My Bannerlord Wishlist

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Gaelic's Mount & Blade wishlist:


The swordplay in Mount & Blade was amazing. Well perhaps not amazing but something revolutionary and different than what we've seen in most games of our generation. The mounted combat, the momentum of strikes, combat was a well oiled machine that while not without its flaws is really what has made Mount & Blade as successful as it has been.

The sandbox medieval world however always seemed lacking to me. For an indy title though, Mount & Blade was amazing and achieved what it sought to in my opinion - and has started its own genre of games that many others have tried to improve upon in the recent years.

I am excited for Bannerlord for many reasons - for one, it is where the realistic medieval sword slasher in my opinion began, and Mount & Blade to this day outshines much of its competition because their ambition stretched beyond just competitive play. I loved Chivalry because I liked the long learning curve. I liked the fact that after a year of playing I was great, but always learned something new and always could find one or two out there who were better than me. But I want more than to be a warrior. I want to build a legacy. I want to achieve greatness and glory beyond the arena.

And so here is my list of what I hope to see in Mount & Blade Bannerlord - Some features in this list are much needed, while others are just icing on the cake. Tell me what you think and maybe with enough interest we might see some of these things realized.



A LIVING AND BREATHING WORLD

Before I get into all the fluff of mechanics like customization options I want to focus on an area very dear to my gamer's heart: Immersion.

Part of making a world believable is seeing how it interacts with each other without the player intervening --- and then later seeing how those interactions shifts by the choices the player makes. In Mount & Blade the things that could be done were a mile wide and an inch deep. There were lots of opportunities, lots of mods that made more opportunities, but in general, the interaction with the world out of combat was lacking.

Perhaps it was the lack of depth in the characters and personalities you encountered... perhaps it was other things, but here are some personal bullet points I think would greatly improve the successor to the M&B Series.

Relationship System

The system that keeps track of all interactions between NPCs found in certain settlements. As your character responds to events that occur either randomly or at certain moments, how you try to affect the situation can reflect your relationship points with all the parties involved.

If you hunt down a street urchin that takes a loaf of bread and steals from the local baker you may earn the gratitude of the baker and get discounts on his wears, with the sight of a child being removed of his hand by the local sheriff being what is left on your conscience for turning the child in.

Relationships can of course affect more than just how a certain person interacts with you. What if you are the lord of the keep and you make it a point to be out and around your people. To know their woes, and to aid them, listen and see their plights? What if you wrong them and disorder grows in your fiefdom?

Or perhaps you saved a brawd from being shamefully dishonored in an alleyway and you come to the rescue by removing her would-be attackers of their innards?

Perhaps if you aided the street urchin in their escape they may lend you the secrets of the city, such as alternative entrances, or tell you of the things they see and here.

Perhaps you mark yourself a local criminal and these alternative entrances and routes become more and more important.

And if caught, do you surrender or fight your way out? Perhaps you decide to pay your dues and sit for many weeks in the local dungeon to rot... or to bring yourself closer to a target of interest. A lord who is imprisoned there. Perhaps you will be their savior... or perhaps your are an assassin who did all this to put yourself in the perfect position to end them.

Adding elements such as relationships, crimes and punishment, and a city with which you can interact with will only breathe more infinite life into an already great game. Giving us choices - and giving us the ability to write our stories and live in them is only greatly fortified when there is a deeper sense of immersion.

But these are relational interactions at a micro level. What happens if you a lord would dote upon a woman in your city, beautiful of birth, but of common blood? Certainly you will earn the scorn of would be suitors - perhaps make enemies of your loyal bannerlords. Or perhaps you marry the daughter of a rival house and fortify your relations through blood. Perhaps you see another lord weds into a formidable opponent that only strengthens their position against you should you ever find yourselves at war.

Lets take the idea of family further as the more family you have, the stronger the position of your ruling dynasty (in terms of law at least). What if an option granted to a player was to allow permadeath and allow the game to proceed to the year of the child's coming of age (with all events happening in the world determined by AI) where they can inherit the land, estates, weaponry, and holdings of their predecessor?

Or what if there was a King without any heirs?... a good target for a clandestine operation.

As a short aside, I think it'd be pretty cool if your actions are carried over to other places by word of mouth over time - so if you are some evil son of a gun, and people have seen you before, you might see them scurry away at the sight of you. And likewise, if you've become a legendary beacon of chivalry and knighthood, other people praise you and greet you at your arrival. And if you are lord, bow at the sight of their liege.

TL:grin:R ----

Make the NPCs more real. Make them immersive. And allow more interaction between them besides a measily dialogue screen.



