Understanding the stronghold

[philby]

 

I don't think anything about it is cost effective, except the bounties, but it is an ok base of operations.

 

So what would be the point of hiring any hirelings then? Or rebuilding things that don't have a function beyond prestige/security and cosmetics?

 

 

Well when I first got a notification that shadows and lurkers were going to attack, I tried to fight them and got trounced. I re-loaded a save, hired a bunch of guys and did 'auto resolve' and they won but a couple died. So I thought maybe this would make it easier to take care of attacks if my party can't do it. Then some other bandits tried to attack, I did auto resolve and they all died and now my main keep and something else has been destroyed. I gotta spend and wait to build that again? argh  

[general_azure]

Don't know. I got all the "special" hirelings I could because, I assumed they were statistically better (class, attributes, HP/Endurance, Damage, Spells, Gear etc.). Whilst I assumed the regular hirelings were more or less "trash mob" equivalent. Meaning, they're better than the regular ones in terms of what they can do by themselves, but might not be better or worse than the regular ones in terms of Stronghold Defense/Reputation.

 

Hm, I always assumed their actual combat prowess would somehow correspond to their security value, but when thinking about it again this is probably not the case. Would be useful to get this information when hiring them... not that I trust those guys to fight off the enemy without me in any case.

 

Unless of course they are serious about the northern defenses consisting of a hedge maze. Like, seriously.

 

 

I think they are, actually... and the time the enemies need to find the right way is what we get as early warning for incoming attacks. It all makes sense suddenly  

[Osvir]

 

Why is the combat phase inside the main keep as well? That felt odd. I thought they were going to storm the Western Barbican or the Eastern Barbican and you'd have a stand off against several waves of enemies coming in (Depending on which tier of attackers).

 

I guess I can see from a design perspective why they chose to go with the battles happening in the Main Keep instead of outside (Less bugs, more of a controlled environment, smaller space where enemies can't run around too much, minimizing "Search & Destroy" for the last stragglers if it had been the outdoor map etc.). But it was still weird.

 

 

Well, I don't mind there being no tower-defense style mini game. And I perfectly understand why they didn't add a full-scale siege mechanic. Heck, even the way the terrain works in regular combat probably couldn't make good use of fighting from the top of a wall. There could be a lot more logic to the whole thing though. Because let's face it, to take such a stronghold you do need an army (if it's properly manned of course, which it isn't with the dozen or so guys you can hire). A bunch of thugs won't get into there. Unless of course they are serious about the northern defenses consisting of a hedge maze. Like, seriously.

Don't need to fight on top of the wall, but the outside (Where you fight all the Spectres, Shadows and the Will-O-Wisps before getting the Stronghold).

 

Getting in from the road of the Eastern Barbican or the Western Barbican, for instance (through the gates). Could maybe even be possible to code "Waves" of enemies storming over the bridge, as to give a sense of "Lots of enemies attacking".

Edited April 9, 2015 by Osvir

[Crucis]

By the time I was in act 3 I had over 100,000 gold and nothing to really buy.  At which point I upgraded every building in the stronghold, bought some crafting items and hired some "hirelings" for awhile.  I ended my upgrades at like 66,000 gold.  I mean, I get what you're saying, but I cannot imagine really having money issues unless you're buying tons of potions, scrolls, etc.

 

What difficulty level are you using?  I'm playing Normal and I've never been over 30k and that wasn't until I'd finished upgrading the stronghold, i.e. I could stop flushing copper into the money sink. 

 

I pick up ever single piece of loot, find everything that I can find, etc. and yet I don't come close to that level of copper, so I'm wondering if maybe playing on higher difficulty levels gets you more money.  For one thing, supposedly higher difficulty levels have more enemies to kill, so that probably means more stuff to loot.  Is that enough to explain the difference in income? 

[Ceranai]

So I'm trying to understand how to best use the stronghold. There are some issues that have come up though:

 

1. Bandits take nearly as much as I earn through taxes even though I have much higher security than prestige. How are the bandits so effective if I have sky-high security? This means that I'll earn something like 50 copper. Camping just once is more expensive than this, and what's worse is that when I subtract the cost of hirelings, I'm losing quite a bit of money.

 

2. It seems that hirelings are paid per day, but taxes are earned per turn. This means that you can never generate infinite wealth, but you can LOSE infinite wealth. Is that really true?

