does it feel like this game lacks a soul?

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I am afraid I have to disagree. Bannerlord definitely has a soul and a very bright one at that, IF you agree with TW's vision of it being a fast-paced action RPG/first-person medieval battle simulator. A lot of people see this and feel this. And this experience is somewhat one of a kind in the entire gaming industry. And I believe this is the reason for the mostly positive reviews on Steam.

However, if you are looking for more, like a lively and immersive medieval sandbox experience. I am afraid you are hugging the wrong tree here. At this point, I am not convinced that TW is committed on that front. We will have to wait for mods for that.
 
Sanctumm said:
Games have no Soul - They are Pixels and Coding - Entertainment - If you feel you lack soul in any ways, then go outside and use some time to charge up your soul :smile:
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You haven't played outer wilds
 
MadVader said:
So basically they need a writer and some NPC mechanics. And maybe the guards need to do a little dance every once in a while.
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Yes, an actual writer not a journalist. Someone that plays games and understand game dialog
 
Revverie said:
Yes, an actual writer not a journalist. Someone that plays games and understand game dialog
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They had the same problem in Warband. The dialogs and other game text looked like a programmer or a dull history buff wrote them.
The problem is ideological. Armagan's thinking was/is "this game is sandbox" -> "writing is not important".
 
MadVader said:
They had the same problem in Warband. The dialogs and other game text looked like a programmer or a dull history buff wrote them.
The problem is ideological. Armagan's thinking was/is "this game is sandbox" -> "writing is not important".
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I don't have the quote, but mexxico said in the player's interview that he realized that people wanted more dialog! It took this much for one dev to realize that? It's really worrying that they didn't even think about it, it's exactly as you say. That kind of ideology when designing hurt the whole game in my opinion, well, in many
 
It needs more meaningful dialog not only more dialog. Each conversation feels the same, just click whatever and continue. That the lords /NPCs don´t feel unique doesn´t help too.
 
Well this is precisely what happened to the companions, in my opinion, one big part of the warband soul. Even if some players say "ahh I don't care about them I will skip all the dialog" it's a complete denial of a truth: Jeremus is an unforgettable icon. I'm not saying "bring back Jeremus" I'm saying the choice of making companions less important and with less dialog was a terrible mistake they should remediate right now, and instead of making ransoms they should have triple the roster of characters they had in Warband to avoid characters getting repetitive. That's because you are forging a relationship with characters and how you relate to them matters through the whole playthrough, it doesn't matter if they can die or not, it matters if they actually had a place in the world the game is set into, if not, why does it matter? Random companions are only good for dying, I can't recall one single name of a companion and I can recall caring for any of them, other than their momentary stats
 
Revverie said:
Well this is precisely what happened to the companions, in my opinion, one big part of the warband soul. Even if some players say "ahh I don't care about them I will skip all the dialog" it's a complete denial of a truth: Jeremus is an unforgettable icon. I'm not saying "bring back Jeremus" I'm saying the choice of making companions less important and with less dialog was a terrible mistake they should remediate right now, and instead of making ransoms they should have triple the roster of characters they had in Warband to avoid characters getting repetitive. That's because you are forging a relationship with characters and how you relate to them matters through the whole playthrough, it doesn't matter if they can die or not, it matters if they actually had a place in the world the game is set into, if not, why does it matter? Random companions are only good for dying, I can't recall one single name of a companion and I can recall caring for any of them, other than their momentary stats
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I like the random companions but i would love if the game had some handcrafted ones too, why not both? they have the perfect opportunity to introduce them in the mainquest for example just like Viking Conquest which had some awesome companions you met in the mainquest with lots of dialogue/backstory, they could get mad at you and leave forming their own parties and at a certain point in the mainquest you had to make a choice about which side to support and a few companions would leave you if you supported the side they didn't liked it was awesome and gave characteristic to them and the game, you couldn't please everyone, they werent mindless robots in your party just for their stats, they didn't even get all along with each other.
 
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method man said:
I feel a strange emptiness. This only happens when I play Bannerlord (and maybe Kenshi, too)
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The difference with kenshi is that the feeling of emptiness and uncanniness is clearly intentional. The game creeps me out and even after some 300 odd hours there are places in the game I'd rather never visit.

I also get the same feeling from the Cossacks series, but in those games the emptiness comes from the sheer cheapness of human life and the uncanniness of the animations and music. It feels like an AI developed it to try and brainwash me into killing my wife and kids. Watching 1000 men get mowed down in seconds by a disembodied cannon is like a mild dose of combat PTSD.

