Recent content by SoKiel

  1. Statement regarding Plans for Singleplayer and Engine

    We are open to suggestions. What do you have in mind?

    I would like to have a "promote all" button, that would promote all non-branching units.
    Would be cool to see the units ready for promotion in the garrison with an option to promote them without taking them into your party.
    Also, would be cool to have "sort" buttons, and be able to sort units by type, selection group or faction.
  2. Statement regarding Plans for Singleplayer and Engine

    Trashtalking and whining to the devs and BL is not 'constructive feedback', and the suggestions here are features that can be modded instead of being part of the base game. And I find it funny you take my retorts as a form of 'concern' and 'denying facts', that's the kind of semantics I would expect from sociopathic psychos who wanted this game to become what it's not.
    And this talk of 'muh infinite potential' sounds as if you wanted the devs to burn out from the pressure so you can trashtalk them even more. Who knows. :whistle:

    What are you even doing here, if you are so happy with the game, you should be all there, having fun.

    I never cared for forums until I found out all my campaigns are stopping dead in their tracks within a week or two of relaxed playing after work. I started mid-April and effectively, the game had nothing more to offer by the end of May. Which never happened in previous installments of the title. For 13 years I pointed out MnB to anyone who would listen as an example of a great immersive realistic sandbox with intuitive rules and endless playability. Previous games had twice the features in Native than Bannerlord has, and they were a part of the synergy that kept the game running.

    If none of this is important and Bannerlord does not need anything, why do you think Bannerlord has failed to maintain its huge initial playerbase? What is your message to the devs, while the number of players keeps plummeting? "Keep up the good work, you are doing great"?
    You really find it surprising why someone is not happy with basically the third installment of the game that has less features than its first installment, and like one third of them is broken or not implemented other than by name?
    Imagine Doom coming out with half the classic weapons, half the monster types, and no "strafe" function. And half the of the present monsters have their stats messed up. Bash those who point at that, because those things can be modded in easily, right? Who cares that previous game had this all by default. And bringing this up may upset the devs, hush you devils!
  3. Statement regarding Plans for Singleplayer and Engine

    Sounds like you guys didn't like it when I called M&B an Action RPG game, which it is btw. And yes I have played Warband before, without mods that is. And you guys seem to forget Bannerlord is still on EA, meaning what you guys wanted this game to have might be added before release day, or it might not be added at all, and even if it's not added, those said features can be acquired through the official modding tools TW said it will be introducing eventually.

    In the meantime why don't you guys play crusader kingdoms, total war, or skyrim instead of complaining in the forum about how terrible the devs and the EA game is after buying it on steam. Those games do have your favorite immersions and realisms after all.

    So you played Warband and somehow missed a lot about it.
    Yes, some are complaining. But some are quite constructive, and constructive feedback is what Devs need and ask for.
    I don't like any of the games you listed, I like Bannerlord. But I have nothing to do in the game, and it's a feeling I have never had in Warband. Bannerlord to me looks like the best game ever with infinite potential, but it's lacking in the core (unlike its predecessor), and we here are trying to figure out what is the problem. You know, it's a first step to solving the problem. We want this game and Devs to prosper.
    What is not clear, why you are so concerned with it? You are not helping the game by denying the facts that it needs work to reach playability of its predecessor.
  4. Statement regarding Plans for Singleplayer and Engine

    And it can hardly be justified simply with "EA" after 6 or 8 years in development. Doesn't matter to me how many times they had to restart, if they had to, it means that what they had in their hands did not work properly or they thought it wasn't good enough, which is concerning to say the least given what we've got on our hands right now.
    It's not like I don't trust them to finish what we have to a playable state or that it wouldn't be a good game. The problem is that it doesn't improve on almost anything from the original or the DLCs aside from the graphics and the clan feature that at the minute is meaningless given how long it takes before it even start to matter, and that's only if you haven't gotten bored of that playthrough at that point.

    Oh, I find the current state quite playable. But not very re-playable, as a sandbox. There aren't much options what to do and how.. I just wish they focused on bringing in the core functionality of Warband listed above and then made new features work. No need to think much, just copy and paste most of the features, making them better if possible.
    I still have hopes, as I don't want Bannerlord to be less than Warband. And personally I can wait. But TW lose (or have lost) the momentum with their newer audience, and it's sad. They need at least communicate their intentions..

    Anyway, when the modding tools are released, we'll definitely see mods that will try to add all the Warband features and more.. But mods are mods, and they are not known for their reliable balance or quality.
  5. Statement regarding Plans for Singleplayer and Engine

    This.
    Too many of those are missing from Bannerlord, and if at the beginning I thought they were because of WIP, now I am starting to feel like what we are seeing right now it's really what the game is going to be like, bugfixes and polish like a couple more vote for something in diplomacy or UI improvements, and that's it.
    The game is a massive upgrade engine/graphics wise, but gameplay wise, it doesn't hold a candle to Warband at the moment, which EA or not, is disappointing since we are comparing it to a about a game made in 2006.