 

I do like the stronghold, don't get me wrong, but so far all it does is cost me money. A lot of money. I understand that you can get resting bonuses, sure, but for the thousands I spend upgrading the stronghold, I'm sure I could have gotten a full game's worth of resting bonuses from inns.

 

What am I missing here?

 

PS: If it had generated taxes per day, it would have made sense. Sure some nutty people could have gained infinite wealth, but does that really matter?

The secret to stronghold is to pretty much ignore it, rush for the shops if you can but other than that all it really serves as is a drain for money, EG the building that gives you herbs costs like 3000k and you are gonna get like 5-10 herbs out of it, you could buy that elsewhere for a fraction of the cost. In my first run i tried to plan out my stronghold but now i just click random upgrades when the last one finishes and pay basically no attention to it otherwise, not even when it is going to get attacked i just let it autoresolve. Its not worth your time or effort unless you are roleplaying and like having your own castle

[Crucis]

 

 

 

Mudd1, thx for posting this pic of the map.  I wasn't even aware of the Pearlwood Bluff or Searing Falls areas until you posted this map.  Actually, I should say that I very recently got a bounty from the stronghold about someone in the Pearlwood Bluff area, but haven't had the slightest idea where it was or how to get to it. Now I do.  So, thanks.

 

[Crucis]

 

So I'm trying to understand how to best use the stronghold. There are some issues that have come up though:

 

1. Bandits take nearly as much as I earn through taxes even though I have much higher security than prestige. How are the bandits so effective if I have sky-high security? This means that I'll earn something like 50 copper. Camping just once is more expensive than this, and what's worse is that when I subtract the cost of hirelings, I'm losing quite a bit of money.

 

2. It seems that hirelings are paid per day, but taxes are earned per turn. This means that you can never generate infinite wealth, but you can LOSE infinite wealth. Is that really true?

 

I do like the stronghold, don't get me wrong, but so far all it does is cost me money. A lot of money. I understand that you can get resting bonuses, sure, but for the thousands I spend upgrading the stronghold, I'm sure I could have gotten a full game's worth of resting bonuses from inns.

 

What am I missing here?

 

PS: If it had generated taxes per day, it would have made sense. Sure some nutty people could have gained infinite wealth, but does that really matter?

The secret to stronghold is to pretty much ignore it, rush for the shops if you can but other than that all it really serves as is a drain for money, EG the building that gives you herbs costs like 3000k and you are gonna get like 5-10 herbs out of it, you could buy that elsewhere for a fraction of the cost. In my first run i tried to plan out my stronghold but now i just click random upgrades when the last one finishes and pay basically no attention to it otherwise, not even when it is going to get attacked i just let it autoresolve. Its not worth your time or effort unless you are roleplaying and like having your own castle

 

 

Actually, I think that the game warden's house may be the best thing to invest in because those bounty quests are well worth the effort.

 

[HozzM]

Nice idea, bad execution.  The Endless Paths and the Bounties are the only decent gameplay features in CN and they could easily exist elsewhere in the game world.

Building it up is nice and all but it costs a ton and really gets you nothing for most of the buildings.

 

The merchants are dog****.  You are paying these dudes to come set up shop and they have generic inventories and give you no discount vs merchants in other places.  Its literally the worst collection of merchants in the game.

Prestige and Security are too vague.  Far too many of the random events are bad.  Autoresolve has never worked out for me, I always lose building(s).

 

The rest bonuses from the buildings are not cumulative with each other so you can get a better rest bonus from almost every other inn in the game, the loading screens make it an even worse proposition to rest there and finally its days away from a lot of stuff so you cant really take advantage of the rest bonuses in many instances.

[mudd1]

The rest bonuses from the buildings are not cumulative with each other so you can get a better rest bonus from almost every other inn in the game, the loading screens make it an even worse proposition to rest there and finally its days away from a lot of stuff so you cant really take advantage of the rest bonuses in many instances.

Yeah, I first thought that over time you'd really build yourself some awesome rest bonuses that would make it worthwhile to travel there. But when I realized that you have to choose which of the +1 bonuses you get I was a bit bummed. Also, it doesn't really make sense why you can't build yourself a room as nice as that of any of the inns you go to. It's your own castle and you poured thousands of coppers into it already so what makes those inns special?

