Truthfully, Viking Conquest mechanics translated to Calradia would be a 100/10 game. This one not so much
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well, I called it hot garbage for a reason. It'll please the newcomers as novelty for a little while, than the game will get abandoned by most.
It offers poor loop, zero re-playability, zero depth and lacks on every single aspect, including the questionable removal of basic little things that were present in WB - yet BL was done "professionally" while WB was more "indie"... No excuses will ever be able to amend my disgust towards their handling of the entire affair. I was threading on a line and waiting to see what would come with the release, knowing it would probably be this.
Conclusion is: they've lost a long time fan - probably forever.
It's never a good feeling to be right about something like this. lol
Yeah, I think we we're all a bit let down at first. My expectation was, I think the same as many people here, that Bannerlord would be Warband + Better engine + Top 5 mods integrated (like a fleshed out diplomacy).
But I haven't played Warband as extensively as most people here, and haven't played it in a long, long time. So for myself, I can easily take Warband out of the equation.
And truth be told, Bannerlord (without comparing it to Warband) for me, is now a good game.
It has reached a certain level of stability we wouldn't think possible two years ago and is now an actually enjoyable gameplay experience. And I'm playing unmodded so far.
Would you rate BL in higher esteem if you kept WB out of the equation?
These people still using warband are laughable, Bannerlord does 95% of things better than warband, and they are upset about the 2-3 small things it doesnt. I also think these features should be improved upon, but it really doesnt justify calling bannerlord bad/worse for.
Bannerlord is overall a much improved mount & blade /warband and the features "missing" has a corresponding feature which is usually better and more in depth in bannerlord. With exceptions that you cannot learn poems possibly...
RozBritanicus
Sergeant
I am not really interested in criminal activities, but everyone seems mad for it. I would like better dialogue paths and more meaning roleplay and Intrigues between clans and kingdoms. Also let rebel factions form kingdoms and expand if they had the strength this would increase the playtime and make each playthrough unique. Also, i am not a fan of smithing would be nice if i could assign a companion to it and give him matrials and money and let him do it on for me.
five bucks
Knight at Arms
To me, what makes a "good game" is being challenging, fair, varied, and (in this type of game where part of the appeal is its world) immersive.
Challenge - Even on Bannerlord difficulty, the challenge to your skills or decision making abilities is lacking. Most quests are pretty simple fetching affairs, most enemies are easy to dispatch, avoiding fights you know you won't win is a no brainer, the right decision is usually pretty obvious when you are presented with choices in quests or troop recruiting or policies, etc. Bannerlord has a lot of grinding the same easy tasks and time wasting by moving slowly on the world map in place of actual challenges which are satisfying to complete. The challenge only spikes (hard) at the beginning of the kingdom phase, then falls back to easymode at the end of the kingdom phase as you steamroll the remaining 50% of the map that will never beat you.
Fairness - There should be a direct link between the player's skill at using the gameplay mechanics as intended, and their success in the game. Bannerlord fails to replicate this. Your skill in combat has little impact in 1000 man battles, though it does at least in tournaments. Your skill in politics has little impact when building relations and personalities mean nothing and everyone votes the same way. Your skill in decision making doesn't mean much when most quests are linear affairs. Tactical skill is meaningless when the best strategy (spam Khan's Guard, or failing that, spam ranged units with small amount of trash infantry) is blatantly obvious and works in every situation, plus your AI opponents don't use any interesting tactics anyway, plus morale doesn't do anything.
You are frequently hamstrung by the actions of the allied AI, who can unfairly drag down even a really good player and slow their progress, unless the player uses exploits to get around this. Sometimes you will be completely screwed over by RNG, eg trying to sneak into a town.
Variety - A good game should have variety in the challenges you face. Bannerlord has visual variety but lacks gameplay variety through the course of a playthrough.
