Dyler Turden
Recruit
Hello everyone, i just wanted to write down some issues\problems of gameplay with Bannerlord (English is not my first language,be patient.)
So, as i stated in the title, i hit 100+ hours of gameplay in Bannerlord (i know the most of us did it) and what is worring me the most is the simple fact that the game becomes boring very shortly in mid-late game. What causes this boring feeling?
-1)Battles and AI : the AI is still at a very early stage in my opinion,or at least i hope it. Soldiers who run from battlefield don't defend themselves, and they can be up to 1 third or more of the total troops. So basically when i go 100vs 150,having my morale always higher than 70 ,i will fight a 100vs100 battle, because 50 of them will fly away after a few minutes and they will not try to do something if they get attacked. At the same time, in the described scenario ,lot of my men will try to run behind the enemies fleeing , wasting my troops doing nothing because the enemies are faster(or just can't be reached cause they're too far away).
Big battles are too much disorganized , and they usually end too fast..more strategies are available confronted to Warband, but still i'm not satisfied because it' s still too much a big clash and not a tactical skirimish. Combat AI is also far away from being smart, not just when fleeing, but in general, also when the level is maximized by the elite tier of the troop and the campaign settings (challenging..hmm not really).Better not mentioning the Siege AI but we all know TW is working on it.
-2)World Map and Campaign AI: apart from the snowball effect of some factions, that is still not fixed, the worst thing imho is the fact that the battles between Armies or simple parties feel .. useless. I will try to express myself as clear and simple as possible in this part,because i feel like these are the biggest issues in Bannerlord, and i hope to see a real improvement. So,after you start winning some big battles in your mid\late game,you start growing your own kingdom or your power inside an existing kingdom. All the battles become too much easy to win, you probably repeat the same strategy dozens of times, without losing a single fight.Lot of times some of your vassals or companions will do some stupid ****,so all you have to worry about to win the war against a faction is protecting some friendly retard ally when he goes 100 vs 500. Oh,and also you will have some of your cities being besieged again and again, by armies you just destroyed 5 minutes ago and they already came back with the same amount of men to besiege again your damn city..and here comes the feeling of fighting useless battles i was talking about before. You also feel like the only possible solution is to keep conquering their fiefs, until their faction will get completely destroyed so they finally stop besieging your ****ing city The ultrasonic speed spawning of armies , make all your efforts in winning a big battle feeling like useless. You don't give value to the men you had to lose, you don't think "Alright, i lost half of my army but i stopped them from besieging my Town for a looong time" and you stop feeling the "epicness" of conquering a difficult castle.I have a saved game where i had to execute more than 30 enemy Lords to expand my kingdom, because i had 0 vassals and 6 cities.
3)Kindgom management: right now it's very poor. Policies are ok, but many options are missing (bug of declaring war, bug of keeping the city for you). And lot of options should be added: making a strategic alliance against an enemy, commanding your vassals and companions (defend this, patrol there ecc.) , some general military strategies (be aggressive and attack every time you can, be more defensive and just patrol your fiefs). I don't think these are impossible things to achieve. There are some mods like improved garrisons where you can have parties made of soldiers( another cool thing to add) and you can send them guarding a road ecc.
Conclusion: this way Bannerlord It's too much about grinding, too much random in a kingdom strategy or just in the events of your campaign.What happens in the campaign map, is more a random mess than a living world. It was acceptable in Warband, but i hope this will change in the final stage of Bannerlord.
I also want to give some tips: keep balancing the economy like you're trying to do, until it reaches the situation where there are like 4 or 5 levels of wealth depending on Clan's amount and quality of fiefs and other factors.The clan parties will hire soldiers in a certain number and period of time based on the level of wealth,making the waiting phase way longer than before especially for the poor clans.During a war, some clans will lose or gain richness and influence, so this also need to balanced to avoid the snowball effect.
So, as i stated in the title, i hit 100+ hours of gameplay in Bannerlord (i know the most of us did it) and what is worring me the most is the simple fact that the game becomes boring very shortly in mid-late game. What causes this boring feeling?
-1)Battles and AI : the AI is still at a very early stage in my opinion,or at least i hope it. Soldiers who run from battlefield don't defend themselves, and they can be up to 1 third or more of the total troops. So basically when i go 100vs 150,having my morale always higher than 70 ,i will fight a 100vs100 battle, because 50 of them will fly away after a few minutes and they will not try to do something if they get attacked. At the same time, in the described scenario ,lot of my men will try to run behind the enemies fleeing , wasting my troops doing nothing because the enemies are faster(or just can't be reached cause they're too far away).
Big battles are too much disorganized , and they usually end too fast..more strategies are available confronted to Warband, but still i'm not satisfied because it' s still too much a big clash and not a tactical skirimish. Combat AI is also far away from being smart, not just when fleeing, but in general, also when the level is maximized by the elite tier of the troop and the campaign settings (challenging..hmm not really).Better not mentioning the Siege AI but we all know TW is working on it.
-2)World Map and Campaign AI: apart from the snowball effect of some factions, that is still not fixed, the worst thing imho is the fact that the battles between Armies or simple parties feel .. useless. I will try to express myself as clear and simple as possible in this part,because i feel like these are the biggest issues in Bannerlord, and i hope to see a real improvement. So,after you start winning some big battles in your mid\late game,you start growing your own kingdom or your power inside an existing kingdom. All the battles become too much easy to win, you probably repeat the same strategy dozens of times, without losing a single fight.Lot of times some of your vassals or companions will do some stupid ****,so all you have to worry about to win the war against a faction is protecting some friendly retard ally when he goes 100 vs 500. Oh,and also you will have some of your cities being besieged again and again, by armies you just destroyed 5 minutes ago and they already came back with the same amount of men to besiege again your damn city..and here comes the feeling of fighting useless battles i was talking about before. You also feel like the only possible solution is to keep conquering their fiefs, until their faction will get completely destroyed so they finally stop besieging your ****ing city The ultrasonic speed spawning of armies , make all your efforts in winning a big battle feeling like useless. You don't give value to the men you had to lose, you don't think "Alright, i lost half of my army but i stopped them from besieging my Town for a looong time" and you stop feeling the "epicness" of conquering a difficult castle.I have a saved game where i had to execute more than 30 enemy Lords to expand my kingdom, because i had 0 vassals and 6 cities.
3)Kindgom management: right now it's very poor. Policies are ok, but many options are missing (bug of declaring war, bug of keeping the city for you). And lot of options should be added: making a strategic alliance against an enemy, commanding your vassals and companions (defend this, patrol there ecc.) , some general military strategies (be aggressive and attack every time you can, be more defensive and just patrol your fiefs). I don't think these are impossible things to achieve. There are some mods like improved garrisons where you can have parties made of soldiers( another cool thing to add) and you can send them guarding a road ecc.
Conclusion: this way Bannerlord It's too much about grinding, too much random in a kingdom strategy or just in the events of your campaign.What happens in the campaign map, is more a random mess than a living world. It was acceptable in Warband, but i hope this will change in the final stage of Bannerlord.
I also want to give some tips: keep balancing the economy like you're trying to do, until it reaches the situation where there are like 4 or 5 levels of wealth depending on Clan's amount and quality of fiefs and other factors.The clan parties will hire soldiers in a certain number and period of time based on the level of wealth,making the waiting phase way longer than before especially for the poor clans.During a war, some clans will lose or gain richness and influence, so this also need to balanced to avoid the snowball effect.