does it feel like this game lacks a soul?

[MostBlunted]

I can't recall one single name of a companion and I can recall caring for any of them, other than their momentary stats

You really forgot the unique background of X the wanderer or Y the swift?

I loved Z the healer with 1 int stat!



Random and handcrafted companions together would the best option. But I guess it´s too late for that. Handcrafted companions do need "some" work while those random generated companions don´t. That´s why we get stuff like X the surgeon with 1-2 int.

 

[WhyAmIHere]

Not only does the game world feel dead and soulless, it goes out of its way to remind you how dead and soulless it is at every opportunity.

 

[Sanctumm]

I see this about wanting a "soul" experience in games - not just with Bannerlord. Its always the same - People just forget that smart AI / Deeplearning is not implented in games (yet)
Only a soul can give another soul what it longs for - There is a huge development in making the AI actually intelligent and not have the brains of an ant.
This is a war simulator - a scripted movie - The story is always the same - IF you feel you lack soul then turn off your PC and go have human interaction - face to face - I literally mean this.

With AI deeplearning, games would be able to interact with you and not just stand there as a doll with pre scripted.
If would create its own moments with you on the side, showing you "soul" - But that is games for the future ^^

Until then - Less QQ more PEW PEW
Enjoy it for what it is

I would also like to see people evolve in the game - Like people in towns growing old and getting family - getting into fights - going Rogue etc. etc.
I dont know if you can prescript every persons life and give them RNG on how to evolve

Time will tell what will be ^^

 

[Mad Vader]

Random and handcrafted companions together would the best option. But I guess it´s too late for that. Handcrafted companions do need "some" work while those random generated companions don´t. That´s why we get stuff like X the surgeon with 1-2 int.

Agreed that the combo is the best.
It's not too late for many things because they are very easy to do:
- improving the stat templates for generated companions
- adding handcrafted (unique) companions that behave in the same way as the generated ones
What is non-trivial, but still easy compared to almost any other feature is adding additional dialogs that might be triggered by circumstances and serve to distinguish a companion from the rest.
Someone in TW just needs to sit in front of a computer for a few days and do it. This probably doesn't happen because this is not on their todo list or is at the bottom of it.

I see this about wanting a "soul" experience in games - not just with Bannerlord. Its always the same - People just forget that smart AI / Deeplearning is not implented in games (yet)

There are decades' worth of games with a "soul" that say you are wrong.

 

[stevehoos]

It's a poorly designed game unfortunately, there is not much any of us can do about.

 

[MostBlunted]

It's not too late for many things because they are very easy to do:
- improving the stat templates for generated companions
- adding handcrafted (unique) companions that behave in the same way as the generated ones

Sure, it would be easy to fix the stat templates like anyone with "the surgeon / the healer" should at least have 4+ int. But TW doesn´t seem to bother and because it is an easy fix I don´t think they will do it in the future.

Same goes for better dialog options. They haven´t cared for a year why should they start caring now? I mean just hire a freelancer writer to come up with some stuff. There are even modders who will do (and have done) it for free .

There are a lof of small things that could be improved easily but nope. Like "improve" the AI in that way that it doesn´t only start a siege when it calculates that the winning chance is >99% so we can finally have siege battles. So many "minor" stuff that would lead to a better game expirience.

Better focus on "bug" reports from players who don´t understand that more troops on the battlefield mean a worse performance on their potatoe PCs .

Also their todo list may look like:

1. Release the game as EA
2. ???
3. Profit!

 

[babelfisch]

That

"I have a quick question"
"Never mind"

is still in the game is just laughable, why even have that option? :p

Early Access.

I know that people will ridicule me for saying it, doesn't change the fact that it's true though.

 

[redmark]

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

Was Jeremus an 'unforgettable icon' because his backstory was significantly more interesting? - or because he appeared in every playthrough, for every player and therefore was a 'shared' experience?

