2018 Recap and Upcoming Plans

[Kip]

Hello everyone!

Many changes and new features were brought about to NordInvasion in 2018. There were several major overhauls including cavalry mode, item stats, quest requirements and rewards, the launcher/updater, and even the formula used to calculate loot chances. We also introduced quality-of-life features such as the weapon mode indicator, skipping prep time, and a much more polished mini-map. In 2019, there are more changes already in the works. Here are some of the short-term plans...

One of the more recent features introduced last year was the reworked support system which admittedly is still quite rough around the edges - particularly the engineering menu. I believe it can be refined to keep the essence of the new system - selecting barricades to build from the menu without having to hold them - while still allowing flexible placement. The rough idea is that instead of placing a construction site when you select a barricade, you will be put in a building mode allowing you to position the barricade preview before placing anything and construct from the preview. We'll also review the number of build points made available.

A feature that was tested last year but got cut due to inconsistency is the option to vote for the next map at the end of each round. It is still a work in progress because trying to add this feature highlighted some areas of our code that need to be rewritten before we can add features that rely on them. It is a significant chunk of code so this will take some time but the voting feature has not been abandoned.

The NI launcher/updater is also getting a redesigned options screen. Rather than directly entering and editing installation paths in the grid, the new system will have a simple list of entries which when edited, will open a form with clearly labelled inputs. This should make it much easier for new players to get the mod installed.

It has been a while since donations were brought up but from time to time, they need to be discussed. The AU servers have not received support for several months now. I have covered January but without community support, AU will be dropped at the start of February. EU and NA have also had a lack of donations recently so if you have been considering a donation, it would be very much appreciated. As a recap, the monthly costs for each region are approximately 25 USD for AU, 60 USD for NA, and 50 EUR for EU. The donation page can be found here.

Regards,
- The NI Team

[Berkay]

When we look at it, the best contributing new features is nord invasion I like 2018 we got best features thank you Ni team

[Ken_Repeaterman]

When we look at it, the best contributing new features is nord invasion I like 2018 we got best features thank you Ni team

Yes. You guys are doing really great. Thank you guys. (it's not sarcasm)

[Forward]

I believe it can be refined to keep the essence of the new system - selecting barricades to build from the menu without having to hold them - while still allowing flexible placement.  The rough idea is that instead of placing a construction site when you select a barricade, you will be put in a building mode allowing you to position the barricade preview before placing anything and construct from the preview.  We'll also review the number of build points made available.

1. How many people should leave this mod before this 'new system' going to be trashed, not refined again?

2. Skipping prep time is a nice feature indeed, thanks, might we have ability to skip respawn waves too with 100% of votes? It's essential for seamless kiting, gaming process should be streamlined and now it has 30-seconds breaks every couple of minutes which is leads to losing tempo and therefore losing fun.

[Kaasovic]

I believe it can be refined to keep the essence of the new system - selecting barricades to build from the menu without having to hold them - while still allowing flexible placement.  The rough idea is that instead of placing a construction site when you select a barricade, you will be put in a building mode allowing you to position the barricade preview before placing anything and construct from the preview.  We'll also review the number of build points made available.

1. How many people should leave this mod before this 'new system' going to be trashed, not refined again?

2. Skipping prep time is a nice feature indeed, thanks, might we have ability to skip respawn waves too with 100% of votes? It's essential for seamless kiting, gaming process should be streamlined and now it has 30-seconds breaks every couple of minutes which is leads to losing tempo and therefore losing fun.

Why would we give up on a feature that runs ways smoother behind the scenes and just requires little tweaking?

This game isn't just about kiting. Allowing a feature like this will lead to the possibilities to prevent players from spawning. My main concern is that replacing items during prep time might be abruptly aborted in the process when players decided to skip a spawn wave.

[DR.]

I don't like the new system as said before but I agree at this point it would probably be better to improve it rather than getting the old one back.

If you say the old one was a mess I would agree with that however you shouldn't stand up to much for a new way when it has more obvious problems than the old one from a players prospective.

Like being able to see were cades land is grate but for the old players we have the sizes of walls pretty much down. That's what's so jarring about this update that the "problems" we had in the last one we got use to. We had 5 or what ever years to do so. With this we have a new mess that we are focusing on when we should be equally looking at the improvements that were made.

---

game isn't just about kiting.

It's more than 1/3 to me and a lot of others.
Cav is pretty much kiting.
Most runs start with a kite in some way. (Getting ready for the "true" run)
Most public runs that have less than 5 people are kiting
If you're Au all you do is kite when no one is on which is most of the time.
You don't need to carry deadweight to slow you down.
It can be an actual challenge.

End of the day kiting hard for me is faster than a lot maybe most public runs I've been in. So why be surprised when people get annoyed when you do something that affects it. There's already quite a lot in place to prevent people from exporting it too much.

[DagBoy]

Looking forward to seeing these changes in the future. The ability to change maps is something I'm waiting patiently for. Really like being able to use /dmg and see how much damage I am doing to bots. Even if I don't get more kills the red text showing up somehow makes hitting the bots feel more substantial.