[Crucis]

 

The rest bonuses from the buildings are not cumulative with each other so you can get a better rest bonus from almost every other inn in the game, the loading screens make it an even worse proposition to rest there and finally its days away from a lot of stuff so you cant really take advantage of the rest bonuses in many instances.

Yeah, I first thought that over time you'd really build yourself some awesome rest bonuses that would make it worthwhile to travel there. But when I realized that you have to choose which of the +1 bonuses you get I was a bit bummed. Also, it doesn't really make sense why you can't build yourself a room as nice as that of any of the inns you go to. It's your own castle and you poured thousands of coppers into it already so what makes those inns special?

 

 

I'm sure that there's some game balance reason to justify it.  And yet at the same time, by the time you are in the final (?) Act of the storyline and are spending all your time over in the east, you'll be wanting to rest at tree inn where you can spend 200 copper for a room that gets you something like three +2 bonuses.  And 200 copper is chump change for the party by that time.

[Yosharian]

I am really disappointed with the Stronghold.

 

1) The bonuses from resting can't be combined, despite the flavour text implying the opposite.  So basically they are a complete waste of time because you might as well dump 200g into resting at an Inn to get a much better bonus.

 

2) Vast majority of the shopkeepers offer absolutely nothing of worth.  Complete waste of money.

 

3) Brighthollow is just a pain in the ass to get to, I have to go through 2-3 loading screens just to rest there, then go through another 2-3 loading screens to get back to the World Map.. are you ****ting me?  Did a blind, lobotomized monkey design this feature?

 

4) Hirelings seem like a waste of time; they die too easily in the special encounters and mostly cost too much to just have lying around for the purposes of increasing prestige/security.  If they at least got rezzed after fights then it wouldn't be so bad.

 

5) Nobody interesting moves into your Stronghold.  The game needs a Deckard Cain-type character (or three) who you actually want to visit and talk to, to make the place seem more alive.   It's just a really uninspiring place to visit, and as I've already stated the gameplay benefits are very limited.

Still better than the BG2 Strongholds, but at least they had semi-interesting quests tied to them.  Really I'm only dumping gold into this place for the sake of completing it.  I really couldn't care less about the place aside from that.

Edited April 12, 2015 by Yosharian

[Crucis]

I am really disappointed with the Stronghold.

 

1) The bonuses from resting can't be combined, despite the flavour text implying the opposite.  So basically they are a complete waste of time because you might as well dump 200g into resting at an Inn to get a much better bonus.

 

2) Vast majority of the shopkeepers offer absolutely nothing of worth.  Complete waste of money.

 

3) Brighthollow is just a pain in the ass to get to, I have to go through 2-3 loading screens just to rest there, then go through another 2-3 loading screens to get back to the World Map.. are you ****ting me?  Did a blind, lobotomized monkey design this feature?

 

4) Hirelings seem like a waste of time; they die too easily in the special encounters and mostly cost too much to just have lying around for the purposes of increasing prestige/security.  If they at least got rezzed after fights then it wouldn't be so bad.

 

5) Nobody interesting moves into your Stronghold.  The game needs a Deckard Cain-type character (or three) who you actually want to visit and talk to, to make the place seem more alive.   It's just a really uninspiring place to visit, and as I've already stated the gameplay benefits are very limited.

 

Still better than the BG2 Strongholds, but at least they had semi-interesting quests tied to them.  Really I'm only dumping gold into this place for the sake of completing it.  I really couldn't care less about the place aside from that.

 

 

Much as I agree with most of your points, does everyone have to be a damned drama queen when something isn't perfect?  Jeez. 

[Psychevore]

I am really disappointed with the Stronghold.

 

1) The bonuses from resting can't be combined, despite the flavour text implying the opposite.  So basically they are a complete waste of time because you might as well dump 200g into resting at an Inn to get a much better bonus.

 

2) Vast majority of the shopkeepers offer absolutely nothing of worth.  Complete waste of money.

 

3) Brighthollow is just a pain in the ass to get to, I have to go through 2-3 loading screens just to rest there, then go through another 2-3 loading screens to get back to the World Map.. are you ****ting me?  Did a blind, lobotomized monkey design this feature?

 

4) Hirelings seem like a waste of time; they die too easily in the special encounters and mostly cost too much to just have lying around for the purposes of increasing prestige/security.  If they at least got rezzed after fights then it wouldn't be so bad.

