Keep needs a serious overhaul

[Ichthyic]

Hmm.  had my keep for a couple of levels of experience now, cleared out the first level of the endless tunnels, built a little over half of all the possible upgrades (just to see what was possible).

my conclusion?

someone saw "Money Pit", the movie, and decided to make it into content for this game.

seriously, someone is VERY AFRAID that players will actually make the *tiniest* scrap of money from this apparently, since everything you can do with it costs HUGE sums of money, which realistically would take many many weeks of in game play to earn even to do basic upgrades.

taxes?

actually, even with 25 security, bandits take MORE MONEY THAN TAXES BRING IN!  this not only is ridiculous, it should not even be possible!

so, before I started hacking in extra bucks just to see where this would go, this keep ended up costing me an average of about 3k per week of gametime.

frankly?  that 3k would be far far better spent on equipment, or ingredients, or rest bonuses at inns, or any myriad of other things.

building up even more (can't see how you would even do this before nearly the end of the game without cheating) does not end up making the keep produce money for you.

basically, it is little more than a money pit, which you can spend many thousands on to get early access to things you can spend many MORE thousands on (and you don't even get a discount, even though IT'S YOUR KEEP).

so, while I really like the idea of the keep, and there are some excellent roleplaying aspects to it, it simply costs wayyyyyyyyyyyy too much money as it stands right now.

-Have it generate taxes in a sane fashion, and have bandits RANDOMLY take some of that (not always!) only if you basically have very low security AND haven't bothered to hire some mercenaries to protect your keep.  as it is, even with 25 security, and 7/8 mercenaries hired.... a bog standard bandit raid results in the death of one or two mercs, 200cp in damage, and usually a destroyed upgrade!  that's bloody ridiculous.  If you manually take care of it, the bandits are like swiss cheese, and easily wiped out, and you lose no buildings... yet they STILL take all of your taxes, and then some??  wtf?

-all upgrades should cost exactly HALF of what they do now.  money is tight for the first half of the game, and by the time you have enough money to do significant upgrades, many of those upgrades will no longer really be useful.

-more frequent adventures, that turn purely based on gametime, and not quest completions.  don't mind the pathetic rewards, but at least make them more frequent.

-so far I have had 4 visitors.  only one of those was a "good" visit, and it happend the first day I owned the keep, and had no barracks built yet to hire him.  all the others have been negative visits, and have forced me to pay them off or suffer consequences... either way, again, more money lost.  delay visitors until the keep is built up enough for the player to actually be able to do something about them (hire them, or whatever).  allow your hire mercenaries to deal with them if you do not have a player character available (probably because they are on an infrequent adventure).

-have merchants in your keep give you BETTER than average prices for the goods they sell; call it a tax for them even being ABLE to do business in your keep.

-decrease the frequency of raids, and make it so only very large raids even have a chance of destroying your buildings.

overall, whoever was so afraid this keep might actually make a player a few coppers a week?  get over yourself, really.  you went way overboard trying to prevent it, and it makes zero sense as it stands.





 

[RedSocialKnight]

Semi on-topic: I've just recently starting upgrading the keep, and all my hirelings have notes saying they are "currently unpaid"

 

What does this mean? Do I have to pay them out of taxes rather than my normal money? And what happens if I never get enough taxes to pay them, will they get pissed and leave?

[termokanden]

Well, can't say I disagree.

 

As I've said a few times before, I love the keep, the design, the dungeon, most everything about it. It's just the punishing, nonsensical mechanics surrounding taxes and hirelings that bring it down.

 

Who even cares that someone can click "rest" a billion times and get rich in a singleplayer game? Well, I guess someone did!

[Ichthyic]

Semi on-topic: I've just recently starting upgrading the keep, and all my hirelings have notes saying they are "currently unpaid"

 

What does this mean? Do I have to pay them out of taxes rather than my normal money? And what happens if I never get enough taxes to pay them, will they get pissed and leave?

they used a rather strange notation.  I believe the idea is that it's not payday yet.  on payday, they say "paid", then the day after, they are "unpaid" again.

 

really, it should only say "unpaid", if you are literally broke and unable to pay them, forcing you to let them go, or have them take up a spot on your force while doing nothing.

 

don't know if this is changed in the new patch or not, but I'm guessing the keep is pretty low on the priority list atm.

 

bottom line?  don't worry about what it says unless you really ARE entirely out of money.

 

 

[Ichthyic]

other possibilites to make keep defense more interesting...

