Lacking goals for late game

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

I am not assaulting a besieged enemy fief if there is a stronger enemy army coming close to break the siege.
- Same for enemy parties, I do not attack an enemy lord party if there is another one close which could join the battle if we would play with the same AI rules and time would not stop in player’s battles.

These are advantageous to you actually. If you break the siege that AI army will just wander around and be 'wasted' for awhile, where as you can leave them and go do something more productive. Likewise, never bringing an AI party into you battle is always the best choice as their auto calc is better then live performance, and they could die.

What would you imagine as an end game goal for a PC that is already king besides war and total domination?

It's fun to maintain and grow your kingdom. The problem is you must be independent to really role play as the leader building it up. Once you have vassals they will make war too much. Of course, you can ignore it and just protect your own fiefs and let your stupid vassals reap what they sew. The rebellion mechanic is pretty good though. It's challenging to maintain towns as independent (no policies) and you have opportunities to claim new ones from rebels without going to all out war with a faction.

Yes, the question is, how is possible that the first 1000 days in this game are pretty damn fun but after that, the game feels really empty and boring?

For me, every game where I make a kingdom, after a short while I feel I lose all player agency and it's just the same war over and over. I feel forced to to play a certain way and it ruins the fun. I really hope we get more options for how we run a faction because if I'm not the one ordering the sieges and patrols.... it's not very interesting to me.

Anyways, I think the rebellion's are a big upgrade to the game's fun and I hope 1.5.7 continues this upswing.

 

[Moton]

That's a terrible example to support your point that complicated games can still be popular because Bannerlord is currently ahead of Crusader Kings 3 in terms of active players.

Yeah you're right, Siv 6 would be a better example. The point is that there are some super slow and complex games out there that are popular.

 

[Dabos37]

The problem about slow paced games is that some people find them boring and the usual comment about “it feels like a MMO where you have to grind”.

I personally like slow paced games, I would love that getting T5 and T6 units would be harder to get, fiefs would be much harder to get and sieges require more time, wars would be less frequent and less frenetic, etc, etc. Sadly, most of players these days do not enjoy this and prefer rush everything and get all with easy. For this reason we have a pretty fast paced in terms of wars, sieges and battles, while at the same time, the time pace is extremely slow compared to overall game pace, and this brings issues like lategame being pretty boring, features like aging&death being almost non existent in 90% of our campaigns, balance issues like lords having to fight an insane amount of battles per year which increase death chance and makes harder replacements, etc.

TW should decide if they want a slow or a fast paced game, and then apply this to all aspects of the game.

 

[Terco_Viejo]

[...]
I personally like slow paced games, I would love that getting T5 and T6 units would be harder to get, fiefs would be much harder to get and sieges require more time, wars would be less frequent and less frenetic, etc, etc. [...]

TW should decide if they want a slow or a fast paced game, and then apply this to all aspects of the game.

+1 Absolutely on the same wavelength as you.

And let me add, the combat duration. It's nothing new for anyone who has read my stance in this regard; I've repeated it to the point of exhaustion, providing analysis, tests and video tests. The battle fighting pace is a complete meat grinder in which 500vs500 encounters are decided in a matter of less than two minutes; literally.

 

[Lusitani 5th Empire]

I personally like slow paced games, I would love that getting T5 and T6 units would be harder to get, fiefs would be much harder to get and sieges require more time, wars would be less frequent and less frenetic, etc, etc.

For me it's not even about being slow or fast paced, it's just about the balance. IMO, It should be as fast as possible without compromising the quality of gameplay. One thing that's not good right now is that the relative time you spend in certain aspects of the game are not even close to be in 1:1 proportions to the time you should spend on that features (certain features are incomplete allowing only a short experience of them). And many times the opposite also happens, in features/mechanics you expect to spend less time you spend a lot of time (aka grinding) - For example, repetitive quests (even though the stories are different, it's the exact same thing over and over, no connection to your character development, simple npc interactions, no good stories, no connection to npc's... it's one of the biggest mistake devs are making imo, this is their only chance for having some elements of story driven games (or whatever you call it), with some nice branching narratives but instead they are going the easy way again.

 

[a_ver_est]

For me some parts of the games are rushed, I mean you can marry with a noble woman almost from the start of the game, even one of a powerful clan which makes no sense, you can have a party with more of 100 guys in few days, you can conquer a fief early on or join a faction and they will give you one, etc

IMHO all those things should take more time before being archivable.

PS: I also dislike so much that you get top tier equipment from the wifes/husbands, specially if you married with a non warrior girl of a poor clan. It doesn't make sense either and provides you stuff an money that should be harder to get, doing your progress far easier... still worst now you can marry your brother and so ...

 

[froggyluv]

It doesnt take much to add a more fulfilling ending-almost just an acknowledgement of 'what just went down' is usually enough. Such as a final Legacy Page -a statistical and illustrative recap of the players highlighted moments "On this Date Player HugeArmagon defeated Lord Buttercup at a duel in Praven in which Lord Buttercup was mortally wounded.."; " On this Date, Player HugeArmagon shamefully ran from Lord Buttercup at The Battle of 2 Rivers".....

