Recent content by five bucks

When are we going to see fixes for the biggest issues that are preventing gameplay from being fun? Stuff like:

* Voting being useless because nobles vote almost unanimously, making the whole politics and influence system nearly irrelevant (except for exploits)
* Relation with lords, one of the core systems of the game, doesn't do anything useful
* Having to slog your way through boring, easy battles/sieges to win a campaign, adding another 20 hours of not fun to your playthrough, because nobles/garrisons never surrender even when outnumbered 5000 to 1, and autocalc battles punish you by killing off troops at random
* Tactics being extremely simplistic and boring because ranged troops are very OP, because armour gives terrible protection against arrows, so the best tactic every single time is to have a ****ty distraction for your ranged troops to mow down

These 4 biggest issues turn a potentially challenging, thought-provoking, fun game... into a boring grindfest that feels like a painful chore to complete.

Are Taleworlds totally tonedeaf to these issues? How can they play their own game, look at these core systems not working, and say "yep that looks right"... For 2+ years?

As it stands, enthusiasm for Bannerlord has largely died off because Taleworlds forgot to make the game not a frustrating experience to play.

Dejan said:

Hey, do you have any specific features in mind?

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Fixing, balancing, and completing non functional/partially functional/severely imbalanced features such as
* Voting
* Surrendering
* Minor factions
* Policies
* Lord relations
* Personality Traits
* Armour + weapon balance
* Morale

Missing Warband/Devblog features or some kind of equivalent that fulfills their gameplay role:
* Claimants and civil wars (announced, but no ETA)
* Replay system (announced, but no ETA)
* Nobles visiting your court, or something else like a messenger system that makes it easy to contact people when running a kingdom
* Minor faction bases, as seen in the 2016 demo
* Manhunters
* Feasts in peacetime!
* Duels against nobles, surprise combat scenarios in towns (eg: bandit ambushes or belligerent drunks)
* paying to gain levels in a skill more quickly (skill trainers or skill books)
* Fighting your way out after failing to sneak into a town

OmegaDude60659 said:

Is there any kind of an estimate for console/ps5 launch of the 1.2.0 patch? Solely waiting on the aging disable before investing loads of time back into the game. It's the only thing stopping me, a buzzkill really. I just want some kind of rough eta, or a "we're almost ready, etc."

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Getting ETAs out of Taleworlds is like getting blood out of a stone. Good luck, and for future reference I would strongly recommend PC as the best way to play games.

The engine is fine. It's a battle simulator that can host thousands of troops with individual AIs, it's not meant to have the graphical fidelity of games where there's only a few enemies at a time. Honestly this game can look really good sometimes.

And don't forget that development started in ~2013, so of course the engine is not going to be the newest on the block.

Where Bannerlord needs work is in its gameplay balance and design, not its graphics.

+1

What balance changes or fixes would you guys like to see in the next patch?

The problem is not that Bannerlord doesn't have value for money. It does. It's crammed with stuff.

The problem is that the many features don't work properly due to balance/big/design issues, so the game isn't fun.

It's like buying a gourmet hamburger with Wagyu beef packed full of ingredients, but the meat patty is still raw.

Armour balance, spear and glaive balance, pike bracing, voting, personality traits, lord relations, minor factions, morale, troop AI, companion leveling... All these features and more are present, but still "uncooked".

Ulfhedinn_ said:

A mechanic where I can join the minor factions!

A mechanic where mercenary minor factions can sell warriors from their roster.

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That would be fantastic. Also, mercenary minor factions which are described as elite warriors, like the Skolderbroda and Ghulam and Legion and Company of the Boar, should really have T5 troops.

It's ridiculous that they're described as these super highly trained rich badasses who love combat and fighting is their whole life, but they don't even go up to T5 let alone T6.

Ulfhedinn_ said:

A mechanic where outlaw minor factions can buy my outlaw prisioners.
A mechanic where outlaw minor factions can trade various black market products.

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Something that makes Hidden Hand, Lake Rats, Wolfskins, Eleftheroi, Jawwal, Brotherhood, Karakhergit etc., feel like the criminals that they are supposed to be would be great.

Ulfhedinn_ said:

They need bases

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Agreed. Minor faction bases were actually shown on the world map in the 2016 demo yet for some reason are not in the final game.

They would be perfect as a location for minor factions to stock up on their own troops, considering that most of the time minor factions have hardly any of their unique troops and just use normal troops.

It would also be good to have these bases as a location to hire minor factions as mercenaries without having to chase them down, or to directly recruit their troops, or perhaps to complete issue quests for them to raise relations.

Keldar said:

um yeah except with the new maps my game is crashing when it wasn't before. Its apparent to me that there are a lot of dev apologists, defenders etc who are either blind, deaf or stupid... possibly all 3.

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I am certainly not a dev apologist, I've been criticising TW's failures for 2 years. What I am doing is pointing out facts: that these features are not expanding the scope of the game unnecessarily, but instead fixing existing features so that they work properly. It is not smart to criticise them for that.

Keldar said:

You know, maybe instead of adding new crap you fix the garbage that is the base game first. Disgusting.

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Rain was something that was already in the game, they just fixed it. Warehouses is something that was already in Warband and helps make the broken economic system a bit better. The additions were good.

High Solar said:

@Duh_TaleWorlds I think it should be in your current priorities. Right now during this stage of the game v1.2.0 and 1.2.1 no matter which faction you join, it all boils down to recruit soldiers and fight, fight, fight. Dont get me wrong the battle are good, animations are amazing, balance could maybe kinda do some tweaking, but everything other than wars and battles is falling really flat. Like the best part of the game is waging wars and battles, and even that can become repetitive.

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The main reason battles become repetitive is because you never really need to use tactics other than "spam ranged units with a token force of trash distraction infantry and watch them mow everything down". That tactic beats everything.

This is why armour needs to be fixed to give actual protection against arrows! Morale should probably do something too, right now it's a pretty pointless mechanic.

High Solar said:

All NPCs are the same doesnt matter that their looks are different and have "different culture" and "personality"(which does nothing), they are all the same, bland and shallow.

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Also yes, Personality Traits should actually do something.

kyle_usmc said:

Clan relation can get cheaper marriages or defections, other than that it's useless. They say if notables like you they will offer higher troops execpt they do that anyway, I routinely recruit tier 3 and 4 without worry about relationship at all

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And having max relation only makes the detection 5% cheaper, so yeah it's pretty useless in every regard, despite being a key game mechanic.

TW's recent addition of formation targeting means we can now hone in on specific formations which is good for intelligent tactics.

saittam said:

Whats the lodgic in this?

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Any mods?

Gadheras said:

It seems like the "promises" perk also applies for bandit prisoners in your party. With enough bandit prisoners, no need for food....

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