Equip-able Banners (and to some extent, horns)

[Cajoes]

It's getting really hard to come up with stuff that has not been suggested before... At least I don't think this has been suggested yet.

Anyho: Battle Banners (or standards rather) that the leader (or designated banner-carrier) drags around for some... bonus. I suppose.
Also: Horns for more active but temporary bonuses.

Apologies for the briefness of the post, but combat beyond the basics needed to tame a boar baffles me utterly. Below are some thoughts that, while somewhat more fleshed out, ultimately would just be abusable and/or crap/simply not fun in execution. But because I am loathe to simply delete it, I left it in for communal mocking and deriding. As well as examples of Battle Standards and War Horns and their proposed effects.

Morale: The enthusiasm or confidence of a person or group.

A morale/fear mechanic, which, for arguments sake, would tie into the happiness meter in the form of spirits. High spirits are good. Low spirits can lead to disaster. This would primarily affect combat performance, because I am not insane enough to think being too sad to operate a plow is a fun or engaging gameplay mechanic. If a characters morale/spirits break, while engaged in combat with a broken morale bar, he will, if sufficiently Disciplined, fight at reduced capacity. Or if entirely undisciplined, lose control over movement and flee from combat,

LEADERSHIP:
This would make leadership more important, because a good leader would raise the spirits of all troops under his banner (banners would also raise morale, war horns would raise morale while lowering it of your opponents, more on this under ITEMS:) and have a distinct advantage over armies without a leader, protecting the leader becomes paramount because a dead leader would be disastrous for morale. For obvious reasons.

FEAR:
Using a complicated algorithm of strength, intelligence and combat prowess, we reach a hearthlings resistance to a-fearing effects, ranging from simply being alone in the dark, deep dark caverns, dead hearthlings, desecrated bodies, to more complicated weird wyrd rituals or horn blasts.

ITEMS: that could buff or reduce morale as well as examples of banners.

• All Banner-kin would feature the village/faction's heraldry, should it ever be implemented for ease of identification when rallying or attacking. As an aside, I'd also like it painted on the shields. (But this should be optional)
• Skraeling Banner: Simple linen construction you can hold in one hand, allows use of the off-hand for self-defense.
• Battle Standard: More elaborate banner that requires the use of both hands, features a spear tip for self-defense.
• War Banner: Elaborate but unwieldy silk constructed banner, morale/authority boost range and intensity dependent on quality. Can mount a well-developed skull to it to overpower the effect of hostile banners via 'fear'.
• All banner-kin effects are passive, following are active effect items.
• Horn (Bronze): Horn type item, blowing the horn will reduce enemy spirits in a wide area while buffing those of you and your party/friends.
• Battle Horn (Iron): Basicly the same, just stronker, morale buff/debuffs are dependent on quality.
• War Horn (steel): Finest of hornkind available to mortals, will make hostiles poop themselves.
• Gjallar Horn: Dev item. Do not blow this. Ever. Not even for laughs.
• Vuvuzela: Debuffs morale for everyone and automatically cause everyone to agress the blower. (I ran out of ideas at this point)

This would also make home-turf important, as the defenders can buff morale by placing banners, statues and skulls on large spikes. May lead to jerk moves where someone lines a hermits lot with skulls on spikes, - may be mitigated by only applying the panic reaction during combat... Anyho, this is all a rubbish idea.

Drinking alcohol or ingesting certain mushrooms would also boost morale dramatically, if temporarily.

[borka]

Gjallar Horn: Dev item. Do not blow this. Ever. Not even for laughs.

Olifant - pffffrrrrrt

I'm looking forward to the RoB Wiki entry

[LadyV]

Im not opposed to ornamental items and Ive been a supporter of morale for some time. However leadership and fear is subjective and depends on the individual. I oppose interfering in personal initiative and will.

[Cajoes]

Im not opposed to ornamental items and Ive been a supporter of morale for some time. However leadership and fear is subjective and depends on the individual. I oppose interfering in personal initiative and will.

I wholly agree, there's nothing more rage inducing than suddenly losing all control over your avatar, only to watch the brainless thing blunder into a river or off of a cliff.

What is your definition of morale (as a mechanic) though?

[NOOBY93]

It's getting really hard to come up with stuff that has not been suggested before... At least I don't think this has been suggested yet.

Anyho: Battle Banners (or standards rather) that the leader (or designated banner-carrier) drags around for some... bonus. I suppose.
Also: Horns for more active but temporary bonuses.

Apologies for the briefness of the post, but combat beyond the basics needed to tame a boar baffles me utterly. Below are some thoughts that, while somewhat more fleshed out, ultimately would just be abusable and/or crap/simply not fun in execution. But because I am loathe to simply delete it, I left it in for communal mocking and deriding. As well as examples of Battle Standards and War Horns and their proposed effects.

Morale: The enthusiasm or confidence of a person or group.

A morale/fear mechanic, which, for arguments sake, would tie into the happiness meter in the form of spirits. High spirits are good. Low spirits can lead to disaster. This would primarily affect combat performance, because I am not insane enough to think being too sad to operate a plow is a fun or engaging gameplay mechanic. If a characters morale/spirits break, while engaged in combat with a broken morale bar, he will, if sufficiently Disciplined, fight at reduced capacity. Or if entirely undisciplined, lose control over movement and flee from combat,

LEADERSHIP:
This would make leadership more important, because a good leader would raise the spirits of all troops under his banner (banners would also raise morale, war horns would raise morale while lowering it of your opponents, more on this under ITEMS:) and have a distinct advantage over armies without a leader, protecting the leader becomes paramount because a dead leader would be disastrous for morale. For obvious reasons.