THE SANDBOX

Settlement building - Make it a thing. What would be nice is seeing some form of 3D in game editor interface that you could take a piece of empty land from a lord or king as a reward for your services... and when going to this land, it generates a battle/city terrrain that is empty and has only trees. You can then recruit your party/followers to do some city building simulations such as clearing forests for resources, building mines, farms, and then placing key structures by gaining the resources through the in game economy or gathering, and then being able to make your own custom castle, city, or village and building it over time. It'd also be pretty awesome to assign positions of power to certain people in your fiefdom much in the vain of games like the Guild.

And at the smaller level, perhaps you can purchase real estate in other cities as wlel, such as taverns, and become the proprietor to come by and visit every now and then to make sure the stock and stores are full and to collect your earnings ala Fable or GTA.

Perhaps you have no aspirations of lordship and you just decide to purchase a quiet house in a great medieval settlement where you can start a life, keep your wife, and make the center of breeding your future generations.

Settlements were like everything else in M&B done with features in mind a mile wide and an inch deep. But settlements and city building are features that could very well make us want to invest more times in the aspects of medieval life outside of combat. From building the defences of our city from the first palisade to the last stone of your bastion and castle. We should have a reason to visit our cities aside from just collecting revinue and doing occassional upgrades. They are our homes... and home is where the heart is, or should be.


COMBAT

I'm sure not every M&B player is going to see eye-to-eye with me on this. Mount & Blade combat is a very fun, and well thought out thing, if not without some heavy flaws. As a player with realism in mind, there is nothing more annoying to me than seeing players spam feint - and turn their swords into helicopter turbines. Because one, it makes the fighting less enjoyable and less skillful thing, and less about the pacing and balance and strategy of combat, and more about running in, spamming your mouse buttons and faking out your opponent in a beyond rediculous manner. To put bluntly, it needs to go, or atleast be toned down greatly.

I would personally like to see some sort of stamina system perhaps not entirely akin to Chivalry's that is going to make combat less about having a seizure on your mouse and more about correctly pacing yourself, waiting for the proper opening. Its not that sword fighting is slow paced - as a medieval enthusiast - it is actually quite fast paced - but it is not what it is in Mount & Blade. I could write a book about how badly Mount & Blade's fighting mechanics needs fixed.

But yes - Stamina. We need it. Afterall, wearing heavy plate armor and trying to sprint in it is tiring. Swinging a heavy sword is tiring. Holding a shield is tiring. Medieval warfare in general is tiring, and is perhaps one of the ultimate tests of human endurance, agility, stamina, and fortitude. We need to make the game feel less arcadey and more weighty.

360* Swing Radius - I saw this in an indy game I played on steam. The game itself was terrible, but I loved the 360 degree block and sword swing arc. Adds much more of a dynamic when planning your attacks. It would also be nice to have low-to-high swings, and an alternate button for thrusts.

Stances

GOOD LORD I want to see Stances. Stances play a huge impact in sword combat and can shift the entire way you use a sword for a fight. It would be nice to see combat stances become a thing that way you can shift your fighting for different situations that call for them. A falcon guard, an iron gate, a boars tooth, are just examples of very different stances that are for different fighting circumstances.

Commanding your Army

I would like to see a tactical view, or perhaps a pre-battle planning table that way you can plan the strategy and ways your troops fight without having to hastle between keybinds for AI that isn't the best at figuring out where they need to be when they need to be there. It would be nice to see Mount & Blade take a total war approach to a 'tactical', and if not that for realism purposes, than a sort of strategy war table where you can plan how each unit will advance. It would also be nice to assign and name individual units, and change the colors of their armor and add standards and emblems. More customizability options for your troops. And if you can name individual troops how cool would it be to see your 10 denari recruits turn out to be a Ser Arthur Dayne in the works and one of your best warriors and best friends down the road... again with the relationships. And what if you see that one of your soldiers has become such a great warrior that you'd like to reward them a plot of land in your fiefdom (perhaps you can set a marker with the boundaries of influence of your fief on the campaign map and make a smaller new fief for one of your newly knighted loyals to take over. And, of course, you would have to supply him with some men to get things going.)


Regarding standards -- I'd like to see a good system with lots of options so that we can create our own standards rather than choose from a list of predefined ones. Nough said.

Naval Combat --

It would be cool to see ship combat be more than it is. And perhaps see ships play a role in sieges of port cities and what not.



Anyway, I'm running out of fuel for the moment, but here is what I got so far. I know not everything may make it to the finals but I hope that Tale Worlds is considering making Mount & Blade more than just a graphics upgrade. ITs gorgeous, I'm excited, and can't wait... and I hope they're adding more to the depth of the role play elements than what currently exists. Time will tell!



 
Great post!

I agree with most everything.  The immersion idea needs fleshing out but I think everyone can absolutely agree that it would be nice to see it improved.

And I double agree with the pre-combat strategy session.
 
