I apologize if these have already been brought up. These are just some thoughts I’ve had that in my opinion would bring a little more realism to an already fantastic game. Most will be about thralls.
The ability to map a patrol route for thralls. Can be limited to XX number of waypoints with XX distance between points. Would love to have guards walking keep walls.
Harvest thralls. Could be a placeable crafting station that you place the thrall into. The thrall then harvests the appropriate material within XX radius. Some examples would be a sawmill with a woodsman thrall that harvests wood, dry wood, resin, bark and twigs. Or an oar cart with a miner thrall that harvest stone, coal, iron, etc. Hunting camp with a hunter thrall that hunts the local game for hides, meat and horn. Obviously the lower tier thralls would only be able to harvest lower tier material.
The ability to equip a musical instrument to the performers. This could also bring into the game additional recipes in the form of music sheets.
Allowing the thralls to use all emotes. If it’s a matter of looping, the spit emote is already looped (in the world not sure about after learning it) and it’s annoying to listen to.
The ability to change thralls looks. Could use a placeable like that which is used for the player OR have an NPC in the city that you must take your thrall too.
That’s enough for now. I’m sure some of these have already been brought up.
Number 3 would be a pretty big one for a lot of people. One way i could see them achieving something like this is by having a ‘Warband’ thrall which when placed comes with 3 more (intangible) thralls that all play some animation and have a set piece of music playing when stationary. Something such as for example 3 drummers and a hornblower.
Or more likely, a placeable structure of various instruments that includes some (yet again, intangible) NPCs with a set piece of music playing.
By set piece of music i mean something such as the various musics that play at the Sepermeru bar Conan can be found in.
It would be really nice to just place instruments and assign thralls freely, though. Maybe have the music more or less play once you place them, allowing you to sync them by going in and out of render range.
Who knows though, but that and the patrols would for sure add some liveliness to bases.
In regards to thrall appearances, i’d second that if not mostly to yet again bring up my personal wish to alter thrall voice lines…
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All that said, at some point i think a lot of this is unlikely. It’s just like thralls at crafting stations of which 75% or so just fiddle with the air instead of having a more… fitting animation or pose.
At least we can place stuff on workbenches to make them appear to be working on something.
This would make the game more immersive, but I’m worried about the performance impact, especially on official servers.
Good news: autonomous harvesting already exists in the game. Golems are used for this.
Unfortunately, you might not find it as useful as you would like, because it only works when there’s a player in vicinity. This is a limitation of how the game is implemented and changing it would require massive effort from the devs. At this point, with a 7 year old codebase, I don’t think it would be feasible.
This would be absolutely awesome! And since it’s something that could be done without any server AI logic, it wouldn’t have any impact on server performance.
I would also love to see this. I’m not sure why it’s not a thing already, but if I had to guess, I suspect it has something to do with differences between the player skeleton and thrall skeletons.
Yeah, we’ve all been asking for this for a looooooong time. Maybe it will eventually get implemented.
And yes all of your ideas are great!
As @CodeMage said, a lot of us brought some of these up in the past. But given the bad state of CE it’s sadly wishful thinking i guess.
(Just as an example)
Battle formations for the purge attackers should not be too difficult to code, just have them walk as a unit with shields up.
It’s however not possible to have them walk together, so …
(Please note - none of this reply is to say ‘mods exist so the changes aren’t needed’ - mods are not an option for any vanilla servers nor are they available for consoles, so making these changes for the base game would all be benefits that would apply to everyone, not just those that can use mods. The point of referencing mods is that the features can exist - though there may be good reasons why some don’t.)
