Almost two months into EA. Satisfied?

[Maneuverer]

Are really people discussing whether the game price is "justifiable"? We live in a society ran by people who believe that every price is justifiable if there is a customer to pay it.

Yes the game is full of bugs, unbalanced, a few promised or exhibited features are missing and so on and on. The real question is are you finding the time spent enjoyed?

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

A lot of the enjoyment seems to come from people assuming the game is going to get a lot better. I can't speak for everyone but in my opinion once I start thinking about future updates or sequels, my enjoyment has shifted from actually appreciating the game to daydreaming.

 

[Nawki]

Honestly I expect a game lunch with more content and better state but amount of effort (+ additional problems with covid) developers put to patch this game is amazing

 

[Pythagoras]

The point is you shouldn't say that modders don't see anything from modding because obviously it can be beneficial for them over time.

That's not the point, and if you would even read what i wrote you knew that...

If you feel you over paid sucks to be you I guess quit the game leave the forum and stop ruining our days with your repetitive complaining Why didn't you just apply for the Steam refund when you decided this game wasn't for you?

See above. Trying to make clear what i am actually criticizing has nothing to do with complaining.

 

[TheShermanator]

Couldn't really vote, even with all of the options.

It's... it's the kind of thing that requires you to hold multiple thoughts in your head at the same time.

1) The core mechanics of the game - the way that all of the currencies and variables interact - is impressively ambitious / complex, and, again at the level of core mechanics, they already mostly work (with known issues and patches incoming). That's worth quite a lot to me. Lots of games have more features/content but shallower core mechanics.

2) At the same time, there are lots of pretty basic features that should be there that aren't yet (diplomacy, more robust feudal noble-to-noble relationships, loyalty and rebellion, etc.) and a lot of potential for extra fluff content (story, cut scenes, etc.) that's normal but missing here. Clearly EA is a huge factor in determining what's missing. I think the complexity of the game's core mechanics (see 1) also makes it hard to implement even those features that would be considered basic in simpler games. It's hard to know exactly where to draw the line between 'hey, it's EA, keep it in perspective' and 'they've had a long time, these things should be basic even in EA, and they're asking us to pay to test this'.

3) At the end of the day though, the game is just really fun/addictive. Gripes notwithstanding, it's hard to argue with the scoreboard (my own hours played).

3a) There is a point in the late game, though, at which I think the viable options and challenges available to the player become limited. Playing becomes an endless reiteration of battle-loot-sell-siegebattle-loot-sell-givefief with not just gold snowballing but also power snowballing. Fatigue ultimately wears on the game's addictive power.

3b) In this context, I think the game feels more fully finished in the players early game experience, which is richly challenging and interesting, vs. the late game, where the missing features and thus need for repetition in EA really show though.

 

[Watergun]

I thought they would be able to add some new features in the first two months, boy was I wrong.

Never expect an unfinished product to have new features to be added.

It is just like saying, when you see the big sign "speed camera ahead", and you still press on your accelerator. After being issued a speed ticket, you tell the traffic police, "boy was I wrong".

 

[Shemaforash]

If I paid for this game I would've been deeply disappointed.

 

[Lord Irontoe]

Never expect an unfinished product to have new features to be added.

It is just like saying, when you see the big sign "speed camera ahead", and you still press on your accelerator. After being issued a speed ticket, you tell the traffic police, "boy was I wrong".

Hmmm... So if a game needs features added in order to be considered finished, but it can't add new features until it is finished, then the game can never get finished.

 

[Watergun]

Hmmm... So if a game needs features added in order to be considered finished, but it can't add new features until it is finished, then the game can never get finished.

In project management term, this is known as "scope creep".