 

5) Nobody interesting moves into your Stronghold.  The game needs a Deckard Cain-type character (or three) who you actually want to visit and talk to, to make the place seem more alive.   It's just a really uninspiring place to visit, and as I've already stated the gameplay benefits are very limited.

 

Still better than the BG2 Strongholds, but at least they had semi-interesting quests tied to them.  Really I'm only dumping gold into this place for the sake of completing it.  I really couldn't care less about the place aside from that.

Agreed, but also:

 

Much as I agree with most of your points, does everyone have to be a damned drama queen when something isn't perfect?  Jeez.

Very much agreed.

 

I'd like it very much if people stopped acting like *insert random game developer* murdered their family if something isn't to their liking.

[Yosharian]

I'm just giving my feedback, who said anything about Obsidian murdering my family?

 

If anyone's being dramatic its you...

[Crucis]

I'm just giving my feedback, who said anything about Obsidian murdering my family?

 

If anyone's being dramatic its you...

 

 

Oh really?  Let's look at this again, shall we.

 

 

 

 

I am really disappointed with the Stronghold.

 

1) The bonuses from resting can't be combined, despite the flavour text implying the opposite.  So basically they are a complete waste of time because you might as well dump 200g into resting at an Inn to get a much better bonus.

 

2) Vast majority of the shopkeepers offer absolutely nothing of worth.  Complete waste of money.

 

3) Brighthollow is just a pain in the ass to get to, I have to go through 2-3 loading screens just to rest there, then go through another 2-3 loading screens to get back to the World Map.. are you ****ting me?  Did a blind, lobotomized monkey design this feature?

 

4) Hirelings seem like a waste of time; they die too easily in the special encounters and mostly cost too much to just have lying around for the purposes of increasing prestige/security.  If they at least got rezzed after fights then it wouldn't be so bad.

 

5) Nobody interesting moves into your Stronghold.  The game needs a Deckard Cain-type character (or three) who you actually want to visit and talk to, to make the place seem more alive.   It's just a really uninspiring place to visit, and as I've already stated the gameplay benefits are very limited.

 

Still better than the BG2 Strongholds, but at least they had semi-interesting quests tied to them.  Really I'm only dumping gold into this place for the sake of completing it.  I really couldn't care less about the place aside from that.

 

I'd say that the above comments in red are overly dramatic, wiith the comment about a blind, lobotomized monkey being ridiculously so.

 

Regarding point #1, yes, I agree that it's lame that the bonuses aren't better compared to what you can get at some inns.  Agree 100%.  That said, earlier in the game, those meager bonuses aren't so bad when you may not want to spend any more than necessary to rest.  Later on when you're rolling in money (mostly because you've completely upgraded the stronghold, or at least decided to not sink any more into it), 200cp for a room that gives you a number of +2 bonuses starts looking like chump change.  And it does seem a little silly that once you've fully upgraded your stronghold that somehow an inn can provide better, more restful, more bonus worthy accomodations than your own home.  But that still doesn't qualify as a "complete waste of time"!!!

 

 

As for point #2, there are only 4 merchants in the stronghold, so there can hardly be anything vast about them in the first place.  And while their inventories ae hardly inspiring, that doesn't qualify as "offering nothing of worth".  "Exceptional" grade weapons are hardly worthless.  Bland and uninteresting?  Yeah, I'd agree with that.  But worthless?  Not at all.

 

At least when you mentioned the hirelings in point #4 you said that they SEEM like a waste of time, which is a reasonably fair way of stating whether true or not.

 

Also in point #5, I'm not sure that I'd say that "nobody interesting" shows up at the stronghold.  I think that some of the characters that do visit might be very interesting, if, as you later suggest, you could actually talk to them.

 

 

In short, you seem unable to criticize without resorting to excessive hyperbole, otherwise known as being a drama queen.  If you toned down the hyperbole and stuck to the logic of your points, you'd make much more convincing arguments.

[mudd1]

 

In short, you seem unable to criticize without resorting to excessive hyperbole, otherwise known as being a drama queen.  If you toned down the hyperbole and stuck to the logic of your points, you'd make much more convincing arguments.