There are mods that provide several of these features - my last playthrough I used a mod called ‘Thralls are alive’ and it really does bring the base to life in a way that the base game does not achieve. Thralls and pets wandering about on preset routes, following schedules and sleeping at preset times, hanging out at the bar in their ‘downtime’ or dancing by a fire, or training with weapons, or press-ups or rolls. The mod also covers thrall harvesting, and the possibility to set up resource chains, with bearers carrying harvested resources from the harvesters to workstations and collected the processed resources and moving them to the next stage etc (they just can’t turn workstations on, so the balancing can get fiddly, or the chain might bottleneck where a station finishes crafting before the next lot of resources are added).
With a good pc, in singleplayer, this all worked pretty well (though the mod is designed for private servers and does suffer a couple of minor glitches in singleplayer as a result). It didn’t appear to be too resource heavy. But servers may be a different issue - at a guess, I would expect patrol routes to be one of the least resource intensive activities, but that is still a lot of active animation any time a player is in render range. If the old argument has often been that lanterns were less resource intensive than torches because of the lack of animation, I can only imagine some huge city on an official server with hundreds of animated thralls walking around… Perhaps if there was some sort of limit on the number of patrol routes that can be set up, maybe that would keep it within reasonable levels. But the possible impact on performance is certainly a reasonable concern.
So options 1 and 2 (patrols and harvesting) I would love to see, but can imagine there might be some performance issues and need for very careful implementation. 3,4, and 5 I would also love to see and seem like they would be less impactful, so should be less of a problem. I still don’t really see why thralls can’t use all emotes - the animations are already designed to be viewed in third person, and the functionality of thralls performing emotes has been added. To my (uneducated) mind, it seems like it would be harder to maintain two separate lists of available emotes (player vs thrall) than simply to have thralls automatically able to perform any emote that the player knows. Codemage’s suggestion is the first hint I’ve seen that suggests at least a possible reason
You can do this in Pippi, they’re called thespians. Years ago Josh(who made Pippi mod) invited community managers (I think Jens Erik and/or Nicole) on a server where they had made a danceclub with several hundred thralls doing various emotes.
Funcom could copy the mod, but after the way they butchered the Homebrew mod when copying and implemented aspects of it in a lesser way, I’m not really sure I want them to copy any mods.
Again, there are a few mods that allow that, I have Improved Quality of Life. I know there are others like ‘Edit Appearance’. They are great as you can make your own Arnold and Sonja.
Again, Funcom could copy the mod, but I dont trust them to do it correctly after what we’ve seen in the past.
I’m all for thralls playing music or harvesting too.
Back in the early days, when Joel Bylos still led the project he actually wanted to have thralls act as patrol, or open gates when the player arrives for example. But it never materialized and I while I dont know why exactly, my bet is on the difficulty to write AI that can do those tasks properly in combination with a lack of resources.
I quickly looked for it and here is that livestream showing off Pippi and its thespians, they explain how it works. fast forward to about 1 hour in for the dance club. I tried creating one myself once, but I gave up, too many thralls xD
This is the only one mods lack the power to do well.
Have a friend who works with sound and music, and I can do systems, but still not found someone to make the animations.
This one especially is fond of 3-5.
The Orb of Nergal is sitting right there… The useless Barbarian Barber feat exists… Please, 5 would be an easy win that would make many customers happy.
For 3 and 4, they are somewhat linked
Most instruments have an interaction or have a related interaction, an emote the player uses when interacting. Making them stations or items that bring up an emote would be grand.
Also, there are several instruments lying around in enemy camps that we cannot craft, not even as decoration, very sad.
As others mentioned, 2 is already partially there, and hypothetically in the space future may apply to non golems (one of those things mentioned as coming, but it was years ago and either problematic or forgotten).
While 1 Would be nifty, but may be memory intensive, while this one likes the idea, it may be challenging to implement across all platforms.
Is this possible in single player?It could be cool…i know,single player is a server,PVP are servers,so i suposse changing code will affect PVP-PVE servers…is really so difficult to add “different code” for single player server?
If you are going to build,use administrative privileges and spawn directly to your inventory,NEVER USE SERVER PRIVILEGES for…new thralls,legendary weapons,recipes and things like that…you will be bored in a short time.