Early game: you fight looters to grind clan rank, do a few interesting quests with actual choices and many boring linear fetch/kill quests, do hideouts that all play the same, ignore the quests that have terrible cost/benefit ratio, look at inventory/troop menus, and spend hours moving slowly on the map.
Mid game: you fight looters and small parties to grind clan rank, join sieges that all play out pretty similarly, do many boring linear fetch/kill quests, engage in votes that all go the same way, look at inventory/troop/fief menus, and spend hours moving slowly on the map.
Late game: You fight spam armies, join sieges that all play pretty similarly, turn down dumb votes ad nauseum, look at inventory/troop/fief menus, and spend hours moving slowly on the map.
5 out of the 8 factions are "generalist" factions that feel the same to fight against because they field all the same troop types with no specialties or weaknesses. All lords (and to an extent companions) are just reskins of each other because traits don't change their behaviour. All kingdoms are almost reskins of each other.
Immersion - Bannerlord does well in terms of visuals and sound, but falls down in its gameplay mechanics which are full of hugely unrealistic or silly things that ruin the world they're trying to create. Armour-piercing arrows, adamantium shields, getting randomly voted the ruler of a faction for no good reason, Merciful lords running around burning down villages, siege towers actually being worse than siege ladders, policies with no downside that lords will vote against as a hivemind anyway, marrying someone resetting their relation to 0 so they look at you with total disinterest while saying "it's so lovely to see you my husband", killing 10000 enemy troops and taking their every fief only for them to demand tribute from you, the list of immersion breakers is very long...
Yes, because then BL would be the only game of its kind (assuming we're putting M&B 1 under the WB heading, and ignoring the downright scam-tier copycats like Freeman). That would make a lot of flaws acceptable because nobody would know it can be done better.
I will also say that Warband is certainly not perfect and has many of the same problems as Bannerlord, sometimes to a lesser or greater degree.
But when Warband was made 10 years ago by a much smaller team, and yet functions a lot better in many aspects, it raises questions why Bannerlord is the way it is after a decade of development.
Here is what Warband does better:
* War/peace declarations, casus belli, and diplomacy.
* Companion backstories, interactions, and stats. People enjoyed the stories of Rolf or Jeremus and you could turn them into elite warriors, but nobody cares about "#Name# the Swift" and usually random wanderers have garbage stats that take ages to improve.
* Importance of relation in voting and recruiting/keeping vassals.
* Ease of finding people without having to travel for hours looking for them.
* The player interacting with the game world directly in scenes, rather than through menus.
* AI kingdoms dying off when defeated, rather than getting magical armies and attacking the player forever.
* Tactics being a useful skill in the actual battlefield and determining how many troops you could spawn.
* Rewarding raiding.
* Medicine being a useful skill.
* Lords' personalities having a notable effect on their gameplay behaviour.
* Armour that actually worked more realistically against arrows/bolts, letting you survive nearly double the amount of hits as in Bannerlord. Also, shields that went down in a more reasonable/realistic amount of hits.
* Not getting thrown randomly in jail after a failed sneak attempt, actually being able to fight your way out.
* Fighting bandits, drunks and assassins in town, mixing up gameplay without taking away campaign time to do so.
* Troop trees that were very distinct from one another, with clearly defined strengths and weaknesses making it feel very different fighting, say, Nords vs Swadians.
* Music that didn't feel like you were listening to the same 3 songs on constant loop. (Bannerlord has a great OST but it overuses the same small handful of songs)
* Manhunters to curb excessive bandit spawns and add life to the game world.
* Feasts that added immersion, convenience and roleplaying options and mixed up gameplay.
* Being able to buy skill boosts.
* Being able to challenge lords to duels.
* Being able to battle within the streets of a city against an enemy that fought back.
Name the corresponding features.
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BL vs WB shouldn't be comparable, but I wouldn't say it is 95% better.
The issue is those 'missing' features are not replaced by corresponding features of worth or of actual depth.
We've already discussed the issues with all the features they've implemented ad nauseum and there's not point considering they've been ignored for nearly 2 years and they just gone ahead with the 'full release' anyways.