GaelicWarlord said:
COMBAT

I'm sure not every M&B player is going to see eye-to-eye with me on this. Mount & Blade combat is a very fun, and well thought out thing, if not without some heavy flaws. As a player with realism in mind, there is nothing more annoying to me than seeing players spam feint - and turn their swords into helicopter turbines. Because one, it makes the fighting less enjoyable and less skillful thing, and less about the pacing and balance and strategy of combat, and more about running in, spamming your mouse buttons and faking out your opponent in a beyond rediculous manner. To put bluntly, it needs to go, or atleast be toned down greatly.

I would personally like to see some sort of stamina system perhaps not entirely akin to Chivalry's that is going to make combat less about having a seizure on your mouse and more about correctly pacing yourself, waiting for the proper opening. Its not that sword fighting is slow paced - as a medieval enthusiast - it is actually quite fast paced - but it is not what it is in Mount & Blade. I could write a book about how badly Mount & Blade's fighting mechanics needs fixed.

But yes - Stamina. We need it. Afterall, wearing heavy plate armor and trying to sprint in it is tiring. Swinging a heavy sword is tiring. Holding a shield is tiring. Medieval warfare in general is tiring, and is perhaps one of the ultimate tests of human endurance, agility, stamina, and fortitude. We need to make the game feel less arcadey and more weighty.

360* Swing Radius - I saw this in an indy game I played on steam. The game itself was terrible, but I loved the 360 degree block and sword swing arc. Adds much more of a dynamic when planning your attacks. It would also be nice to have low-to-high swings, and an alternate button for thrusts.

Stances

GOOD LORD I want to see Stances. Stances play a huge impact in sword combat and can shift the entire way you use a sword for a fight. It would be nice to see combat stances become a thing that way you can shift your fighting for different situations that call for them. A falcon guard, an iron gate, a boars tooth, are just examples of very different stances that are for different fighting circumstances.

M&B is not a realism simulator, it's a well designed game that has found balance in making stuff authentic enough while not detracting from gameplay into 'how things should be'.

Your position is a common one for people less experienced with the game, if you think feinting and other moves are random, spammy or simply jerking the mouse around you are wrong. It's actually a lot of very precise movements at the medium to higher levels of the game and the level of effectiveness a good feint has on a high level player is like night and day compared to a bad feint done by someone just spamming mouse buttons. Multiplayer duelling alone is a good demonstration of exactly how non-random and completely skill based the game is, stronger players consistently beat weaker ones and the same top players repeatedly get to the highest levels in duel tournaments.

The main problem with stamina is how it plays out in group fights. Already you are at a disadvantage when outnumbered, stamina will simply snowball that effect. It also does little except to take away opportunities for players and applying an artificial skill ceiling.

As for stances I honestly think it sounds like it would just overcomplicate things. M&B's success is down to the fact that the basic controls are very simple but it has a vast ocean of depth to the combat. Also while there aren't stances in the game, footwork styles do exist and play effectively the same role from what you seem to be describing.
 
Lord Rich said:
GaelicWarlord said:
COMBAT

I'm sure not every M&B player is going to see eye-to-eye with me on this. Mount & Blade combat is a very fun, and well thought out thing, if not without some heavy flaws. As a player with realism in mind, there is nothing more annoying to me than seeing players spam feint - and turn their swords into helicopter turbines. Because one, it makes the fighting less enjoyable and less skillful thing, and less about the pacing and balance and strategy of combat, and more about running in, spamming your mouse buttons and faking out your opponent in a beyond rediculous manner. To put bluntly, it needs to go, or atleast be toned down greatly.

I would personally like to see some sort of stamina system perhaps not entirely akin to Chivalry's that is going to make combat less about having a seizure on your mouse and more about correctly pacing yourself, waiting for the proper opening. Its not that sword fighting is slow paced - as a medieval enthusiast - it is actually quite fast paced - but it is not what it is in Mount & Blade. I could write a book about how badly Mount & Blade's fighting mechanics needs fixed.

But yes - Stamina. We need it. Afterall, wearing heavy plate armor and trying to sprint in it is tiring. Swinging a heavy sword is tiring. Holding a shield is tiring. Medieval warfare in general is tiring, and is perhaps one of the ultimate tests of human endurance, agility, stamina, and fortitude. We need to make the game feel less arcadey and more weighty.

360* Swing Radius - I saw this in an indy game I played on steam. The game itself was terrible, but I loved the 360 degree block and sword swing arc. Adds much more of a dynamic when planning your attacks. It would also be nice to have low-to-high swings, and an alternate button for thrusts.

Stances

GOOD LORD I want to see Stances. Stances play a huge impact in sword combat and can shift the entire way you use a sword for a fight. It would be nice to see combat stances become a thing that way you can shift your fighting for different situations that call for them. A falcon guard, an iron gate, a boars tooth, are just examples of very different stances that are for different fighting circumstances.

M&B is not a realism simulator, it's a well designed game that has found balance in making stuff authentic enough while not detracting from gameplay into 'how things should be'.

