Mainly pondering this on a more conceptual level.
On first glance it sounds cool. You can die! Everyone can die! High stakes, yeah! You just continue as someone else. Like Crusader Kings!
However the problem imo is that the game is conceptually not designed to deal with that in a non frustrating way. At its core M&B is a rogue like. You fight, you loot, you die, repeat, but you always get better stronger and more wealthy to tackle bigger fights. Even as prisoner
The very core of a rogue like is that you do not lose all / most of your progress in one go. And if you have a death meachanic in there, you must not make it RNG.
In Bannerlord now the permadeath is very much RNG. You can survive getting smashed by axes a dozen times only to then get killed by a random stone thrown by a peasant. The same can happen to your companions. This would not be bad if you would not lose hours of hours of progress and tens of thousands of denari in equipment to a coin toss. Companions are rare, finding ones complimenting your skill roster even more so. Them dieing with 50k worth of equipment on top of them being your scout/medic or second in command with the suitable skills to do quests on your behalf grinds down an already grindy game. In short, the loss due to death can be very heavy, while at the same time you also have very little control on how to mitigate risk.
Compare that to XCom or similar. One, you have a roster of soldiers you can rotate through. Part of the management game is to keep a good selection of reserves ready. Two, the gameplay is heavily deterministic, chess board like. You probably screwed up somewhere to get someone killed or at least can imagine how you could prevent it. M&B is a chaotic battle map.Someone randomly getting stabbed with a pitchfork at the ass end of the forest, you can neither notice not control. In battle you can barely control what happens to your own character (particularly when dozens of missiles fly about), let alone anyone else.
Even in CK it is very specific when your character is in mortal danger (don't make him your army commander if he is a wuss!) and also preparing your dynasty for his inescapable death is a core mechanic of the game.
All that takes the sting out of the death.
So I get the basic idea of the death feature, I just do not see the feature well thought through in how it can work within a M&B setting. You would need to add far more features to take focus away from your character and companions and be able to build up alternatives in an organic way. You'd need more control over what your prospective heirs are doing and what equipment they have/inherit.
I also feel the death RNG would need heavy revising. In essence, it needs to become logical and comprehensible why you die that time, but not that other time. But I am not even sure how you'd do that. Heck, maybe you must make it a hard rule that death means death and mitigate by always having spares to respawn as.
Just some rambling thoughts. I do not reject the idea of stakes, but thinking about it I am not really sure if it actually gels with the core game loop of M&B. The problem is not really solved by a checkbox, but is a deeper conceptual question on how the game is supposed to work and generate "fun" and drama. Imo you need a ton of management features first. before it becomes an asset, not just randomness thrown in. Games with death usually have very specific features about them to make death "fun".
On first glance it sounds cool. You can die! Everyone can die! High stakes, yeah! You just continue as someone else. Like Crusader Kings!
However the problem imo is that the game is conceptually not designed to deal with that in a non frustrating way. At its core M&B is a rogue like. You fight, you loot, you die, repeat, but you always get better stronger and more wealthy to tackle bigger fights. Even as prisoner
The very core of a rogue like is that you do not lose all / most of your progress in one go. And if you have a death meachanic in there, you must not make it RNG.
In Bannerlord now the permadeath is very much RNG. You can survive getting smashed by axes a dozen times only to then get killed by a random stone thrown by a peasant. The same can happen to your companions. This would not be bad if you would not lose hours of hours of progress and tens of thousands of denari in equipment to a coin toss. Companions are rare, finding ones complimenting your skill roster even more so. Them dieing with 50k worth of equipment on top of them being your scout/medic or second in command with the suitable skills to do quests on your behalf grinds down an already grindy game. In short, the loss due to death can be very heavy, while at the same time you also have very little control on how to mitigate risk.
Compare that to XCom or similar. One, you have a roster of soldiers you can rotate through. Part of the management game is to keep a good selection of reserves ready. Two, the gameplay is heavily deterministic, chess board like. You probably screwed up somewhere to get someone killed or at least can imagine how you could prevent it. M&B is a chaotic battle map.Someone randomly getting stabbed with a pitchfork at the ass end of the forest, you can neither notice not control. In battle you can barely control what happens to your own character (particularly when dozens of missiles fly about), let alone anyone else.
Even in CK it is very specific when your character is in mortal danger (don't make him your army commander if he is a wuss!) and also preparing your dynasty for his inescapable death is a core mechanic of the game.
All that takes the sting out of the death.
So I get the basic idea of the death feature, I just do not see the feature well thought through in how it can work within a M&B setting. You would need to add far more features to take focus away from your character and companions and be able to build up alternatives in an organic way. You'd need more control over what your prospective heirs are doing and what equipment they have/inherit.
I also feel the death RNG would need heavy revising. In essence, it needs to become logical and comprehensible why you die that time, but not that other time. But I am not even sure how you'd do that. Heck, maybe you must make it a hard rule that death means death and mitigate by always having spares to respawn as.
Just some rambling thoughts. I do not reject the idea of stakes, but thinking about it I am not really sure if it actually gels with the core game loop of M&B. The problem is not really solved by a checkbox, but is a deeper conceptual question on how the game is supposed to work and generate "fun" and drama. Imo you need a ton of management features first. before it becomes an asset, not just randomness thrown in. Games with death usually have very specific features about them to make death "fun".