The Problem:
I've been playing the Mount and Blade series since 2012 and while i've thoroughly enjoyed every title in the series, it always felt like there's something missing from the series. So the other day I spent some time analysing Bannerlord's gameplay mechanics, especially by comparing Bannerlord with other open world games that i also really enjoyed, such as Battlebrother, the witcher 3, dragon's dogma and the elder scrolls series. And then it occurs to me, the problem that i have with Bannerlord is too much time spent in the campaign map, and not enough time for action on the ground.
This issue is particularly prominent in early and mid game where the player is limited to grinding the arena and the looters repeatedly, and even then the player has to spend lots of time on the campaign map trying to dodge larger bands of looters while having a hard time catching up to smaller bands of looters especially now with the reduced movement speed in latest beta branch 1.5.7 update. So for the very early game you're basically restricted to grinding the arena which gets repetitive very quickly, and more importantly from a game design perspective, the arena does not allow you to use weapons or armor that you bought and equipped on your character.
So why's this a problem you say, well it's a problem because Bannerlord has superior graphics and physics engine compared to Warband from 8 years ago, but if you spend the majority of your gameplay on the campaign map then the experience you get out of Bannerlord is essentially no different than what you'd get out of Warband. The campaign map might be filled with beautifully crafted villages and castles but you rarely have a reason to visit these scenes in person. Most of the time you click on the npc you want to talk to from campaign map and when you're done you press tab to exit.
The solution:
So the solution I'd suggest is quite simple - instead of adding more villages to the campaign map to alleviate the 'emptiness' of the map, the devs should consider adding places like dungeons, caves and ruins, populated by different types of enemies, say about 5-10 in each scene. This could give the player an Elder Scrolls or Dark Souls-like experience.
And perhaps other quest locations can also be added, such as "Somebody's Farm", "Somebody's Mill", "Somebody's Manor" and so on, where thieving or npc rescue quests can play out, similar to the jailbreak quests we already have.
In a way dungeons already exist in the game in the form of bandit's hideouts, but the game treats bandits as a faction, so every time you try to clear out one of these you're forced to fight through hordes of bandits that are camped inside the hideout. But this is not how banditry works in the real world. Bandits, due to the nature of the 'work' they do, seldom trust each other, and so each band of bandits usually has separate leaders and you rarely see army sized bandit groups in real life, because of their mutual distrust towards each other. And if a bandit group ever has the luck to get to army size, it usually tends to become the local warlord, which in Mount and Blade terms would be equivalent to the lords and kings in the game.
So basically I'm advocating more bandit hideouts with smaller parties inside, and perhaps some of these hideouts can be tied to quests.
The player should also be able to construct his own base camp to garrison units inside. Units garrisoned inside the base camp should charge reduced wages. This way the game can also make distinction between ordinary units and companions, in that companions are willing to join you on your personal adventures, whereas dragging Sturgian Spearmen or Imperial Catapharacts into bandit's cave should reduce party morale, because such adventures are not part of a typical mercenary soldier's contract.
Furthermore, mercenary clans that are currently in the game should also get their own homebase camps, to make it easier for the player to find them. From a logical perspective this would also make sense because mercenary warbands aren't Mongol hordes. They spend the majority of their time in barracks, have to grow crops and cook just like villagers, and they probably also go to the nearby town for drinks and recreation every now and then, just like miners and construction workers in our own time. Mercenary bands should only travel in horde mode when on campaign. The same should apply to the player's warband - The player should not be running across the map with a 75 men strong party all the time. A companion party of 10 to 12 makes far more sense for most trips.
Edit: just realised I'm not alone in wanting these features. Here's another post on the forum giving similar suggestions https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/campaign-map-needs-more-interactive-features.437731/
I've been playing the Mount and Blade series since 2012 and while i've thoroughly enjoyed every title in the series, it always felt like there's something missing from the series. So the other day I spent some time analysing Bannerlord's gameplay mechanics, especially by comparing Bannerlord with other open world games that i also really enjoyed, such as Battlebrother, the witcher 3, dragon's dogma and the elder scrolls series. And then it occurs to me, the problem that i have with Bannerlord is too much time spent in the campaign map, and not enough time for action on the ground.
This issue is particularly prominent in early and mid game where the player is limited to grinding the arena and the looters repeatedly, and even then the player has to spend lots of time on the campaign map trying to dodge larger bands of looters while having a hard time catching up to smaller bands of looters especially now with the reduced movement speed in latest beta branch 1.5.7 update. So for the very early game you're basically restricted to grinding the arena which gets repetitive very quickly, and more importantly from a game design perspective, the arena does not allow you to use weapons or armor that you bought and equipped on your character.
So why's this a problem you say, well it's a problem because Bannerlord has superior graphics and physics engine compared to Warband from 8 years ago, but if you spend the majority of your gameplay on the campaign map then the experience you get out of Bannerlord is essentially no different than what you'd get out of Warband. The campaign map might be filled with beautifully crafted villages and castles but you rarely have a reason to visit these scenes in person. Most of the time you click on the npc you want to talk to from campaign map and when you're done you press tab to exit.
The solution:
So the solution I'd suggest is quite simple - instead of adding more villages to the campaign map to alleviate the 'emptiness' of the map, the devs should consider adding places like dungeons, caves and ruins, populated by different types of enemies, say about 5-10 in each scene. This could give the player an Elder Scrolls or Dark Souls-like experience.
And perhaps other quest locations can also be added, such as "Somebody's Farm", "Somebody's Mill", "Somebody's Manor" and so on, where thieving or npc rescue quests can play out, similar to the jailbreak quests we already have.
In a way dungeons already exist in the game in the form of bandit's hideouts, but the game treats bandits as a faction, so every time you try to clear out one of these you're forced to fight through hordes of bandits that are camped inside the hideout. But this is not how banditry works in the real world. Bandits, due to the nature of the 'work' they do, seldom trust each other, and so each band of bandits usually has separate leaders and you rarely see army sized bandit groups in real life, because of their mutual distrust towards each other. And if a bandit group ever has the luck to get to army size, it usually tends to become the local warlord, which in Mount and Blade terms would be equivalent to the lords and kings in the game.
So basically I'm advocating more bandit hideouts with smaller parties inside, and perhaps some of these hideouts can be tied to quests.
The player should also be able to construct his own base camp to garrison units inside. Units garrisoned inside the base camp should charge reduced wages. This way the game can also make distinction between ordinary units and companions, in that companions are willing to join you on your personal adventures, whereas dragging Sturgian Spearmen or Imperial Catapharacts into bandit's cave should reduce party morale, because such adventures are not part of a typical mercenary soldier's contract.
Furthermore, mercenary clans that are currently in the game should also get their own homebase camps, to make it easier for the player to find them. From a logical perspective this would also make sense because mercenary warbands aren't Mongol hordes. They spend the majority of their time in barracks, have to grow crops and cook just like villagers, and they probably also go to the nearby town for drinks and recreation every now and then, just like miners and construction workers in our own time. Mercenary bands should only travel in horde mode when on campaign. The same should apply to the player's warband - The player should not be running across the map with a 75 men strong party all the time. A companion party of 10 to 12 makes far more sense for most trips.
Edit: just realised I'm not alone in wanting these features. Here's another post on the forum giving similar suggestions https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/campaign-map-needs-more-interactive-features.437731/
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