My concerns about the approach of TW to feature additions and their prioritisations

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Also found a well-written recent reddit post on the same topic.

Oh, I thought that here in the forums, we were the only ones who picked up torches and pitchforks.

We complain about the same things, so we are probably identical twins or something. Here's my theory why TW ignored Warband mods in Bannerlord design.
I totally agree with your theory sir. In SP it is disconcerting and at the same time heartbreaking, however in MP it is blatant.
 
I think it is an improvement over the base-game of Warband. It's unfair to compare modded features since Warband has had so many years with its modding community while Bannerlord? Roughly a year?

Features/Ideas I find that are interesting and keep me around playing Bannerlord

. Life and death, dynasty system.
.Better sieges - anything is better than vanilla Warband sieges. You can build siege engines
. Rebellions
. Quality of life features, for example, seeing the number of troops an opposing kingdom has. An entire encyclopedia that is more intuitive than the tabs in warband. More information. There are many more I don't want to list here
. Larger battles and decent graphics for the number of troops on the screen
. More development options
. Smithing (even doe its broken)
. Army system - much better than just random lords running close together like in Warband.
. Worldmap is larger and more expansive it seems
. Better battle scenes. Warband had auto-generated terrain which was good and bad. Sometimes you would get very ****ty battlefields to fight in
. Better battle command is spilt between lords. So you can control the archer formations while another lord takes command of infantry
. New recruitment system
. Upcoming terrain system
. Upcoming keep battles
. Morale is actually more present. Routs are more common which is realistic
. The greater modding potential down the line
. And much more I don't want to sit here writing this out for an hour

I like Warband and Bannerlord. I think it's unfair to compare both games but yet people do it and just ignore all quality of life features that Bannerlord offers. The reason why everyone and myself likes Warband so much are because of the multiplayer/singeplayer mods which have been developed for years.

Bannerlord is definitively is flawed like vanilla Warband and obviously needs criticism. But bashing it nonsensically seems kinda unfair in my eyes.
@DrunkOnGlory I comletely agree with you.
I have been reading a lot of negative comments trough different threads and posts and I feel like most of those posters are loosing sight of the whole potential of Bannerlord.
Developpers are actually making a great job, the game is already fun, with a lot of replayability. That's a fact!
It is non sense to believe that TW will not finalize the main core features (Siege AI etc...).
There is no doubt that they are considering the Mod community as well, and I truly believe that they will provide a great base for all the modders.
When you see what had been done with warband (TLD' s immersion, Brytenwalda's rougness and brutality), I can't imagine the awsomeness that will overwhelm us in the coming years.
 
Developpers are actually making a great job, the game is already fun, with a lot of replayability. That's a fact!
New users gonna be new users, I guess. Look: if you're having fun with what's there now, good on you. I hope you'll enjoy the game for a long time still. That does not mean, however, that the developers are "making a great job". Instead, TW is dead-set on creating a game that seems, to put it mildly, to not take into account the community's feedback (and if it does, it's at the bottom of the list, which means somewhere 2-3 years from now it may happen).
 
New users gonna be new users, I guess. Look: if you're having fun with what's there now, good on you. I hope you'll enjoy the game for a long time still. That does not mean, however, that the developers are "making a great job". Instead, TW is dead-set on creating a game that seems, to put it mildly, to not take into account the community's feedback (and if it does, it's at the bottom of the list, which means somewhere 2-3 years from now it may happen).
Well I agree that I'm a "new user" but not a "new player".
I have played hundred of hours on warband (vanilla and modds).
Bannerlord comes from warband but it is NOT warband, and this is why TW is making a great work.
Keeping a steady direction to give a true identity to the game doesn't mean they are dead-set.
And as I said, it will be a great base for all the modders. No doubt about that.
Seriously, why so negative?
 
Seriously, why so negative?
  1. Multiplayer was dead on arrival, after TW had been told it would be for the entirety of the alpha and beta. Our concerns and suggestions to improve it were straight up ignored or dismissed, and now we have far more people playing Warband MP than Bannerlord MP.
  2. Singleplayer is basically Warband looking slightly better, a few new features, and a bunch of features missing. None of the essential improvements made to Warband by mods (like Diplomacy or Freelancer) have made it into the game, and TW is utterly silent on whether they'll be included. But hey, board game improvements!
  3. TW has systematically refused to publish their plans for the game. No-one in the community has any idea at what point TW actually considers the game to be done. Sure, they'll post some vague outlines of what they'll be trying to implement in the next month or two, but they've never ever listed "this will be in the final game. This will not be. This might make it", etc.
    • At best, this means TW is paranoid of sharing their plans, in fear of... community backlash I guess? Which they've already been getting the full brunt of for a year and a half, so that's kind of moot.
    • At worst, this means TW themselves don't even have a lock on a set of features for 1.0, and the priority of those features. This is amazingly awful project management on so many levels, and would also explain why it's taken 9 years to Bannerlord to be as mediocre as it is now.
  4. AI is slightly improved in some areas, and is somehow even more brain dead in other areas. How a game that's been in development for 9 years manages to not even equal the AI of a 14 year old game in areas is beyond me.
So yeah, I'm negative. And like I said, I'm sure we'll have something pretty good in a few years. But the fact that it's taking years more to get there, and that TW's priorities while getting there are asinine, makes me think Bannerlord is a failed product.
 