Your position is a common one for people less experienced with the game, if you think feinting and other moves are random, spammy or simply jerking the mouse around you are wrong. It's actually a lot of very precise movements at the medium to higher levels of the game and the level of effectiveness a good feint has on a high level player is like night and day compared to a bad feint done by someone just spamming mouse buttons. Multiplayer duelling alone is a good demonstration of exactly how non-random and completely skill based the game is, stronger players consistently beat weaker ones and the same top players repeatedly get to the highest levels in duel tournaments.

The main problem with stamina is how it plays out in group fights. Already you are at a disadvantage when outnumbered, stamina will simply snowball that effect. It also does little except to take away opportunities for players and applying an artificial skill ceiling.

As for stances I honestly think it sounds like it would just overcomplicate things. M&B's success is down to the fact that the basic controls are very simple but it has a vast ocean of depth to the combat. Also while there aren't stances in the game, footwork styles do exist and play effectively the same role from what you seem to be describing.

Though I wonder, what changes should we do to the fighting system to improve it?

First of all, some clunky stuff like animation cancelling while swinging causing a weird jump to the other swing and the thrust animation should be fixed.

However I wonder if we can add more complexity to the mechanics or if the Warband combat system is fine as it is?

On that I have no idea..
 
I have lots of ideas for tweaks and indeed getting rid of genuine glitches where animations don't show is a must, although that relates more to net code than anything else.

Chambers need a bit of a boost, they don't do enough right now to warrant using them much.

Crush through, knock down and stumble all need to be made non-random and work based on player actions more. Or at any rate there should be a way for players to force the results much like with archery how you can get 100% chance of hitting at close range because the target is smaller than the reticle but you still have a percentage chance hit for when that's not the case.

There is probably room for an extra mechanic or so as well, but it should be a background mechanic much like stunning, something that won't clutter the basics and add extra complexity. People have wanted shield bash for a long time and that might not be too bad an idea. For instance you could have it do a shield bash if you are holding right mouse when you do a kick. Guess it would knock people down if they aren't blocking, push back with a stun if blocking with a sword and push back only if blocking with a shield. It would have to follow the same rules as kicks though in terms of locking player rotation and movement.
 
Lord Rich said:
GaelicWarlord said:
COMBAT

I'm sure not every M&B player is going to see eye-to-eye with me on this. Mount & Blade combat is a very fun, and well thought out thing, if not without some heavy flaws. As a player with realism in mind, there is nothing more annoying to me than seeing players spam feint - and turn their swords into helicopter turbines. Because one, it makes the fighting less enjoyable and less skillful thing, and less about the pacing and balance and strategy of combat, and more about running in, spamming your mouse buttons and faking out your opponent in a beyond rediculous manner. To put bluntly, it needs to go, or atleast be toned down greatly.

I would personally like to see some sort of stamina system perhaps not entirely akin to Chivalry's that is going to make combat less about having a seizure on your mouse and more about correctly pacing yourself, waiting for the proper opening. Its not that sword fighting is slow paced - as a medieval enthusiast - it is actually quite fast paced - but it is not what it is in Mount & Blade. I could write a book about how badly Mount & Blade's fighting mechanics needs fixed.

But yes - Stamina. We need it. Afterall, wearing heavy plate armor and trying to sprint in it is tiring. Swinging a heavy sword is tiring. Holding a shield is tiring. Medieval warfare in general is tiring, and is perhaps one of the ultimate tests of human endurance, agility, stamina, and fortitude. We need to make the game feel less arcadey and more weighty.

360* Swing Radius - I saw this in an indy game I played on steam. The game itself was terrible, but I loved the 360 degree block and sword swing arc. Adds much more of a dynamic when planning your attacks. It would also be nice to have low-to-high swings, and an alternate button for thrusts.

Stances

GOOD LORD I want to see Stances. Stances play a huge impact in sword combat and can shift the entire way you use a sword for a fight. It would be nice to see combat stances become a thing that way you can shift your fighting for different situations that call for them. A falcon guard, an iron gate, a boars tooth, are just examples of very different stances that are for different fighting circumstances.

M&B is not a realism simulator, it's a well designed game that has found balance in making stuff authentic enough while not detracting from gameplay into 'how things should be'.

Your position is a common one for people less experienced with the game, if you think feinting and other moves are random, spammy or simply jerking the mouse around you are wrong. It's actually a lot of very precise movements at the medium to higher levels of the game and the level of effectiveness a good feint has on a high level player is like night and day compared to a bad feint done by someone just spamming mouse buttons. Multiplayer duelling alone is a good demonstration of exactly how non-random and completely skill based the game is, stronger players consistently beat weaker ones and the same top players repeatedly get to the highest levels in duel tournaments.

The main problem with stamina is how it plays out in group fights. Already you are at a disadvantage when outnumbered, stamina will simply snowball that effect. It also does little except to take away opportunities for players and applying an artificial skill ceiling.

