Almost two months into EA. Satisfied?

[StewVader]

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.
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

This is well said and spot on. I have no doubt they will polish and push this game out with very little improvements to the core game experience. Literally the only thing missing from what they said in the EA disclaimer is the criminal / gang mechanics, which at this point, after seeing how the game plays, seems like a gimmick feature at best.

If people think the game will have more interesting, complex or immersive mechanics, they haven't been paying attention.

 

[Sheepify]

I'll just say I eagerly await some of the critical people's projects in game development.

Much better to have a three or four-times better paying job being a code-monkey for financial or medical sector and not have to live on crunch time half the year at best.

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.

Which is why pre-planning and feature lockdown is essential. If your development team doesn't know what they should be aiming to achieve (look at the whole economy thing in Bannerlord as an example), throwing code at it to see what sticks is not the best way to approach it.

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.

Somebody who can't check their basic math or run a tooltip text over a spellcheck is not giving it a "good effort" in the slightest from where I'm standing.

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.

Yeah, silly people expect something actually more elaborate than a reskin-of-a-reskin now that the company is such a large studio with such a large budget. All those dev blogs touting this and that feature that ends up either completely scrapped (seriously, the "building castles won't work because balance" is such a cop-out excuse) or a placeholder.

Hell, look at the situation with autocalc. Taleworlds went on trying to "balance" lord party composition long before they finally realized (not least because people kept drumming about it) that autocalc was a serious issue in the respect with its "throw digital dice, pick who dies" original form.

So, somebody got tasked to remaking it into something more usable. The end result? It STILL doesn't, last I looked at it, really consider anything like numerical advantage, unit types, or map terrain. It's complex enough in terms of "mano-a-mano" matchups, but completely ignores the fact that it's supposed to serve resolution of, at least, a party vs party conflict, not some gladiatorial "line up and attack one by one" fights.

And this isn't just autocalc, I've seen the same approach applied to pretty much every game element. If you don't plan ahead, this is exactly what you end up with - trying to "fix" the symptom, not the cause, and then throwing bandaids that completely ignore the larger picture because you're so fixated on "fixing" just that one problem you got told to resolve.

This game lacks basic elements that would tie it together into an enjoyable experience. Cities starve (because no pre-planning ensured prosperity was not a one-way street in terms of food consumption), so Taleworlds is fixing the interaction between villages and towns... completely ignoring that it's something that WILL get disturbed by (presumably) enhanced banditry implementation (or we're left with "whack-a-looter-lord" for final release), or even increasing party sizes in later game having a meaningful impact on marketplace offering in later game. Much less the end result of several in-game years of constant raiding and pillaging that villages can't recover from with current implementation, either. Or even the coming changes to lords' parties or kingdom campaign AI implementation.

My impression at this point is that Taleworlds are trying to put together a complex piece puzzle while obsessing on one corner, then realizing other parts are empty and going tunnel-vision on another.

And I'm sure a lot of people involved, at this point, are in the burnout stage as well - when you see limited progress, you end up disillusioned about a project no matter how enthusiastic you started.

It's not that WE, the customers, need a roadmap first and foremost. Taleworlds needs one (and not necessarily one with time schedule), if only so that they understand their own creation and what it should try to achieve.

(And yes, I have been a part of multiple gaming projects, large and small, both professionally and - for years now - as a hobby. Which is what a lot of my criticism comes from, because this is no longer the 1980s - or 90s - where people were still figuring out "how to gamedev.")

If people think the game will have more interesting, complex or immersive mechanics, they haven't been paying attention.

True, I've been of the "let them work in peace for however long and judge by the end result" crowd of former defenders. I didn't follow the dev blogs religiously. Didn't even know castle building (you know, the thing that individual hobbyist modders managed to get into Warband with all its engine limitations) was scrapped.

My bad, should've done my homework in that regard. Didn't know they went with the asinine "villages aren't individual entities, not really" change, either. Things like that.

Still would've shrugged and enjoyed the game if it a) worked, b) made it enjoyable.

