The Direction of the Mod

[Sir_Eldras]

Having played since December, I too have made some observations. The existential nature of discussions seems to stem from the problems occuring when the devs have an idea and implement it, but the result doesn't turn out the way they had imagined. For example massive walls of deployable shields or never-ending kiting on horseback. They try to compensate but it seems human nature can be somewhat of a letdown at times. That being said, the mod is still alive because of the larger part of players that have a sense of community and enjoy the mod for what it is.

I couldn't agree more. I've been playing this mod since about January or so, and have seen it narrowing in focus regularly. Part of this may be due to annoying exploits (kiting from cav, glitch spots on maps,etc.,)  and part of it may be due to the desires of the dev team. For the most part, I've been okay with the choices made, as I respect that this is not MY mod, but the dev's mod. This process can be slow and painful at times to play through, but I love the fact that it keeps moving forward. Every new patch is the dev team attempting to listen to suggestions, fix problems, and experiment with new stats/maps/ideas. 

I also love the sense of community. While a lot of members seemed to drop out with the recent NA server problems, there are still plenty of familiar players logging on these days. This goes to show that the dev team is making decisions that are helping to craft a mod with long term appeal. That word, appeal, is funny though. The notion of making a broad-appeal mod means catering to the masses, and from what I've seen of this community, most regular players have pretty narrow needs when it comes to this mod. I think that it is hard for the devs to cater to the niches of players that regularly play NI.

It would be easier to make a mod that would have broader appeal, but the devs are seemingly up to something different. The thing I see as hard is that they are tasked with shaping the mod for so many specific reasons. On one side, there are shield wallers, players who solely play to hold a shield and never swing a weapon. I'll never understand that, but that doesn't mean that they are not enjoying their time doing that, nor will I work against that in-game. That's the current direction, and I've decided to be a good team player within this framework. Then, there are people who religiously follow the economy in order to amass huge amounts of mats and/or money. We've got crafters, kiting snipers, foraging alchemists, etc.

Each player wants something specific out of this mod, and if they are not in-line with what the devs are up to, I don't think that they will be happy - then the rage ensues. It's pretty selfish to work against the grain of every other player on a server because you want to solo. It's also discourteous to the community at large to kite, but as stated by Fingus, human nature works against us here. I guess that's why hard mode works so well. If you are not a team player, you are dead. 'Nuff said. It's often shocking to go back to normal servers and have to deal with shenanigans like archer kiting and people swinging in the shield line. Still, I have faith that the community eventually gets filtered, so that by the time someone gets to hard mode, they know some of the ropes, and will get their asses handed to them if they don't cooperate. That's a cool feature of this mod, and I don't want that to change.

I will say that I dislike that the mod has devolved into one strategy/approach, but it's fairly presumptuous of me to rage about someone else's labor of love. I've been invited - at no cost- to explore someone else's playground built on creativity and hard work. The playground is constantly updated at no cost, and has provided me and many others with hours of entertainment. If there's one thing that I've learned in months of playing NI, it's to just hang on if the direction of the mod or some specific aspect of it seems to frustrate you. Things evolve with this mod, and being part of this experiment is great fun. Wait a month, and suddenly major changes have happened - good and bad. I'm not saying that we shouldn't grumble about things now and again, but the devs owe us nothing, and we owe them respect and courtesy.

WALL OF TEXT DONE!

[Kwal]

Nice wall of text! I don't owe the devs anything btw, I paid at least 25 beers for them so far

[Hande]

Hey I did not get any! You owe me!

[WhindGhost8]

As much as it would be great to be able to say the devs have complete control over where the mod goes, it isn't entirely true..
As a multiplayer mod, the community is as much a part of the mod as the coding itself. While i'm not saying we don't owe alot
to the developers for making it, you have to remember that without the community there is no mod.

Also, you mentioned that it's discourteous to the community to kite which I agree with for solo kiting, however if you have ever
seen/been a group of players who kite together in a formation you would know that it is alot more rewarding than standing still
in a wall doing nothing with little to no risks. I have nothing against shieldwalling in hard as alot of things can go wrong very fast
even with it but normal always used to be a fun mode that you could actually fight out on the field if your team worked
well enough together.