Bannerlord comes from warband but it is NOT warband, and this is why TW is making a great work.
Keeping a steady direction to give a true identity to the game doesn't mean they are dead-set.
And as I said, it will be a great base for all the modders. No doubt about that.
Seriously, why so negative?
When you take a look at the reddit post mentioned above (also at the end of the OP), which of the ideas presented there do you think would be bad for the game? Do you find the game without those ideas immersive and living? Does any announcement from TW (also considering previous patch notes) hint us that they will ever be added or there are plans for it?

Most of the immersion related areas of the game are left untouched so far. As a result, people fear that TW has no plans for these things.
 
  1. Multiplayer was dead on arrival, after TW had been told it would be for the entirety of the alpha and beta. Our concerns and suggestions to improve it were straight up ignored or dismissed, and now we have far more people playing Warband MP than Bannerlord MP.
  2. Singleplayer is basically Warband looking slightly better, a few new features, and a bunch of features missing. None of the essential improvements made to Warband by mods (like Diplomacy or Freelancer) have made it into the game, and TW is utterly silent on whether they'll be included. But hey, board game improvements!
  3. TW has systematically refused to publish their plans for the game. No-one in the community has any idea at what point TW actually considers the game to be done. Sure, they'll post some vague outlines of what they'll be trying to implement in the next month or two, but they've never everlisted "this will be in the final game. This will not be. This might make it", etc.
    • At best, this means TW is paranoid of sharing their plans, in fear of... community backlash I guess? Which they've already been getting the full brunt of for a year and a half, so that's kind of moot.
    • At worst, this means TW themselves don't even have a lock on a set of features for 1.0, and the priority of those features. This is amazingly awful project management on so many levels, and would also explain why it's taken 9 years to Bannerlord to be as mediocre as it is now.
  4. AI is slightly improved in some areas, and is somehow even more brain dead in other areas. How a game that's been in development for 9 years manages to not even equal the AI of a 14 year old game in areas is beyond me.
So yeah, I'm negative. And like I said, I'm sure we'll have something pretty good in a few years. But the fact that it's taking years more to get there, and that TW's priorities while getting there are asinine, makes me think Bannerlord is a failed product.
  1. I will not speak about MP because I didn't play that much. I leave it to you.
  2. I think we are in a position where you see the cup half empty, and me half full. But basically we are speaking about the same thing. Bannerlord is an improvement of warband. With plenty of other new things (making armies, be given orders while in army, giving orders while leading an army, being a mercenary party etc...). Warband vanilla itself was ok, it went to another stage once great mods arrived (Freelancer is a great reference, thanks).
  3. Well, I can see that you are more emotive than me about this game. I find TW communication really good with a clear planning published by Duh. And we have good surpise too, just like the terrain system addition.
  4. AI is far from being finished for sure. But do you really think they will not improve it?
I understand your disappontment but saying that it is a failed product is not right.
 
When you take a look at the reddit post mentioned above (also at the end of the OP), which of the ideas presented there do you think would be bad for the game? Do you find the game without those ideas immersive and living? Does any announcement from TW (also considering previous patch notes) hint us that they will ever be added or there are plans for it?

Most of the immersion related areas of the game are left untouched so far. As a result, people fear that TW has no plans for these things.
I never said that community ideas were bad. I said that TW has a vision too, and it is better to not lose it.

TW is keeping the discussion opened, grabbing some ideas here and there, considering the possiblities and eventually implementing it. It is a healthy and constructive process.

Did you see the whole effort done by the community and the devs to balance out the snowballing issue? mexxico did a great job and was really transparant.
But it doesn't mean that he is the only one in TW working and willing to improve the game.

You may not agree with me, but the way we play is also part of the immersion.
I never use the alt key during battles, just because it is too easy to know the ennemy's troop and position.
I go alone, spot them with the risk being attacked, then come back to my troops to organize them. Really immersive, especially in forrest and village.
 
I think it is an improvement over the base-game of Warband.

