Mount&Blade II: Bannerlord

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The problem with AI isn't pathfind at all in my opinion, most battles are in the open anyway.

The problem is that they swing when allies are right in front of them. Because of this, team damage doesn't work with bots and the bots just swing constantly. Fighting more than one of them is really boring because the only viable strategy is to walk backwards...swinging.

In multiplayer you can dodge amongst multiple opponents blocking and cutting them down one by one, that's because they are trying not to kill each other.

That's the main problem with AI.
 
Gaunt said:
The problem with AI isn't pathfind at all in my opinion, most battles are in the open anyway.
Yeah, but they're still stupid enough to get stuck on the only tree within three miles. Plus better pathfinding would open up the possibility of more interesting siege battles, some nice medieval urban combat or maybe even, oh the horror, fighting inside buildings!

The problem is that they swing when allies are right in front of them. Because of this, team damage doesn't work with bots and the bots just swing constantly. Fighting more than one of them is really boring because the only viable strategy is to walk backwards...swinging.
But isn't that pathfinding as well? They just make a beeline for you, regardless of what's in their path.
 
Merlkir said:
I'd really like if they dropped multiplayer completely and made a wonderful single player sandbox. The MP can always be added later as an expansion. Hey, I'd buy the game twice. :wink:

Seriously, I just wish they did what MaB did originally - pushed the boundaries. Come up with stuff nobody dared or bothered to tackle. Horses, large battles, simple yet complex and fairly realistic fighting, open sandboxy world...

Give us physics that actually matter for gameplay! I was so happy when water actually slowed characters down - why not add dynamic snow and mud - that make you slip down from hills, where you can get stuck up to your knees and move very slowly? (yeah yeah, I know I *****ed about snow in the Skyrim thread)
Physics that allow you to push people, throw them - a game where a guy knocks me off my horse with a polearm, I fall off on another guy and crush him to death because of my armour, or a shield flattening his skull.
(I remember the first time I saw how Altair moved through the crowd in AC1 and he actually interacted with the people around - how awesome that looked)

Or weapons passively blocking (partially depending on angle and movement) like shields do arrows in WB?

More lifelike horses! Horses that freak out, don't react exactly to your controls if your riding skill is low. Horses that can collide and end up on the ground in a neighing bloody mess of kicking hooves instead of just stopping dead on.
Two different "getting on horse" animations, depending on the side you get to the horse from. (or is this in Warband already? If yes, hell, maybe more than two animations :grin:)
Give me horses that kick, bite, are able to sidestep. Horses that'll limp if they're shot in the leg.

While we're at it, give me smarter and more complex AI with emotions - a wounded soldier will try to hide, run, or get together with his mates - I want to see him holding his broken arm and fighting like he has a broken arm, I want to see blood dripping down his padded jack.

And yeah, of course, more complexity to the world - diseases spreading through military camps, more realistic terrain with interesting landmarks according to the map, secret societies of warriors or scolars I could join, more customization to settlements owned by the player. Maybe crafting?


Nah. We've been suggesting stuff for years. And don't get me wrong - I really like Warband. But it's just MP and fixes, better graphics. Nothing truly groundbreaking was added that I could think of.

I hope Taleworlds haven't used up all their awesome ideas on MaB, but I worry they might have.
(I don't really care for WFaS.)

I'll follow all news of course and buy the game for sure, they're great devs and deserve my trust. I just don't want to be disappointed.

That whole post sums up my own feelings about the series and hopes for M&B 2 very well. Nice ideas about horses especially, it would be great if some of those ideas could be included. Also, about them having maybe used up their awesome ideas, the team has grown since the beginning so there is a greater potential for new ideas with these extra brains on board. And hopefully the experience of making M&B and Warband will have expanded the dev's skill set and ambition to implement ideas they hadn't been able to implement before. But that's a lot of hoping. :sad:
 
I think what people fear is the devs will go, as they say, "mass market" and improve graphics before they improve the gameplay. I don't know any fan whose particularly annoyed by the graphics, but I know all of us would be excited as hell if the gameplay and AI would be improved.
 
I don't think lack of ideas is the problem. It's very easy to come up with awesome ideas, the tricky bit is actually putting them into a game and making it work. Yeah, it'd be awesome if colliding horses didn't just stop instantly in their tracks but instead fell down realistically, but goddammit would that be difficult to implement! I do hope the way TW shamelessly sold the same damn game three times over made them enough money to be able to make a proper, big budget title next.
Also, I hope for a different time period. High middle ages is probably the most boring and bland period in the whole of history, the only interesting things about it were the rampant religious zealotry and its consequences (ie. crusades, pogroms, inquisition, etc). And of course M&B completely ignores all of that, presumably for the sake of political correctness.
 
Gaunt said:
The problem with AI isn't pathfind at all in my opinion, most battles are in the open anyway.

The problem is that they swing when allies are right in front of them. Because of this, team damage doesn't work with bots and the bots just swing constantly. Fighting more than one of them is really boring because the only viable strategy is to walk backwards...swinging.

In multiplayer you can dodge amongst multiple opponents blocking and cutting them down one by one, that's because they are trying not to kill each other.

That's the main problem with AI.

Exactly. Well, almost. This is only part of the issue. If the AI consisted of anything else than frothing suicidal berserker maniacs (on blood-thirsty suicidal horses no less), I'd be pretty dang happy.

The "form up on the opposite end of the field and shoot at them when they get close-ish" is vaguely better but it's still rather lacking in tactical creativity. It's not very interesting to fight either. The options are limited.

