighting horsemen.

Even so, this mod is really great - in my view probably the best and most promising in its style (politics + capturing etc). Love the art style too (armour, weapons and equipment in general). Nice work!

[Cirdan]

Ex_ottoyuhr:
Good luck, 255 ought to be more than enough deserters.

Papa Lazarou: I *think* it's deliberate on Ex_ottoyuhr's part, but the problem with cavalry and large battlesizes is that you sometimes end up with one hundred horsemen ganging up on one--and no-one hitting anything for ten minutes until the poor sod in the midlle finally gets his head chopped off and stuck on a pike. Meanwhile, i've killed a dozen of my own troops with arrows that flew straight through him.
It's really a Native issue; M&B just can't handle very large battles with creating large cluster fucks (or "Charlie Fox events", for those who object to strong language), i'm afraid.

[ex_ottoyuhr]

Papa Lazaru,

Yes, the extreme cavalry heaviness was intentional. It started out as one more Fire Emblem 4 holdover, but I liked how it worked and decided to keep it that way -- the mod sort of acquired a "M&B turned up to 11" feel, which I'll keep after all.

If you really insist on using infantry, though, Common Youths upgrade into the Honseli Spearman path (which evidently has a bit of a reputation ); Galine Youths can be upgraded into infantry also, and Soltalline Youths have a Swordsman/Hunter path as well as a Knight one. Ajarine, Sivaic, and Lunnic Youths, though, as well as Noble Maidens, do start mounted.

Cirdan,

I didn't appreciate that it got quite that bad -- but you're quite right in saying that it comes down to an engine issue. Better AI would be very welcome in this mod, too -- though between that, the fast horses, and the Battle Size Changer, I could see things kind of going south on most computers...

Regarding the deserters,

I'm not actually sure what I was thinking of with the "255 deserters" approach, but whatever it was, I don't think it'd work. I doubt that there's an adequate solution in the Module System for this problem; I think it's more a bug in Native, which (understandably) assumes that a party isn't going to go from hostile to friendly while another party's three inches away...

I explored the deserter-related stuff, and it looks like units will disengage if they get time to "think about" their targets before they connect. In general, parties changing faction doesn't seem to be especially well supported; I'm sure we've all had the experience of taking over a town and seeing friendly tax collectors with red names -- or declaring war and being chased by a supposed friendly...

[Cirdan]

Just a suggestion then, but you might want to change the way recruiting deserters works. Just have them join the PC's party if there's enough room, and i suspect you'd both get more use of the recruting option and solve the bug of friendly parties fighting each other.

[Tuckles]

It's really weird on how Cavalry is too common in this game.

I know it's been brought up, and you've answered why you like it.

It just annoys me that foot 2-handed swordsmen are virtually useless late game,
and the lack of strategy is also kinda annoying.

Also, I remember in later Fire Emblems, you don't rely too heavily on your cavalry, swordmasters, generals and snipers are what I usually use.

Though in FE 4 there were the bow, lance, sword and axe knights... Well, whatever. lol. It's your game. I'm just giving suggestions.

Balance Issue:

Imbalanced Knights.

Balance Fix:

Revamped Troop trees.

I can actually help make a troop tree if you're interested.

[ex_ottoyuhr]

Cirdan,

I'm afraid directly hiring deserters would feel a little too much like 1066... but on the other hand, it would be useful at least as an option. Thanks for the proposal...

Tuckles,

Actually, FE4's the only one of the games that I've played -- from what I know of the later ones, particularly those on the Gamecube and GBA, they're a long way from living up to it. (That said, though, I would be interested in a VC release of Thracia 776, or of one or more of the first three -- let alone 4 itself.)

What would you suggest with the troop tree, though? I decided early on to avoid the Vanilla situation of having to wait twenty levels for your first horsemen -- and the Vanilla situation of extremely low power for early units -- but I notice that you're emphasizing the late game; do you think that I should, say, create a broader 'sequence' of units levelling up to their current maximum heights (say, a duplicate Knight tier or something)? Or reduce the availability of warhorses etc.?

[Tuckles]

i'm just annoyed at how messy battles can be late game.

Early game, sure, honseli bandits are your food, and they're always on foot.

But when sieging a town, or confronting an enemy war party, I look at where all the action is and see just a mass of horses.

First of all, it ain't that fun, and second, too many makes my computer crash >_>

I propose to have each youth and maiden have a Mounted and infantry tree, balanced of course, there's no strategy when both parties are just full of horses.

But with footmen (pikemen and better swordsmen) battles would become more strategic.

chart:

x                z
 x                z   o
  x              z  o y
 x                z   o
x                z

Legend

x = horseman
z = pike infantry
o = archer
y = yourself

Now, the archers wouldn't do much, but when they meet the pikemen, sure enough those horsemen will be decimated.

It'd also be easier for people to take out those annoyingly tough paladins.

Also, archers are big niusance, and horsemen aren't really effective against them (sword wielding horsemen) but footmen with shields could easily take out those pesky always-headshot-archers.

Crossbowmen would be a welcome addition as well.

The advantage of crossbow is the precise aiming and the actual damage. Oddly enough, those small bolts can pierce armor really well.