Maybe traders could be cool…at camps or in your base,as a character added by you,crafteable thrall,wheel of pain and a trader,or buying him from camps…1000 steel bars for “?” gold coins…please call someone else different from game devps,no one want that generous perception of commerce and premiums inside purgue chest,or that ramdom reduction of stats in thralls…or bazar prices in-game with gold coins…
It will be funny
Yesterday i bought an emote,thinking i will can not use it in thralls,but,i can,i have check one emote from battlepass and i can use it in thralls,i have a few or more emotes,but some of them can not be used in thralls,why?and why there is no indication in bazar?,there can be an indication,emote for player,emote for thrall,emote for player/thralls
About mods, i have tested some,boats,dwarfs,giants,new building set,new armours and weapons stats,different gameplay and dialogues,i have play with PIPPI mod,PIPPI new characters and some more…they are really cool…i recently see a total game conversion…i was playing the battlepass and don´t have time,but it´s looks really good enough…i think implementations will be cool at the normal game,in mods too.
…and lets talk clearly…a lot of people LOVE to build things and have thralls decorating their buildings,camps,houses,etc…doing something more than stay stopped…
The game with exploration,fights,is really cool but i have play it more than 10 characters,new game,PVP,singleplayer,Exiles lands,Isle of Siptah…building is really a thing that makes me play one more time this game…and i am adicted,or don´t play,or play soooo much…maybe that´s why prices are high enought,a lot of adicts…well,really are 3-4 ■■■■■■ bugs,or maybe ten putrit euros don´t going anywhere and without the hability to pay something for you…30 euros are not a joke,will not pay your hollidays but can help at the end of the month…is expensive but is not really so much money…the fact is that with other prices i will buy a lot of things,with actual prices,you check,you see the thing…and maybe buy or don´t…is not so much money but DLC were less…i have all at sale…weapons,armours and building set at a very lowered price compared to bazar prices…by the way i need…**…from the set……selled separately at a good price,i love that things but not the whole set…
This type of thing was planned for the settlement system. Den has dropped several hints about them still working towards the settlement system, so it is quite possible we will see patrols.
Again, this was actually planned. When golems were announced, they said they hoped to allow thralls to harvest as well at some point.
Personally not a fan of autonomous harvesting though…
I think having musicians was something that was planned a very long time ago as a branch of the Performers profession. I do not know if any intentions to follow through on this are still alive. It seems more like they just want to sell overpriced placeables that you can attach thralls to in the Bazaar now.
I don’t know why they picked and chose emotes that could be used by players or thralls in the first place…
Although I have not heard any official plans regarding this, they are intending to make all thralls followers, which will allow you to change the outfits of crafters. I think an Orb of Nergal for thralls is a small step following that and think it is quite possible they will implement this at some point after the follower change.
Still holding out hope for Thrall customization, variety is you know… fun or something like that, I know, weird concept…
Really though running around with the same Dalinsia (or limited rng Zerker, Lianelle, or insert whatever) gets old. Wish Dalinsia could at least change hairstyles from time to time to you know, open that long braid and let loose, spice things up a little, get wild, you know - fun - there it is again.
It’s odd to me that I can sometimes find a nice looking T1 with more variety than the T3 - T4 Thralls, bizarre. I once in a blue moon come upon a blonde T3 in the Volcano, but I don’t think there is any female red or blonde T4 in game (I’m happy to be wrong, tell me who and where).
Frigga Falsehope, tier 4.
But a tier 4 Exile, so worse than a tier 1 Cimmerian, Nordheimer, or mid to late game faction.
Also, one or two of the named Pirate lasses are blonde or ginger Katerina of the Wild Seas is Nord and can be blonde or redhead, and Onis the Quite Angry is “Hyborian” often coming in blonde, but again, as pirates, they are trash tier.
Very rarely a Relic Hunter Treasure Seeker comes out Blonde.
