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Dejan said:

Greetings warriors of Calradia!

August and September have been exciting months - Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord finally got its release date (October 25th), pre-orders opened for consoles and many of you came to say Hi at Gamescom and Pax.

Gamescom2022

And while it is a major milestone for the game to come to consoles, our announcement made it clear that this won’t be the end of the journey. This is what we want to talk to you about today.

Road to Release​

As the release date approaches, we are preparing a number of additional updates that many of you have been eagerly anticipating.

For one, we really cannot leave our lords and ladies without a banner any longer. You may have already seen how they look in the recent demo footage, but, just in case, we have attached a screenshot below.

Banner formations

The banners in the game will be equippable items that players and AI heroes can use to benefit the formations they lead in battle. Alongside them we will also be introducing new crafting pieces with cloth attachments. These won’t just allow players to create weapons with an extra bit of flair - they will add to the overall visual experience as troops are reequipped to carry them as well.

And while these changes will spice up our existing scenes, we have also been hard at work on new ones. Soon each of our 53 towns will be unique and the pool for castles, battle terrains and smaller locations like hideouts will also continue to be expanded. Of course, the world map will see further improvements as well.

To add onto this, we are finalizing a fundamental overhaul of the agent AI movement system, which helps NPCs deal with difficult terrain (like in sieges) and notably improves issues with congestion. It does so through a range of physics adjustments, better situational understanding and manners (waiting on the allies ahead) and by shifting away from a binary, cardinal input and towards a partial, 360 degree one - think keyboard vs controller. Naturally, you, the player, will still be able to play with either.

Siege tower assault

Now, looks and movement are important - but so is audio. Accordingly, we are quite happy to say that AI characters will soon receive the first iteration of voice overs for storyline dialogues and greetings. Conversations in general will also benefit from a range of new and updated facial expressions.

Voice over, Imperial mentor Arzagos

Beyond these, the recently shared custom servers, battle mode and multiplayer modding will continue to receive support. Much like them, the steam workshop is also being tested with a number of our community members. Thanks to that, it should become available to you in the near future.

Multiplayer battle event on a custom server

Finally, many of you have asked about achievements - they as well as steam trading cards, backgrounds and emoticons are scheduled to arrive with the game’s release.

Post-Release​

By this time all of the above should be in your hands and we look forward to your thoughts on these additions. Naturally, we are also quite excited to learn how you like the game on consoles.

Our intention at this point is to continue making improvements based on your feedback. Having said that, there are already plans for a number of specific features and tweaks that we can discuss with you now.

To begin with, we return to a classic - early in development we explored a prototype of the player not just clearing but taking over common areas from criminals. This will be coming to the game. It will work similarly to other enterprises (like workshops and caravans) that provide players with a passive income but will also have its own twist. As they are not exactly legal ventures, you will need to deal with our crime system. Yet it’s not all bad - operating from the shadows will allow you to keep going in hostile environments and, coupled with further encyclopedia “fog of war” updates, allow you to retain access to information you would otherwise not have.

In addition to this, you will see the introduction of more specialized combat options. For one, players are going to be able to sally out and launch a surprise attack on besiegers in order to destroy their siege engines. This will take place in the existing siege locations but follow a separate set of rules.

The regular siege assault, in turn, won’t be ignored either. We are working on a range of balance changes to tip the scales more in favor of siege towers and rams. For example, pushing ladders off the walls will be possible even when there are enemies climbing them - in Singleplayer and Multiplayer.

Falling off the siege ladder

Naturally, there will also be various tweaks to other systems - whether that is the ability to target enemy formations, which has been requested by our captain mode community in particular, or the ability to place companions in specific formations in the “Order of Battle”.

And should your character grow too old and tired to continue the fight, a new location will allow them to hand over the reins to the next generation - or put an end to the clan. Whether a game over occurs due to a conscious choice like this, old age or ill tidings, it deserves a bit of ceremony. To a good degree, the ingame cutscenes and cinematics provide that. Yet wouldn’t it be nice to look back at what you achieved over the years? This is where game over statistics will come in - tracking your every step (or at least some of them) and providing a tally when your game ends or you finish the storyline.

Game over statistics

In a similar vein, content creators are going to be able to make records of their adventures using our replay editor. While our focus has been with the game, the editor still saw progress and will likely be shared as part of the modding tools in the coming months.

Replay editor

Overall, there are many more ideas that we are keen to explore as part of our regular developments. Some of these are smaller topics like balance tweaks to our auto-battle-resolution, companion variety, raiding, settlement projects or multiplayer classes and modes. Others concern improvements to control schemes and haptic feedback, modding tools, multiplayer taunts and maps, diplomacy decision making, the clan-kingdom lifecycle, the mission atmosphere and weather system, as well as a variety of quality of life changes such as party member sorting. And yet others will be more involved such as the claimant quest and the multiplayer spectator mode.