    Exactly. Hardly anyone has expected MnB 2 to have less features than MnB 1.. It would be natural to start with adding everything that has proved itself over the years and made the game a hit, and then add to it. The new game looks mind-blowing and the potential is literally infinite, new features are very promising.. but all we have is like half the old game, with many things broken, and with several unfinished new features. And not enough information about what to expect. No wonder people get worried or disappointed.
    Personally I am worried. I had given MnB probably a solid couple of years of game-time even before Warband was released. And then quite some after that. This is times more than any other game in my life. In 2018 after a 3-4 year hiatus I started a new campaign in Warband and I got so hooked, that I had to stop myself after two months, it was taking so much of my time, and I was still far from achieving anything hugely significant on the world map. I really enjoyed it and had massive plans, but the game was threatening my work.
    In Bannerlord I conquered the map twice (!) in less then a month of very relaxed playing, unable to find anything interesting to do except for a family, clan and kingdom diplomacy. But those were so basic and unfinished, that I couldn't really play with them and achieve the goals I wanted. My first child was 12 when the map was dominated. And I had to wait SIX more years until I could even see this child. Only to find out that kids have huge levels and zero stats, and I cannot even marry my kids properly.
    I wait for new features to be implemented properly, but first of all I wait for the core MnB experience to be back.

    I have to agree here. And let’s not even begin talking about content that was added to Viking Conquest.
    In fairness, all three of the above where WAY worse at release than they are in current state. TW has always slowly, but surely, improved the titles.

    At release Warband did include ALL the features of M&B with some new added. Yes, they added some more later, but it's natural. Not having the base features in second installment is not natural =D
  6. In Progress TW PLEASE FOCUS ON FIXING SEIGE AI PATHFINDING ETC

    Hm... OK, so some of the time you gain by sparing trebuches, you lose on the other hand to refill your losses after every siege. I rather lose less of my well trained troops against militia.
    Spending more time for a siege has even some more benefits (at least for my playstile) : You don´t have to chase enemy armies, they come for you. And, off course, trebuchets thin out defenders and meanwhile enemy militia (sometimes) even suffers starving at a noticable amount.
    Just using rams might come in handy when your kingdom has enough clans allready and the forces are at least nearly equal in strength. I´m in my second playthrough atm and when at war I can´t afford ANY losses (only 4 KI-factions left and I´m heaviely outnumbered) , except those that are really necessary to bring even heavier losses to the enemy (and city-garrisons/militia AREN´t heavy losses). Later on, when the game is a tie and further on when the sieges become more repetitive and the "snowball rolls for you" , I most likely will do the ram-only way, too. At that point I stopped my first playthrough, because 1.4 came out and i started a new campaign.
    To each their own. Refilling losses takes no noticeable time to me. 2/3 of the losses are wounded, and they pretty much get back in line by the time I get to another town and finish building camp and the ram. Also, most of the time it is the lords in my army that take the front lines in battle, so my own army rarely suffers anything noticeable.
    I would gladly spend more time on siege minigame, but it is badly designed, reserve action for trebs is infuriating me, why can't I build them in reserve and then put forward? And somehow those trebs fire like 3 times a day, and it takes forever to breach the wall. Also, you can't aim them at the wall ignoring the defensive machines. Not to mention insane amounts of time it takes to breach walls. You said it yourself - a million things happen while you siege one town... And breaking through the breach is often much harder than through the door.. At least when I tried it, the defenders stood much closer and there wasn't a way to squeeze inside.My losses were much higher. So I found what suited me and I used this successfully since the first siege in my newest playthrough.
    I don't get it, but in Warband taking castles and towns was the simplest task, a duck hunt game.. And yet taking over the whole country was a daunting task. Sieges take more effort and casualties in Bannerlord, but the much larger map gets conquered so much faster..
  7. Statement regarding Plans for Singleplayer and Engine

    Sounds an awful lot like a Minecraft-Skyrim hybrid loaded with mods, I doubt most of those things on the list would even be suggested by the staff, let alone be implemented on the base game. I'd rather stick to what the devs actually said about the game being an Action RPG than whatever it is 1/4rd of the community want this game to be.
    99% of that list are the core features of native Mount & Blade and Warband.
  8. In Progress TW PLEASE FOCUS ON FIXING SEIGE AI PATHFINDING ETC

