List of Kenshi 2 Suggestions To Improve Gameplay

[Kondescending Kiwi]

I apologize in advance if I suggest something that has already been suggested. While I don’t intend to steal the ideas of others, it is possible that I have come up with the same idea(s) as someone else. This list is mostly for the developers to see and get some suggestions from, but if anyone else reading this finds something interesting, then feel free to discuss it! Anyways, I loved Kenshi, but I think the next game could be improved with new features that would make for even more interesting gameplay and would spice up the game for the player. I will order them from most to least importance.

1. Horses- Before I go on, I must say that if horses and other items are added, and Kenshi 2 is a prequel, then it would have to be explained why they are gone in the first game. It would not make sense if horses existed in the past but aren’t existent in the future unless it is was explained somehow, like if they went extinct or were lost as time passed. Despite this, horses would fit the medieval Japan theme of Kenshi and I think they would be appropriate because the samurai used them and horse combat could make for new, interesting gameplay. Horses would allow players to strike their enemies hard and fast, as players could use horses to give their characters' melee attacks more momentum and power (more damage) and the increased mobility would allow horsemen to quickly close the distance when enemies are shooting at them from a distance or let the player use tactics that involve attacking and quickly fleeing. Horses would also help players get across the huge map that Kenshi is known for, which I found to be very tedious to travel across by foot. Even with my characters' very high athletics skills, I would find myself going to do other things irl like brushing my teeth until my characters got where they needed to be. Others have proposed that an even faster game speed be added, but I feel that horses would be a better solution and would let the player play more of the game instead of skipping it. This faster travel speed would be useful for players with remote outposts, as they could quickly go to town and maybe use saddlebags to transport the trade items they wish to sell there. Characters can have a cavalry or horseman skill that they can improve by riding the horse and/or by using it in combat. With improvement of the skill, the horseman can miss his targets less and mitigate some of the damage being done to him and the horse. Ranged attacks on horseback could require a skill that is separate from a horseman melee skill. Horse weapons like lances could be added to existing weapon classes or be given a new class of their own, but weapons like swords and ranged weapons should still be allowed to be used on horses, though some could have penalties/bonuses when being used by a horse rider (similar to indoor penalties/bonuses). Tired of your horse bleeding out from being slashed, shot, and impaled? Try horse armor! Horses could be armored with chain mail, plates, or maybe even scale armor to make them more resilient, but one might want to use lighter leather armor with less protection. Lighter horse armors could have fewer penalties than heavier armor so that players would have a reason to use it as well. Heavy horse armor warrants the use of strong horses, sort of like how heavy warrior armor warrants the use of strong warriors. The strength and speed of a horse could be determined by the level of its strength and athletic skills and/or its breed, similar to the character races. Possible breeds could include bigger horses with more strength and health, and smaller horses with more agility. Maybe skeleton horses (robot horses) could make an appearance, but I'm not sure if they would go with the game's theme and like the other horses, you would have to explain why they aren't in the first game. These skeleton horses though, like skeleton warriors, wouldn't need to be fed, but maybe they would be balanced if you had to repair them in order for them to regain health. Horses should generally be expensive in order to be balanced with the benefits of having one, and an entire squad of skilled horsemen should take time and money in order to acquire. You don't want to have players cheese through the game with horses that are too easy to obtain, master, and maintain. A typical scenario would be a single squad member on a horse with the rest of the squad traveling and fighting on foot, as an early game squad might not have the resources and money to buy and keep multiple horses. By late game though, a player should have enough money to be able to have a squad that is entirely horsemen.

2. Bows- I think bows fit the theme of the game and there are many varieties that players could choose between if they were implemented into the second game, though like the horses there would have to be an explanation as to why they are not in the first game if the second game is a prequel. Crossbows are cool and can be used by anyone, but only certain people can use certain bows because certain bows demand a certain physique. Bigger bows with a higher draw weight would require a strong person to pull it back and fire accurately. Like the heavy weapons in Kenshi, the speed at which a character can attack would depend on the character's strength stat. A weakling trying to use a bow that is way too big and powerful for him would spell disaster if he was using it in combat, as there would be penalties to rate of fire penalty and to shot accuracy because the strength requirement of the bow was not met or exceeded. However, like the heavy weapons, one could get used to it and build up the strength to use such a weapon. The heavier bows could propel heavier arrows at the same speed as normal arrows do with lighter bows or they could propel normal arrows faster than lighter bows. The different bow varieties can have different draw weights (strength requirements) of course, but similar to how heavy weapons work, the strength needed to use particular a bow without penalties will increase with weapon grade, but so will the bow's damage. Bows can have a bigger learning curve than crossbows, but they should pay off in the end with bowmen being able to achieve higher rates of fire than those using a crossbow. Possible bows types include Yumi, English longbows, recurve bows, and if they fit within the style of the game, compound bows. The bows of different types could also have bonuses or penalties if they are used on a horse.

3. Character Customization Affecting Gameplay- One thing that I thought was really cool about the first game was that characters who were taller and had longer arms and legs could swing further and move bigger distances when they dodged an attack. What was also cool was the fact that hitboxes changed size with the character model, and so skinnier characters would be less likely to be hit by arrows. Because the attack system is physics based, a character who is very tall will also be hit in the stomach more than they will be hit in the head, and this interesting because this makes character customization have an effect on gameplay. You can go a step further with this by having the health of a body part adjust based on the part's hitbox size. With this, one could decide to make a character very skinny with a small hitbox and less health in order to avoid projectiles, or alternatively they could have a bulkier character with a bigger hitbox whose higher chance of being hit would be offset by their increased health. If you want to go even further, you could even have the character's build affect their stats like agility and strength. For example, characters with longer legs can run faster than those with short legs, though they might not have the endurance that the characters with shorter legs have. A system like this would add strategy to character customization, as players would have to decide what strengths and weaknesses they want their characters to have and what roles their characters will have based on their physique.

4. New Armors- It would be interesting to see new armors added to the game like plate armor similar to what the medieval knights had or scale mail. Knight armor was typically superior to samurai armor as far as protection went, but it was no doubt more cumbersome than samurai armor, so players wishing to have their characters fully covered and protected at the expensive of reduced stats could suit them up in knight armor instead of samurai armor. Crab armor filled this role in the first game, but knight armor seems like it would be an elegant replacement for it, as the Crab Raiders might not have existed that far in the game's past. The scale armor, like chain mail would be time-consuming to make, but would offer superior protection to chain mail at the expense of mobility and with penalties to stats.

5. Matchlocks- Of the things on this list, this is the feature that I think would be the most controversial if it was added to the game, but I think it could have a role that is similar to the crossbow's role. I think it would also fit the theme because the samurai, believe it or not, used matchlocks as well as swords and bows. Nobody wants Kenshi to be turned into a shooter, where players would be outfitting their squads with only guns and using no other strategies. To balance such a weapon and prevent the creation of TPS Kenshi, the muskets must have poor range and accuracy to go with high damage, but the stats should increase with higher weapon grades. Armors should also have resistances to bullets sort of like the harpoon resistances of armors. This isn't totally unrealistic though, as chain mail was sometimes doubled up to provide protection from bullets, and though armor may or may not stop a musket ball, it would certainly take away some of its destructive potential if it did manage to go through. Of course, the muskets would take time to reload and wouldn't be as accurate at long range as bows, but maybe a squad member with high dexterity and perception could properly utilize the weapon and make for decent support. If you want to incorporate horses into the mix, then a skilled shooter would be a scary opponent if he was on a horse, but shooting accurately from horseback would be very difficult so it would have to take a lot of time to master in order for this to not to be too overpowered.