-put a use to all those extra weapons and armor you find that you can only sell for next to nothing.  instead, use them to equip your mercenaries.  the better the equipment you give them, the better they will do at repelling attacks, and the fewer of them you will need to do so.  Make it so each upgrade you give them increases their relative strength over normal by .25.

so, say, 4 mercs with fine weapons are equivalent in strength to 5 mercs with normal weapons.  give them fine armor as well as fine weapons, that goes up to 4 mercs so equipped being worth 6 normally equipped ones, etc.  have it cap at 1 magically equipped merc being worth 2 normally equipped mercs, which would be at the level where they have exquisite weapons and exquisite armor equipped.

each merc would need an upgrade to exactly what they came with when you hired them, so if you hire a mage that is using a scepter, to upgrade, give them a fine scepter, etc.

that would be a good use for all that junk, and save you money long term on hires.

 

[ChipMHazard]

Semi on-topic: I've just recently starting upgrading the keep, and all my hirelings have notes saying they are "currently unpaid"

 

What does this mean? Do I have to pay them out of taxes rather than my normal money? And what happens if I never get enough taxes to pay them, will they get pissed and leave?

 

A bug from what I can tell. They are getting paid, but the UI isn't being updated to show that. 

 

Aye, so far the stronghold hasn't impressed me. As examples: I haven't had any interesting visitors as of yet and the dungeon seems rather pointless, mainly because of the former and their ability to escape. 

Edited April 4, 2015 by ChipMHazard

[GreyFox]

Keep is bad has been discussed numerous times...should just pin a sticky at the top saying "We just did the keep enough to check the checkbox next to the stretch goal" WE KNOW.

 

Seriously just put a universal keep is underwhelming sticky at the top.

[Ichthyic]

Seriously just put a universal keep is underwhelming sticky at the top.

fine by me.

 

mind if I express my opinions on my own until then?

 

kthxbye.

 

 

[Gallenger]

I was over all fairly pleased with the keep - it's not like money *really* matters - unless you're going for the ultra-passive achievement.   The only thing that bothers me at all is I'd like to be able to transfer stuff out of my stash and into containers in the keep, because I dream of loading my keep up with crap I'll probably forget about - like I used to do with the dresser drawers in an inn in Beregost . 

 

Once you really start hammering out side quests the keep becomes a lot more profitable because you'll be swimming in adventures of various sorts.  It's just that when you first get it, if you play the "intended" route, you don't have a great lot of side-quests left to do for a little bit.  I actually got some fairly decent items out of it too lol. 

[Badmojo]

I agree with op about the money pit.  How the hell am I losing more money than taking in?  That defeats the whole point of the keep.  I also would like to see some GOOD people come in, so far its all been bad people. 

 

I do love the keep, but want more stuff to do with it.

[Voss]

Bounty hut, curio shop and garden.  Those give you things.  Everything else is pretty much worthless.  You're much better off paying for an inn than staying at home.

[Phyon]

The keep money thing really isnt to big a problem I had it fully upgraded by the time I made it to defiance bay there is a enough gold around before you get there. But I am a little disappointed with the keep there should be more to it should feel a bit more alive then it does right now it comes across as a little awkwardly I feel. Other then that one point I wont get into it plays 0 story significance.  You get 8 npcs guard that are around and the shop keepers thats it that is as alive the keep gets. Now the endless paths are neat kind of feels like a entire diablo 1 game in their as a dungeon crawler.

 

But even how the stronghold is controlled seems like it takes you out of the game and does gamey stuff. Sorry being quite vague here but hopfully getting that point across. It feels gamey and not like it is a part of the story what so ever.

[Ichthyic]

 

The only thing that bothers me at all is I'd like to be able to transfer stuff out of my stash and into containers in the keep, because I dream of loading my keep up with crap I'll probably forget about - like I used to do with the dresser drawers in an inn in Beregost .

LOL

 

 

[Ichthyic]

 

The keep money thing really isnt to big a problem I had it fully upgraded by the time I made it to defiance bay there is a enough gold around before you get there.

O.o

 

uh, no there isn't.

 

 

[Luridis]

The keep in NWN2 was much more memorable. Hopefully, they'll sort this one out in patches.

 

If it takes more money to run than is collected, what are you supposed to do once all the mobs in the game are dead?

[Tigranes]

That's a super, super unlikely problem. Like in most RPGs, you've got plenty of cash to spare by the time you hit later stages of the game. 

 

In general, the keep does seem rather threadbare. NWN2's keep invasion was great. If not for KS goals, I'd have preferred them to not do a stronghold at all this time, and just do a good one in the expansion or sequel. 

[Phyon]

That's a super, super unlikely problem. Like in most RPGs, you've got plenty of cash to spare by the time you hit later stages of the game. 