As for stances I honestly think it sounds like it would just overcomplicate things. M&B's success is down to the fact that the basic controls are very simple but it has a vast ocean of depth to the combat. Also while there aren't stances in the game, footwork styles do exist and play effectively the same role from what you seem to be describing.

I'm quite experienced with the game and have been playing since the original M&B release. That said, my opinion still stands. Seeing people helicopter over the place breaks my immersion and personally spoils the game in my opinion. M&B would be better without it.
 
I'd certainly be open to "classic mode" keeping the feinting, chambering, etc. and a "realism mode" taking them all out.
 
DoctorPainkiller said:
I'd certainly be open to "classic mode" keeping the feinting, chambering, etc. and a "realism mode" taking them all out.

This - and an option to set your server with either setting in multiplayer. A 'Hardcore' and an 'Arcade' mode so to speak.
 
Novacc said:
Lord Rich said:
Chambers need a bit of a boost, they don't do enough right now to warrant using them much.
No, just no.

Well you can basically block the majority of them except for thrust chambers, they're also very high risk in that attempting to do them leaves you open to feints and holds. While they can be used effectively in duel in certain situations, most of the time they achieve nothing except to encourage your opponent to start holding more, which can be useful in and of itself but is a very minor effect for something that requires so much risk and skill.

I wouldn't want chambers to always insta-hit or anything, obviously that would be OP but to be able to do more with them would be good. For instance you could have them double the weight of the weapon temporarily allowing for more stuns or perhaps higher damage. That would instantly make them more useful as a potential way to get round an opponents armour without making their odds of hitting any higher.

GaelicWarlord said:
Lord Rich said:

I'm quite experienced with the game and have been playing since the original M&B release. That said, my opinion still stands. Seeing people helicopter over the place breaks my immersion and personally spoils the game in my opinion. M&B would be better without it.

Well people play the game for all sorts of reasons, can't disagree with that. Personally I play it because I enjoy the competitive side, a medieval setting with complex and deep gameplay. Forcing that to become shallow in order to satisfy an arguable position on realism doesn't sound much like an improvement. Especially when considering that the number of people who practice or utilise that kind of feinting is restricted to a small group of players on some duel servers.
 
GaelicWarlord said:
DoctorPainkiller said:
I'd certainly be open to "classic mode" keeping the feinting, chambering, etc. and a "realism mode" taking them all out.

This - and an option to set your server with either setting in multiplayer. A 'Hardcore' and an 'Arcade' mode so to speak.
Very nice ideas good fellows, in my opinion, some ways of feinting are okay. But when they constantly feint and feint and feint till you put your block down to swing and they still hit you first, sort of breaks the fun sword combat. The wild helicoptering and swinging stabs are a breaker for me as well. As far as group combat I'd like to see some of the things mentioned in this post http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,313006.0.html . But anyway, all that put into consideration I suppose Hardcore and Arcade game modes would be a good balance, so the feinters can continue to do their thing  :razz:
 
If you take out feinting, then you need to add other things to melee combat.

At the moment, without feinting/chambers, most of the veteran players would have ridiculously long duels and the main focus would simply be even more heavily skewed towards not messing up your blocks.

 
Úlfheðinn said:
If you take out feinting, then you need to add other things to melee combat.

At the moment, without feinting/chambers, most of the veteran players would have ridiculously long duels and the main focus would simply be even more heavily skewed towards not messing up your blocks.

I never actually said feinting needs to be removed - feinting is in all actuality a part of real sword combat ( especially where two handed swords are concerned ) -- perhaps not entirely in the form the M&B utilizes. Rather the way in which they are implemented - and the risk vs. reward is not balanced. Feinting needs to be present in some form. But should not be made exploitable as it is currently.


To Horseless Headsman - thats a great post you linked and I love all the ideas the OP mentioned there.

I'd also like to see inverse kinematics in the way that KC:grin: uses them. I personally would like to see the momentum of combat change depending on the way you fight - A powerful swing causes more recoil against the defending player, and of course, greater stamina use for the actual swinger. Which will play different effects in combat - Meaning trying to block a claymore  with a dagger could not be done, unless done with redirection - maneuvering yourself and the opponents incoming blow by a partial-parry so that the blow does not cleave you in two.

I'd also like to see durability for weapons. We have them for shields, might as well have them for weapons too.

But inverse kinematics. Imagine how cool that would be with a 360 swing radius.
 
I've always wanted to be able to go into my village and see it flourishing, to see the population increase  or new buildings having been built like a blacksmith or a wall. Ones that you can literally see. I've wanted to see a castle that you can fortify and expand and actually climb into bed and stuff :razz: And I want to see a prosperous town full of throngs of people from all over Calradia with thriving markets and people interacting with other and guards chasing people and..