To address the elephant in the room, and some of the questions that came with it, we are certainly also open to DLCs as they are a great way to provide you with additional content that does not fit into the base game’s scope. Having said that, it will be some time before we release any DLC, it will be a gradual shift in development and it will not be mutually exclusive as the base game will also continue to receive updates.

As a testament to that - there is no particular DLC that we want to announce right now. However, we are observing and discussing many of the topics that you are passionate about.

In this regard, we also want to express our heartfelt gratitude to everyone that has supported us throughout the early access period. The game has come a long way and it wouldn’t have been possible without you and your passion for Mount&Blade.

We look forward to taking the next steps of this journey with you - as well as anyone that may join us on the way.


You can pre-order the game on consoles here:
PlayStation EU | PlayStation US | Xbox

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Duh_TaleWorlds said:

No. The post explains most of the major items that we are working on. For additional details, you may refer to the future plans post.

If you do have specific suggestions though, they can be taken into account.

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Duh_TaleWorlds said:

Warriors of Calradia,

It is time to share another update on some of our current singleplayer related works with you.

Stability and performance will continue to be a top priority for us. Beyond that, you will find a number of our other efforts listed below. Please note that this includes both broad and specific, as well as, shorter and longer term items.

Near Hearth & Home

• Cutscenes
  • Cutscenes or “Scene Notifications” were first teased in our future plans’ post. Since then we have created a number of these animations for different story and world events to add more weight to them. They presented a multi-disciplinary challenge (to Design, UI, Art & Animation, Engine, Campaign Gameplay, Audio and QA), but we are quite happy with how they have turned out so far.

• Scenes
  • Over the course of development our focus shifted away from smaller locations and more towards ensuring greater variety and quality in core gameplay areas. As such, we have been working hard on creating the remaining town scenes, which will offer new siege challenges, as well as additional battle terrains to cover further regions of interest. Naturally, we also continue to improve our existing scenes.
  • As this concerns a particularly large body of work, it won’t all drop at once but there will be continuous updates.

• Sieges
  • Sieges represent one of our most complex gameplay experiences and we continue to polish the many pieces that make up this puzzle. To give a recent example, we overhauled the way that both AI attackers and defenders use troop transfers (between formations) in sieges. This was done to reduce transfers at inconvenient times, in quick succession or with poor overall oversight, which could lead to large numbers of soldiers being transferred from opposite sites unnecessarily.

• Battles
  • While combat is certainly one of the game’s strong points, there are always things to be improved upon - and one of them is the way in which reinforcements enter the battlefield. Specifically, we have been working on means to prevent cases of “spawn camping” and troops suddenly appearing in the middle of an active fight.

• Armor Effectiveness
  • This has been a topic of passionate discussion and we are happy to let you know that we are close to releasing an adjustment aimed at making armor more effective. This will not adopt the warband system, but it will go towards stronger protection.

• Main Hero Battle Death
  • Given all the extra armor, it may be time to raise the stakes.

Spoiler

Yes, it's optional.

• Combat Mechanic Improvements
  • We have gone over the combat mechanics for knock down, dismounting and push back and removed the random factor to allow for a more reliable and predictable experience for players. Among other things, we also introduced a new resistance variable that is derived from character skills. This allows us to make some troops and heroes less vulnerable to these mechanics and will allow players to develop their characters to become less vulnerable as well.

• Army AI Improvements
  • In recent months, we spent quite a bit of time reviewing, adjusting and testing the army AI. In essence, we set out to address the following items:
    • Less Patrolling, More Sieging
    • Less Starving, More Sieging
    • Less Recruiting, More Sieging
    • Better Cohesion Management, More Sieging
    • Other trickery to the same end
  • We also don’t like peacetime armies.

• “Party Templates”
  • The idea of parties that reflect their leader’s preferences has gone through some iterations since we originally shared it. Nonetheless, we still intend to pursue the approach that weighs recruitment and upgrading according to this preference. The initial, releasable implementation is close to completion and we hope to soon evaluate it further based on player feedback.

• Disorganized State
  • We have gone over the conditions and effects of the disorganized state, which temporarily weakens parties and armies after a recent challenge, to make it more meaningful and consistent.

• Item variety
  • What's a warrior without their weapon? In an effort to increase the general variety of equipment, we have been working on a number of new crafting pieces as well as making some of the existing pieces available across additional weapon types.

• Crafting Unlock Overhaul
  • With this broader pool of crafting pieces, we also had another look at how crafting works. We don’t really like that all crafting pieces are unlocked from the same source. Instead, we want to provide more of a sense of specialization. Thus, future smiths will, for example, need to craft axes to unlock axe pieces.