 

I'm trying to remember when I last heard such a call for moderation being said on the internet, a place that is famous for being anything but. Usually, the one that can shout their point the loudest in the most drastic language wins in that at least they get vastly more attention from either side of a debate. So this truly impressed me. In an ideal world it shouldn't but in this one it does. 

[Ceranai]

 

 

In short, you seem unable to criticize without resorting to excessive hyperbole, otherwise known as being a drama queen.  If you toned down the hyperbole and stuck to the logic of your points, you'd make much more convincing arguments.

 

I'm trying to remember when I last heard such a call for moderation being said on the internet, a place that is famous for being anything but. Usually, the one that can shout their point the loudest in the most drastic language wins in that at least they get vastly more attention from either side of a debate. So this truly impressed me. In an ideal world it shouldn't but in this one it does. 

 

besides which you werent really overstating it tbh. The stronghold is useless, the only thing ive enjoyed it for is the endless paths but over than that its actually just a money sink nd a rubbish one at that. Mine is almost fully upgraded and it still feels dead as hell. How much effort would it be to drop some NPC farmers and villagers to make it fell less like an empty castle. Dont even get me started on hirelings lol.

[Eggnog]

I wish it was possible to opt out of the stronghold, like "No, I won't stay.  In fact, it's all yours,Steward.  Here is the deed".  Maybe the option to opt out is there and I missed it.  But it appears to me that the best you can do is repair the barbican, get out of Dodge, and don't look back.  But I think it's still your stronghold, though I don't know how much that matters if you don't do anything to repair it.

[Crucis]

 

 

 

In short, you seem unable to criticize without resorting to excessive hyperbole, otherwise known as being a drama queen.  If you toned down the hyperbole and stuck to the logic of your points, you'd make much more convincing arguments.

 

I'm trying to remember when I last heard such a call for moderation being said on the internet, a place that is famous for being anything but. Usually, the one that can shout their point the loudest in the most drastic language wins in that at least they get vastly more attention from either side of a debate. So this truly impressed me. In an ideal world it shouldn't but in this one it does. 

 

besides which you werent really overstating it tbh. The stronghold is useless, the only thing ive enjoyed it for is the endless paths but over than that its actually just a money sink nd a rubbish one at that. Mine is almost fully upgraded and it still feels dead as hell. How much effort would it be to drop some NPC farmers and villagers to make it fell less like an empty castle. Dont even get me started on hirelings lol.

 

 

I utterly disagree that the Stronghold is "useless".  That's rubbish.  Does it seem less than great?  Sure.  I can accept that in a heart beat.  Less than exciting?  Yep.   Seems difficult to get your investment in the repairs back?  Yep.   But useless?  No way.  This is what I mean by hyperbole.  If you got nothing other than access to the dungeon and the game warden bounty missions, it'd still have value.  Even if you got no resting bonuses at all, it'd still be a free place to rest when you wanted to crawl up out of the dungeon, before heading back out to do other quests.  Even if the merchants had literally nothing to sell, even a single merchant where you could sell off your loot from the dungeon or various other quests would have value.

 

Saying that the SH is useless is just plain wrong.  Saying that it underperforms and could be better, perhaps much better, would be entirely fair.

[Crucis]

I wish it was possible to opt out of the stronghold, like "No, I won't stay.  In fact, it's all yours,Steward.  Here is the deed".  Maybe the option to opt out is there and I missed it.  But it appears to me that the best you can do is repair the barbican, get out of Dodge, and don't look back.  But I think it's still your stronghold, though I don't know how much that matters if you don't do anything to repair it.

 

 

I think that it was possible to opt out, though it's been long enough since I chose to do it that I can't be certain. 

 

It seems to me that the problem with not accepting is that you will miss out on the Game Warden's bounty missions, and you might possibly get locked out of the Endless Paths dungeon (at least I've read someone here claiming to have gotten locked out for unknown reasons), both of which are great for earning lots of XP and money.

[Koth]

 

 

 

 

In short, you seem unable to criticize without resorting to excessive hyperbole, otherwise known as being a drama queen.  If you toned down the hyperbole and stuck to the logic of your points, you'd make much more convincing arguments.

 

I'm trying to remember when I last heard such a call for moderation being said on the internet, a place that is famous for being anything but. Usually, the one that can shout their point the loudest in the most drastic language wins in that at least they get vastly more attention from either side of a debate. So this truly impressed me. In an ideal world it shouldn't but in this one it does. 