Add to that a name for Legacy "The Peoples will fondly remember Player HugeArmagon as 'Persnickity' due to his bad manners at feasts and failure to accept a bride". Give the Player a final nickname. Give all the Wins/Losses of battles fought in an interesting way, name the important battles etc..There would only need be a few coded markers that save data at various points of the game and stored to build the Final Screen at the end.

Also a Late Game Nemesis wouldnt be a bad idea -someone who naturally arises to hate the Player and makes it his life work to sabotage everything from the players health (poison/assassins) attack and kill the players family and close companions etc..

All of this would bee pretty simple and add so much more flavor to the late/end game

 

[Terco_Viejo]

I have mentioned it some times, do you imagine a nemesis system working in Bannerlord? ?

My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die...

 

[cadadr]

A freelancing soldier mode would help with that, together with slower war progress. You'd spend first 10 or 20 years or so gaining experience, armor, and reknown, while enjoying combat. After that you'd be ready to enjoy a whole new experience as a sergeant, general, and finally a lord.

You can kinda simulate all that (or e.g. banditry) by yourself but it's too artificial to enjoy.

 

[Apocal]

Yes, the question is, how is possible that the first 1000 days in this game are pretty damn fun but after that, the game feels really empty and boring? The answer is simple, just think about playing a Crusader Kings 3 campaign, where you would have to play just with one character, start as a count, then become Duke, then become king and have the strongest kingdom, all of this while your character is still 30 years old or so and there is not any risk of your current kingdom getting divided or having a civil war... Just think how much boring this game would be.

Luckly Bannerlord has a pretty enjoyable combat system which is not perfect but it is addictive, so the game feels enjoyable the first 600-1000 days, but after some point, the campaign feels lackluster, empty, repetitive and zero challenging.

Because by time the late game/senior vassal or ruler period rolls around the player should be playing a different game.

You start off playing an individual or in a very small group and concerned with thing like attack directions, footwork, blocking and such. After awhile though, that goes by the wayside and you're more concerned with party composition, logistics (including income) and battle tactics because you've got a whole party to manage. It is almost playing an entirely different game.

Past that though, Bannerlord gets really barren. You're not actually doing anything new -- everything just gets bigger. You maybe roll around as an army rather than a party, but armies act exactly like parties in almost every way. Especially in every way that matters. You're not trying to kingdom-build at all or balancing economic with military pursuits or wrangling unruly vassals or trying to out-maneuver a bigger, meaner neighboring faction.

You're just bashing the same sieges you've been bashing for the past in-game decade.

 

[Terco_Viejo]

A freelancing soldier mode would help with that, together with slower war progress. You'd spend first 10 or 20 years or so gaining experience, armor, and reknown, while enjoying combat. After that you'd be ready to enjoy a whole new experience as a sergeant, general, and finally a lord.

You can kinda simulate all that (or e.g. banditry) by yourself but it's too artificial to enjoy.

Every time you guys mention it a new tear runs down my cheek ??. Absolutely incomprehensible in my eyes that the mechanics of Freelancer mod is not implemented in Bannerlord...

 

[Blood Gryphon]

Every time you guys mention it a new tear runs down my cheek ??. Absolutely incomprehensible in my eyes that the mechanics of Freelancer mod is not implemented in Bannerlord...

One of my favorite features from mods of Warband. My favorite and longest warband playthrough (using diplo.litdum) I started as a recruit in King Yarogleks party and eventually made it to vaegir knight (all this did was change your daily wage and give you new equipment). Once my renown and relationship with the king was high enough I was vassalized and played on to fight for the Vaegirs. Was honestly just one of the best progressions I've felt in a game, a true rags to riches experience.

This would be so huge for them to add and could really help early progression feel so much better and make a lot more sense, rather than the weakest person in calradia being a leader. Such a huge missed opportunity.

Spoiler: Taleworlds

 

[fanugi]

Content described above would be very welcomed as my latest 156 playthrough has gotten boring. I just created my kingdom and as soon as I deid that i got this feeling of boredom. Maybe i should go start a war or something but i've already fought enough. Anyway, I have not found a way to recruit the rebel nobels/lords yet. How can i get them to join me without attacking their city? When they become a rebel city my relationship automatically goes up to around 60 or so and I think, oh I have a new friend. Let's get them to join me but I can't figure out how without taking over the city via siege. What am i missing?

It would be great if whole new diplomatic choices showed up after becoming the king. I married off my youngest brother to the Khuzait and the older brother to the Western empire. It says to create an alliance with them, i have not seen any change with either of them. If i go to war to they back me up? I don't know, is that just a dead end or do I have an alliance with them of some sort, a little depth would be nice? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

 

[Seafoodking]

Totally agree with your slower pace suggestion. Currently the game is just a repetitive of battles. I think TW should:

1. Improve AI to recruit and train for elite soldiers and launch a large scale conquer campaign, rather than tedious, and repetitive battles. This could possibly lead to more diplomacy expansion. Where lords unite together to conquer, just like the Crusades.

2. Make AI with different culture, personality, attributes, skills to have different battle styles, and unit combinations.

