Recent content by Maroon

Thank you for the continued effort to make our lives easier, Dejan (and the rest of the team of course). I know we're not the easiest to please, but these changes contain several major steps in the right direction, that already help us out in massive ways.

It's been two months since we ramped up the development of Full Invasion 3, and we've been making great progress. Though we're not ready for a public test yet, we figured we'd share some of the features we've been working on so far!

Classic Loadout system​

One of the first orders of business was creating a new way to select classes and equipment in the mod. In the Native module, Bannerlord makes use of a perk based system, in which players select two perks to "customize" a class, leading to only a handful of variations. We were always determined to remove this system in favour of a system more in line with the possibilities in Warband.

While we were working on this, we found out that Bannerlord does not even take a look at the stats of the armour you are wearing! Instead, the class and perk combination completely determines your armour value and movement speed.

The system we made as a replacement for this is currently completely functional, and works just like it did in Warband, with some visual improvements:


Classic Loadout system in action

Basic Invasion system​

In order for us to have an actual game, we of course need an Invasion with an objective! This core system is still under development, but the basic parts (spawning the AI in groups, determining when to spawn which groups, etc) are in place.

There are several improvements in this area that Bannerlord allows us to make compared to Full Invasion 2:

• First and foremost, bots can be divided into formations, which can each have a different goal. While we spawned bots in separate groups in Full Invasion 2, they did always end up in a single blob of animosity. This system allows us to keep groups separate, increasing the strategic difficulty of the mod.
• Banners for bots! Bannerlord supports special banner carriers (well, sort of. It will support them in a future release), which we can use for the bot formations.
• Bannerlord allows us to set actual objectives for bot formations, other than "kill everything that breathes". This means the bots can attempt to destroy certain objectives, capture flags, or attempt to hold points. This greatly increases the variety of ways to play the mod, and has given us a lot of ideas that we're very excited about.
• Bots can make use of actual siege equipment now, which, if nothing else, is just plain awesome.

We've done a lot of work in this area so far, but we're still working on improvements.


A group of bots being transported across the sea, with a view of the Invasion Progress bar.

Invader transports​

One of the more exciting new additions is the use of transport vehicles by bots. These transports are fully destructible, and allow the bots to ride each other around, give them mobile shelter, or allow them transport across a sea!


Invaders attacking using transports

To do before the first public testable release​

There are still quite some features that we want to develop before we create a first public test release. Including these features in the first release will allow us to have a first version that already accurately portrays what the core of the mod will play like.

The following features are still in development, and will need to be finished before we can make a public test release:

• A flag capture system, allowing bots to capture certain areas of the map. This will tie into the "lose" condition of the mod: bots will attempt to capture flags, which will reduce the spawn options of the players (more or less like how the Siege gamemode in Native works).
• A progression system for players, allowing them to improve their equipment and class over the course of the game. We have a unique system in mind for this, quite different from previous editions of the mod, which we're very excited about. We'll create a different article specifically about this at a later point, to fully explain what our plan in this area is.

There are several other small improvements that we're working on in the meantime (better UI, extra equipment options, health restoration, etc), which will also likely make their way into the public test release.


Concept art for the Begotten, a type of demon found in the Arcane Empire.

If you would like to stay up to date with our progress, please join us on our Discord server! We regularly post sneak peeks there of what we're currently working on.

Updated the OP now that we're officially working on the mod!
Here is some footage from the latest closed beta test we ran:

Dejan said:

Modders can now define & add different races like Orcs, Elves,... through the skins.xml file. Custom skeleton support has been added for humanoid characters.

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Will this be possible in multiplayer for player characters at a later stage, or will that remain hardcoded like in Warband? Warband assumes the player character always uses one of the default skeletons (male or female) in multiplayer, and it is impossible to assign other skeletons to them. This severely limits the scope of what is possible in multiplayer. Having the option to change this in Bannerlord would be a massive improvement.

Wulfric said:

You should instead cross out the old expectation dates, rather than replacing them with the new expectations so that people who see this for the first time get the full story. Keep this in mind for the next time in 2024.

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Good idea, updated to add my original estimate.

