GaelicWarlord
Recruit
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.
TLR ----
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!
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.
TLR ----
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!