Features/Ideas I find that are interesting and keep me around playing Bannerlord

. Life and death, dynasty system.
.Better sieges - anything is better than vanilla Warband sieges. You can build siege engines
. Rebellions
. Quality of life features, for example, seeing the number of troops an opposing kingdom has. An entire encyclopedia that is more intuitive than the tabs in warband. More information.
. Larger battles and decent graphics for the number of troops on the screen
. More development options
. Smithing (even doe its broken)
. Army system - much better than just random lords running close together like in Warband.
. Worldmap is larger and more expansive it seems
. Better battle scenes. Warband had auto-generated terrain which was good and bad. Sometimes you would get very ****ty battlefields to fight in
. Better battle command is spilt between lords. So you can control the archer formations while another lord takes command of infantry
. New recruitment system
. Morale is actually more present. Routs are more common which is realistic
. The greater modding potential down the line
I like Warband and Bannerlord. I think it's unfair to compare both games but yet people do it and just ignore all quality of life features that Bannerlord offers.
Bannerlord, in its current state, is not an improvement over the basegame of Warband, it's an expensive sidegrade. It does a handful of things better, especially visuals; but a lot of things worse.

Bannerlord is currently missing from vanilla Warband:

* civil wars and claimants
* feasts
* handcrafted companions
* in-depth lord dialogue and the ability to order them to attack/defend a location without you
* deserters
* manhunters
* having to fight your way out in civilian gear when failing to sneak into a town
* prison break quest (this is announced but not in the game yet)
* political quests and denouncement quests
* deeper courtship
* lord duels
* skill books
* sword sisters
* keep battles (announced, but not in the game yet) and street battles
* "And much more I don't want to sit here writing this out for an hour"

And has the following problems relative to vanilla Warband:

* Worse combat + pathfinding AI/navmeshes - for example spear cavalry being horribly inaccurate in charges, or units forgetting their primary weapon exists, or mass scale jittering, or troops refusing to use the ladders during a siege, or going up a siege tower in a way that completely negates its strategic usefulness, or superhumanly accurate troops in inappropriate situations where they should be missing, or archers being unable to see cavalry units that are just slightly too far away, troops being terrible at defending themselves, etc
* Worse overworld strategic AI - lords make way more dumb decisions- and no casus belli. In Warband you would see kingdoms give basic reasons for attack such as "(Y) is declaring war to curb the power of (X)" or "peasants complain they are mistreated by (X) and appeal to (Y) for protection, giving them provocation to attack (X), if they want it." Overworld strategic AI is probably the place Bannerlord has made the most progress since launch but is still flawed.
* Worse economy balancing - high tier armor not spawning because cities are perpetually too poor to produce it, or castles not giving reasonable tax so they have no reason to exist, for example
* Worse combat/damage balancing - for example even the highest tier armor in the game offering extremely little damage protection
* Less distinct factions, with 5 out of the 8 factions in the game all being "generalist" factions with almost exactly the same types of troops that don't feel different to play at all. And since the 3 factions in the middle of the map are all cloned, your armies tend to look very Empire troop-heavy too. So replaying the game as different factions feels more samey than Warband.
* Lots of town/castle/field scenes still aren't made, and there is still placeholder dialogue.
* Bannerlord memory leaks can sometimes cause horrible performance issues.
* More buggy than Warband, obviously because it's still in EA.

Re: your points:

* The dynasty system brings nice roleplaying but little gameplay value as of yet- children are just companions that take an incredibly long time to be useful, and an heir is just a worse version of yourself, and if you bother to play a game long enough for you to take control of your heir, by that point you should have almost conquered Calradia already and have no enemies left to fight. Dynasty system will be a good addition to the game if they add more enemies for the player to fight in the endgame (civil wars or invasions).
* Half of the new Bannerlord siege features don't actually work yet- such as siege towers being strategically useless or troops ignoring the front door. Warband sieges were just one ladder/tower but at least they properly used it, damn it! Also you hardly ever get to experience defensive sieges in Bannerlord.
* Bannerlord's field battle scenes are better crafted than the random ones it's true, but on the flipside there is a tiny number of them compared to the endless variety of the Warband random system, so I'd call that a wash. Will be a straight pro once they finish adding scenes.
* Development options are a partial reskin of the removed village/town improvement options, which you used to be able to do for every fief.
* The army system is basically just a quality-of-life fix of Warband's marshall system, I would list it under your general heading of "quality of life changes."
* Morale in Bannerlord isn't really an improvement since in both BL and WB, it doesn't make a difference until the battle is basically already won, 99% of times.
* Other lords taking control of your troops would be a nice feature if their AI wasn't garbage! Right now it's a downside, not a positive.

Do I think Bannerlord might one day be a direct improvement of vanilla Warband if TW gets their act together? Yeah.
Is it a direct improvement on vanilla Warband now? No.
 