But BL is significantly harder to RP in compared to WB and I think that's all that matters - particularly with the single-player aspect.
It just feels like a platform engine was made (buggy af), and then a bunch of silo/departmentalized devs just slapping on features willy-nilly that don't make sense with each other collectively (no cohesive game design direction). With the added bonus of additional crashes/bugs they cause, then the criticism on how to improve said features or add some flesh to them are just ignored and they only deal with the crash portions and just move on with yet another shallow feature.
I knew they were going to add banners at the very last update to mark the 'banner'lord release, at the same time, I knew it is as shallow as it turned out; and missing a ton of QoL.
Lore Is less connected with the game in bannerlord than warband.
For example when you pass near a village Rolf will comment that the king of Swadia forbidden hunting in that forest and now It Is full of bandita. There Is a forest and It Is the spawn point of forest bandit.
Bannerlord has more lore text but totally disconnected.
Embers of the flame that wait for the return of the holy emperor? Happy to enlist with barbarians that want to crush the empire.
Lake rats that lure ships to ambush them? What ships?
3 Imperial factions? No differences. Not speaking about troops but also political differences.
For example when you pass near a village Rolf will comment that the king of Swadia forbidden hunting in that forest and now It Is full of bandita. There Is a forest and It Is the spawn point of forest bandit.
Bannerlord has more lore text but totally disconnected.
Embers of the flame that wait for the return of the holy emperor? Happy to enlist with barbarians that want to crush the empire.
Lake rats that lure ships to ambush them? What ships?
3 Imperial factions? No differences. Not speaking about troops but also political differences.
What's laughable is how some die hard fans of Bannerlord are ready to die on that hill and are willing to ignore things most people wouldn't. There's a reason Warband is viewed the way that it is viewed, because at the end of the day, it's a fun trip. Whereas Bannerlord ultimately feels like a chore.
And there is quite literally only a handful of things I can say Bannerlord "does better" than Warband, and not a one of them makes it a better game than Warband. Those things are: graphics (but that's not important to me anyway), larger modding flexibility than Warband and marriage/death/child system. Everything else? No.
And Bannerlord is bad because it's bad. There's no depth, any features implemented are implemented poorly and do not interact well with each other, there's no life to the NPCs or any reason to do anything that involves them, clans are really annoying, constantly battling annoying AI making it tedious, poor war decisions, diplomacy and peace options, lack of charming features that add immense depth because "its hard/not our vision", such as feasts (which are extremely popular to the audience and highly demanded), a boring and tedious crafting system that impairs more than it will ever help, raiding feeling like a chore, sieges being dookey, really ****e balance (especially with armor), troop formation and orders being dog ass, and of course the music that sounds like royalty free music making walking around or even listening to the game a headache.
Any new features Bannerlord does add, is in no way comparable to the features we don't have that we did have in Warband, which helped to make the game far better even despite its own flaws.
five bucks
Knight at Arms
Yeah minor factions are a massive offender for this.
Last Legion, Skolderbroda and Ghilman are like these super ultra elite warriors in lore - oh they only go up to T4.
Hidden Hand are a criminal mafia organisation right? Nope, they just do mercenary work.
Warband had a rotating number of spawns for bandits, same as BL. Sometimes that forest was empty. It was just random chance.
War/peace. Bannerlord better. Can actually vote, and player can decide unlike in Warband. Theres tribute, theres actual reasons for war/peace (for example them taking land, being in other wars etc). Nothing warband did better here, just worse. It had no diplomacy at all almost, it had "treaties" which meant cant declear war for 30 days which made no sense. And player faction could never even use that.
Companions: Backstories are as interesting in Bannerlord. To me, not at all. But you might remember warband ones because you read them 100 times unlike in BL, but they arent better, basically 100% same. Stats, wdym, basically same. Companions have way more important roles in Bannerlord as well. Interactions- the same except 1 thing warband had and that is comments about eachother.