Instead, I've had my fun with the field battles (at least small scale ones, because the mosh pit behavior and pathing on sieges pretty much makes them things to get over with, not enjoy). Nothing much else there to enjoy, anyway. Came over to see if there's any news of the supposed "big patch" that got delayed last Friday because "holidays," but at this point I'm just playing other things. I enjoy participation in EA, but as I wrote - this isn't one, and it certainly is not a "playable game" beyond the initial impression at this point. Taleworlds doesn't even seem to understand that they have tens of thousands of man-hours worth of testers at their fingertips, and to get the most out of it they SHOULD be directing people's attention to specific parts of the game they want tested. Which is something going back to a roadmap (or just simple EA communication), because then you can point at it and simply explain that Feature B is not really implemented yet, and won't work well, but you'd appreciate any and all feedback regarding the newly re-implemented Feature A.

Studio of 50+ employees (working from home or not), all these sales, and they couldn't have even bothered to set up somebody to organize the "testers" for most effective feedback, much less just "community management" in general terms. Meh.

I don't mind the $45 I spent, either. I'm just annoyed at all the wasted potential.

 

[Roaring Mouse]

(And yes, I have been a part of multiple gaming projects, large and small, both professionally and - for years now - as a hobby. Which is what a lot of my criticism comes from, because this is no longer the 1980s - or 90s - where people were still figuring out "how to gamedev.")

What games?

 

[froggyluv]

Agree with Sheepify's posts. I mean for this long of development and now this profit size - they REALLY need to hire a S-load of coders and create teams.

A.Strategy/Overhead map -lets make this thing interesting and coherent. Make each moving unit experience things on the map like broken caravan wagon wheels, bad storms that lend to ambush and slow down certain kinds of troops. Also -roads. Make it interesting!

B. Kingdom/Strategy decisions - Enough written on this get a whole team on it

C. Economy -economy.

D. Physics/Fighting Mechanics - collision. horse vs Spear etc..Also discussed ad naseum needs a team

E. Multiplayer -Havent even tried it save once in Beta. Nevertheless.

i love this game. i love this series and will always support it because the fighting mechanic is so sound imo, it makes it fun any setting you place it. But cmon, i was on original prophecy of Pendor mod and SaxonDragon (creator) had very distinct teams fleshing out ALL areas of the mod -thats why its so rich and successful

 

[Sheepify]

What games?

Hold my beer and let me dox myself on a public forum.

they REALLY need to hire a S-load of coders and create teams.

They'd better get a good manager or two before doing anything like that, because then it ends up being even greater of a clusterchuckle.

Hell, Armagan knew how to do it back in the original - get all the "field battle" elements more or less complete, then move on to the next step up. Finish basic map, finish basic settlements, work from ground up.

Bannerlord team still is trying to balance out factional troops (and their equipment), doesn't have unit upkeep implemented (because the cookie-cutter Tier X costs Z right now doesn't even differentiate between infantry and cavalry, which also happens to contribute to "ERMERGERD KHUZAIT KEEL EVERYFIN!" that is being "balanced" right now), combat AI is what it is, and they are already apparently on the stage of balancing "economy" and whatnot macro-element else.

Get all the pieces in, then worry how their edges fit together.

You can still have your artists work on new assets, have the writers work on dialogue lines that won't get implemented in a while yet. Don't try to do everything at once, because one part of your team will be actively undoing the work of another.

But hey, it's just like, my opinion, man.

Also -roads. Make it interesting!

By the way, roads should've been a thing somebody thought about long back in those 8 years.

Not only would they make interaction between core elements like bandits and villagers/caravans all that more deterministic, they'd absolutely help with navmesh and pathfinding in general. Which is something you could absolutely use in creating AI decision loops, especially with the way "distance-to" is calculated right now without consideration for terrain. Things like that.

 

[Roaring Mouse]

Hold my beer and let me dox myself on a public forum.

Just be vague and explain your role over the course of your projects.

 

[somethinglightthat]

Hold my beer and let me dox myself on a public forum.

LOL. I know the feeling of public criticism. It's a harsh master. My face, name, and persona is all over town anyway so I'm really understanding of why you wouldn't want to do that. Some things I do don't leave any other choice but to be public. You get used to it but it never gets easy.

Much better to have a three or four-times better paying job being a code-monkey for financial or medical sector and not have to live on crunch time half the year at best.

Unless you want to be part of the industry, in which case doing what you want to do is the most important part to you. Otherwise I agree.


Which is why pre-planning and feature lockdown is essential. If your development team doesn't know what they should be aiming to achieve (look at the whole economy thing in Bannerlord as an example), throwing code at it to see what sticks is not the best way to approach it.

True. There's a lot of room for improvement in the process from an outsider point of view.


