Wasn't the refactor supposed to speed up development?

[babelfisch]

Wow if only those patches contained new and cool stuff,or maybe some fixes that would cause people to return to the game instead of letting it go to the graveyard.

The game gets good reviews, top 100 most played on Steam (before Crusader Kings 3), 1.5.5 and 1.5.6 were quite good and 1.5.7 is going to be even better.
Can't say much about multiplayer since I don't care about it.
I don't think the state of the game is as bad as some people want it to be.

 

[Barbellz]

The game gets good reviews, top 100 most played on Steam (before Crusader Kings 3), 1.5.5 and 1.5.6 were quite good and 1.5.7 is going to be even better.
Can't say much about multiplayer since I don't care about it.
I don't think the state of the game is as bad as some people want it to be.

Let us see a few of those credible reviews:

HEADASS, 5.2hrs, "poggers"
Virtuoas, 188hrs, "gg"
Each Hit, 30.6hrs, "you can hunt down humans"
Beyak, 57hrs, "bandit hunting sim"

Steam reviews are a joke and in no way a good representation of the game.
I like being an archer in the game, won't see me post a review like "arrow hit target 10/10 game" and forget about it being a broken mess.

 

[Akka]

the thing is that modders are able to focus in on very specific things while answering to no one else while being held to no standards. It allows for extremely fast development in comparison that's unfair to a paid and integrated dev team.

True, but only to a point. Changes that are literally one character removed from a line should not take months to fix.

 

[Worldsprayer]

I'm really confused how a professional game company that has multiple previous titles under their belt and plenty of cash from top selling games can write such screwed up code needing complete refactor in the first place. I mean, its not like this is some amateur game design group project in college lol.

Really hope they can pull it together.

From what i understand, back in the many year long "absolutely no news what so ever" phase the game development went through, they effective made, and re-made the game 2 or 3 times. They got a new project lead and grew a ton in the process.
Plus, from what I undestand, Taleworlds ONLY makes Mount and Blade, which considering the first game and even the second...didnt need a huge team. And several of their spin-offs were in fact made by modding teams that managed to get a sales deal (Viking conquest was the Brytenwalda team for example).

But yea, you can see in the code where there were too many hands in the pot. A good example is character creation and how they store info, it's incredibly redundant and poorly executed because of it.

True, but only to a point. Changes that are literally one character removed from a line should not take months to fix.

Correct, the issue is that when you have a list hundreds of lines long of problems, the issue is often not "what's the fastest" to fix but "what's the most critical to fix" Part of that decision making process is not only on cleaning up bugs, bu if your development is on going for additional features (which we know it is for BL) then very often the bugs that get prioritized are the bugs that are blockers to the development of additional features so they dont keep paidd developers spinning their wheels (thats a money issue which cant be ignored)...and very often when you clean up one bug you discover three more which then need to be tackled as well to keep the blocker cleared.

Edit: In a way, the modders can help massively in this. For example, it helps them alot to be able to get a message from the forum from someoen saying "Bug A has fix B and here's the code that does it, tested and proven with thousands of downloads." which DOES allow the smaller stuff to get bumped up because frankly...they were given the answer. For example the traits creation bug from day 1 apparently was never even noticed until I hammered a forum mod about it "Why is it my mod that fixes it thats been out for 4 months on a bug that had a TON of discussion...hasnt gotten a fix for this?"
"Oh wait...there's a problem with traits?"
*insert facepalm here*
"yes...here's the problem (gives tons of forum links)...and here's the fix."

That does allow smaller stuff to get shot up in priority because the troubleshooting was already done, they just need to take the given code, make it fit their standards, and plug it in.

 

[Fate]

It's kind of hard to take almost anything in this thread with credibility because as all the modders will tell you, the refactor is still very much in process becasue almost every mod is broken with every patch, which means they're steadily changing/renaming/removing functions and classes every time.

The fact they're completely changing their code base AND still adding features is moderately impressive considering their code was screwed up as all hell to begin with.

So they're either extremely slow or they developed the game extremely poorly and have to fix it?

Not sure either of those are a good look for TW nor are "impressive"

 

[stevehoos]

So they're either extremely slow or they developed the game extremely poorly and have to fix it?

Not sure either of those are a good look for TW nor are "impressive"

Both I believe. Look at the patch notes, then look at how many things they say are fixed in them and are still present in the game. Seems to me like they have many issues.

 

[Worldsprayer]

So the they're slow or the developed the game extremely poorly and have to fix it?


So they're either extremely slow or they developed the game extremely poorly and have to fix it?

Not sure either of those are a good look for TW nor are "impressive"

It's not a good look, I definitely won't defend that. That they had to do several restarts, one which from my understanding a "complete" restart from absolute scratch, indicates a complete breakdown in project management and development. Perhaps they were going wildly going out of scope on design, perhaps they found something better to use and were delayed in making a full transition, perhaps they simply had such a large transition in team composition it couldn't be helped. But the truth is simple: Bannerlord was in silent development for what...8 years? The product we have right now is, in comparison to the development time used to make it, an embarrassment to Taleworlds. There is NOTHING in the game as is that is AAA, unique, or in truth even exceptional. Graphics are "decent" (in some places admittedly not even that), the UI is uninspired and extremely simple to make in comparison to many UIs. The game logic in the campaign is best described as "in progress", and the battlefield AI is extremely simple and uncomplicated. It's one reason I think they ARE working so hard (their patches show they're working pretty dang hard too) to fix/expand it: In a way, their reputation is more on the line with BL now its partially out than ever before. They as a company literally have no more excuses to use to avoid the accusations of poor craftmansship and a poor product.