  1. I will not speak about MP because I didn't play that much. I leave it to you.
  2. I think we are in a position where you see the cup half empty, and me half full. But basically we are speaking about the same thing. Bannerlord is an improvement of warband. With plenty of other new things (making armies, be given orders while in army, giving orders while leading an army, being a mercenary party etc...). Warband vanilla itself was ok, it went to another stage once great mods arrived (Freelancer is a great reference, thanks).
  3. Well, I can see that you are more emotive than me about this game. I find TW communication really good with a clear planning published by Duh. And we have good surpise too, just like the terrain system addition.
  4. AI is far from being finished for sure. But do you really think they will not improve it?
I understand your disappontment but saying that it is a failed product is not right.
I'm speaking mostly as someone who expected a lot more from the game, and as someone who works in a very similar field. If I were to communicate to the customers of my company the same way TW communicates to their users, I'd be replaced pretty quickly. That, next to the fact that the game had been hyped and developed for 8 years before release makes the current state of the game inexcusable to me. I can see how it's a fun game for you and I'm sure many others (mainly SP players), and yeah SP isn't awful. To me, however, delaying dedicated servers (and all MP mods by extension) until after the full release, and many other 100% wrong decisions which I've detailed in the past make this a failed product in my eyes.

Also:
"I find TW communication really good with a clear planning published by Duh. And we have good surpise too, just like the terrain system addition." Talking about what you'll be doing the next few months is not good communication; it's the bare minimum. Again, I'll grant that Duh is doing a better job at it than the MP team is on that end, but so long as TW refuses to tell us what the game will look like when it's done, they're not communicating well enough.
 
I'm speaking mostly as someone who expected a lot more from the game, and as someone who works in a very similar field. If I were to communicate to the customers of my company the same way TW communicates to their users, I'd be replaced pretty quickly. That, next to the fact that the game had been hyped and developed for 8 years before release makes the current state of the game inexcusable to me. I can see how it's a fun game for you and I'm sure many others (mainly SP players), and yeah SP isn't awful. To me, however, delaying dedicated servers (and all MP mods by extension) until after the full release, and many other 100% wrong decisions which I've detailed in the past make this a failed product in my eyes.

Also:
"I find TW communication really good with a clear planning published by Duh. And we have good surpise too, just like the terrain system addition." Talking about what you'll be doing the next few months is not good communication; it's the bare minimum. Again, I'll grant that Duh is doing a better job at it than the MP team is on that end, but so long as TW refuses to tell us what the game will look like when it's done, they're not communicating well enough.
Your sentence is resuming the feeling of a lot of negative (frustrated) posters.
I remember the moment Bannerlord development was announced years ago, I decided on that time to not follow the development until recently.
Main reason is that whatever could have been announced during early development, everything was subject to change in time.
The only thing we can blame on TW's communication is that they unwillingly(?) made a too high hype around their game. :wink:
 
Sorry, is this a joke ?

I'm convinced this guy works for TW or is a developer on another account. Anyone saying they think TW has done a great job communicating is either being disingenuous or willfully ignorant of reality. I mean this guys thinks Bannerlord is a great product in a great state.....LOL
 
I'm convinced this guy works for TW or is a developer on another account. Anyone saying they think TW has done a great job communicating is either being disingenuous or willfully ignorant of reality. I mean this guys thinks Bannerlord is a great product in a great state.....LOL
I can imagine that some people would see Bannerlord as a great product. It depends on tastes and expectation and the ability to not notice some glaring flaws. It's at least believable.

But someone claiming TW has a great communication when it's their single worst aspect ? Nah, that just looks like being purposely contrarian.
 
Okay so I can already make a list of negative comments and personal attacks just because I see things in a different way:

I’m joking
Taking some new drug
Working for TW, part of some conspiracy maybe…
Disingenuous
Willfully ignorant of reality
Ability to not notice some glaring flaws
Being purposely contrarian

And the list will be longer after a few days…

Don’t you think that you are just over-dramatizing the current state of the game and its development?
 
Okay so I can already make a list of negative comments and personal attacks just because I see things in a different way:

I’m joking
Taking some new drug
Working for TW, part of some conspiracy maybe…
Disingenuous
Willfully ignorant of reality
Ability to not notice some glaring flaws
Being purposely contrarian

And the list will be longer after a few days…

Don’t you think that you are just over-dramatizing the current state of the game and its development?

Its not that you are just "seeing things in a different way". Its the fact that what you are saying is demonstrably inaccurate regarding communications from TW. But keep trying to play the victim card.

And no. The state of the game is abysmal after a year in EA, and completely failed to meet community expectations.
 
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