Somebody who can't check their basic math or run a tooltip text over a spellcheck is not giving it a "good effort" in the slightest from where I'm standing.

These are basic mistakes that shouldn't make it out the door, you're right. They also should be easily fixed. I'm not sure this is reflective of the overall process, but it is low hanging fruit for you to pick on.

Yeah, silly people expect something actually more elaborate than a reskin-of-a-reskin now that the company is such a large studio with such a large budget. All those dev blogs touting this and that feature that ends up either completely scrapped (seriously, the "building castles won't work because balance" is such a cop-out excuse) or a placeholder.

Expectiations, as mentioned. There's much to be done and the product is not complete.

Hell, look at the situation with autocalc. Taleworlds went on trying to "balance" lord party composition long before they finally realized (not least because people kept drumming about it) that autocalc was a serious issue in the respect with its "throw digital dice, pick who dies" original form.

So, somebody got tasked to remaking it into something more usable. The end result? It STILL doesn't, last I looked at it, really consider anything like numerical advantage, unit types, or map terrain. It's complex enough in terms of "mano-a-mano" matchups, but completely ignores the fact that it's supposed to serve resolution of, at least, a party vs party conflict, not some gladiatorial "line up and attack one by one" fights.

Autocalc is much more usable in the 1.4.1 patch. It's not as complex as it could or perhaps should be, no. It has, however, been improved to be a useable tool to speed up play if you desire to do so.

And this isn't just autocalc, I've seen the same approach applied to pretty much every game element. If you don't plan ahead, this is exactly what you end up with - trying to "fix" the symptom, not the cause, and then throwing bandaids that completely ignore the larger picture because you're so fixated on "fixing" just that one problem you got told to resolve.

I really don't think they have it all mapped out, and the community feedback may be part of this process. There are more ways to approach this issue than you suggest.

This game lacks basic elements that would tie it together into an enjoyable experience. Cities starve (because no pre-planning ensured prosperity was not a one-way street in terms of food consumption), so Taleworlds is fixing the interaction between villages and towns... completely ignoring that it's something that WILL get disturbed by (presumably) enhanced banditry implementation (or we're left with "whack-a-looter-lord" for final release), or even increasing party sizes in later game having a meaningful impact on marketplace offering in later game. Much less the end result of several in-game years of constant raiding and pillaging that villages can't recover from with current implementation, either. Or even the coming changes to lords' parties or kingdom campaign AI implementation.

Indeed, I've mentioned these problems as well. Again, I don' t think they have all the answers yet and maybe those answers would best come through collaboration. I think you expect them to design them on their own, but that may not be as modern of an approach as you get around to suggesting later in your post?

My impression at this point is that Taleworlds are trying to put together a complex piece puzzle while obsessing on one corner, then realizing other parts are empty and going tunnel-vision on another.

This is probably the most concerning thing. IMO there needs to be more cohesion in how things are considered.

And I'm sure a lot of people involved, at this point, are in the burnout stage as well - when you see limited progress, you end up disillusioned about a project no matter how enthusiastic you started.

I get burned out too.

It's not that WE, the customers, need a roadmap first and foremost. Taleworlds needs one (and not necessarily one with time schedule), if only so that they understand their own creation and what it should try to achieve.

Well, yes, of course they do. I think that's taking shape and there are many passionate arguments about what is best. That you've been a part of these processes should tell you that this is the case. You could say that they should have waited longer for EA, but if these discussions and arguments about overall direction and planning were going nowhere maybe this is what will drive it forward.

(And yes, I have been a part of multiple gaming projects, large and small, both professionally and - for years now - as a hobby. Which is what a lot of my criticism comes from, because this is no longer the 1980s - or 90s - where people were still figuring out "how to gamedev.")

And here it is. The current standard involves the community in process. In the 80's and 90's they didn't really have a lot or any communication with the playerbase before the end product was on the shelf. Remember when you actually had to go buy a physical copy?

 

[MostBlunted]

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.

I can´t hear this anymore...TW is a company and sells a product (for full price btw). They are not some modders.

If you buy a car, and there is missing stuff like the radio, air condition or whatever, do you also say "it´s hard to even make this"?

We are not talking about a small indie game for 20€ we are talking about a full price title. Also it lacks a lot of basic stuff Warband had 8 years ago.

Modders are able to fix a lot of stuff but TW can´t? Why? Why can modders fix most of the perks and TW doesn´t care? Yea I know, a 3-4 weeks ago they said they overhaul the perks...we got 2 (mostly) working trees now. WOW! The Community patch still fixes a lot of the non working stuff.