I want SimCity, GTA and Assassin's Creed mixed with Warband. Pls do. Thanks xoxo

I like the idea of your actions meaning something..but ultimately what I want most of all is

1) A 3D map with custom settlements and forests and mountains to traverse with snow and rain and things like that.

2) The ability to make my companions actually follow each other when they are given lordships..a marshall ex-companion is so useless..

I really like the combat system as it is, though battles are often straight forward with formations being just a way of prettying it up and wasting time. You charge or wait and volley, same thing each time really. Sieges are just a mess of bloody bodies, literally.

But the actual combat, the blocking and feinting and things - I like that. They did say it wouldn't change too much, they were going from scratch but trying to make it somewhat similar but more fluid and real.

I agree with pretty much all the points you made here, I really like the idea about taking a piece of land and building it up too. Having a more fluid economy would be great too, just to say. Feinting means little to me, I don't really do it anyway. Stamina however....The amount of times I felt like setting my computer aflame due to a lack of stamina in Skyrim is dangerously high...I could very much do without stamina...forever..:razz:

Nice ideas. It's fairly easy for Taleworlds to get all these new ideas when they have all the suggestions here plus all the mods which have proved that certain things work. So I'm expecting a lot of changes. I'm optimistic and hopefully not too much so. We can always rely on modders filling in the gaps anyway :wink:
 
Úlfheðinn said:
If you take out feinting, then you need to add other things to melee combat.

At the moment, without feinting/chambers, most of the veteran players would have ridiculously long duels and the main focus would simply be even more heavily skewed towards not messing up your blocks.
I think the point was not taking out the ability to feint, but rather, fixing it like warlord says.
GaelicWarlord said:
I never actually said feinting needs to be removed - feinting is in all actuality a part of real sword combat ( especially where two handed swords are concerned ) -- perhaps not entirely in the form the M&B utilizes. Rather the way in which they are implemented - and the risk vs. reward is not balanced. Feinting needs to be present in some form. But should not be made exploitable as it is currently.
And yeah, I'd also like to see better dodging mechanics, because my playstyle is more of a, less armor faster smaller weapon, and moving around quite fast. One other thing they should add is some sort of running mechanic, so you don't have that weird half jog half walk half look really stupid motion they have in warband.
 
A lovely coincidence that I just finished writing down my own wishlist and was just about to post it when I saw yours.  I love your immersion ideas, I think implementing them in one way or the other would be fantastic.
I both agree and disagree with your ideas of swordplay realism, athough MnB swordplay is awesome, I think it could be taken a step further without butchering it with microtweaks.

So, if you don't have nothing better to do with your time you might as well read my wishlist  :smile:

Modality
The best thing about Warband was not the fact that it semi-accurately represented medieveal warfare, or that all combat was physics based, or even the sandbox aspect of the game.
No, it was the modality of the game.  The fact that the vanilla game had limited to non-existent history, limited options as to character development and monodimensional quest lines didn‘t affect the endless array of mod-development options  is simply fantastic.
I think modality should be taken to the next stage by allowing modders to add entirely unrealistic and fantastical elements (think flying mounts, with multiple passengers/operators, projectiles and such, giant characters, miniature characters, different species, non-humanoid characters) without actually putting them in the game itself so modders can take the framework and play around with it.
Don‘t get me wrong, I prefer Mount and Blade to remain entirely reality based, but those implementations will make fantastical mods such as The Last Days and A Clash of Kings so much better.
The fewer the limits, the better.

Battle size and formations
Of course Warband battle size was limited but that has to be improved upon in Bannerlord.  Battle size of 400+ combatants per side should be realistic.  That also means that battle organization must be improved.  There should be a pre-battle planning and setup option, where the player can strategically place infantry, archery and cavalry to maximise the impact of every troop type.  The player should also be able to give NPC‘s command within his party/army, so there will be a designated archery commander, infantry commander etc. who will fullfill a specific goal in the grand battle plan.  The NPC‘s abiltities as a commander will be decided by his skill level.  Spearmen are also heavily underpowered in Warband because Warband neglects the threat of a spear being pointed at you without it actually being thrusted towards anyone, which affects its efficiency in a formation.

AI
Well, there‘s not much to be said here, but the Warband AI was simply retarded, even with modders modifying and changing the behaviour of the troops.  Probably one of the most important aspects of the game that can be improved upon.

Feudality and management
A Kingdom or an Empire has to be efficiently managed.  There should be a greater effect of the vassal system.  A high ranking lord commanding a city should have a couple or more lords as his vassals managing the villages surrounding his lands, intstead of land simply being randomly awarded to lords once it is conquered.
There must also be a way of efficiently managing a large empire.  When faraway settlements are conquered the king should be able to appoint a regional governor, who resides within the conquered regions greatest settlement and deals with local affairs instead of the king and the rest of the nation having to constantly travel back and forth when the need arises.  This would mostly also affect mods with very large maps such as annus domini 1257.