Importance of relation in voting. Bannerlord has this. Unlike in warband, its also more in depth in bl. You mustn't love it or even like it, but it's more in depth. I can't convince you to prefer it but there are no arguments for why warband was better in that regard (same for your other points).
Ease of finding people. Bannerlord easier. Less immersive though. Look it up in encyclopedia. Map is just larger so takes more time.
Interaction in scenes rather than menus. I am for immersiveness, against all the menus in bannerlord. But most players aren't and hated having to manually go in to each scene every time for villager elder or artisan and praised mods that fixed this. The option is still there in BL.
Ai kingdoms. In warband they got way more magic troops than in BL. In BL they just wont die off because they have no settlements, rather clans desert and youll have the kill the last ones. Imo change for better. otherwise one could sacrifice all to conquer last castles/towns, leave them with no garrison and the kingdom becomes defeated few days after even if have hundreds of soldiers.
Tactics. Way more useful in bannerlord for autoresolve, and way more useful in battle as well because of perks. Warband battles were tiny, why that worked, feels you wanna go back to 150 battles lol
Raiding makes more sense in BL. Early game its rewarding. In Warband it was OP af, letting you buy top tier gear if they have 1-2 spice in the village lol. In bannerlord it has a diplomatical and economical reason, tied to settlement economy, loyalty and war tribute.
Medicine? wtf my man, have you ever played bannerlord? medicine is super useful. same as in warband + having perks which just make it better as all skills.
Lords personalities. There were like 3 presets everyone had. They had no significant impact on behavior no. Mostly dialogue and relation to you. In bannerlord it also affects relation to you (honour, traits etc.)
Armour. Try BL. They updated this half a year ago. Imo armour is way too OP now but people (that complained like you) like it. Shields have directional shield blocking making them better. Wider range of them as well, that argument makes no sense.
Fighting off sneak attempts. Finally one where I can kind of agree. Feature "missing" from BL. But it was also way too OP in warband, too easy to beat guards once used to it and makes no sense you can wander around free in town after that, when you are king and have 1k troops outside, and town has 500 garrison not caring...
Bandits, drunks and assassins. Here is one I 100% agree on. Tiny features, but random encounters are missing from BL. Could be improved upon.
Troop trees. Very subjective, I can tell you that most seem to prefer Bannerlord, having more troop types and trees, noble line as well as all factions having access to some level of decent infantry, archers and cav. Armies are still well distinct enough in BL while making sense and being fun to play, so you can focus on 1 culture without having to sacrifice having no cav at all.
Music. Omg glad you brought this up, ive been complaining about this for 2 years and nobody seems to care wtf. The amazing soundstracks I never hear ingame? Warband music was also getting repetetive but in bl I really do only hear 2 tracks ever, since they've made it so region based while map being huge.
Manhunters. meh, made no sense to me. didnt "add life" really. you have minor clans/mercenaries which are way better.
Buying skill boost is such a bad gameplay mechanic imo. So easy to get money. Skill & perks in bannerlord are way better than they even came close to in warband even with mods.
"Being able to battle within the streets of a city against an enemy that fought back."
Unsure of what you mean? Sieges? Same in BL?
You didn't even bring up the usual ones such as feasts and deserters wow
I think BL is easier to roleplay overall. As in merchant, mercenary, vassal, bandit etc. Or keeping to 1 culture. Or being merciful, merciless etc.
I dont think banners addition was shallow though? That's actually one of the only features post early access release that surprised me that they've given care and time to implement properly. How else would you liked them to be? They are actually exactly how I hoped in my mind theyd be, but thought wouldnt see. Actually having purpose except visuals/immersion, system for banner bearers and troops picking it up after they fall.
What did suck and was shallow was the custom banner creation that I do think lol
I can't agree. Some games focus too much on graphics without it really bringing up the quality of the game, but in this case the improvement from the poor graphics of warband undeniably for me makes the game more enjoyable and immersive, not that I think its such a great point of what makes bl the better game, graphics improvement is to be expected.