New troops really liven up fights

(For example, I love charging head on into a bunch of crossbowmen with a couched lance)

And it would get rid of the supposed uselessness of lances (which you mentioned before I believe)

[Exasperation]

Regarding the deserters,

I'm not actually sure what I was thinking of with the "255 deserters" approach, but whatever it was, I don't think it'd work. I doubt that there's an adequate solution in the Module System for this problem; I think it's more a bug in Native, which (understandably) assumes that a party isn't going to go from hostile to friendly while another party's three inches away...

I explored the deserter-related stuff, and it looks like units will disengage if they get time to "think about" their targets before they connect. In general, parties changing faction doesn't seem to be especially well supported; I'm sure we've all had the experience of taking over a town and seeing friendly tax collectors with red names -- or declaring war and being chased by a supposed friendly...

I haven't explored the commands available myself, but is it possible instead of changing the faction of the party, to create a new party with the correct faction, transfer over the troops, then remove the old party?  That might fix your problem, since the pursuing parties would presumably have to reconsider their plan when their target disappears.

[Eother]

I think the speed of melee weapons should be increased. The steel saber you can start with seems ridiculously slow, like a two-handed weapon. The game would be more interesting with a little more speed. I put more in the suggestions area.


Edit: Also, scouts seem a bit too tough. I was going against 2 Galine Paladins and 10 Veteran Galine Scouts with my 4 Ajarine Squires, 2 Ajarine Knights, 2 Veteran Ajarine Knights, 2 Ajarine Paladins, and Chalin. The enemy scouts were heavily armored, my men couldn't hurt them. Everytime I attacked them, once we made contact, their men decimated my men. Invariably. So, the armor for scouts should probably be cut down.

[Tuckles]

Actually yeah, I've noticed that too. Scouting parties are overly armored, I thought they were scouts? Metal slows you down doesn't it?

[Wood]

There is a bug where the wife (Ica? The blonde one anyway) is in the castle as well as in my party. I asked her to join me and then it said my party size was 3 when it was only me and her. Also, I had to tell her to go home twice before she left.

[ex_ottoyuhr]

Tuckles,

Thanks for your troop advice. I think what you're describing -- lines of pikes plus ranged-weapon support -- is atmospherically a little too 16th-century, but I might well do it after all -- or at least reduce the number and quality of super-horsemen in late-game battles; I have to agree that they get a little out of hand...

Sorry about the crashes, too...

Exasperation,

I think that could work. I might experiment it when I have the time -- it's a small area of functionality, though I agree that it's a pretty annoying one...

Eother, Tuckles,

I'll experiment further with weapon speeds. Thanks for pointing that out.

Also, I'll head in and try to fix Sivaic scouts again. Tier-3 troops probably shouldn't be wearing plate...

Wood,

Thanks. This had been mentioned once before, though I forgot to put it on the first page of this thread; it's posted now, and should be a pretty easy fix.

[broodwarcd]

i feel like im asking a stupid question when i ask: are the sieges meant to be without castles or is this just a but or something that hasn't been addressed yet?

[Satyr]

I don't like allies sieging my captured towns. 

[ex_ottoyuhr]

The siege problems will be dealt with; I'm planning on a much better system next release, and yes, allied invasion forces will no longer keep charging in against towns that have already been taken. broodwarcd, though, what do you mean by "castle-less"? I do intend the sieges to be matters of taking the city or not -- citadels won't be factored in, and the sieges will be exaggeratedly short and focused on the defeat of armies -- but I'm not sure that that's what you were asking about...

[SlightFeelingOfRegret]

I do intend the sieges to be matters of taking the city or not -- citadels won't be factored in, and the sieges will be exaggeratedly short and focused on the defeat of armies -- but I'm not sure that that's what you were asking about...

 I'd ask about that.

 You mean the battles for a city are just like the normal skirmishes but on a larger scale, you don't intend to give the defenders any kind of defensive structure?

[Jericho]

Strange and a bit annoying, though not a major problem:

[ex_ottoyuhr]

Jericho,

That's odd, but I'm pretty sure I know what's causing it -- I have two dried meat items, one of them not marked as food. Why I thought that was a good idea, I don't know...

SlightFeelingOfRegret,

If you see this (and I apologize for not posting for so long), by "exaggeratedly short" I meant "taking days instead of years" -- I wrote this very badly. I'm going to make sieges a matter of a sequence of events, one action every six hours -- not a single open-field battle. Sorry...

[Servitor]

I can't play the mod. When I start a new game is crashes when "Launching game".

This is the description of the version I downloaded:

Submitted by: ex_ottoyuhr
Updated On: Sat, Jan-27-2007

Version: 0.2.2
Downloads: 24153
File Size: 7.24 MB
For M&B Version: .808
Home Page: Not Specified

Servitor


Edit: No error is shown. I am just being thrown back to my desktop. I am trying to re-download and reinstall it now. If it works after this, I will let you know.

I just had to reboot my computer! 

[Ron Losey]

Yeah ... a lot of things can be fixed with a clean reboot.

[LEGENDA]

When I try to launch this mod there comes error message "get_object failed for : font". What's wrong?

[Servitor]

I am not 100% sure, but I think:

That I can hire mounted archers without actually paying for them.

I have 19 dennars.
Click on mounted archer.
"Lost 2?? rallen"
And end up with a mounted archer.
I have 0 denars.
Click on mounted archer.
"Lost 2?? rallen"
And end up with a mounted archer.

I can continue with that, until the lord says that he cannot spare me any more troops. The next day they are all gone of course, because you cant really pay them with 0 rallen, but its a bug nonetheless.

Servitor