Rebellions and civil wars
As most know, a state is not a single entity but a collection of numerous competing factions.  When a lord grows powerful he might think to himself that he would make a greater ruler than the current king so he gathers support and enters into open revolt.
But warfare within factions should not be limited between kings and lords, it could also be waged between two lords, or a minor lord/landholder and his own liege lord or even the peasants and their owners.  The results of such a war would usually end with the losing party being imprisoned, executed or banished from the lands.
And it should be entirely optional if the king or other lords decide to participate in those conflicts.  The king may want to support a minor lord he likes againts a great lord he loathes, or the other way around, or maybe a lord would like to stab his rival in the back when he has trouble at home.
In such a scenario, there should be the possibility of an entirely different system of government, such as parliamentary autocracy, elective monarchy etc.  Where different NPC‘s make up different parts of the social flora.

Strategic effect of buildings
One thing that has annoyed me throughout the Warband game is that castles and fortresses have almost no strategic impact.  They just sit there.  They should have their own command zone, and the ability to block acces through certain chokepoints.  A castle commanding a choke point should be able to charge taxes from passing caravans, block hostile characters from entering their lands and prevent bandits from passing around freely.
There should also be a garrison commander within the castle, who estimates the risks and rewards of taking action.  He may opt to ride out and stop a small band of bandits/mercenaries, but if a massive war party is passing through he will just cower behind the castles walls and wait for the threat to pass.

Weapons
Some of those suggestions may be hard and impractical to implement, but they are still good food for thought.
As mentioned above, the way weapon usage was implemented in Warband heavily disfavours some weapons because they are not accurately used ingame.  An axe has a greater array of movements than just the swing, it can also be used to hook legs, shields, limbs and weapons, a properly designed axe can also be used to stab with.
A spear is probably one of, if not the best field weapons there is in medieval warfare.  The reason being is that having a pointy stick pointed towards your face is very uncomfortable.  A spearman shouldn‘t have to thrust his weapon in order to damage the enemy, simply pointing it towards, lets say a charging horseman, should be sufficient.  That also makes the implementation of spear formations more effective.
Historically, swords were not just hack and slash weapons, and rarely used as primary weapons, even by knight, unless we are talking about the great swords of the late medieval period of course.  Swords were a status sign and for some reasons popular duelling weapons.  Fighters would traditionally use the whole weapon in an array of techinques such as turning the weapon around and using the handle to hook as you would with an axe.

Character development
There needs to be a greater space for character development.  In Warband the character usually progresses through a linear Commoner>Mercenary>Lord>King>Emperor progression, but there should be the possibility of becoming a great merchant (who interacts primarily with other merchants, tax authorities and bandits), a dedicated bandit or a bandit lord, a landowner, a dedicated sellsword, courtier etc.  Although you can do all those things to an extent, dedicating a whole save game to these things in the current game is very bland. 
There should be a greater variety of NPC‘s the player can interact with such as competing merchants, other mercenary bands, other adventurers etc.  That will also affect the economy on a wholly different level.
There should also be a more immersive version of the Freelancer mod.

Battle types
Naval warfare should be implemented, even if it doesn‘t fit the Calradian battlespace so it can be used by modders.  The player should have to either buy a ship of his own, which he can crew with his own men or become a hired sword on a merchant vessel to protect its cargo.  The vessels can then be captained by the character and NPC‘s, who‘s succes as naval commanders rests on their skill level.  Then the character can either turn them into merchant vessels for his merchant fleet, or war boats for his navy.  The character should have the option to build an independent navy once he becomes a lord of a coastal city or a King.  Different troop types should also react differently to naval warfare.  A Mongol based culture should not be the most efficient naval nation, but  Nord raiders creeping up the rivers on longboats should have devastating effect on their enemies.
Sieges also need a lot of work.  A greater tactical diversity is needed. This has more to do with the Battle size and formations part above though.  Just a note, siege weaponry such as catapults were not very effective anti-personnel weapons, and it took them days, even weeks, to create a breach in a cities defences.

Marriage
Marrying your character to lords and ladies is a relatively minor part of Warband that could be expanded upon.  Firstly marriage should not be limited to nobility.  It is againts the sandbox nature of the game, the character should have the option to marry a peasants or a merchants offspring as well to gain acces to their assets.
Player interaction to their partner and their relatives should also be greater, such as getting a loan from his father in law.
Relationships and husband/wife development should continue after the marriage ceremony, with the possibility of catching your partner in an affair, being caught having one such yourself and the effects of such events, such as divorce, imprisonment, retribution, protecting honour and all those Bold and the Beautiful soap opera events that make life.