Physics is another such improvement which is even more important imo. Just these two things make it very hard for me to go back and enjoy warband again. Physics makes the battles so much more fun, which is the most important point. The battles in BL are just so much more fun. Same basics, yet 10x better for me. The graphics, physics, troops, commands, melee ai, battle ai, maps, improved spears, shields etc. Let's include superior way sieges in to this to not drag that out.
There wasnt any more "life" to npc's in warband, end of discussion. At least they have facial expressions and now voice lines in bannerlord. "Clan's annoying" wow, very convincing. Constantly battling annoying ai, what else could you do in warband? or mean to say you preferred the ai of f1+f3 over actual bannerlord tactics? Poor war decisions according to you, at least decisions are based off things instead of rng. Bannerlod has diplomacy, warband has none. warband "feasts" and "immense depth" in the same sentence, oh my. Play warband a couple of hours, and then bannerlord a couple of hours.
That's understandable, to be honest. I'm in an extreme minority. Graphics, quite literally, do not matter to me. The only time I find myself wishing for something different is if it induces my motion sickness, but the graphics itself have never been a problem. I do admit compared to today's standards, Warband is really, really bad looking, but it reminds me of N64 or Sega Dreamcast, which I find the graphics of to be charming...so Bannerlord's obvious upgrade in that department has never really been a huge selling factor.
Ah, yes, that's true. Physics. But to be honest, I sort of cramped the graphics and those such things into the same department under "graphics", but I agree. The physics are better. I do not think that commands, melee, AI, battle and sieges are all that better, though. It actually feels worse in many cases because of the new engine. Like things are messier now that they can technically be smarter, and yet they still don't make good decisions (for AI for example).
I disagree. There certainly was more life to NPC Warbands. I'm not saying they were some award winning characters. They most certainly were not. But comparatively? They were way better than Bannerlords, even if they had really funny mishaps or grammar problems. You could be "charmed", so to speak, by a Warband lord. Remember his ways, his words, his behaviors...but Bannerlord doesn't have that. No one cares about anyone because all of the characters are bland and lifeless, and because of that, feel exactly like 5 others. There's no incentive to get to know there, there's not even incentive to roam their towns or anything.
And I've got hundreds and hundreds of hours in Warband on GOG, with about hundred or so on Steam (not my favorite platform). I don't think I need to play Warband more to understand it better, I think you (and others that share this opinion) need to understand what's being said better. Warband is not a masterpiece, far from it, but those things like feasts were really popular for a reason. Warband lords are popular for a reason. The game itself is highly praised, for a reason. And yes, comparatively speaking, Warband has richer depth than Bannerlord. At this point, I think that stupid camel meme about Bannerlord release is cared about more than any of the lifeless husks in Bannerlord. Even if Warband didn't have facial expressions, and I can't believe that's something crucial to people, even to overlook soulless, boring NPCs in Bannerlord...but apparently it is?
And yes, I do prefer it. Why? Because it worked better (again comparative). I actually really liked what Bannerlord was trying to do with its new tactics command window, but in the end, it failed to deliver. Like with most of its other new or "improved" mechanics. Although I hope they nail it down in the future, I doubt they will. As it is now, it makes it annoying to set things up and issue commands, and that's on top of the really **** AI not doing a good job. It's not to say Warband's mechanic was flawless, just simpler, so it worked better. And what do you mean, "constantly battling annoying AI"? You do realize that's still a comically present issue in Bannerlord right? If that's something you can't even admit to, there's a problem here.
That's understandable, to be honest. I'm in an extreme minority. Graphics, quite literally, do not matter to me. The only time I find myself wishing for something different is if it induces my motion sickness, but the graphics itself have never been a problem. I do admit compared to today's standards, Warband is really, really bad looking, but it reminds me of N64 or Sega Dreamcast, which I find the graphics of to be charming...so Bannerlord's obvious upgrade in that department has never really been a huge selling factor.