3. Implement an option to disable the "ALT" function for player and AI in battles.

Now, imagine you have a huge battle with the Vlandian & Battian alliance, with an army of 5000s. You're leading your thousands to engage them front on, but you were ambushed by their ally, the Battians from the bush. Their Fian Champions are raining down arrows on you. Your soldiers are routing, and you're pulling back to regroup, then, the ground shakes, hundreds of banner knights had gone around your frontline to your rear and send a full scale charge on your army sending your whole army into chaos.

+1
Despite all the additional mechanics TW tried to implement, the game is just a battle simulator. I personally would recommend to slow down the war pace. Maybe make recruiting harder and resource dependent. Rebuilding of parties should take lot longer. The recruits are not clones after all. Villages are raided people killed where does those new recruits all come from
Unfortunately there is nothing meaningful to do in peace time. Yet, I think the majority of the players likes this fast pace and the other game mechanics are not interesting for them.

So there's nothing left for me to do, just hope someone will someday create a game with similar battle mechanic with proper economy, technology and kingdom management/world diplomacy.

 

[Worlok]

One of my favorite features from mods of Warband. My favorite and longest warband playthrough (using diplo.litdum) I started as a recruit in King Yarogleks party and eventually made it to vaegir knight (all this did was change your daily wage and give you new equipment). Once my renown and relationship with the king was high enough I was vassalized and played on to fight for the Vaegirs. Was honestly just one of the best progressions I've felt in a game, a true rags to riches experience.

This would be so huge for them to add and could really help early progression feel so much better and make a lot more sense, rather than the weakest person in calradia being a leader. Such a huge missed opportunity.

I tried to play some similar campaign to this by not joining any faction at all. Just wandering the world buying, selling, crafting and having family. I wanted to spend my first generation in some balcksmith > trader > smithy workshop owner, basically some poor first generation family. Doing some quests as favors. Walking directly to persons in towns, villages. The problem is there are so many identical towns and villages what completely kills imersion. You go into one Sturgian town which looks exactly the same as the other. Villages even worse.
TW should improve the first person exerience outside of battlefields.

 

[cadadr]

Every time you guys mention it a new tear runs down my cheek ??. Absolutely incomprehensible in my eyes that the mechanics of Freelancer mod is not implemented in Bannerlord...

Understandable. I only recently played WB, way later than I played Bannerlord, and sad truth is if WB had the physics and graphics of BL, itd flat out be a way better game. I'm nothing of a gamer, but I played BL a lot part because lockdowns but part because it's got this thing of creativity everywhere. But past a certain lever that is drained. So either you make that level come later (via freelancing or trading or banditry), or you extend that aspect of the game to later stages.

Didn't see much from TW posters on that, tho I follow the forums only lightly. Maybe modders will give us our fix tho, they're doing some phenomenal work, e.g. like coop campaign. It's bollocks that you can do that with a game, and that's something to congratulate TW on, enabling such an ecosystem.

 

[Julio-Claudian]

The problem about slow paced games is that some people find them boring and the usual comment about “it feels like a MMO where you have to grind”.

I personally like slow paced games, I would love that getting T5 and T6 units would be harder to get, fiefs would be much harder to get and sieges require more time, wars would be less frequent and less frenetic, etc, etc. Sadly, most of players these days do not enjoy this and prefer rush everything and get all with easy. For this reason we have a pretty fast paced in terms of wars, sieges and battles, while at the same time, the time pace is extremely slow compared to overall game pace, and this brings issues like lategame being pretty boring, features like aging&death being almost non existent in 90% of our campaigns, balance issues like lords having to fight an insane amount of battles per year which increase death chance and makes harder replacements, etc.

TW should decide if they want a slow or a fast paced game, and then apply this to all aspects of the game.

This. It's so weird to me that people complain about having to "grind" in this sort of game.

 

[chinux23]

+1

I'm on the same boat as OP. The late game feels empty. The only thing to do is to battle and repetitive battles. The battle is fun but battle alone and repetitive battles becomes a grind.

I hope the late game could have much more options than just battling. For example,

1. Governing unruly vassals. (Like someone on this thread suggests). Create a power struggle in the kingdom. For example, strongest vassal grows more ambitious and unsettling, plot against current king etc. Weak vassals demand more lands.
2. Build a customized troops for your kingdom.
3. Alliances of weak kingdoms to fight together against strong kingdom. (This will also reduce snowballing effect)
4. Add more economy options and make war much more expensive.
5. Reduce the age of dying to something around 40 years old and half the number of days for each year. This will create more dynamics for a kingdom. For example, each new king needs to gain vassal's trust and may need to overcome rebellion.
6. A political system.

As someone said, the late game should be a different game then early game and mid game. Currently, late game is all about battling.

 

[Warlord123123]

Perhaps a forgein invasaion would be nice addition (if not clique) in late game

 

[klinGiii]

I have mentioned it some times, do you imagine a nemesis system working in Bannerlord? ?

Oh i would love something like this , but just attempting to recreate such a system "could" get you some legal trouble.

Warner filed a patent for the nemesis system