Almost two months into EA. Satisfied?

[xdj1nn]

So Ubisoft and Nintendo are indie devs. Got it.

nope, they operate into a corporate system, while TW doesn't. You are out of control kid, go study a bit about the subject then you talk, never talk about things you don't understand, it's embarrassing and objectively pointless. It's like a schizophrenic preaching a new religion, it's delusional.

TW is highly likely to cease to be indie really soon, though. Maybe after BL fully releases considering they already have shares on the market and that the sales of the game + future expansions might expand the company turning it into a corporation, until than, they remain a really BIG indie developer (although still smaller than CDPR, which's also a really BIG ++ indie developer).

 

[crimsonfilms]

The size of the company is not what defines an "indie" company. It is their relationship to investors, specifically to a game publisher.
And indie companies are usually BOTH the developer and publisher, thus independent creative and financial control of the game. This means a separate party has no controlling interest during the development process and after the release of the game. There are gray areas, like being independent then asking for investors/publishers in the middle of development.

But TW develops and publishes BL by themselves. This means, unlike many AAA games, they do not answer to anyone for the creative and financial direction of the game.

CD Projekt Red is far bigger than TW and no one in the industry would argue they an indie, even being as large as they are.

 

[Ragratt]

No, I am not satisfied with Bannerlord or progress made post EA. Where are features, where are new maps/ scenes?

High price, minimal product. TW shares a corporate end result. They continue to rerelease the same game without significant improvements or additional features. The arena for example, remains completely unchanged in 12 years.

The remaining difference now, is that a corporate game studio would be ruthlessly efficient in development, while TaleWorlds continues to flounder.

 

[somethinglightthat]

My main issue with the AI is that while these situations can be fixed with more tweaks to FSM as long as is just FSM is going to still be predictable and will require much more tweaking compared to an AI that work backwards from its goal, i suggest you to read Kipsta post on this thread https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/hows-the-ai.423677/ as i think it will be able to solve most of the question you are asking.

Thanks for the link, I did read. I've much more reading to do.

 

[somethinglightthat]

If the player is underpowered however, only the most optimised and minmaxed playstyles work, and that's when the game becomes a grind because you have to do the same thing over and over.

Every game development company should have this written on the wall in the bathroom.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Some actually do. I think it was the designer of the civ games who said "given the chance, the player will optimise the fun out of a game". Bannerlord not only gives you plenty of chances to do this, it practically discourages you from playing any other way.

Good games aren't the ones that have a lot of mechanics (like EU4), or that have lots of "content" (like asscreed). The best games are the ones that force the player away from boring gameplay into imaginative and unconventional playstyles.

 

[Toplayer]

There should be another option " The game was not fun and unplayable at beginning but got much better afterwards"

The snowballing and crashes are unbearable before patch 1.0.5. The game got much better after a few patches and became okay and playable in my opinion.
However, I am not satisfied with the recent perk updates.It takes them 1 to 2 weeks to fix a single perk tree and we have 18 perk trees total. It's tough to wait about half a year for a full perk adjustment.

 

[NordicWill]

I don´t care if you call them an Indie company or not:

- 8 years in developement
- a lot of devs blog showing stuff months/years ago which are not in the game (banners anyone?)
- full price!!!
- basic game features not there yet
- 2 months have passed, not a single new feature (nope, I don´t count the "create kingdom" button as a feature, it´s useless anyway)
- focussing on balancing stuff while not even all features are in the game which doesn´t make any sense, but on the other hand...they don´t fix bugs modders fixed weeks ago, yeah!
- they have no writer that can write a "generic" backgroundstory in 8 years or 2 months after release? Not that this is a big issue for me, but I guess every hobby writer can write a small "generic" background story in like 1-2 hours? Even I could, and I suck at writing . I mean the other storys are like what, 20 sentences? It´s not like writing a novel or a book...

If the price would be 20-30€ I´d say ok, but they went the AAA route with pricing...so I treat them as a big company, also they sold "some" copies of the game...

sadly this.

 

[Bob Gnarly]

Why does everyone even mention modders in this thread (and all the other threads regarding game improvement)? It's not the job of the gaming community to finish a game, mods are just a mere possibility of adjusting certain aspects according to your taste and to add new aspects, like setting or mechanics. It is never ment to repair a broken game, especially not when it took 8 years and costs 50€!

If they had made it 20€ - ok, but for a full AAA price? Come on people, you can't be serious with that...

Because the modding community is a major draw card for the game, mods kept me playing Warband for a decade. Mods are the key to the games longevity. Just look at the plethora of mods already available and the modding tools aren't even released yet.

If I'm going to put in anywhere near the amount of hours i did for Warband, then the EA asking price is a bargain.

 

[crimsonfilms]

You can criticize many things about this game, but no way price is objectively one of them. It is an EA game and a lot of players have played it for 100+ hours already. When the modding tool is released, the modding scene will further increase replayability.

I played WB for years and several hundred of hours (owned 2 licenses of WB and the original). And BL to me is far more replayable this early in its release.

 

[somethinglightthat]

Some actually do. I think it was the designer of the civ games who said "given the chance, the player will optimise the fun out of a game". Bannerlord not only gives you plenty of chances to do this, it practically discourages you from playing any other way.

Good games aren't the ones that have a lot of mechanics (like EU4), or that have lots of "content" (like asscreed). The best games are the ones that force the player away from boring gameplay into imaginative and unconventional playstyles.

You know, it's one thing for me to optimize the fun out of a game, that's standard. What's amazing here is that the fun has been designed out.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

You can criticize many things about this game, but no way price is objectively one of them. It is an EA game and a lot of players have played it for 100+ hours already. When the modding tool is released, the modding scene will further increase replayability.