If you're Au all you do is kite when no one is on which is most of the time.

During the day, sure, there aren't many people on the AU servers. Lately Slug and his fellow Hounds of Ord have been playing AU in the evenings and we've been doing normal/hard and even did a successful rag run last night (after 2 nights of making it to Odin, but not beating him). Now, while I'm not trying to say that there's always people on AU, there do seem to be a few newer players that hang out in the normal server at various times of the day. No, they don't have the best gear, nor are they on all day, but it could be worth playing with them even if they slow you down, because maybe they will keep playing and end up getting better gear. I might just be a tad optimistic, but that's just my opinion on the matter. I get you like kiting but perhaps sometimes it might be better to play with these so called dead weights, is what I'm trying to say.

As a side note, hopefully we get to keep the option of playing on AU servers. Would be a shame if we lost the only servers we get less than 200 ping on (closer to 250 ping in my case).

[Forward]

I believe it can be refined to keep the essence of the new system - selecting barricades to build from the menu without having to hold them - while still allowing flexible placement.  The rough idea is that instead of placing a construction site when you select a barricade, you will be put in a building mode allowing you to position the barricade preview before placing anything and construct from the preview.  We'll also review the number of build points made available.

1. How many people should leave this mod before this 'new system' going to be trashed, not refined again?

2. Skipping prep time is a nice feature indeed, thanks, might we have ability to skip respawn waves too with 100% of votes? It's essential for seamless kiting, gaming process should be streamlined and now it has 30-seconds breaks every couple of minutes which is leads to losing tempo and therefore losing fun.

Why would we give up on a feature that runs ways smoother behind the scenes and just requires little tweaking?

This game isn't just about kiting. Allowing a feature like this will lead to the possibilities to prevent players from spawning. My main concern is that replacing items during prep time might be abruptly aborted in the process when players decided to skip a spawn wave.

How is it 'prevent players from spawning'? Make it couple of seconds delay to ensure new players join. Since they joined they need to vote too to have 100% of votes, so noone will play without them. If someone want to respawn items and instead of respawning voted to skip... his own fault, whatever.

[BobYankle]

Looking forward to seeing these changes in the future. The ability to change maps is something I'm waiting patiently for. Really like being able to use /dmg and see how much damage I am doing to bots. Even if I don't get more kills the red text showing up somehow makes hitting the bots feel more substantial.

If you're Au all you do is kite when no one is on which is most of the time.

During the day, sure, there aren't many people on the AU servers. Lately Slug and his fellow Hounds of Ord have been playing AU in the evenings and we've been doing normal/hard and even did a successful rag run last night (after 2 nights of making it to Odin, but not beating him). Now, while I'm not trying to say that there's always people on AU, there do seem to be a few newer players that hang out in the normal server at various times of the day. No, they don't have the best gear, nor are they on all day, but it could be worth playing with them even if they slow you down, because maybe they will keep playing and end up getting better gear. I might just be a tad optimistic, but that's just my opinion on the matter. I get you like kiting but perhaps sometimes it might be better to play with these so called dead weights, is what I'm trying to say.

As a side note, hopefully we get to keep the option of playing on AU servers. Would be a shame if we lost the only servers we get less than 200 ping on (closer to 250 ping in my case).

I LOVE THE HOUNDS OF ORD

[DR.]

Looking forward to seeing these changes in the future. The ability to change maps is something I'm waiting patiently for. Really like being able to use /dmg and see how much damage I am doing to bots. Even if I don't get more kills the red text showing up somehow makes hitting the bots feel more substantial.

If you're Au all you do is kite when no one is on which is most of the time.

During the day, sure, there aren't many people on the AU servers. Lately Slug and his fellow Hounds of Ord have been playing AU in the evenings and we've been doing normal/hard and even did a successful rag run last night (after 2 nights of making it to Odin, but not beating him). Now, while I'm not trying to say that there's always people on AU, there do seem to be a few newer players that hang out in the normal server at various times of the day. No, they don't have the best gear, nor are they on all day, but it could be worth playing with them even if they slow you down, because maybe they will keep playing and end up getting better gear. I might just be a tad optimistic, but that's just my opinion on the matter. I get you like kiting but perhaps sometimes it might be better to play with these so called dead weights, is what I'm trying to say.

As a side note, hopefully we get to keep the option of playing on AU servers. Would be a shame if we lost the only servers we get less than 200 ping on (closer to 250 ping in my case).

Sure like you said some au runs do happen time and time again. Like you said normally you only have a few players so it's more effective to do a kite with less than five people than it is to cade (unless the map is op). Having not the best gear is even a better reason to kite. Cades and shields have limited time but a kite can go on forever if needed on the decent map. When I had a ebony bow and bronze arrows I was able to solo hard and when I had cts I could do noraml that's from some one that had never played a game like warband before.


Made this a few years ago still holds up.