FEAR:
Using a complicated algorithm of strength, intelligence and combat prowess, we reach a hearthlings resistance to a-fearing effects, ranging from simply being alone in the dark, deep dark caverns, dead hearthlings, desecrated bodies, to more complicated weird wyrd rituals or horn blasts.

ITEMS: that could buff or reduce morale as well as examples of banners.

• All Banner-kin would feature the village/faction's heraldry, should it ever be implemented for ease of identification when rallying or attacking. As an aside, I'd also like it painted on the shields. (But this should be optional)
• Skraeling Banner: Simple linen construction you can hold in one hand, allows use of the off-hand for self-defense.
• Battle Standard: More elaborate banner that requires the use of both hands, features a spear tip for self-defense.
• War Banner: Elaborate but unwieldy silk constructed banner, morale/authority boost range and intensity dependent on quality. Can mount a well-developed skull to it to overpower the effect of hostile banners via 'fear'.
• All banner-kin effects are passive, following are active effect items.
• Horn (Bronze): Horn type item, blowing the horn will reduce enemy spirits in a wide area while buffing those of you and your party/friends.
• Battle Horn (Iron): Basicly the same, just stronker, morale buff/debuffs are dependent on quality.
• War Horn (steel): Finest of hornkind available to mortals, will make hostiles poop themselves.
• Gjallar Horn: Dev item. Do not blow this. Ever. Not even for laughs.
• Vuvuzela: Debuffs morale for everyone and automatically cause everyone to agress the blower. (I ran out of ideas at this point)

This would also make home-turf important, as the defenders can buff morale by placing banners, statues and skulls on large spikes. May lead to jerk moves where someone lines a hermits lot with skulls on spikes, - may be mitigated by only applying the panic reaction during combat... Anyho, this is all a rubbish idea.

Drinking alcohol or ingesting certain mushrooms would also boost morale dramatically, if temporarily.

I hope you mean you're trying hard, and not getting hard, otherwise it's just weird.
Anyway, in my opinion your ideas don't quite fit the game's combat system. How will you make characters flee from combat? Why would there be a debuff that applied if your leader dies? It's a permadeath game, there's not as much death in combat as it is in other games and there would certainly be ways to protect that leader, probably would be abusable too, etc.
Just pretty flawed if you ask me.
Also, just a friendly tip, if you run out of ideas you shouldn't scrap any shit you can come up with into your idea. There's really no point, it's better to just wait until a really good idea hits you.

[Cajoes]

Grammatically speaking, the going gets hard when you are fighting a progressive incline of diminishing returns. Such as coming up with fresh and original ideas. And I am struggling to rephrase it with less double entendre - As for the idea, I did specifically comment out the crappy parts while leaving the pertinent useful information in. Unfortunately they were simple item suggestions. Like being able to carry around a portable banner without any underlying concepts on their game-mechanical benefits and doubly unfortunate, some scraps from the rubbish ideas got left in their descriptions. So, lesson learned. I will never save-a-post in progress again and leave it for months on end. It only triggers my completionist OCD. Henceforth all my ideas shall be spur of the moment things, like nature intended.[/pointless ramble]

The portable banner itself is a bit of a issue, it wouldn't do much good as a way to reduce authority usage in battle seeing how people would rather just build more permanent banners rather than sacrifice a weapon slot.

And arbitrary statistic bonuses would be a pain in the ass to balance and make little sense within context. You have a glorified scrap of cloth on a stick and now you're better at punching people?

I suppose it could work as a tool to organize larger armies, but I don't know how warbands currently organize within HnH. To me as a uninitiated innocent bystander they seem to be huge clustercusses of dragonhelmets, merchant robes, giant axes and boats. And frankly I'm amazed there are remarkably few incidents of friendly fire.

Horns would just be for fun though, because who wouldn't want to blow their own horn?

[LadyV]

Im not opposed to ornamental items and Ive been a supporter of morale for some time. However leadership and fear is subjective and depends on the individual. I oppose interfering in personal initiative and will.

I wholly agree, there's nothing more rage inducing than suddenly losing all control over your avatar, only to watch the brainless thing blunder into a river or off of a cliff.

What is your definition of morale (as a mechanic) though?

Morale in Haven would have to be a simple mechanic. It would have to be a set of issues that affect negatively or positively on a character yet did not force an action. The effects however should nudge the person. Say in combat your outnumbered 4 to 1. Not an ideal situation but it would affect you negatively on staying and fighting. So maybe a slight penalty to defence. Yet on the same note if your fighting the battle on your own claim or village you might get a bonus instead for defending your home.

I dont think morale should be a heavy handed thing or anything that significantly hinders you. It should be simple adjustments to actions due to situations. Yes there may be exceptions where someone might stack lots of negatives but Im sure they would be rare. Its not like your likely to go off in the middle of nowhere, naked, no weapons, in a swamp...to fight an enemy.