K700 said:

Dropbox - File Deleted - Simplify your life

www.dropbox.com

FI2 Osiris have bug in troops.txt

Code:

trp_invader_mordor_dead_man_of_dunharrow_b Dead_Man_of_Dunharrow Dead_Men_of_Dunharrow 0 15728640 0 0 37 0 0
  2976 0 2978 0 2980 0 2982 0 223007451985306231415357182726483615059804160 0 2986 0 2988 0 2990 0 2992 0 2995 0 2997 0 2999 0 3001 0 3003 0 3005 0 3007 0 3009 0 2314 0 2318 0 2320 0 2322 0 2326 0 2726 0 2728 0 2730 0 2732 0 2734 0 2738 0 2741 0 2749 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0 -1 0
  13 5 4 4 8
 200 200 200 200 200 200 200
0 0 0 48 675840 0
  17179869185 1315051091194281984 1835136 0 68702720518 5615707260354297855 2031609 0

223007451985306231415357182726483615059804160 - obviously incorrect value for item

I include a fix in files for wse2, but this information needs to be conveyed to the authors of the mod.

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I fixed that issue in the source code, thanks.

Is this link something I can share with my community? If so, what do they have to do with it and what does it change about the experience?

Edit: Also thanks @Eärendil Ardamírë for letting me know about this ?

Namakan said:

time to update the title I guess @Maroon

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Updated, including the timeframe reasoning.

Happy one year anniversary

Dejan said:

In regards to multiplayer, the "Statement Regarding Plans For MP Vol.5" has indeed been posted a while ago but that combined with our "Future plans" post should give you an accurate idea of what we're working on and what you can expect to come in the next patches.

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Right, those tell something of what the next patches will be focused on. My main question here is: are those the complete plans for multiplayer?
Because right now, the future plans lists the following things that aren't implemented yet:

• Ranked matchmaking
• Spectator mode
• Voice chat
• An MVP system
• Changes to several mechanics like flag capturing, score calculation, the scoreboard, perks, etc
• Single life mode
• General improvement

However, if those are the only future features multiplayer will have, we are left without mod support, without custom dedicated servers, without a healthy base for a competitive scene, without most of the features that ensure Warband's MP lives on today.

I know you have made plans for some of these additional features, so I know there is more to TW's plans for MP. After all, @NIN3 commented on this a few days ago:


So can you please share with us a broad idea of what multiplayer will look like at Bannerlord's full release, and once all your plans are implemented? NIN3's comment proves there is a difference between those two things, and the MP modding community (and the hard core of MP players) are desperate to know what they can expect of Bannerlord's MP. Because the current state of MP is somehow even worse than when it launched, and that was already extremely far from what it needed to be.

Dejan said:

A lot of effort from developers is going into this game and it means a lot to us to see you enjoy Bannerlord. The lack of communication since the start of January is my fault as I was on vacation, I am back now though so let's get it going again.

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Hope you had a nice vacation, Dejan. It seems like your (you personally I mean) focus as a community manager is on the modding side, which is nice to have, but could you please explain why we've had mostly radio silence in the multiplayer department from the entire dev team? The latest "Plans for MP" thread is nearing its 1 year anniversary, and while there have been those balance patches, TW has never communicated what multiplayer will look like when it's done. Could you please shed some light on what those plans are, or why TW is not communicating their plans?

Einarcf said:

Just hope somehow we get servers before people take a 2nd look at this game come release

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Server files are definitely not happening before full release (they stated this several times), but I also think calling the full release a "2nd look" is pushing it a bit. Sure, there will be a temporary bump of players, but there's no way it can be compared to its initial release.
But yeah, that's the real fun part, isn't it? Proper MP matters so little to them that they won't even ensure it works properly before giving the green light to the (relatively) biggest influx of players they can muster.

For those who don't know what this topic is about.

NIN3 said:

I strongly disagree with the flag mechanic being worse, for me that new mechanic is one of the improvements of Bannerlord over Warband. In Warbands battle there were also 3 flags really, as in 3 random flag locations and one would spawn.

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I get this, but at the same time, having the Skirmish flag system kind of moves the focus of the mode from fighting to map control. In Warband (especially in NW), Battle was about out-fighting your opponent, with the flag spawning as a measure in case the battles took too long. Perhaps they were played differently on a competitive level, but I think that's how the majority of people played in Battle. Having 3 flags from the beginning means the focus will be more on turtling on those flags, rather than having a field battle.

In the end, I'm curious to see what this will do for the mode, but I feel like this will mean that some flavours of interesting fights (for example when a handful of remaining players from one team have to fight 20+ from the other team) are impossible because their "morale" ran out because they weren't focused on flags.