Realism
This is probably the least important of my suggestions, simply because Warband surpasses almost every other game of its genre in terms of realism.  But despite that there are many things that can be implemented without adversily affecting gameplay.
True death, aging and childbirth are heavily requested aspects that are very hard to implement simply because the amount of time spent playing the game by the character for those things to happen would be tremendous.  One way to implement those things realisticly without spending your whole life on a single savefile is to have „cool down“ or „steady sailing“ periods over limited amounts of time.  Every time, lets say when all the Calradian factions are at peace and the whole map reaches a relative stabilty the player has the option to „retire“ for a few years, until a time when a major political event occurs.  During that period kids come of age, old people die etc.  When the character dies he will be replaced by his heir.
Another issue is the renewal of dead characters.  True death in combat would of course absolutely butcher the gameplay of the game, so in order to permanently kill an NPC one has to go through tremendous effort and risk.  Quest lines where the character can kill a lord, merchant or even commit regicide should exist but the price of failure should be deer, even death.
Another issue is the renewal of dead characters.  Of course there would be childbirth to replace dead characters, but every lord should have a retinue of NPC´s with him, who can rise to prominence themselves if the occasion arises.  If their lord dies the NPC´s should scatter around the map and take up different objectives depending on their nature and loyalties, they may want to enter the services of another lord, start a mercenary company, become merchants or even enter the services of the player, so he can interact with NPC´s on a wholly different level than in Warband.

Ps.  I understand that not all of the above are realistic, practical or fun.  It is more food for thought than anything else to be honest.
 
GaelicWarlord said:
I'm quite experienced with the game and have been playing since the original M&B release. That said, my opinion still stands. Seeing people helicopter over the place breaks my immersion and personally spoils the game in my opinion. M&B would be better without it.

Oh no, not your immersion!

Are you kidding me? If you're seeing people "helicopter", then you're clearly playing multiplayer so I'm not exactly sure what you're expecting. If you want to roleplay, I have some advice for you instead of expecting the devs to take out a required mechanic that allows higher level players to up the skill ceiling:

1. Go buy 3 big boomboxes from the pawn shop.
2. Go to Wal-Mart, pick up like 22 D batteries because those *****es eat batteries pretty hard.
3. While at Wal-Mart, pick up some candles and some hay.
4. Go to the local farmer's market and buy some horse ****.
5. Place the boomboxes in the major rooms of your house, IE the computer room, your bedroom and the kitchen.
6. Find some random gregorian chant music (Here you go.) and burn it to cassette tapes (CD's would further ruin your immersion).
7. Play the music, turn it up as loud as possible.
8. Candles, you know, for ambiance and ****.
9. Place the hay all over your bedroom floor so you can pretend you're a ruffian sleeping in a barn whose parents were killed so long ago, yet you thirst for revenge. Sound familiar?
10. Spread horse **** throughout the house, especially in the computer room so you can really get a solid feeling for what a knight may have spent the day smelling.
11. When you die, never respawn. Every time you buy a game, you only get one life and after you die, you must uninstall the game. Respawning didn't happen in real life, why would you break your immersion for something so trivial?





























12. Consider going outside you ****ing nerd.
 
All I'm hoping for in MB II: BL is the ability to customize my own and my kingdoms troops and troop trees, implemented in such a way that it will allow my vassals to recruit from the lowest tier and allow both them and I to train the troops all the way to the last tier.
 
Rhade said:
GaelicWarlord said:
I'm quite experienced with the game and have been playing since the original M&B release. That said, my opinion still stands. Seeing people helicopter over the place breaks my immersion and personally spoils the game in my opinion. M&B would be better without it.

Oh no, not your immersion!

Are you kidding me? If you're seeing people "helicopter", then you're clearly playing multiplayer so I'm not exactly sure what you're expecting. If you want to roleplay, I have some advice for you instead of expecting the devs to take out a required mechanic that allows higher level players to up the skill ceiling:

1. Go buy 3 big boomboxes from the pawn shop.
2. Go to Wal-Mart, pick up like 22 D batteries because those *****es eat batteries pretty hard.
3. While at Wal-Mart, pick up some candles and some hay.
4. Go to the local farmer's market and buy some horse ****.
5. Place the boomboxes in the major rooms of your house, IE the computer room, your bedroom and the kitchen.
6. Find some random gregorian chant music (Here you go.) and burn it to cassette tapes (CD's would further ruin your immersion).
7. Play the music, turn it up as loud as possible.
8. Candles, you know, for ambiance and ****.
9. Place the hay all over your bedroom floor so you can pretend you're a ruffian sleeping in a barn whose parents were killed so long ago, yet you thirst for revenge. Sound familiar?
10. Spread horse **** throughout the house, especially in the computer room so you can really get a solid feeling for what a knight may have spent the day smelling.
11. When you die, never respawn. Every time you buy a game, you only get one life and after you die, you must uninstall the game. Respawning didn't happen in real life, why would you break your immersion for something so trivial?





























12. Consider going outside you ******** nerd.

^ This. Bravo.
 
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