 

[Horked]

There are other games to play

 

[Alescor]

yes they do, as said some mod teams get to work with Taleworlds on a DLC and I'm pretty sure they get a cut of the profits from those. With fire & sword started out as a mod (in fact it was the first mod team that put their mod behind a paywall back in the day), Napoleonic wars was a mod, Viking Conquest is the successor to the Brytenwalda mod. Also, If I remember correctly a bunch of todays staff started out as modders for this game since taleworlds was originally Just Armagan and his wife Ipek

I hope that is false, if TW is omitting content from a game that is still in production and then collect it separately it would be thieves or motherXXXXXXX.
Another thing if we have early access, then we will be given for free,
At no time am I against the dlc, but that they are really dlc not cut content for purpose to charge twice the same as other companies like EA, Bethesda, Ubisof, Capcom, ....
For me that is a lack of respect and I hope it does not happen.

The issue of the price I think that nobody has put a gun to his forehead and they have told him to buy the game for 50.
I paid 32 or 33 in instant-gaming, nobody pays me anything is just an example of game pages there are many others

 

[froggyluv]

You are a traveling merchant, mercenary, later vassal of a king if you leave the kings holdings well enough alone they won't bother risking their forces over it why would they? Kings didn't think in terms of national borders back then and they weren't always that powerful heck the French king held barely any authority outside of the Île-de-France and it could be dangerous for the King of France to venture outside of this hold around Paris to tour the rest of the Frankinsh kingdom of which he was king

Maybe not intervening in every small intrusion but im pretty sure that lords wouldnt like large (potential) enemy armies/armed merchants just zipping around their major cities without reprimand (or tax). The problem with this world map is that it holds no normal bounds - that is parties of all stripes and colors are zipping around everywhere on the map without any sort of constraint unless they get targeted by an enemy/stronger group in which it just turns into a 1980's Sprite game of chase me across the map until someone gets bored. this type of play does not lend itself to strategic movement in absolutely any way. We already dont have any real semblance of roads/travel ways which makes the random/move anywhere at anytime problem even worse. The World map needs cohesion for any attempt at strategy gaming.

 

[Lord Irontoe]

In project management term, this is known as "scope creep".

Sure, but there are still a lot of missing or incomplete features that need to be implemented before the game can be called finished.

The frustrating thing about this EA is that it launched in such a raw state that the first 2 months of patches have been totally devoted to fixing backbone issues like performance and bugfixes and fixing the economy and how lords raise armies. I think a lot of players expected that the core gameplay would have already been mostly rock solid way back when they announced the EA last fall or else they would've waited longer to announce it. So now, instead of fun patches that add new content and flesh out the details of the game, we're still playing catch-up just trying to get the basic gameplay loop feeling right, and so it feels like not a lot of progress is being made.

 

[obidijus]

No,for the love of God,fix ALL the perks!

 

[kreamy]

To be fair, we are not talking about the concept for a completely new game being in EA.
We are talking about the sequel of a game that has for the most part kept the same exact structure and feel of its predecessor, with very few additions and a whole lot of missing features that were present in its previous iterations.

Almost two months into EA and the most exciting update the game received has finally brought a couple of features related to diplomacy that are completely broken.

This doesn't need to be a complaining thread, I would just like to sincerely gauge what is the general feel about the current status of the game.

good post. I am surprised my vote is the majority one, I didn't think that would be the case - and there are over 500 respondents. GJ OP.

This a tricky and biased question. TW is using us as beta testers and is not a fully functional product. Every one of us has completely different expectations and personalities and thus satisfaction can not be measured by having a general question with partially structured answers. Instead it may be appropriate to have a specific question about specific aspects and the answers would be numerical like a rate or ordinal like a scale.
However for the sake of discussion the game is fun but many features are dissapointing.
This question should be asked again after 5-6 months when the development process will be more extensive and the timeframe will be enough to make comparisons.

I don't agree with you at all, I think you are taking this out of proportion - its not a science experiment, the OP is taking an informal survey and allowing people to give their own unique answers if they please. I think OP did a great job, and I think the answers give a general measurement of how people feel (the people who responded at least).

 

[Watergun]

Sure, but there are still a lot of missing or incomplete features that need to be implemented before the game can be called finished.

For sure, early access can last for 1 year or even more. It is only 2 months, as for me, I am not expecting too much in 2 months. As a software developer myself, it can take me 2 months just to fixed up 2 simple features (based on face value) in a software project. My fellow teammate is even unluckier, he was stuck to resolve a bug that haunted our team for more than 6 months.