    I'd call the losses quite tolerable. Considering how bad the troops are at climbing the ladders, especially. And until the ram does its job, I usually snipe down a couple dozens archers, and my archer-heavy army gets some too.
    In general I try to have at least x2 advantage when sieging, and in such cases I usually lose about 1/4, sometimes up to 1/3 (wounded included). Of course, sometimes things go terrinbly wrong, but in general a good two hander or polearm to the back of the front door guard quickly ramps up the killcount and makes enemy lose morale and run.
    I very much hope that one day we'll see a proper attack and defense behaviour from the troops. Right now the way the attackers run as a huge snake across the keep instead of spreading out.. Or the defenders' positioning... Or the way everyone runs to some place they want to be so badly, that they don't stop to attack the enemies on their way, maybe throwing a hit while running by, not more.. All of this is so mind boggling, that I don't feel bad using my backstab tactics =D
  9. In Progress TW PLEASE FOCUS ON FIXING SEIGE AI PATHFINDING ETC

    Didn´t have such problems with two holes. I just hit auto-deploy and my melee-troops divide into two bigger stacks and they gather near the holes. I usually lead one of the groups and after a few minutes of brawling with the defenders, the other group meanwhile bashed through the other gap and closes in from the other side and then both groups attacking the enemies guarding the front door right at the moment when it gets smashed in from a third, smaller group. The pathfinding problems, including fps-drops usually happen, when the battle is almost over, depending on the layout of the town/castle, when the enemy is either allready fleeing ore the last defenders are sitting somewhere in the towers or on the walls.

    Maybe it was fixed. It's been some time since I tried punching holes in the walls. Back then AI did divide into two groups, and when fighting started in both breaches, one group suddenly turned and ran all the way to the first breach, and in some time the whole lot ran back to the second breach.

    After that I never even tried sieges. Build a ram, attack, breach the gates, cut everyone inside in the most profoundly stupid way. Town is yours in one day. Not weeks.
  10. In Progress TW PLEASE FOCUS ON FIXING SEIGE AI PATHFINDING ETC

    If the game wouldn´t decide that during a siege 3 wars had to be declared and 5 factions had to leave your kingdome, it won´t be such a problem to smash in the walls of every town/castle I lay a siege on. With holes in the wall, all the passfinding issues are not so serious.

    But as long as every siege is a save/reload-festival if you don´t want to lose half your kingdom until the walls are down, it would be nice if ladders and siege towers would work properly.

    First of all, having TWO holes in the wall the pathing problems with two siege towers will look like something normal =D The AI becomes so torn by the choice, your army keeps running from one hole to another and back.

    Anyway, people keep spending years in sieges, but that's not how it works in Bannerlord. You only need a ram. Then you get inside, walk around the front door blob of defenders and kill them in the back. I have conquered Calradia twice in Bannerlord without a single siege machines minigame =D
  11. Developer communication request - weekly short dev diaries

    I'd love to have as much info as possible as often as possible, but that is unrealistic.
    So I would settle on a one-time detailed roadmap with commentary, to see the priorities and what features we can expect in general. And after that - something like a post called Next Patch where Devs would add the list of expected features.
    Also, if the Devs are hesitant on what to prioritise, the simple polls (preferrably in the game launcher or at least advertised in it) would be welcome. They are best to be as simple as possible, it's better to have several (What feature you are waiting for more - A or B) than one complicated.
  12. Statement regarding Plans for Singleplayer and Engine

    Can we have a "Working on it right now", "Eventually, but not working on it right now", "Undecided" or "Not planned" for the following pieces of content, please? Just so we can have an idea of what to expect content-wise.

    - Feasts
    - Rescuing lords out of imprisonment
    - Claimants
    - 100% Sandbox mode (No main quest)
    - Gender-based dialogue ("Sexist" dialogue)
    - Troop recruitment from minor factions/mercenary clans

    Copy & pasted from elsewhere:

    >Full message log: One which didn't reset with every new conversation or event, so you could scroll back up to see what the hell just happened
    >Being able to ask lords a large amount of questions like what the realm is doing and give them orders to go to places, telling them to attack or defend an area, warning them of enemies approaching, etc.
    >Books
    >Sneaking into cities scene battles
    >Village upgrades: messenger posts, watchtowers, manors, schools etc
    >Courtship: dedicating tournament victories, poems, visit quests, ladies had actual likes and dislikes like a human being
    >Dueling lords if you were vying for the same lady or they insulted you as a woman
    >Bright red hair
    >Handcrafted unique companions that interact and have proper dialogue and backstories
    >Setting up a camp to wait
    >Wedding cutscene
    >Working as a tax collector
    >Lord personalities affecting their behaviour noticeably
    >Greater food variety
    >Way more different battle scenes thanks to dynamic map generation
    >Greater variety in equipment between cultures
    >Deserters and Manhunters on the map
    >Slave traders
    >Troops wearing your banner emblem on their clothes; varied shield and clothing colours+

    Edit:
    I read through some cut content found in the game files and thought I'd ask about them too:

    - More complex Deserter "faction" with a leader(?)
    - Slave rebellions

    And a personal want of mine:

    - More heavily culturally-themed equipment for the factions?