 

besides which you werent really overstating it tbh. The stronghold is useless, the only thing ive enjoyed it for is the endless paths but over than that its actually just a money sink nd a rubbish one at that. Mine is almost fully upgraded and it still feels dead as hell. How much effort would it be to drop some NPC farmers and villagers to make it fell less like an empty castle. Dont even get me started on hirelings lol.

 

 

I utterly disagree that the Stronghold is "useless".  That's rubbish.  Does it seem less than great?  Sure.  I can accept that in a heart beat.  Less than exciting?  Yep.   Seems difficult to get your investment in the repairs back?  Yep.   But useless?  No way.  This is what I mean by hyperbole.  If you got nothing other than access to the dungeon and the game warden bounty missions, it'd still have value.  Even if you got no resting bonuses at all, it'd still be a free place to rest when you wanted to crawl up out of the dungeon, before heading back out to do other quests.  Even if the merchants had literally nothing to sell, even a single merchant where you could sell off your loot from the dungeon or various other quests would have value.

 

Saying that the SH is useless is just plain wrong.  Saying that it underperforms and could be better, perhaps much better, would be entirely fair.

 

People exaggerating on the interwebz? no... really? (For the record I agree with you).

[HozzM]

 

 

 

 

In short, you seem unable to criticize without resorting to excessive hyperbole, otherwise known as being a drama queen.  If you toned down the hyperbole and stuck to the logic of your points, you'd make much more convincing arguments.

 

I'm trying to remember when I last heard such a call for moderation being said on the internet, a place that is famous for being anything but. Usually, the one that can shout their point the loudest in the most drastic language wins in that at least they get vastly more attention from either side of a debate. So this truly impressed me. In an ideal world it shouldn't but in this one it does. 

 

besides which you werent really overstating it tbh. The stronghold is useless, the only thing ive enjoyed it for is the endless paths but over than that its actually just a money sink nd a rubbish one at that. Mine is almost fully upgraded and it still feels dead as hell. How much effort would it be to drop some NPC farmers and villagers to make it fell less like an empty castle. Dont even get me started on hirelings lol.

 

 

I utterly disagree that the Stronghold is "useless".  That's rubbish.  Does it seem less than great?  Sure.  I can accept that in a heart beat.  Less than exciting?  Yep.   Seems difficult to get your investment in the repairs back?  Yep.   But useless?  No way.  This is what I mean by hyperbole.  If you got nothing other than access to the dungeon and the game warden bounty missions, it'd still have value.  Even if you got no resting bonuses at all, it'd still be a free place to rest when you wanted to crawl up out of the dungeon, before heading back out to do other quests.  Even if the merchants had literally nothing to sell, even a single merchant where you could sell off your loot from the dungeon or various other quests would have value.

 

Saying that the SH is useless is just plain wrong.  Saying that it underperforms and could be better, perhaps much better, would be entirely fair.

 

 

I disagree with you completely.  The two pieces of the Stronghold that have merit are the Od Nua Dungeon and the Bounties.  Both of which could have been tacked on, literally, anywhere else in the game. 

 

The rest of the Stronghold is RP/window dressing at best, garbage and a waste of time and money at worst.

 

edit: Specifics:

 

Resting...why would anyone choose to rest here?  Money is no object in this game.  So 'free' resting is not a strength.  Further, there are better bonuses in almost every inn.  Lastly, and most importantly, resting in CN has more loading screens and in-map travel time to deal with than other rest areas.

 

The Merchants...they are really a slap in the face.  First off, for the purposes of selling, there are Merchants on tons of maps.  So just being able to BUY a merchant to put here, is not a point in the Stronghold's favor.  But maybe the merchants would offer you unique items, or at the very least, a discount.  Nope on both counts.

 

What else is there?  The Prestige/Security concept.  This is broken.  Hirelings are terrible, if you auto-resolve combats you lose buildings which can cost you literally 5K+ cp.  Even in a game where money is trivial, this is ****.  The attack events are cool the first time but really you have nothing to gain from them.

 

Adventures and random guests?  Great idea, just like the Stronghold.  But also like the Stronghold, terrible execution.  The guest do nothing other than cost you money or time.  The adventures sound great!  Legendary adventure?  Sign me up!  Wait the rewards are a ****ing scroll and some common crafting mats?  What?