It's either
a) you charge and they charge and you get a mahoosive cluster**** someplace central in the map.
b) you wait and they charge into your lines, invariably getting their light horsemen there first and the hostile force gets slaughtered piece by piece.

Or c) they wait and you charge. You may wait a small while for them to waste a bit of ammo and maybe you can lure away their cavalry but it's mainly just a cluster**** in which you and your forces rape them from every angle.

There's only a few minor variations in this possible and this is also why I never actually got far in any serious SP-campaign ever since Warband came out!
 
I thought they stay on their defensive position forever when they do that. Well, unless a single horseman does a couple of ride bys, which has them switch to the "attack anything moving" strategy.
 
All I would pay my money for is the new skeletons with realistic body proportions (this includes horses too), and more realistic animation (this also includes horsies) as a bonus.
Everything else is moddable.
 
I pretty much want three things from M&B2 in addition to better animations, more content etc.

1) Increased realism, especially in multiplayer. Mainly, jumping and attacking should be impossible, it really breaks the immersion to see people jumping and attacking with pikes. *facepalm* Likewise armor should make turning slower, not just slow down movement. Seeing guys in heavy armor whirl around like dervishes with a two-handed sword is another facepalmy moment.

2) Interactive enviroment. Meaning stuff like your sword swings actually being limited by walls when fighting inside a tower, it being possible to shoot/stab through a tent or other such obstacle and so forth. Destructability within reason.

3) I wouldn't mind better damage model... Where instead of just hit points your capabilities would be degraded by damage. With appropriate gore, of course.
 
Oh, were doing suggestions?

You're going to hate for saying this, BUT. Being able to wield multiple weapons. Yea. I said it.

Not in the form of two swords, but being able to have a support weapon. Like for example a sword and throwing knifes. I feel kinda clumsy constantly switching between the two. Perhaps you could have a support weapon instead of a shield.  They could share the same item box.

Also, probably mentioned before, but sieges have so much room for improvement.
 
Rams said:
Oh, were doing suggestions?

You're going to hate for saying this, BUT. Being able to wield multiple weapons. Yea. I said it.

Not in the form of two swords, but being able to have a support weapon. Like for example a sword and throwing knifes. I feel kinda clumsy constantly switching between the two. Perhaps you could have a support weapon instead of a shield.  They could share the same item box.
Well yeah, if you have a sword in your hand and you want to throw a knife, you're not going to put the sword back in its sheath, are you? You're just going to swap it to your left hand, use your right to throw the knife, then swap the sword back.
 
Being both left and right is trainable, really.

Or.

Ringwraith #5 said:
You're just going to swap it to your left hand, use your right to throw the knife, then swap the sword back.

EDIT: Ooooor your aim being reduced for using your reversed/support hand. Besides throwing knifes are a mid-close range weapon, so sheating your sword before throwing one isn't a good idea.
 
Kawee said:
I think what people fear is the devs will go, as they say, "mass market" and improve graphics before they improve the gameplay. I don't know any fan whose particularly annoyed by the graphics, but I know all of us would be excited as hell if the gameplay and AI would be improved.

Improving graphics over gameplay isn't particularly "mass-market". Keeping the animations and Graphics up to date helps to keep your game from looking stale. The gameplay mechanics and how they choose to build upon those is what makes a game seem like "mass-produced" crap. Frankly you can have the best graphics ever, if the game doesn't include a main character which is violent and desensitized, hot women wearing very little, overly simplified gameplay mechanics to the point where depth is removed from the game, and pack that on with things which seem cool but make no sense and you have exactly what the market wants. A game that looks really great on the surface so people will spend $50 on it but with no depth the gamers bore quickly so when the next game is released, $50 again. Unfortunately its highly plausible it will take this route. I know before warband was released nobody really had heard of M&B. After Warband, tons of people I know play it either for multiplayer or to use cheats and become some supreme commander. According to a few third party vendors which give those statistics, there was a huge difference in sales. So it will probably go towards the flow of money
 
I'm incredibly unoptimistic about this. Warband singleplayer imho was a letdown, especially with some of the game breaking issues that they let slip by or even created when ostensibly 'fixing' things. (undefeatable factions due to lords respawning)

I feel multiplayer is really where Warband shined - What I really want them to do is to focus on the core combat mechanics of the game.
- moar physics, grappling, wrestling, better unarmed fighting, better shield fighting, combat complexity etc
- spear and shield should have more than one attack direction for godsakes
- basic movement stuff: remove the stupid spinning arcade style B.S in multiplayer, make movement more realistic. Jumping as a movement form should be more or less made obsolete by climbing around collision objects, there should be running/walking/shifting around/sidesteps/backsteps/forwardpivots, instead of the current form of movement, which consists of only two elements: jogging and slow turning.
- improved horse movement: horse combat was revolutionary when M&B came out, but it honestly needs improvement. It suffers from the same movement issues as foot movement - only two elements, moving forward and turning. Horses could strafe, sprint, etc. The current way that horses behave feel more like automobiles than animals.

Also, the campaign system should be more complex and nuanced taking more into account economics, rather than 'who can zerg with the most elite troops.'
 
Shik said:
I feel multiplayer is really where Warband shined - What I really want them to do is to focus on the core combat mechanics of the game.

Please. :razz:

Improve the fundamentals of the game before trying to add other fancy things.
 
Multiplayer is where WB shined because everyone had already seen and done all SP had to offer a gazillion billion times in M&B already, and WB didn't really add all that much to it. I'd like to see them focus on adding content and playability to SP campaign first and improving the already awesome combat mechanics second.
 
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