Ah, yes, that's true. Physics. But to be honest, I sort of cramped the graphics and those such things into the same department under "graphics", but I agree. The physics are better. I do not think that commands, melee, AI, battle and sieges are all that better, though. It actually feels worse in many cases because of the new engine. Like things are messier now that they can technically be smarter, and yet they still don't make good decisions (for AI for example).
I disagree. There certainly was more life to NPC Warbands. I'm not saying they were some award winning characters. They most certainly were not. But comparatively? They were way better than Bannerlords, even if they had really funny mishaps or grammar problems. You could be "charmed", so to speak, by a Warband lord. Remember his ways, his words, his behaviors...but Bannerlord doesn't have that. No one cares about anyone because all of the characters are bland and lifeless, and because of that, feel exactly like 5 others. There's no incentive to get to know there, there's not even incentive to roam their towns or anything.
And I've got hundreds and hundreds of hours in Warband on GOG, with about hundred or so on Steam (not my favorite platform). I don't think I need to play Warband more to understand it better, I think you (and others that share this opinion) need to understand what's being said better. Warband is not a masterpiece, far from it, but those things like feasts were really popular for a reason. Warband lords are popular for a reason. The game itself is highly praised, for a reason. And yes, comparatively speaking, Warband has richer depth than Bannerlord. At this point, I think that stupid camel meme about Bannerlord release is cared about more than any of the lifeless husks in Bannerlord. Even if Warband didn't have facial expressions, and I can't believe that's something crucial to people, even to overlook soulless, boring NPCs in Bannerlord...but apparently it is?
And yes, I do prefer it. Why? Because it worked better (again comparative). I actually really liked what Bannerlord was trying to do with its new tactics command window, but in the end, it failed to deliver. Like with most of its other new or "improved" mechanics. Although I hope they nail it down in the future, I doubt they will. As it is now, it makes it annoying to set things up and issue commands, and that's on top of the really **** AI not doing a good job. It's not to say Warband's mechanic was flawless, just simpler, so it worked better. And what do you mean, "constantly battling annoying AI"? You do realize that's still a comically present issue in Bannerlord right? If that's something you can't even admit to, there's a problem here.
Try 1v1 against Ai in warband and bannerlord. In bannerlord against high tier/high skill npc, as those have better ai.
Battle Ai. In warband the tactic is hold back, and then charge, except for khuzait which always charge.
In bannerlord there are actual tactics especially if the battle is more even.
Sieges, really? I mean yeah still with issues, but warband was such a grind that got boring after first/second siege. in bannerlord the ai (even with the flaws), the catapults, breaking wallks, more ladders, battering ram, siege towers, even keep battle is better.
Warband/bannerlord npcs basically same level of depth, almost none, but few variations. only difference is of course in BL you have 10x the nobles without having more variation. and because of the amount of ones, you interact with each less obviously and thats why you dont remember them.
No, the point is that comparatively warband has way less depth than bannerlord, that's an objective fact. You can like warband, you can even prefer it to bannerlord (i just find it very weird, unmodded), you can say that bannerlord should be more better given its 10 years later or critize it for its flaws. but saying warband is a better game again, for the very few tiny features is outright a stupid argument and statement when bannerlord does so many things better. I didn't even mention those really, I feel like you should know if you ever played bannerlord.
Tactics didnt fail to deliver. More options for commands which are useful and work well, nobody complains. Sure could be even more improved, but objectively provides everything from warband plus more. Tactics ai, same thing. Not perfect, but at least its there, and at times its actually very impressive and immersive. and 100% its at least better than in warband.
"Constantly battling annoying ai" what do you mean, you mentioned it first... no I do not know of such issue or what you can mean by that really.
If you've played so much warband, even recently, then maybe you've barely played bannerlord. dont know what else that could be making you so ignorant about the differences.
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