 

In general, the keep does seem rather threadbare. NWN2's keep invasion was great. If not for KS goals, I'd have preferred them to not do a stronghold at all this time, and just do a good one in the expansion or sequel. 

You really wont run out of money by the end. As I was saying earlier I had just hit defiance bay only level 6 and bought every keep upgrade I could. Level 5 endless paths  That really really wont be a problem. Once you get to enemies dropping fine equipment you start making a ton of cash from selling it very easly. I don't have the best guards though so the drain could eventually get higher then what it makes full upgraded so unsure on that you still will probably be swimming in cash by that point though.

[Kveldulf]

Maybe if they added a "Go to war" mechanic where you could do battle vs other non compliant kingdoms or something.

 

Or, enlisting peons to your cause (than just the six followers). Heck you would figure that as a lord, you would field more dudes to travel along with you, or at least have the option to. I would bring an entire package train if that were the case, along with a holy hand grenade (for them dragons and soulless wabbits)

Edited April 4, 2015 by Kveldulf

[vsanders]

Subject would better read "Stronghold is Not What I Want It to Be." It's pretty much everything they said it would be in previews. Could it be better? Sure.

[Jaeke85]

I have no idea where to post this so this will do.
There is a certain quest reward(?) mercenary in the keep that gives -6 prestige and +6 defence for 50copper per day. Completely pointless?

[LadyCrimson]

It's only a money pit if you desire to buy lots of any awesome looking thing in every store, and doing the Keep upgrades prevents you from doing that. I'm not sure it does - but I'm still on Act1 and have easily upgraded most of it so far, at least when not buying 8k items from stores. But if you wanted those store items faster instead, then yes, upgrading the Keep etc. is going to delay that. Depends on priorities/order you want to do stuff in.

 

 

Outside of that ... I like the idea of the Keep/Stronghold as being a fun home for your character, but I also feel maintaining/defending it is just yet more micromanagement I don't (personally) want, because I just want to experience the main game right now, so I've been largely ignoring it in restarts (I restart a lot, still can't decide on party I want to stick with). The bandits can have it for the moment. Maybe later.

[Godfather101]

 

A bug from what I can tell. They are getting paid, but the UI isn't being updated to show that. 

 

No, it is a full fledged bug.

as long as they are listed as "unpaid" in the List, they won't do anything.

even IF the Security rating does not going down, you will loose things.

Like most of the taxes will be robbed by bandits.

And if there is an attack on Caed Nua you will loose Buildings.

Most of the time 3.

 

If you hired 8 Guys and build up the right security Buildings you won't loose any building.

Sometimes you loose 1 or 2 hireling but thats it.

 

Only solution (at least before the patch) was to fire and re-hire the hirelings so they are paid again.

 

Dunno if the patch fixed that.

[abelhabel]

I had the opposite experience. I finished the game yesterday and I thought it was way too easy to make money and so I stopped picking up loot around defiance bay. I built constructions from the point that I got the stronghold until the end. I played on hard so there are more monsters to kill (less loot) than lower difficulties. Could this had been the problem for people who had too little money?

[Phyon]

It's only a money pit if you desire to buy lots of any awesome looking thing in every store, and doing the Keep upgrades prevents you from doing that. I'm not sure it does - but I'm still on Act1 and have easily upgraded most of it so far, at least when not buying 8k items from stores. But if you wanted those store items faster instead, then yes, upgrading the Keep etc. is going to delay that. Depends on priorities/order you want to do stuff in.

 

 

Outside of that ... I like the idea of the Keep/Stronghold as being a fun home for your character, but I also feel maintaining/defending it is just yet more micromanagement I don't (personally) want, because I just want to experience the main game right now, so I've been largely ignoring it in restarts (I restart a lot, still can't decide on party I want to stick with). The bandits can have it for the moment. Maybe later.

I did not think of the uniques from the store have not actually bought any so far. I had a similar problem with restarting but I seen a great thing about it I wanted to play with the companions story but was having a hard time having them fit with my characters. If you split the companions into 2 groups of 4 your first play through only take 4 of them you make 2 custom characters and the rest the games companions but heres the thing. There are only 2 companions that can tank so you ethier go 1 and 1 tank or 2 tanks second bit if you want a healer there is only one priest.

 

So my plan ended up being 1 tank and cipher leaving companion cipher behind taking priest and my second play through will be 1 tank and 1 priest with a custom adventurer. Anyways after accepting that I havnt restarted and making decent progress. Hopefully that helps to nail that down you are not just one char you are 6 and you will play through it as everything!

[Hiro Protagonist II]

How do you raise taxes? I don't see any tax option. Although, I'm swimming in money just from picking up loot and nearly finished upgrading my Stronghold. Haven't finished Act 1 as yet.