I played WB for years and several hundred of hours (owned 2 licenses of WB and the original). And BL to me is far more replayable this early in its release.

If the worth of a game is determined by how much playtime you get out of it, why aren't you paying the modders?

The game doesn't give you the hours of playtime. You do. It's you as an individual who creates the fun in a game like this, hence why a lot of people completely disagree and think the game is garbage right now. You can't put a price on fun, and this idea that you have to pay in kind for the enjoyment on your end is kind of crazy.

If you give a toddler a cardboard box they might play with it for days. Conversely a £40 remote control car set might get boring after an hour. Does that mean cardboard boxes are worth £3000?

 

[eddiemccandless]

If the worth of a game is determined by how much playtime you get out of it, why aren't you paying the modders?

The game doesn't give you the hours of playtime. You do. It's you as an individual who creates the fun in a game like this, hence why a lot of people completely disagree and think the game is garbage right now. You can't put a price on fun, and this idea that you have to pay in kind for the enjoyment on your end is kind of crazy.

If you give a toddler a cardboard box they might play with it for days. Conversely a £40 remote control car set might get boring after an hour. Does that mean cardboard boxes are worth £3000?

I would agree in general for a product, but in the specific case of a game having fun with it is kind of the point. If you don't consider how much enjoyment you can get out of it as a good metric than what else would you consider?

 

[Roaring Mouse]

If the worth of a game is determined by how much playtime you get out of it, why aren't you paying the modders?

The game doesn't give you the hours of playtime. You do. It's you as an individual who creates the fun in a game like this, hence why a lot of people completely disagree and think the game is garbage right now. You can't put a price on fun, and this idea that you have to pay in kind for the enjoyment on your end is kind of crazy.

If you give a toddler a cardboard box they might play with it for days. Conversely a £40 remote control car set might get boring after an hour. Does that mean cardboard boxes are worth £3000?

No.

The price is the price, based on whatever the developer uses to determine what they need to justify whatever it cost then to make. I determine if I got enough out of it to be worth the price for me. My enjoyment doesn't determine price, it is a metric I use to determine if it was worth it.

I have bought rulebook for tabletop games that cost more than this game and I haven't actually played them and likely won't play more than once or twice. Still worth it.

 

[somethinglightthat]

If the worth of a game is determined by how much playtime you get out of it, why aren't you paying the modders?

The game doesn't give you the hours of playtime. You do. It's you as an individual who creates the fun in a game like this, hence why a lot of people completely disagree and think the game is garbage right now. You can't put a price on fun, and this idea that you have to pay in kind for the enjoyment on your end is kind of crazy.

If you give a toddler a cardboard box they might play with it for days. Conversely a £40 remote control car set might get boring after an hour. Does that mean cardboard boxes are worth £3000?

The cardboard and the remote control car are both worth whatever someone will give for them, just like everything else. Unless it gets an appraisal, and even then someone can pay more, they just have to do it in cash.

I think it's just one side of the coin that the gamer enjoys the game. Game design has something to do with it too, on the other side of the coin.

 

[Pythagoras]

Because the modding community is a major draw card for the game, mods kept me playing Warband for a decade. Mods are the key to the games longevity. Just look at the plethora of mods already available and the modding tools aren't even released yet.

If I'm going to put in anywhere near the amount of hours i did for Warband, then the EA asking price is a bargain.

Do modders get a single cent out of those 50€? If the game would be 20€ and the game was developed with focus on the modders, then your argument would be totally fine. But that price for a highly advertised game, where every cent goes into the bags of TW is nowhere near being fair.

And to be honest, i never really enjoyed mods. Most of them have never been finished, they were often sluggish or overloaded, buggy, or inconsistent.

You can criticize many things about this game, but no way price is objectively one of them. It is an EA game and a lot of players have played it for 100+ hours already. When the modding tool is released, the modding scene will further increase replayability.

I played WB for years and several hundred of hours (owned 2 licenses of WB and the original). And BL to me is far more replayable this early in its release.

People like M&B mostly because of its awesome concept, not because it is well implemented. If a better, bigger and more experienced company would have done it, i think it could have been much better. For the same price. So yes, 50€ is far too much. Mods don't count, as i explained above, since you don't pay for the work of the modders and every cent flows to TW.

 

[Watergun]

Do modders get a single cent out of those 50€?

Modders are similar to volunteers. They are passionate for their work, and expect nothing in return.
Developers working in company, in this context, TaleWorlds. They work for a living, and expect salaries in return.

 

[Pythagoras]

Modders are similar to volunteers. They are passionate for their work, and expect nothing in return.
Developers working in company, in this context, TaleWorlds. They work for a living, and expect salaries in return.

And why should TW be payed for something they haven't done themself?
I don't want to pay 50€ when TW gets it mostly for the work done by volunteers who don't ever see something of it.

 

[stevehoos]

So I just fired up a Nova Aetas mod for M&B, this just destroys Bannerlord is every way. This is just sad. One guy made Nova Aetas. It took TWs 8 years to make that Smithy design screen lol. It's atrocious compared to this.

 

[Pythagoras]

So I just fired up a Nova Aetas mod for M&B, this just destroys Bannerlord is every way. This is just sad. One guy made Nova Aetas. It took TWs 8 years to make that Smithy design screen lol. It's atrocious compared to this.

Sadly true. This renders every "it's EA, just accept it" worthless.

Yet i think Nova Aetas was completely overstuffed with too different factions, which damaged every consistency of the world. That was the big plus in Warband, which no mod could reach so far. But even Bannerlord doesn't even achieve that.