Where are the banners they showed us in a dev blog a long time ago? Of course there is a mod for this.

Why do you need to use a shield wall so that your shield troops hold their shield in front of them? (BTW, realistic battle mod fixes this, now they always hold they shield in front of them, doesn´t matter which formation you use).

 

[Pythagoras]

I think Taleworlds would do everyone (including themselves) a favor if they just put out a statement, that clears some basic criticism made here and in the steam forums. Asking the question why a full price team with so much time cannot do stuff that a modder can do in a few weeks is an absolutly valid question, and the criticism sounds the same everywhere. Maybe they have a reason? Maybe it's Covid after all, maybe it's some personal misstructuring...? This, along with a proper roadmap would help a lot and would enable us as testers to help out where it is most useful. And as was said before would help them as well, at least by showing up as transparent and fair company, that takes their customers seriously.

 

[Ford Perfect]

The game is not bad, it's a good foundation. And i had fun for around 120 hours, but I've stopped now. It feels to me like the game as it is right now could have been done in 2 years of development time, not 8

 

[Klopkr]

I'm waiting for the updates to slow down so I can build my master list of minor tweak mods that'll erase as many little annoying nitpicks in the game as possible!

 

[MostBlunted]

Everyone had fun when the game was new, it took about 10 hours (more if you restart a lot because the early game is playable) to notice how barebones it is.

They are also splitting the community with their "silent mode".

You have guys like me who critize them and you have guys who defend them and TW is just saying and doing nothing. Maybe they just enjoy the money they earned with the EA.

Their last life sign was the facebook announcent of the upcoming update which will fix the stairs.....about 2 weeks ago...

 

[E.M.Baguette]

The game is not bad, it's a good foundation. And i had fun for around 120 hours, but I've stopped now. It feels to me like the game as it is right now could have been done in 2 years of development time, not 8

New game with new engine in 2 years? With time machine, may be...

 

[Skjuld]

The game is not bad, it's a good foundation. And i had fun for around 120 hours, but I've stopped now.

I'm not really convinced.What "good foundation" there is seems to be the original Warband overall concept, which is still very good. That, and the engine.
Otherwise, every subsystem is individually not working well and the overall interaction is even worse.

I very much love M&B (played it since the original was in EA) in its various incarnations, but that does not make BL a good implementation of the concept. I've played 300+ hours on it, but I've also lost the urge. I might play some M&B or VC instead

Can't help to compare that with Grim Dawn EA. I was in right at the start. I was pretty barebones then, but what was there worked and there was a clear progression from update to update. Plus, clear communication on each patch and where the game was going and why the devs were making this or that change. And Crate is no less an Indie team.

 

[Dodgy]

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.

Thanks. To be honest I am also quite surprised at the results, and I am really hoping someone from TW has been reading some of the concerns raised in here, because good points have been made across the board, and I hope they'll take them to heart.

 

[pindabeep]

"but the game is still in Early Access, with the devs focusing on game stability before anything else" will be the new "they are taking so long because they are polishing the game". I bet we will be in the same situation 3 months from now.

 

[badman]

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".

its actually the exact opposite of that. It's more like seeing a sign, slowing down, then you find out there was no camera, and now you're running late. And you feel cheated.

There's really 2 scenarios here, one is where developers list the features that will be available in final release, in this case they have an obligation to the people who paid money to fulfill that promise, otherwise a refund should be available.
If the developer does not list any features, the game should still at least work and be balanced, otherwise a refund should be available. It is expected that new features will be added, but not guaranteed, so buyer beware on that front.

One thing I will directly call them out on is if they do not change the game's advertised minimum requirements. Right now it says 6GB ram, which is a joke. Maybe if it gets better optimization on final release this will be valid, we will see.

 

[durbal]

Much better to have a three or four-times better paying job being a code-monkey for financial or medical sector and not have to live on crunch time half the year at best.
Which is why pre-planning and feature lockdown is essential. If your development team doesn't know what they should be aiming to achieve (look at the whole economy thing in Bannerlord as an example), throwing code at it to see what sticks is not the best way to approach it.
Somebody who can't check their basic math or run a tooltip text over a spellcheck is not giving it a "good effort" in the slightest from where I'm standing.
Yeah, silly people expect something actually more elaborate than a reskin-of-a-reskin now that the company is such a large studio with such a large budget. All those dev blogs touting this and that feature that ends up either completely scrapped (seriously, the "building castles won't work because balance" is such a cop-out excuse) or a placeholder.

