Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-33216315-20170930091400

Prologue

This is a continuation of a thread posted here, because I had not created an account when I first posted the thread and was unable to respond to feedback provided. However, now I have taken feedback from the original thread and tried to build upon it, improving this suggestion to the best of my abilities.

Structures

Before we move onto commanding, I would like to propose a small suggestion to many structures. Structures such as Villages, Cities or Forts, could be shown on the map as a marker, by editing the NPC Respawner (the white flag in the structure that you can only see in creative). The marker on the map would be the picture of the banner for each section (i.e. If the village was a Gondor Village, the icon would be the Gondor Banner with the name of the Village). What could be added to the Respawner is another section, where players can type out a name, and a marker would form on the map with the name that was used. You could also edit a the icon of the marker, changing the faction of the Respawner. Since all Villages and Forts come with this respawner, the marker would be automatically made when the structure is spawned in, showing the faction of the village/fort and its name.

However, once you enter Middle Earth, not all villages would immediately be open to you. You can unlock villages by visiting them, or by earning alignment with a certain faction. Once you earn +100 alignment with a certain faction, all their villages and forts would become markers on the map. I was wondering if you fall below +100 alignment of the faction if the marker should disappear, and I decided not, because not only would that be more difficult to code, it seemed unrealistic as you would lose information just because you are no longer friends with a faction. Furthermore, on servers, it would make faction betrayal more impacting, as enemy factions would gain information of the location of the villages.

Commanding

You can probably tell where this is heading. Using the Table of Command, it could now open an interface similar to tallking to a salesman, but the two options would be "assign", which is essentially what the Table of Command could do before, and "command", which is a new feature of this suggestion.

Command would first allow you to choose a squad that you have assigned troops to, and after you have chosen a squad, it would open the Middle Earth Map, with all waypoints and Village markers available to you. Now, there are two options to do :

1. You can click on a waypoint/marker, and press the fastravel button (F), and it would send the selected squad on their way to that waypoint/marker, killing enemies on the way.

2. You can press the teleport button (M) on an area without a waypoint/marker, and the squad would go that those coordinates and create a custom waypoint, using up one of the custom waypoints that you unlock with achievements. (This feature is optional, as it is less important, and might not be able to code)

Optional

In my initial suggestion, I used banner bearers as the Table of Command, that would command the squadron, but I was informed that it was impossible to code. However, because the troops would despawn when the chunks are not loaded, I thought maybe the banner bearers could instead be chunk loaders, so the squadron would be able to make it to their destination without despawning. Banner bearers could also be markers on the map so you would be able to track your troops progress. This is optional as may be impossible to code and this mod already is quite laggy without chunk loaders, though I would imagine that if this was implemented, you could definitely configure it off. This should only be applied to hired banner bearers too, if not the world would be too laggy.

Multiplayer Features

Here are somemore features that work with multiplayer gameplay.

Custom Forts

There could be a new type of banner implemented, that works the same way as the NPC Respawner, but can be edited in Survival mode. This banner would allow players to make Custom markers on the map for all other players on the server to see. They could choose if it is Public, Private, or Allies only. This would allow players to attack other player's forts easily using the Table of Command. However, this should not be craftable, obtainable only by completing a certain number of achievements (i.e. 1 banner every 25 achievements completed), or after completing certain difficult achievements (i.e. gaining +1000 alignment with any faction).

I was also wondering if the banner should act like an NPC Respawner, spawning units randomly, and I could not decide. It would be overpowered, but would definitely bring life to player's forts. Will wait for some form of feedback before deciding.

Headhunting (Optional : may be impossible to code)

Headhunting quests have always been annoying, but now you can assign squads to chase after players, completing the headhunting quest for you! Just like in the movie! This should only work if the player set his location to public.

Squad V. Squad (Optional x2)

This is mostly optional because the banner bearer feature was optional, and this builds upon that. This gives the feature for the marker that the banner bearer forms to be Public, Private or Allies only. If it is Public, then other players could send their own squads to attack the banner bearers, who would most likely have an army next to him. This would be great if you want to prepare ambushes, or just wage war with other people's troops.

EPILOGUE

Most of the people who read the previous thread would know that I did not include the "modes" for the troops, as I thought that that was not very connected to this suggestion, and could have made a suggestion on its own. Most of the optional things I leave up to debate, as I have a small idea, but is not fully developed. I will still be reading feedback, so criticism is welcome, thanks! 