In bannerlord it's somewhere in between and kinda different. Nothing makes any damn sense and you can never ignore the fact that a team of coders made the game rather than it being a world you can suspend your disbelief for. It's an impersonal experience that feels like talking to an AI.
 
danEN said:
Yep. The characters aren't memorable or interesting, the factions aren't memorable or interesting, diplomacy and relationships are non existent, the quests are uninspiring, your character doesn't feel like he has his own story, it's always the same boring story, character development is also uninteresting.

In the end the game is just a war simulator currently that completely lacks any 'moments' that give you the memories we all look for in games

Let us not even mention how they've butchered the multiplayer community's soul.
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On the paper they can be more memorable. Harlaus feast until death was a bug.

What they need Is:
-Characters that fit with their lore, their AI too.
-Some non calradic companion.
-Personal relationship, clan head relationship will have a bigger role like clan relationship now, but personal should have a role too
 
method man said:
I am not trolling here, for the record. When I play the game (singleplayer), I feel a strange emptiness. This only happens when I play Bannerlord (and maybe Kenshi, too). Does anyone else get this feeling? Can anyone explain why that is? This game isn't that different from Warband in terms of the level of 'liveliness,' but I never felt existential dread while playing it. Maybe I'm just getting old, or maybe my standards were lower in 2014 (lol). Curious to see if anyone else knows what I'm feeling.
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yes.
 
Its the AI and their lack of reactions both to the player, other AI and world events (if you can call it that). Imagine going to a movie, some fighting breaks out but nobody really cares if they get shot or not, no one has any real reason to attack anyone else -they just keep doing it over and over without any meaning.

Thats Bannerlord.

I trusted this creator and team so much but they are letting their true colors known that at least on this title they just dont value player immersion -i think they're happy with their new graphics and combat and will just scoff at the lack of immersion as something "the modders will take care of". Its certainly the last title Ill ever auto-purchase from them without question or in early access.
 
Problem for me is that nothing you do feels rewarding or sometimes even noticeable. At some point imagination is no longer enough to sustain the will to load up a save and keep doing the same thing over and over again.

Defeated that 2k strong army? So what? Couple of minutes another one just like it will come marching in, maybe even with the same lords.

Bought that good looking and expensive armor you wanted? So what? Feels good for a few seconds and then you remember it is going to have pretty much no impact.

Got a settlement? Nice, start building stuff that will change some minor numbers and you will barely even notice it. Loyalty or security going down? Recruit a couple of nobodies and put them in the garrison, and don't forget to do those chores for the "notables" who have no personality and won't even remember you.

Want to talk with that hero/lord you never met? Don't bother, he is going to say the same things as the other 50+ you met before.

Finally managed to get skill X to level Y so you can grab perk Z? So what? It will change a couple of numbers and you may not even notice it. Except the trade profit/price color coding, which TW manages to break every odd patch.

Want to recruit companions? Find one in the tavern, skip all the way through the boring and generic background, pay some gold and then either keep it as far away from combat as you can, send it on a caravan or repeat this process every couple of battles.

Managed to start your own kingdom, eh? Ok, now run around doing chores that I will force onto you or face the wrath of the scripted war declarations. Oh, so you managed to complete the task? Ok, I will be back sooner than you think with the same task.
 
Although this thread is a little whingy, the Very High Lander above is onto a good point.

There is a definite lack of decisive pitched battles. Wars are a rolling series of pitched battles rather than the single large pitched battle being the culmination of a campaign that opens the way to a city or complete victory (e.g. Agincourt, Manzikert etc etc), instead a pitched battle leads to another pitched battle and to another. The war is the campaign of repeated pitched battles that allow you to eventually grind your way to a win through attrition.

Occasionally, you have those moments of immense satisfaction, where a single battle opens up an opportunity for rapid gain. I remember once defeating the Asari in a huge battle, an they couldn't reform another army quick enough as I rolled up their entire empire as far as Sanala -3 cities and 4 castles within a few game weeks. I remember it because it's the only time that sort of decisive battle has occurred to me. It was immensely satisfying to build up the right army and see it deployed successfully. My current Sturgian campaign is more typical, where I've been fighting a series of 600-800 sized armies, over and over, and never managing to create enough breathing space in order to conduct a decent siege.

Its a really hard balance though. How do you make pitched battles more decisive without tying on hand behind the AI's back?
 
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