Many on these forums, including me, have made threads whose purpose is compiling negatives of the current state of the game and expressing our wishes regarding implementation of possible future features. I myself have made many such threads or comments, on the matters of RPG dialogue elements, courts, noble titles, courting ladies, banner designs, removing the bandit/player level scaleup, lack of manhunters, kingdom features and so on. I think it is time to take a look at what steps were made from WB to BL that were in my opinion of utmost importance to gameplay, and what they suggest about the future of the game.
1) Clan, family and dynasty system. Many may be surprised that families do exist in Warband, but they are not of actual relevance in any aspect other than marriage. I think it is a big step up from WB. The ability to make children, see them grow, educate them, and ultimately play as them if you are patient enough (thanks to the very good design of 80 days per year, 20 days per season) is a most commendable feature. They appropriate the looks of you and the other parent and through education you give them the needed skills and prepare them for the world. What it might imply for the future is that it might be good to add relation boosts to the family you are marrying into at least. If proper succession laws are ever implemented, your sons and daughters might one day even be kings or queens. Also, the ability for people to break off and make their own clans might be good to evaluate at some point (the "CHARACTER_NAME's Clan" is a good system of naming IMHO). Deaths of AI/AI battles and AI on AI/AI on player executions would also make for a good feature.
2) The concept of policies and influence. This sets a really good template for future addons. Even though influence as a currency could be substituted for actual physical actions (for example, talking lords out of voting for someone instead of paying 400 influence in the kingdom screen), it still is immersive and a cool workable concept. Kingdom policies that give you certain benefits as a ruler and vassal is very necessary. Also if you are a weak king and lords push through policies or if you are an influental king and rule by yourself is really good for gameplay value. It would be good to look into the concept of a revolt if you spend all your influence as a ruler blocking noble proposals. Once you reach a threshold, the nobles would appoint an anti-king (the highest influence person in the highest tier clan) to set up as king, while clan heads that you have highest relations with stay loyal to you. There are leftover civil war mechanics left in the code similar to this, and I think implementing it would be beneficial, for the player and for the AI kingdoms (that could also suffer a civil war). Even some warband mods had civil war mechanics. Also, court in the capital.
3) The concept of settlement projects. Even though the prospect of building castles and fortifications of villages (as well as villages being capturable points by themselves) was abandoned quite early on, it is still something to be included among the concepts that are necessary for the game. Upgrading your walls for example (and seeing them physically upgrade in the scene) is something that lacked in vanilla Warband and most mods. It might be good for some sort of castellan npc to be implemented upon completing the Castellan's office project, and for him to be used alongside the governor as means of expanding the details of the settlement projects, such as to set a tax level, but such options might also be done through talking to the governor. If anything, setting up the castellans office would produce a castle notable from who you could recruit noble troops instead of going through the recruitment process through village notables.
4) The notables and the actual dynamic economy/caravan/production system. Now this was one feature of debate. Many of the forum users argued that setting price caps or setting fixed prices of items would improve the quaility of gameplay. Some even wondered why such an intricate economy system was being kept behind the scenes while some other features were painfully simplified. I for one enjoy the economy system dependent on village production and caravans, and caravans being tied to specific merchant notables instead of the generic "guild master" from Warband. This allows for building of insanely more personal relations with specific NPCs and towns, while raiding villages, killing farmers and destroying caravans really does make an impact on town economies during war time. And not just ones inside a warring factions, but other ones as well, as the goods do not reach their destined cities. What I would like to see here though is a ton of balancing. Really just a ton of balancing. So to get rid of the smithy-economy or organising weddings to steal armour. Also, it would also be good for the player to have an ability to order a weapon from the smith, like notables can currently order weapons from the player.
I would appreciate if you said if you agree, disagree or if I missed something that might be included on the list. Constant negativity really does make a forum toxic, so I invite everyone to say what features they would like to see implemented or what do you find very good that was implemened in BL that was missing in WB.
1) Clan, family and dynasty system. Many may be surprised that families do exist in Warband, but they are not of actual relevance in any aspect other than marriage. I think it is a big step up from WB. The ability to make children, see them grow, educate them, and ultimately play as them if you are patient enough (thanks to the very good design of 80 days per year, 20 days per season) is a most commendable feature. They appropriate the looks of you and the other parent and through education you give them the needed skills and prepare them for the world. What it might imply for the future is that it might be good to add relation boosts to the family you are marrying into at least. If proper succession laws are ever implemented, your sons and daughters might one day even be kings or queens. Also, the ability for people to break off and make their own clans might be good to evaluate at some point (the "CHARACTER_NAME's Clan" is a good system of naming IMHO). Deaths of AI/AI battles and AI on AI/AI on player executions would also make for a good feature.
2) The concept of policies and influence. This sets a really good template for future addons. Even though influence as a currency could be substituted for actual physical actions (for example, talking lords out of voting for someone instead of paying 400 influence in the kingdom screen), it still is immersive and a cool workable concept. Kingdom policies that give you certain benefits as a ruler and vassal is very necessary. Also if you are a weak king and lords push through policies or if you are an influental king and rule by yourself is really good for gameplay value. It would be good to look into the concept of a revolt if you spend all your influence as a ruler blocking noble proposals. Once you reach a threshold, the nobles would appoint an anti-king (the highest influence person in the highest tier clan) to set up as king, while clan heads that you have highest relations with stay loyal to you. There are leftover civil war mechanics left in the code similar to this, and I think implementing it would be beneficial, for the player and for the AI kingdoms (that could also suffer a civil war). Even some warband mods had civil war mechanics. Also, court in the capital.
3) The concept of settlement projects. Even though the prospect of building castles and fortifications of villages (as well as villages being capturable points by themselves) was abandoned quite early on, it is still something to be included among the concepts that are necessary for the game. Upgrading your walls for example (and seeing them physically upgrade in the scene) is something that lacked in vanilla Warband and most mods. It might be good for some sort of castellan npc to be implemented upon completing the Castellan's office project, and for him to be used alongside the governor as means of expanding the details of the settlement projects, such as to set a tax level, but such options might also be done through talking to the governor. If anything, setting up the castellans office would produce a castle notable from who you could recruit noble troops instead of going through the recruitment process through village notables.
4) The notables and the actual dynamic economy/caravan/production system. Now this was one feature of debate. Many of the forum users argued that setting price caps or setting fixed prices of items would improve the quaility of gameplay. Some even wondered why such an intricate economy system was being kept behind the scenes while some other features were painfully simplified. I for one enjoy the economy system dependent on village production and caravans, and caravans being tied to specific merchant notables instead of the generic "guild master" from Warband. This allows for building of insanely more personal relations with specific NPCs and towns, while raiding villages, killing farmers and destroying caravans really does make an impact on town economies during war time. And not just ones inside a warring factions, but other ones as well, as the goods do not reach their destined cities. What I would like to see here though is a ton of balancing. Really just a ton of balancing. So to get rid of the smithy-economy or organising weddings to steal armour. Also, it would also be good for the player to have an ability to order a weapon from the smith, like notables can currently order weapons from the player.
I would appreciate if you said if you agree, disagree or if I missed something that might be included on the list. Constant negativity really does make a forum toxic, so I invite everyone to say what features they would like to see implemented or what do you find very good that was implemened in BL that was missing in WB.