 

[nico32222]

The funny thing is they already working on a new sci-fi game while bannerlord is still in early access and in a horrible empty state, just changed my steam review to negative might change back if they pull a no mans sky i dont belive this will happen lost all hope. lol.

 

[babelfisch]

The funny thing is they already working on a new sci-fi game while bannerlord is still in early access and in a horrible empty state, just changed my steam review to negative might change back if they pull a no mans sky i dont belive this will happen lost all hope. lol.

Source?

So they're either extremely slow or they developed the game extremely poorly and have to fix it?

Not sure either of those are a good look for TW nor are "impressive"

You need to remember that, compared to many other developers, they are quite open about development. Over the last years they shared lots of their design goals. And everyone who wants can take a look into the actual game code. This is not true for the vast majority of other games, you would probably be shocked to find out what happens behind closed doors in other studios.
Game development isn't an accurate science, you don't come up with a plan and stick to it 100%. Sometimes you redesign something 5 times before deciding to scrap it and make something completely different instead. And that's not a process that only involves one person, but creative director, designer, coder, artist, etc. And it's not a one way street either, the project can go up and down between the different departments until someone finally decides that the feature doesn't work or no longer fits to the rest of the game.
That's not something that only happens to small, independent or incompetent developers, it's something that happens everywhere. As a consumer you just don't notice it most of the time.

 

[nico32222]

Source?

Spoiler: pic

passion for sci-fi sound like they are working on a sci-fi game to me. maybe not, just a guess.

 

[babelfisch]

Spoiler: pic

passion for sci-fi sound like they are working on a sci-fi game to me. maybe not just a guess.

Thanks, quite surprising.

 

[Akka]

Correct, the issue is that when you have a list hundreds of lines long of problems, the issue is often not "what's the fastest" to fix but "what's the most critical to fix" Part of that decision making process is not only on cleaning up bugs, bu if your development is on going for additional features (which we know it is for BL) then very often the bugs that get prioritized are the bugs that are blockers to the development of additional features so they dont keep paidd developers spinning their wheels (thats a money issue which cant be ignored)...and very often when you clean up one bug you discover three more which then need to be tackled as well to keep the blocker cleared.

Again, that's only true to a point.
You of course prioritize critical bugs, but also quickly and easily-fixable bugs because, well, they ARE quick and easy. When even quick and easy bugs aren't included for months on end, it simply doesn't speak well of working practices.

That does allow smaller stuff to get shot up in priority because the troubleshooting was already done, they just need to take the given code, make it fit their standards, and plug it in.

Precisely. And the fact is still doesn't happen is a source of worry.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Spoiler: pic

passion for sci-fi sound like they are working on a sci-fi game to me. maybe not, just a guess.

That is a massive shock.

 

[Worldsprayer]

That is a massive shock.

Actually not so much when you think about it. Bannerlord is, despite its lack of features, still relatively very far along in the development process. As a company they MUST keep projects happening. I suspect they learned a lot in their development of Bannerlord in their creation of custom engine, UI system and all the AI work they've done, it actually makes sense that they would see just how far they could push what they've just made. The AI system alone could be extremely useful in a space combat game for example in that you could have literally thousands of ships flying around fighting just like we have soldiers.

or...they could be thinking of simply taking bannerlord into a futuristic setting...we know the game can work very well with muskets...why not blasters and lightsabers? (please don't quote me on that!!!!)

 

[sniparsexe]

Spoiler: pic

passion for sci-fi sound like they are working on a sci-fi game to me. maybe not, just a guess.

..what the? Wait, how the **** I missed this? Damn this is great ngl

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Actually not so much when you think about it. Bannerlord is, despite its lack of features, still relatively very far along in the development process.

Im not too surprised that theyre starting a new project, but what does surprise me is that it's a scifi game before any DLC or MnB 3 or whatever. Starting a new title unrelated to any previous work is always a massive risk, and for a company in such chaos it's very odd that they would take such a risk right now.

 

[khuzait haircut]

Im not too surprised that theyre starting a new project, but what does surprise me is that it's a scifi game before any DLC or MnB 3 or whatever. Starting a new title unrelated to any previous work is always a massive risk, and for a company in such chaos it's very odd that they would take such a risk right now.

What risk? They plan on exiting EA end of March. To them the game is nearly done.

 

[Worldsprayer]

Im not too surprised that theyre starting a new project, but what does surprise me is that it's a scifi game before any DLC or MnB 3 or whatever. Starting a new title unrelated to any previous work is always a massive risk, and for a company in such chaos it's very odd that they would take such a risk right now.

The appearance of a game does not neccesarily have to have anything to do with things. The core of bannerlord is not what it looks like, that's completely incidental. the core is a campaign system that can reliably allow dynamic movement of entities and their expansion, and a combat system that can allow high-fidelity movement of the player and ai units number up to (and likely beyond) a thousand. THATS the real bannerlord, what you put on top for humans to see can be horses and knights, tanks and gunners, or spaceships and lasers.

 

[Thiil]

Im not too surprised that theyre starting a new project, but what does surprise me is that it's a scifi game before any DLC or MnB 3 or whatever. Starting a new title unrelated to any previous work is always a massive risk, and for a company in such chaos it's very odd that they would take such a risk right now.

Maybe they need more monies already? ?‍

 

[Worldsprayer]

Maybe they need more monies already? ?‍

I never understood how they didnt tank years ago. They went like 8 years with basically no product being made, and you can only sell so many copies of warband after its already been bought. And they ramped up to a 70+ person size which is a ton of money. SOMEONE was pouring money into TW.