Hell, look at the situation with autocalc. Taleworlds went on trying to "balance" lord party composition long before they finally realized (not least because people kept drumming about it) that autocalc was a serious issue in the respect with its "throw digital dice, pick who dies" original form.

So, somebody got tasked to remaking it into something more usable. The end result? It STILL doesn't, last I looked at it, really consider anything like numerical advantage, unit types, or map terrain. It's complex enough in terms of "mano-a-mano" matchups, but completely ignores the fact that it's supposed to serve resolution of, at least, a party vs party conflict, not some gladiatorial "line up and attack one by one" fights.

And this isn't just autocalc, I've seen the same approach applied to pretty much every game element. If you don't plan ahead, this is exactly what you end up with - trying to "fix" the symptom, not the cause, and then throwing bandaids that completely ignore the larger picture because you're so fixated on "fixing" just that one problem you got told to resolve.

This game lacks basic elements that would tie it together into an enjoyable experience. Cities starve (because no pre-planning ensured prosperity was not a one-way street in terms of food consumption), so Taleworlds is fixing the interaction between villages and towns... completely ignoring that it's something that WILL get disturbed by (presumably) enhanced banditry implementation (or we're left with "whack-a-looter-lord" for final release), or even increasing party sizes in later game having a meaningful impact on marketplace offering in later game. Much less the end result of several in-game years of constant raiding and pillaging that villages can't recover from with current implementation, either. Or even the coming changes to lords' parties or kingdom campaign AI implementation.

My impression at this point is that Taleworlds are trying to put together a complex piece puzzle while obsessing on one corner, then realizing other parts are empty and going tunnel-vision on another.

And I'm sure a lot of people involved, at this point, are in the burnout stage as well - when you see limited progress, you end up disillusioned about a project no matter how enthusiastic you started.

It's not that WE, the customers, need a roadmap first and foremost. Taleworlds needs one (and not necessarily one with time schedule), if only so that they understand their own creation and what it should try to achieve.

(And yes, I have been a part of multiple gaming projects, large and small, both professionally and - for years now - as a hobby. Which is what a lot of my criticism comes from, because this is no longer the 1980s - or 90s - where people were still figuring out "how to gamedev.")
True, I've been of the "let them work in peace for however long and judge by the end result" crowd of former defenders. I didn't follow the dev blogs religiously. Didn't even know castle building (you know, the thing that individual hobbyist modders managed to get into Warband with all its engine limitations) was scrapped.

My bad, should've done my homework in that regard. Didn't know they went with the asinine "villages aren't individual entities, not really" change, either. Things like that.

Still would've shrugged and enjoyed the game if it a) worked, b) made it enjoyable.

Instead, I've had my fun with the field battles (at least small scale ones, because the mosh pit behavior and pathing on sieges pretty much makes them things to get over with, not enjoy). Nothing much else there to enjoy, anyway. Came over to see if there's any news of the supposed "big patch" that got delayed last Friday because "holidays," but at this point I'm just playing other things. I enjoy participation in EA, but as I wrote - this isn't one, and it certainly is not a "playable game" beyond the initial impression at this point. Taleworlds doesn't even seem to understand that they have tens of thousands of man-hours worth of testers at their fingertips, and to get the most out of it they SHOULD be directing people's attention to specific parts of the game they want tested. Which is something going back to a roadmap (or just simple EA communication), because then you can point at it and simply explain that Feature B is not really implemented yet, and won't work well, but you'd appreciate any and all feedback regarding the newly re-implemented Feature A.

Studio of 50+ employees (working from home or not), all these sales, and they couldn't have even bothered to set up somebody to organize the "testers" for most effective feedback, much less just "community management" in general terms. Meh.

I don't mind the $45 I spent, either. I'm just annoyed at all the wasted potential.

This is the truest post.

 

[Falrock]

The class system in multiplayer sucks, no fun customisation to be had with it which makes the character creator feel absolutely pointless. Horses are too OP with not enough bonus spear vs horses.

The single player simply doesn't have enough content to be enjoyable to me yet. Ruling my own Kingdom sucked the last time I played.

No big juicy conversation modding in sight yet either.

 

[pindabeep]

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.

This.