 

The Stronghold, as it is implemented, is objectively worse than almost every other type of content in the game (I say almost but I literally can not think of any system or content in the game that I dislike more).  Saying that is not whining, its providing valuable feedback to Obsidian and doing a service to both them and their customers.  

Edited April 13, 2015 by HozzM

[Gromnir]

So I'm trying to understand how to best use the stronghold. There are some issues that have come up though:

 

1. Bandits take nearly as much as I earn through taxes even though I have much higher security than prestige. How are the bandits so effective if I have sky-high security? This means that I'll earn something like 50 copper. Camping just once is more expensive than this, and what's worse is that when I subtract the cost of hirelings, I'm losing quite a bit of money.

 

2. It seems that hirelings are paid per day, but taxes are earned per turn. This means that you can never generate infinite wealth, but you can LOSE infinite wealth. Is that really true?

 

I do like the stronghold, don't get me wrong, but so far all it does is cost me money. A lot of money. I understand that you can get resting bonuses, sure, but for the thousands I spend upgrading the stronghold, I'm sure I could have gotten a full game's worth of resting bonuses from inns.

 

What am I missing here?

 

PS: If it had generated taxes per day, it would have made sense. Sure some nutty people could have gained infinite wealth, but does that really matter?

the keep poses a ridiculous difficult balancing problem for the developers.  in a game with abundant copper/gold, making the keep produce copious amounts o' wealth for the player would be inimical to their overall design philosophies.  sure, the player wants something for their investment in the keep, but rewarding with gold is bad.  the keep could be an effective gold sink, but so far, players appear less than enthusiastic with the results.   a gold sink is not a popular feature in single-player crpgs.  get a largely cosmetic or illusory benefit from a huge currency investment works in an mmo 'cause conspicuous consumption is an exploitable social failing.  what is the point o' such stuff in a single-player game, eh?  

 

likewise, the keep should not be providing enormous amounts o' additional xp, but it does via the bounties.

 

am realizing that it sounds a bit silly, but the keep, ideally, should reward you with nothing, and make you happy with your nothingness.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Crucis]

 

 

 

 

 

In short, you seem unable to criticize without resorting to excessive hyperbole, otherwise known as being a drama queen.  If you toned down the hyperbole and stuck to the logic of your points, you'd make much more convincing arguments.

 

I'm trying to remember when I last heard such a call for moderation being said on the internet, a place that is famous for being anything but. Usually, the one that can shout their point the loudest in the most drastic language wins in that at least they get vastly more attention from either side of a debate. So this truly impressed me. In an ideal world it shouldn't but in this one it does. 

 

besides which you werent really overstating it tbh. The stronghold is useless, the only thing ive enjoyed it for is the endless paths but over than that its actually just a money sink nd a rubbish one at that. Mine is almost fully upgraded and it still feels dead as hell. How much effort would it be to drop some NPC farmers and villagers to make it fell less like an empty castle. Dont even get me started on hirelings lol.

 

 

I utterly disagree that the Stronghold is "useless".  That's rubbish.  Does it seem less than great?  Sure.  I can accept that in a heart beat.  Less than exciting?  Yep.   Seems difficult to get your investment in the repairs back?  Yep.   But useless?  No way.  This is what I mean by hyperbole.  If you got nothing other than access to the dungeon and the game warden bounty missions, it'd still have value.  Even if you got no resting bonuses at all, it'd still be a free place to rest when you wanted to crawl up out of the dungeon, before heading back out to do other quests.  Even if the merchants had literally nothing to sell, even a single merchant where you could sell off your loot from the dungeon or various other quests would have value.

 

Saying that the SH is useless is just plain wrong.  Saying that it underperforms and could be better, perhaps much better, would be entirely fair.

 

 

I disagree with you completely.  The two pieces of the Stronghold that have merit are the Od Nua Dungeon and the Bounties.  Both of which could have been tacked on, literally, anywhere else in the game. 

 

The rest of the Stronghold is RP/window dressing at best, garbage and a waste of time and money at worst.

 

edit: Specifics:

 

Resting...why would anyone choose to rest here?  Money is no object in this game.  So 'free' resting is not a strength.  Further, there are better bonuses in almost every inn.  Lastly, and most importantly, resting in CN has more loading screens and in-map travel time to deal with than other rest areas.

