Address missing CONTENT as a priority over fixing BUGS..

[armour]

No hate on TaleWorlds, Mount&Blade2 Bannerlord has been a good experience so far, and great by early access standards, however..

I feel like the primary focus should be to fully implement and fix core features to the game such as skill trees, policies & kingdom management, over waves and waves of many bug fixes, my reasoning is this:

Currently the game is missing A LOT of content, stuff that actually appears to be implemented to if you were to just look at the surface level.
Much of these features are very important to the core game experience for almost every player in some way, and I trust TaleWorlds will eventually add this content as promised - I have zero doubts there.
However when introducing all of this stuff, which there is a lot of, obviously there will be many more bugs that spring up, previous fixes that could break or interact in an unintended way to the overall balance.

Thats just my 2c. I saw a post from a staff member saying if we want this stuff to be a priority then make noise, so here ya go.

 

[D0c1]

fixing what they already released then adding features one by one and fixing bugs as they surface is easier and more manageable than adding everything then fixing things imo.

 

[armour]

fixing what they already released then adding features one by one and fixing bugs as they surface is easier and more manageable than adding everything then fixing things imo.

I'm just concerned when I see so many balancing changes to gains when most policies and kingdom management currently isn't in the game or doesn't do anything, surely much of it will be effected once those features are working.

 

[Jagati Khan]

Adding more features without first fixing bugs can just make the game unstable by adding more bugs on top which then makes it harder to address and find causes.
We all want more features we just need to be patient and that includes myself lol

 

[Maximum997]

Kinda agree. I prefer to play something buggy then stable nothing.

 

[TheCerpent]

I think part of the problem for me is that there's no real way to tell which parts are active in the game and which ones aren't. Features which have icons and tooltips and seem to indicate very specific effects and benefits... do nothing. It's frustrating.

Another game in Early Access that I've started playing recently is StoneShard. It also has a lot of skills and skill trees showing in the Skill Menu... but the ones still in development and not available yet are greyed out. It's a pretty effective way of showing the player what's planned, while also telling the player it's not there yet.

Could we just update the tooltips on the Perks that aren't working to state "Placeholder" or "Not Implemented Yet" or grey them out so they're clearly noted as non-working? Or at least something to that effect, instead of making us either guess or research what's -actually- in the game? Making it look like it's an active and available benefit while conferring nothing leaves a sour taste in my mouth, and is part of why I haven't been playing Bannerlord much lately.

 

[Shaggy_711]

Agreed, but very few people on this forum will agree with you. Not a slight against the community, forums are just by their nature a bit more fan-boyish. However look at the steam charts. The game has experienced a VERY sharp decline in active players (still at the #18 spot, but dropping quikcly) . A dozen bug fixes for the weekly patch doesn't excite people. The game as it is now is boring and has barely any more features than Warband. If they don't start adding some new content soon enough nearly nobody will be playing.

 

[bigbalzzz]

Kinda agree. I prefer to play something buggy then stable nothing.

i like this 2
if it has alot but buggy its more fun can understand that the bugs from EA

 

[ColderWind]

Agreed, but I'm not liking the chances of the devs changing their entire design philosophy over one forum thread.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Okay but if My game crashes and I can't play it and they add new good features my game will still crash and I won't be able to play it.
TBH I've had few and far between serious problems but others do and I think it's good that they keep on top of it.
And to be clear, I mean bugs that crash the game or make it unreasonable to play.
As far as things like "I get more money from X then I'm supposed to" or "Lord so and so is uglier then he was before" I agree these types of fixes can should be a low priority.
But you never know, maybe 1 dude knocked out a buncha fixes for little things in 15 mins and didn't slow down main feature dev at all.

 

[Princeps Senatus]

You can't add content without fixing bugs first, because you'll introduce more bugs and won't know what caused them.

I want more content too and have stopped playing in the meantime but --- it's not unreasonable.

 

[Badcritter]

It is a balancing act.

Fixing bugs often creates bugs.
Adding features ALWAYS creates bugs, and usually lots of them.

Too many bugs and you can't play the game at all. The more bugs there are, the harder it is to eliminate causes and stabilise the game. There is a critical mass of bugs beyond which you never want a game to go once it is accessible to the public, and you must expend every resource necessary to ensure you don't exceed that critical mass. It is easy for people to debate how far away that critical mass point is before it is actually hit. When you hit it, everyone knows and there's a world of pain to claw back from it.

There's also need for a degree of balance for the game to be worth playing. Factions being steamrolled out of existence before the player even becomes a vassal is borderline. Proliferation of never-ending wars and lords coming back to raid your village again by the time you've ridden back to your castle and scratched yourself make the game so frustrating it isn't worth playing. Stuff like that has to be fixed before attention can be put to new features. They have been addressing that sort of thing, and so they should.

Is it important to nerf rampant influence gain before the features of the influence related systems are done? Probably not, but implementing the nerf only requires changing a single piece of data in a text file, with almost zero risk of bugs. Finishing implementing the influence related features is orders of magnitude more resource intensive and time consuming. It will come, over time.

The game desparately needs feature development, no doubt about it. By my analysis it has less features than base game Warband at the moment. But bug fixes and balancing can't be put on the backburner to get those features, a minimum standard of those things also has to be maintained.