On Siptah, Accursed Berzerkers sometimes come out with blonde hair, likewise Stormsick Warriors (during events) follow the Accursed rather than Cimmerian aesthetics.
If you count Surges/Purge prisoners, Colvric Blade from the Army of Aquilon can be blonde but often has raven hair as well. Also there are Aesir Berserkers as well that appear in the purge cages.
This one assumes you only are looking for the ladies?
There are a several blonde or redhead men around.
But no beards…
So why bother…
One explanation I’ve heard is whether the emote is designed to be continuous or not. So, a thrall can “sit cross-legged” because the emoting persists, but the thrall cannot “blow kiss” because the emote is performed once and then it stops.
There’s no real technical reason not to allow all emotes, but many of the non-continuous ones would look silly when performed repeatedly.
The Relic Hunter Treasure Seekers Fighter and Archer thrall have Blonde and Redhead variants. These are from the Unnamed City but I have seen them in the first part of The Wine Cellar as well.
@DanQuixote - Yes Freya and Dina, forgot about those and yes probably because they are archers and I mostly ever run with Fighters or Entertainer. I should have said T4 Fighter.
And I believe female T4 fighters are under represented in the higher level factions in general, don’t think there is a female T4 Votaries Fighter or T4 Nordheimr Fighter. Now I am not sure but Nordheimr Berserkers could potentially also be female? I don’t remember seeing one in the last 2 years but wiki says they can show up at the bar for hire?
@LostBrythunian - yes Frigga Falsehope, but while she is technically a Nordheimr/Vanir, she counts under Exile not as Heir of the North, which makes her as you already pointed out worse, which is very sad to me. Thinking about Frigga makes me wish there was a way to ‘level up’ lesser Thralls from T1 to eventually T4.
I rarely play anymore on Siptah, but yes I like the variety there a bit better and I tend to collect Aesir and Accursed ones. Alas I like the Exiled Lands so much more and spend most of my time there.
I am leaning a bit more towards lasses, but generally there should be an equal in variety. I do have a couple of red headed male Cimmerian Berserkers standing in for the Vanir, if only they had a little more Nordic complexity. And as you rightfully point out another pet peeve of mine, but no beards! So yeah exactly, why bother.
If we could change just hair and beard styles and color on Thralls, that alone would be a huge step forward and if I might be so naive, isn’t it just a variable, so should be relatively easy to allow to be changed? (PS: I know there are mods that do that, but I usually play without any and mostly on official pve servers and mods are also not available for our console brothers and sisters.)
@LostBrythunian and @Pugilist - Yes, I totally forgot that once in a blue moon there can be a blonde RH Treasure Seeker Fighter. Thank you for reminding me! I think I just have not been very lucky finding one or my thrall companion at the time was too quick in striking those down before I realized it or was able to intervene.
Still dreaming of a blonde, ivory skinned female Aesir on EL… entirely my fault for reading The Frost-Giant’s Daughter as a young impressionable lad…
I would much prefer to see only golems used for autonomous harvesting. It’s good to have interesting choices to make, rather than just make everything same-ish.
That said, I would love to see golems able to perform autonomous harvesting without requiring their AI to be activated by the players’ presence. They could implement the same kind of catch-up logic for that system as they do for crafting stations, although it would be somewhat more complex. It would require the golem AI to take an “inventory” of reachable resource nodes and then the catch-up logic would compute the amount of resources they presumably harvested from those nodes during the time the AI was inactive. It would probably take some work, but it sounds doable.
I hope they get around to doing that, it would be awesome!
That makes sense. Thanks for posting this! I always wondered why they did it, and never thought of that.
Maybe they could do it with a random-ish delay between performances?
What I would really love is the ability to give thralls performance “scripts”, but I know that’s not going to happen outside mods. It’s way too hard to make a good, intuitive UI for that, and the cost of it is too high given that it’s such a niche request.