Those are just my two cents, feel free to disreguard any/all of it if you're just going to vehemently oppose it as this thread was never
meant to be a rage thread, merely a discussion.

[Pandabomber]

The group kiting thing is what I had in my head when I saw Overgrown for the first time, with spawns split up into 3 groups, you could take on one immediately, one soon after that, and then the third one you could avoid if you were quick enough, taking it on when your group was ready. Getting rid of the bridges forced shield-walling. That's kind of how I approached Beach Assault as well - I'd find as best a vantage point as I could on a small sand hill and shoot, and then retreat back to a fortification or wherever all the melee where hanging out. A large map allows you to take on the wave on your own terms instead of narrowing everything down to a corridor, like the new Outskirts or how Town has always been (Which I'm fine with, it's always been that way, and it's been changed for the better) sitting behind a shield wall. We need that map variety back, it'll make people approach a problem differently if they want to get the job done, and make the game more interesting overall.

[Hypernoma]

New maps are on the way

[Kwal]

Nice!

[Hande]

One new map is already ready and it will come in next patch. (By YuriTheRed)
I'm making new map atm so It will come into mod when it is ready. 

[Kwal]

Nice!

[FinKone]

To be completely honest, I haven't played this in some time. The main reason is; I do not find it fun to shield wall camp and rely on that tactic alone to play. That gets boring after around.... well at the start, for me anyway.

Removal of horses did it for me too, there were quite a few ways you could have balanced them in. Would have induced rage sure, but they would have been balanced and allowed to still to have an existence. Before the nerf out of existence everyone hated horsemen for kiting. Which can be done just as easy for archers and even infantry you just have to know what your doing. Normally when I used to play I was always one of the last ones left. Regardless of horse or not.

Another thing, Limited choices by limiting armor weapons and play styles your limiting your player base. Maybe I want to play as a Nord deserter or maybe as a Steppe warrior, etc etc. Limiting us to Swadian gear is sorta just limiting who actually plays.

Using auto-block.... Noob friendly but completely unnecessary it would promote challenge to remove auto-blocking servers and anyone that says differently means they are crutching on it hard. If you can't block, grab a shield, Auto-block will only help you for so long. I played after the removal of horses but only till they took out the only server that didn't use auto-block . After that I think I played once , with Miley for about 20 mins.

Since the last time I played there were around 12 maps maybe all small everyone camped a few select places - Boring in my opinion add maps that promote teamwork that involves Teamwork but impossible to shield wall. maybe a caravan map and its in the middle of a thick woods and they spawn in random places all over the map and your team spawns in 3 or 4 places randomly across the map would require you to regroup think about what your doing and play according This sounds fun to me were it would probably make someone else think of this as living hell. City maps, Have them come through the gate or over the walls fighting in alleys and streets (not in some corner) - I know people will always Shield wall because it is effective but Extremely boring

Nerfing athletics, I don't think I have ever had less than 7 athletics on any mod or I find it slow paced and boring Not saying Refert to old ways of kiting but at least don't make me a turtle. I also found it extremely sad that bots in plate armor with heavy weapons and gear could catch me while i was running away in a shirt and boots (No realism)

Maybe the Dev team could add player classes Make them customized Like leveling the same but you get skill points to put into each abilities Much like c-rpg but have a Level cap wouldnt want someone runing around with 10 athletics and 10 ps like prepatch  :

Sorry about the wall of Text but this is how I feel the mod is going and I used to play this mod a lot, I miss it.

Some of you might remember me as the following :Hospitaller Tranquil, Octivia, minippl, annoying peasant, Thunderkitty, MissShoes, Artaxasha.

Good luck Developers.

Hit the nail on the head, I lurk in the shadows to see what direction this mod goes.  Put a timer on the kite waves at which counts down and after a while punishes the runner much as D3 has done.  Only real good method.  I'll check back in a month...