 

[crimsonfilms]

It is a balancing act.

Fixing bugs often creates bugs.
Adding features ALWAYS creates bugs, and usually lots of them.

Too many bugs and you can't play the game at all. The more bugs there are, the harder it is to eliminate causes and stabilise the game. There is a critical mass of bugs beyond which you never want a game to go once it is accessible to the public, and you must expend every resource necessary to ensure you don't exceed that critical mass. It is easy for people to debate how far away that critical mass point is before it is actually hit. When you hit it, everyone knows and there's a world of pain to claw back from it.

There's also need for a degree of balance for the game to be worth playing. Factions being steamrolled out of existence before the player even becomes a vassal is borderline. Proliferation of never-ending wars and lords coming back to raid your village again by the time you've ridden back to your castle and scratched yourself make the game so frustrating it isn't worth playing. Stuff like that has to be fixed before attention can be put to new features. They have been addressing that sort of thing, and so they should.

Is it important to nerf rampant influence gain before the features of the influence related systems are done? Probably not, but implementing the nerf only requires changing a single piece of data in a text file, with almost zero risk of bugs. Finishing implementing the influence related features is orders of magnitude more resource intensive and time consuming. It will come, over time.

The game desparately needs feature development, no doubt about it. By my analysis it has less features than base game Warband at the moment. But bug fixes and balancing can't be put on the backburner to get those features, a minimum standard of those things also has to be maintained.

100%

Certain bugs must be addressed. If you can't start the game (see Beta 1.4) then new features are useless.

That being said, in order to move EA forward, features must be rolled out.

 

[armour]

I think part of the problem for me is that there's no real way to tell which parts are active in the game and which ones aren't. Features which have icons and tooltips and seem to indicate very specific effects and benefits... do nothing. It's frustrating.

Agree'd I have spent an insane amount of time simply trying to figure out what actually works so I can test it, frustrating to say the least.

Agreed, but I'm not liking the chances of the devs changing their entire design philosophy over one forum thread.

Maybe not 1, or even 10.. but if a lot of people feel the same maybe this sparks them to speak up.

Okay but if My game crashes and I can't play it and they add new good features my game will still crash and I won't be able to play it.
...
As far as things like "I get more money from X then I'm supposed to" or "Lord so and so is uglier then he was before" I agree these types of fixes can should be a low priority.

Oh definitely, like serious game breaking bugs that stop you from playing entirely yeah. The balancing changes with the bug fixes are actually what prompted me to even post, I feel like it's too early to be balancing the "meta" or whatever.

It is a balancing act.

Fixing bugs often creates bugs.
Adding features ALWAYS creates bugs, and usually lots of them.
...
The game desparately needs feature development, no doubt about it. By my analysis it has less features than base game Warband at the moment. But bug fixes and balancing can't be put on the backburner to get those features, a minimum standard of those things also has to be maintained.

I agree it's a fine balance between content and technical fixes and game balance, honestly reading the patch notes its very intensely skewed towards fixes and balance, hardly anything has actually been added so far.

 

[Badcritter]

Agree'd I have spent an insane amount of time simply trying to figure out what actually works so I can test it, frustrating to say the least.

Yeah, identifying placeholder stuff would make life a lot better for all players. Whether you're just playing for fun, or you want to contribute actively to the development process, nobody wants to invest time into something that looks like it should be working, but it's actually just an empty shell.

 

[TheChewieShow]

Yea I agree, implementing features and making sure the game has a campaign, working perks etc should be a priority

 

[musashii89]

With 400hrs played so far and still not able to finish this game without a corrupted save file I Wholeheartedly disagree with the OP. This game should not have even been released. This 'early release' fad is just a cop out to get an indefinite period of bug fixes under a flimsy excuse. Crashing once a day should be unacceptable for any new release, crashing multiple times an hour is a joke.

IMO Prioritise ALL developers to bug fixes, then hire about 3-4x more of them, and fire the content release manager for a complete lack of insight.

 

[butterball merc]

With 400hrs played so far and still not able to finish this game without a corrupted save file I Wholeheartedly disagree with the OP. This game should not have even been released. This 'early release' fad is just a cop out to get an indefinite period of bug fixes under a flimsy excuse. Crashing once a day should be unacceptable for any new release, crashing multiple times an hour is a joke.

IMO Prioritise ALL developers to bug fixes, then hire about 3-4x more of them, and fire the content release manager for a complete lack of insight.

I've had one crash in 150+ hours. How many mods are you playing with?

 

[musashii89]

When I first started playing, at least 10 just so the bastard worked, now none. Restarted at least 5 times just due to save game corruptions, often from the point of controlling half the empire.

Still crashing, and some of the new tweaks have already broken my current save game.

 

[wookdaddy]

They should at least fix the perks. Most of them don't work without modifications (Tyni's fixes and Community patch, both on Nexus).

Community Patch

This is going to be a mod that just fixes up some things in Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord before the Devs & QA team can get to them.Hopefully we can incorporate various community fixes tog

www.nexusmods.com

Tyni's Bannerlord Adjustments and Fixes

Adjustments to various mechanics to match Warband/Improve game balance.

www.nexusmods.com