 

The Merchants...they are really a slap in the face.  First off, for the purposes of selling, there are Merchants on tons of maps.  So just being able to BUY a merchant to put here, is not a point in the Stronghold's favor.  But maybe the merchants would offer you unique items, or at the very least, a discount.  Nope on both counts.

 

What else is there?  The Prestige/Security concept.  This is broken.  Hirelings are terrible, if you auto-resolve combats you lose buildings which can cost you literally 5K+ cp.  Even in a game where money is trivial, this is ****.  The attack events are cool the first time but really you have nothing to gain from them.

 

Adventures and random guests?  Great idea, just like the Stronghold.  But also like the Stronghold, terrible execution.  The guest do nothing other than cost you money or time.  The adventures sound great!  Legendary adventure?  Sign me up!  Wait the rewards are a ****ing scroll and some common crafting mats?  What?

 

The Stronghold, as it is implemented, is objectively worse than almost every other type of content in the game (I say almost but I literally can not think of any system or content in the game that I dislike more).  Saying that is not whining, its providing valuable feedback to Obsidian and doing a service to both them and their customers.  

 

 

Hozz, I'm sorry, but I can't agree with anyone who resorts to hyperbole such as saying that something is "garbage and a waste of time and money".  If you can't discuss a topic and try to convince someone without resorting to hyperbole, then it seems to me that you're going to have a hard time making your case, because some people will be turned off by the hyperbole.

 

 

Edited April 13, 2015 by Crucis

[Epsilon Rose]

 

So I'm trying to understand how to best use the stronghold. There are some issues that have come up though:

 

1. Bandits take nearly as much as I earn through taxes even though I have much higher security than prestige. How are the bandits so effective if I have sky-high security? This means that I'll earn something like 50 copper. Camping just once is more expensive than this, and what's worse is that when I subtract the cost of hirelings, I'm losing quite a bit of money.

 

2. It seems that hirelings are paid per day, but taxes are earned per turn. This means that you can never generate infinite wealth, but you can LOSE infinite wealth. Is that really true?

 

I do like the stronghold, don't get me wrong, but so far all it does is cost me money. A lot of money. I understand that you can get resting bonuses, sure, but for the thousands I spend upgrading the stronghold, I'm sure I could have gotten a full game's worth of resting bonuses from inns.

 

What am I missing here?

 

PS: If it had generated taxes per day, it would have made sense. Sure some nutty people could have gained infinite wealth, but does that really matter?

the keep poses a ridiculous difficult balancing problem for the developers.  in a game with abundant copper/gold, making the keep produce copious amounts o' wealth for the player would be inimical to their overall design philosophies.  sure, the player wants something for their investment in the keep, but rewarding with gold is bad.  the keep could be an effective gold sink, but so far, players appear less than enthusiastic with the results.   a gold sink is not a popular feature in single-player crpgs.  get a largely cosmetic or illusory benefit from a huge currency investment works in an mmo 'cause conspicuous consumption is an exploitable social failing.  what is the point o' such stuff in a single-player game, eh?  

 

likewise, the keep should not be providing enormous amounts o' additional xp, but it does via the bounties.

 

am realizing that it sounds a bit silly, but the keep, ideally, should reward you with nothing, and make you happy with your nothingness.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

It could also reward you with intangibles or things that change your power orthogonally. Here are a few possible ideas off the top of my head:

 

• Being able to directly access the resting option from the travel screen and the travel screen from anywhere in the keep. Possibly ditto for the merchants. This would allow you to skip loading screens, which doesn't effect in game power in the slightest but would be an incredibly nice feature.
• Being able to leave a companion at a structure for a number of quests and respec them (possibly to varying degrees, depending on how long you leave them). This wouldn't change a hypothetical player's power, since they could have theoretically made any of those choices to start with, but it could let them correct early game mistakes or make the game more pleasant. It could also make it easier to try out new builds.
• Move enchantments from one weapon to another or strip enchantments from a weapon and salvage their components. This would let you experiment with enchantments more and put interesting enchantments on weapons you're more likely to use, but it doesn't actually give you anything new.
• Have the merchants take custom orders for a slight markup (I want a weapon with these enchantments and get me these ingredients while you're at it). This could, potentially increase a player's power, but at least they'd be paying to get the things.
• Training room where you can spawn monsters (who would drop no loot and grant no XP) to fight against and test new strategies.