I don't think there needs to be any additional content added to the town. Here's why:
There's plenty to do inside and out of Cyseal without it. Adding it at this stage could make it seem forced. This is the first town we have gotten to see. If they add a battle or two to Cyseal then they will have to add that many to every town in an attempt to keep it balanced. So say there are 4 major towns you are now asking for anywhere from 4 to 8 additional battles to take place. The reason I say this is if you add it to Cyseal and not to others then the comments will be "Why only in Cyseal? Why aren't there battles in [insert city name here]?"
First, we don't know that there aren't already fights taking place in other towns. For are we know, there are (which, by your reasoning, means Cyseal needs some too).
Second, I don't think anyone will be asking
"Why only in Cyseal? Why aren't there battles in [insert city name here]?". The idea should not be to make every town a carbon copy of every other town. The idea is to improve pacing and break up the monotony of the current setup in Cyseal.
Finally, I don't understand these "feels forced" comments. This game is still in development, meaning changes can and will happen. The game we're playing now is going to look fairly different from the final release.. should every change be met with "feels forced" responses?
And what is with this lack of confidence many of you seem to have in the development team? I ask that because to imply it would "feel forced" is to imply the developers couldn't possibly add in a combat encounter in a way that
doesn't feel forced. I guess I have a little more faith in them than that, seeing as they've done a pretty great job with the rest of the game we've seen so far.
Also, stating that completing the quests by fighting isn't your playstyle so they should add combat so it can be your playstyle is kind of off to me. Because what about those who want to not have to worry about random battle XYZ happening in town when all they want is to walk to the market and buy a heal potion? That additional content you want may not be THEIR playstyle and now you have forced it on them.
We're not talking about random battles happening as you move around town, with random chances of them occurring at random times. We're talking about specific encounters that are woven into the story. Example: a second orc raid that breaches the city defenses at a specific gate between two specific points in the progression of the main plot. Or a one-time bar fight that is triggered by speaking with a specific NPC in the tavern. That sort of thing.
Lastly, there's a big difference between wanting a combat scenario added to improve the pacing and not wanting to be intentionally aggressive with the guards or resolving quest steps through violence when it doesn't match your role-playing style. There are currently combat opportunities within the town of Cyseal (further nullifying your original concern about
"why only Cyseal") and around it, but you have to be either incompetent and/or overly aggressive to trigger them, or suffer from some form of ADD and go wandering out of town before your characters are ready. I'm looking for combat options woven nicely into the story for players who are neither.