Wonder if these features are being listed (website?), and are marked as "still missing" by TaleWorlds?

 

[Sheepify]

My tracking/adblocking plugins are preventing participation in voting for some reason (probably based on offsite scripts or processing), so just a personal post rather than a number up there:

Hell, no, I'm not happy about this.

I've participated in many, many EA projects. This is not one of them. There is next to no communication. Steam forums, as bad as they can get, being outright ignored assures Taleworlds operates in very much an echo-chamber bubble when it comes to feedback.

Two months out of the supposed 12 have passed, and there's... what, a new "create kingdom" button because it was a required band-aid to the unimplemented main quest? Yes, stability and genuine bug fixes take priority, but what happened about that Callum's "we can work on multiple things" post?

The original release was horribly devoid of even basic attention to detail. Perks were implemented by people with apparent no understanding of basic mathematics. "Generic background" is still back there last I checked, and don't tell me your writer(s) are busy "polishing" the engine. I've scribbled multi-page descriptions right before an unexpected change in participation for a tabletop gaming night. As a hobby, not something putting any money in my pocket.

And you could basically point at any part of the game and say exactly the same. The game started as a tech demo full of (badly implemented, if they were) placeholders, and in two months it hardly got anywhere, even considering current work-from-home situation. At this pace, we might, just might, see full balanced (and with accurate and not misspelled descriptions) perk tree in a year.

This project looks to be horribly managed, and on top of that there's absolutely no intention of engaging even their core customers on this forum (much less talking about all the wasted potential when it comes to testing and feedback that's on Steam's).

If it was still possible, at this point I'd refund. I am perfectly fine with taking a gamble on a EA project - as long as I see the desire and drive to see it end in as good a shape as possible. Not something I'm seeing in this "meh, good enough, push it out" production.

This is more like Sector Zero (mixed up names, my bad, nothing against Sector Zero!) Star Drive EA than any of the multiple successful EA projects I supported. Bannerlord can't compare, in terms of communication and transparency in planning, even to many free-to-play PORN projects.

I guess the company got much too large to successfully keep running on the "high school hobby project" planning it seems to embrace. Certainly would think twice before paying for any future game coming from Taleworlds, but thankfully I won't live to see another regardless of Bannerlord's success, heh.

tl;dr: barebone tech demo on release, and pretty much nothing but polish and bug "fixes" (99 bugs in the code, hunt one down, compile it around, 115 bugs in the code...) accomplished after two months. One of the worst communication in any EA I've experienced. No apparent desire or drive to do much but "polish and push out" at this point from where I'm standing.

For sure, early access can last for 1 year or even more.

Other EA games either offer a genuine roadmap of what features to expect, or have an active development-community feedback loop. Especially when they have been in the making for so long.

Edited for title derp

 

[somethinglightthat]

It was possible in With Fire and Sword, so there can't be anything preventing it. Since they just copied Warband and didn't put any further thought into it, we probably will never see any deeper degree of customization and thus no kingdom reign, that actually feels like one.

Thanks for this, I'll dig around on it later.

 

[somethinglightthat]

it just turns into a 1980's Sprite game of chase me across the map until someone gets bored.

Oh, lol. I thought I was the only one. I mean to an extent this is ok but chasing a party for an in game week at the same speed until you corner them is just amusing and sad all at the same time.

 

[somethinglightthat]

Any topic that spurs 13 pages of discussion was a good one. There's a lot of good opinions in this thread.

I'll just say I eagerly await some of the critical people's projects in game development. It's not that you're wrong in what you're saying, but this stuff is a lot harder than it looks, and it's much easier to talk than act. There's also the thing where if you flesh out something that needs reworking in serious ways then you have to do it all over again and I don't know about you but I'm not into duplicating work. There are obvious problems with all this but I don't think that they don't care or don't give a good effort is true. I just think maybe the expectations are higher than the current state of the game. We will see if they deliver, no pressure or anything.