    I second that vigorously. All listed here has been a natural part of Mount & Blade gameplay for 13-8 years and the absence of these features in Mount & Blade 2 is hugely confusing!
    I'd add
    >Assassins sent for you by the lords that hate you.
    >A chance to be attacked by bandits when you enter the town in the night
  13. A 90-employee studio with ONE actively-maintained product is releasing only ONE THREE-LINE bug fix patch per week. Unbelievable.

    The original M&B beta costed 25$, I don't know which was the final price honestly.
    Participating on WB beta was free... but campaign mode was disabled you were able to play just multiplayer.

    So that was what I was trying to say, if you pay 50$ you expect a polished product... maybe not a finished one because it is a EA, but definitively more than what we get and that's my biggest complain. BTW I think that they will release a finished version with everything improved but it is going to take long time and finally mods will create a incredible game but it will take still more time, meanwhile you have already spent the money.

    Mount & Blade and then Warband costed 27 or 28 $ each, I know that, I bought two copies of each in their time.
    And funny enough, I payed 28$ for Bannerlord too. Not sure, maybe it was a sale...

    And as I said, I can wait. But TW is losing momentum with new players.

    Battles as the core of the game are pretty much there where they should be, but those sieges are so awkward, and at the same time they are a key element to the meta-game.. They should be a high priority. The overal concept needs looking into and of course - pathing.

    There is a huge chunk of easy-to-do things, like fixing the unit stats and equipment-stat nonsense. Things like that can be done so easily and not demand cross-checking the entire code. It's a one person job for one day.. Fix lords' stats.

    Then there is stuff that directly influences the playability in the long term. Like characters dying, playable heirs, their marriage, kingdom internal politics, clan hierarchy and relations, international politics etc. These things can get a player going even after the whole map is conquered (that shouldn't happen so quickly anyway), like it does to me. Only that this part of the game is almost non-existent.
  14. A 90-employee studio with ONE actively-maintained product is releasing only ONE THREE-LINE bug fix patch per week. Unbelievable.

    Were those EAs also in development for over 8 years, and made by a fairly sizeable companies that had previous experiences to draw upon? And were those EAs also sequels to games that they don't actually differ all that much from? Not to mention, that did those EAs' predecessors have a wealth of mods that the devs could draw inspiration from? I could go on like that.

    THIS. Exactly!

    Don't get me wrong, Bannerlord is amazing and I love the game and all the improvements, but it does not change the fact that something is very wrong with the development.
    I used to work in game dev for many years, and the production tempos here are clearly below any standards I know. And I can't imagine how the sequel to the game 8 years later can have a number of core features of the original game missing or broken?
    The balance of political power wasn't an issue, not in 2007 when I got into MnB, nor up to now in Warband.. It is a problem in Bannerlord. Uncontrolled wars that make no sense, escaping lords popping up immediately with full armies, factions steamrolling the map..
    The elementary trademark system of +- relationship was quite broken in April and is still not up to MnB standards.
    The unit stats - the thing that is the easiest to fix and mod - are in chaos third month in a row.

    All that's been working before (and more than for 10 years already) is naturally expected to be in 2nd game. And that is what makes people wonder.
    As for new features, many are just placeholders. Like perks. Or, like, how coud you NOT know that the player's children would have insane levels and no stats? Children is one of the hugest new features!

    I am still happy TW have released Early Access, it's much better to wait this way. But anyway I ended up stuck in my campaigns, wishing that some features were finished at least enough to try, when the moment is right. I used to play so much in old MnB and Warband, I'm scared to think how much. Yet I have only conquered the entire map like three times or so. It wasn't a matter of such a small time, even if the sieges were basically a crossbow joke. Now I am trying as I can to STALL my faction from conquering the whole map half the time. And even though the potential is enormous, I can't influence the inner politics and relations of the clans in the kingdom much. And it got even more broken in the latest stable patch..
    So, TW better sort out their priorities, reevaluate pipelines and their team, and hire some top modders in.
    The potential of this game is immeasurable. I can wait, but TW, you lose momentum with the new players, and it is sad.
  15. In Progress Unused units being used

    Wow, that's a good find! Sword Sisters bring back good memories ^^
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