Regardless - the best solution will clearly be for a combination of generated and crafted companions, with the latter provided by mods if not vanilla.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Yeah, the only reason people remember Jeremus was because he is insanely overpowered. Using mechanics to get you to like characters is a good thing imo and much better than just using backstories, but warbands writing was just as bad as bannerlord's.

 

[danEN]

It's a poorly designed game unfortunately, there is not much any of us can do about.

Who's surprised really, seeing how much they've prioritised making the game suitable for consoles and that market of players it was always forced into being a battle royale era game. Sadly it's very obvious they focused on making the game accessible for the fortnite morons and in turn gutted any chance for Bannerlord to be a masterpiece.

 

[Akka]

There's something about the never ending war loop that makes it very robotic and un-immersive. There is no feeling of "What is the enemy doing?" because they're doing the exact thing they were doing before you beat them down 5 minutes ago.

True. The development has focused on systems until now, and while I agree it's the most important thing to first have a solid foundation to build on and as such working systems before flourish, I'm worried that such tunnel-vision carries the risk of forgetting it's just a foundation, and what you build upon it is more important and requires "how it feels" beyond "how it works".

In warband I would sometime wake up worries like I had slept to late and missed something..... then remembering it's a SP game! I would try to make a guess as to where the enemy was and go searching and if I didn't find them I would race back to my most vulnerable area. Bannerlord doesn't feel like that because it's so perpetual, load game walk five feet , enemy parties all over trying to raid or watching an enemy siege their fiefs, zombie army slowly making it's way toward another location. It's the exact scene over and over.

I at least partially blame the map about that. It's so constrained that it funnels everyone in the same few narrow pathways, so it's not like the enemies CAN even surprise you.

 

[babelfisch]

You really forgot the unique background of X the wanderer or Y the swift?

I loved Z the healer with 1 int stat!



Random and handcrafted companions together would the best option. But I guess it´s too late for that. Handcrafted companions do need "some" work while those random generated companions don´t. That´s why we get stuff like X the surgeon with 1-2 int.

Agreed, it shouldn't be too much effort though. If we are aiming for a similar level to Warband a single person could probably create 10 companions with unique background stories within one day.

 

[Tacostrom]

Yes it does feel like the game lacks soul. Hopefully they're cooking something up that we might see in 8 years or so.

 

[a_ver_est]

All NPC has more or less the same dialogs options without no matter which kind of relationship you have with them, you brother or wife will tell you more or less the same than your worst enemy. Casual NPC like peasants, villagers, etc are just dumb. And what you do in the world no changes almost anything...

So yes, everything is flat as a table...

The sad thing is that the relationship system is in place, so adding dialogs, scenes, etc to let the player has feedback shouldn't be that difficult.

 

[Yukmouth++]

The game is soulless because some of the core non-war mechanisms of Warband were left out. In Warband you felt in a lively world, your relations with lords meant something. An attachment grew towards some particular lords that followed you multiple times into battle, and you felt by their generated dialogs that they were truly your friends.

"Greeting Yukmouth, i will never forget when we fought together to get Aster Castle"

You felt a growing friendliness and alliance with certain lords which made you care for them. I would go out of my way and literally sacrifice a fraction of my army in order to defend a friend lord. On Bannerlord ? I dont give a ****, let the Khuzait or Battania kill them on the battlefield for all i care, they're just some dude with 0 personality and who doesnt give a crap about me even though i just saved them on the battlefield.

Courting a lady felt like a true seduction course of action. You had to cancel your plans when Milady asked you to visit her in the next few days. You had to work you way inside her bedroom. You had to learn poems or music in order to impress her and show her you are a sophisticated man.

Being invited to feasts in which you could talk to some lords and get some quests from them. A moment of peaceful time where there wasnt war all over the kingdom.

Since war wasnt constant, castle sieges felt impactful. When a castle was siege, the defenders werent scattered all over the world in different armies, more often than not they were nearby, patrolling. And when a castle was successful sieged, it then had to survive months of constant sieging because the defeated kingdom want their fief back.

