Save NordInvasion!

[greekdragonkdl]

My list of issues I have with the mod

Lack of proper kiting: With most patches and updates the past year or so, the developers have consistently been reducing the effectiveness and capability to kite or play with small groups, whether it be reduced xp, gold, and loot for smaller population servers, or by the very common map edits to cut off popular kiting routes, and for players to find new ones, only for those to be cut out later as well. Many of the map updates I have seen have often just been blocking off popular kiting routes, rather than really adding to the map. Face it, this mod, and this game, is dying, and there just simply aren't enough players online anymore in certain timezones to actually setup a successful run as often as what used to happen. Previously way back when, if there weren't enough people to start a run, you could simply kite by yourself or with a few friends, but now that kiting is mostly dead, players end up just exiting the game for they have nothing to do. I know the kiting discussion has gone on in many many threads previously, but given the state of the mod and dwindling playerbase, it might be wise to shift gears a bit and not be so harsh on kiting if you want to keep more players around.

Extremely Repetitive: This coincides a bit with kiting, although is a tad bit separate. NordInvasion is an incredibly repetitive mod just about any way you look at it. This was part of the reason I left/am taking a long break for the time being, is because I got fed up with playing event after event doing the same maps, same nords, same weapons, same strategy, over and over again. Things only got exciting or interesting when a shield wall would break and we would have to reposition and manage to defeat the wave, but such a thing is rare if you are well organized with good gear and players. With shield walls and cading, what ends up happening is that pretty much everyone never moves, stands still, and just left clicks over and over and over again to either slash or shoot, or in the case of a shielder, literally do nothing. At least playing native GK_Siege or something for example is more exciting since you aren't always in one spot and have to move around and it isn't just so stale and fixed. Kiting, and cav mode, although that needs a LOT of work still, are the two other welcome changes to the tedious shield walls. It offered a different playstyle that kept you a bit more engaged with the mod. I know cav mode is not a primary focus of the mod, nor do I think it should be, but I feel it should be worked on at least a bit more so people will actually play it more, because it is kind of fun and something different.

Unfriendly to newer players: This point isn't some "anti-elitism" thing, but rather pointing out the very real wealth gap of newer players to veteran players, and the amount of wealth new players have to obtain to get gear decent enough to actually do successful runs without being carried by veteran players. In addition to having to jump this wealth hurdle, new players start out with TERRIBLE stats. I mean it's kind of fun for some of us veteran players to do things such as fluffy events sometimes, but if you're brand new to the mod and have horrible stats and nothing but a red shirt and shitty sword, you feel and are extremely useless, will die a lot, and just feel like you have to sit back in a larger server and let others carry you. Quite honestly the only useful thing a redshirt can really do in a run is to drop med boxes, which only exist if another player brings them in. I feel that this probably has turned a fair amount of people away from the mod. I'm glad that I saw Kip mention that the developers are in the works of tweaking this a bit already. In my opinion the lower level tiers should be buffed in stats, or maybe a tad bit in starting gear, enough so that they aren't completely useless and aren't required to essentially leech to level up.

Loot system: The changes made in the 0.7 update were a step in the right direction I think, but I feel it was too little too late in a sense. It didn't really seem to make the drops any fairer, or reward those more who contributed more, at least from what I saw. In many event runs (post 0.7 patch), I would be playing as warden and often getting #1 in kills or close to it, yet nearly every event, other players with less kills than me would almost always seem to loot more than me, as I would often go many runs without looting a single decent material drop. Not to say some of these other players didn't deserve the loot that they got, it just wasn't logical that someone who got less kills (comparing ranged players to other ranged players) would get significantly more loot. I know the loot system is something that is limited in it's scope given the limitations of warband modding, but if it were possible for there to be a more reward based loot system, I feel that many players would prefer that.