Warband felt more organic, made more sense, was more social, more interaction with AI.

 

[vonbalt]

I see this about wanting a "soul" experience in games - not just with Bannerlord. Its always the same - People just forget that smart AI / Deeplearning is not implented in games (yet)
Only a soul can give another soul what it longs for - There is a huge development in making the AI actually intelligent and not have the brains of an ant.
This is a war simulator - a scripted movie - The story is always the same - IF you feel you lack soul then turn off your PC and go have human interaction - face to face - I literally mean this.

With AI deeplearning, games would be able to interact with you and not just stand there as a doll with pre scripted.
If would create its own moments with you on the side, showing you "soul" - But that is games for the future ^^

Until then - Less QQ more PEW PEW
Enjoy it for what it is

I would also like to see people evolve in the game - Like people in towns growing old and getting family - getting into fights - going Rogue etc. etc.
I dont know if you can prescript every persons life and give them RNG on how to evolve

Time will tell what will be ^^

It's not about perfect AI but about meaningful choices and memorable moments and characters, bannerlord has the backstory but it's lacking all those things implemented in-game, it managed to be worse than warband in this aspect which we all could excuse being a 10+ year old game but that had mods the fix those issues.

Wars have no meaning and diplomacy is a simple "ape strong attack, ape weak make peace", there tons of interesting background stories and intrigues we learn talking to lords in the initial mainquests but then... nothing, no character reacts to anything personally, they are all robots without personality, Derthert is that gallant king tired of his rebellious vassals and? the game does nothing with it, same way the Sturgian royal house has a feud with his greatest vassal and once again nothing comes from it in game.

Other features in the game are the same, they have an interesting premise but lack meaning, depth, everything.

Honestly i thought they would learn from that, from the mods and even from the amazing DLC TW themselves assisted in creating, Viking Conquest to the limitations of warband's engine did all it could to implement meaningful and memorable choices/features/characters.

 

[Lord Irontoe]

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

So true. The one remotely interesting companion in the game is Radagos, and he's only with you for one mission

 

[vonbalt]

So true. The one remotely interesting companion in the game is Radagos, and he's only with you for one mission

yup, only interesting companion in the game and it's temporary, they could easily have made Azargos/Istiana another companion based on your choice in their quest, no need to remove the random companion that are cool but a few handcrafted ones would add a lot of character to the game.

 

[Midnitewolf]

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.

To be honest, I feel that way with all Sandbox type games. In my opinion, the "Soul" of a Sandbox game tends to be what you give it. For example, I assign all sorts of roleplay reasons to why my character does things. Right now for example, I am about as perfectly positioned to form my Kingdom as you could be. I have 2 Cities and 4 castles all clustered in a near perfect position, however, my current liege hasn't given me a reason to tell him to screw up and start my own Kingdom so from a roleplay perspective I am prevented form doing this. To put it simple, you have to create my own story or "Soul" in a Sandbox and I don't think everyone is capable of doing that.

 

[method man]

To be honest, I feel that way with all Sandbox type games. In my opinion, the "Soul" of a Sandbox game tends to be what you give it. For example, I assign all sorts of roleplay reasons to why my character does things. Right now for example, I am about as perfectly positioned to form my Kingdom as you could be. I have 2 Cities and 4 castles all clustered in a near perfect position, however, my current liege hasn't given me a reason to tell him to screw up and start my own Kingdom so from a roleplay perspective I am prevented form doing this. To put it simple, you have to create my own story or "Soul" in a Sandbox and I don't think everyone is capable of doing that.

I suppose you're right that we give games their soul. Based on others' responses, however, my problem seems to be that Bannerlord makes it hard for me to do that. Look at Rimworld: that is a sandbox with mechanics that make storytelling in a playthrough easy for anyone. The solution would be for BL devs to develop mechanics that help people tell their stories; the game world needs to interact with players in a way it doesn't right now.