• Simulation Health
  • Economy
    • While this has always been a point of importance to us, we set out to review and address two issues in particular in recent months. For one, some items were too profitable in general while others didn’t have enough regional price distinction. This made trade much less engaging than we would like it to be. Similarly, due to the same market dynamics, workshops were suffering as well. If you bought the right one, there was little reason to engage with it again and more often than not “the right one” came down to the same small set of options. The changes we made to supply and demand have had promising results so far.
  • Recruit balance
    • Calradians have seemingly always been happy to join a good fight. However, recruits are not just plentiful but oftentimes overly powerful. This has been raised in the community before and we also recognize it as an issue and have made according adjustments to the way notables develop their troops.
  • AI Prisoner Management
    • It is not just recruits that are plentiful but also prisoners. So much so that calradian dungeons would overflow as time passed. We have been looking into a solution for this and will likely share it with you soon.
  • Child generation
    • Despite our previous adjustments to the adult population, there was still a problem with an initial generational gap. To address this, we will likely generate additional children with different ages at the start of the game for any clans that fall under a given member limit. As an extra, this should also make such clans more viable.

• Character Respeccing
  • With the multitude of perks that the game offers, it can be difficult to find the character setup that is just right for you. Fortunately, it will soon no longer be required to wait for your heir to take over or to start a new game to try out another character build. Instead, you will be able to change the perks of your characters and clan members as you play.

• Skill experience gains
  • Character development is an important aspect of the game that follows the principle of learning by doing. While this generally works, we feel that some skills don’t yet offer an adequate progression. Fortunately, the aforementioned economy changes should help with trade. Additionally, we have also been working on more tailored adjustments for all combat skills, leadership, roguery and engineering. We look forward to your feedback on this.

• Immersion & Quality of Life
  • There are many adjustments that relate to this category in some way. Below you will find a few of the ones we thought interesting.
  • Additional AI Offers
    • We were quite happy with the reception and impact of AI ransom and peace offers to the player. These new notifications make the world feel more alive and we want to build upon them. For this purpose, we are exploring marriage, mercenary and vassalage offers.
  • Encyclopedia Information
    • The all knowing encyclopedia is not just a challenge to immersion, but also inconsistent with our scouting mechanic. To address this, we are working on similar limitations to the encyclopedia that will create a form of “Fog of War ” for those that are outside the reach of the player or their agents.
  • Party Management Options
    • Clan members can, at times, be a hassle to track down and manage. To address this, we have been exploring new options to send, recall and exchange them.
  • Civilian Scenes
    • Our towns and castles have a range of NPC characters that can partake in numerous activities to give the location life. However, castles, in particular, were still a bit underpopulated. This should be improved in future versions of the game as we increased the population and their use of animation points in a number of settlements.
  • World Map & Associated Visuals
    • Much like scenes, the world map can make or break immersion. We therefore decided to allocate some time towards resolving issues with party teleporting, floating and rotating among a number of other tweaks. Of course, we also always continue to polish the actual map.

• Audio
  • Improved UI sounds
    • We added new sounds all around the UI and revised some existing ones for coherence. To provide an example, you will now be able to hear audio feedback when a persuasion attempt goes awry or pleasant.
  • Horse sound revisions
    • As a constant request, we have been working on improving the audibility of approaching horses and fixed some bugs in the occlusion system that prevented some sounds from being played. This is an ongoing work, and more improvements will arrive as time passes.
    • We improved horse physics sounds to make it more impactful when they die.
  • Ambient upgrades
    • Quad ambiences were another topic in our future plans post. They are a great means to make scenes sound more believable and our work on them is ongoing. A few of the ambients have been updated to Quads, and we fixed some crucial spatialization bugs while we were at it.

• Localization
  • The localization effort also continues. Even though we have now released translations for Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish (Latin American) and Russian that does not mean that we are at the end of their journey. We greatly appreciate all the feedback that we have received on this front and are working with our partners to process it. We are also happy to say that German is close to being shared as well.

A ways ahead

As the attentive reader will surely have noticed, there are some topics that we haven’t covered yet. In our future plans, we spoke about Banner Bearers, Claimant Quests, Sally Outs and Vocalization. These are all areas that we are still pursuing, but they will require some time yet. Once we have made more progress on them and other topics, we will be happy to share further details.


Please keep in mind that the items discussed here are neither all-encompassing nor set in stone, and we will adjust them if the need arises.

Spoiler: Prior Topics

Statement regarding Plans for Singleplayer and Engine III

Warriors of Calradia, It is time to share another update on some of our current singleplayer and engine related priorities with you. Just like before, stability and performance will continue to be a top priority for us. Beyond that, you will find some of our other goals listed below. Please...

forums.taleworlds.com

Statement regarding Plans for Singleplayer and Engine II

Warriors of Calradia, Today we will be sharing an update for some of our current singleplayer and engine related priorities with you. As a general note, stability and performance will continue to be a top priority for us. Beyond that, you will find some of our other goals listed below. Please...

forums.taleworlds.com

Statement regarding Plans for Singleplayer and Engine

Warriors of Calradia, Today we will be sharing some of our current singleplayer and engine related priorities with you. Since the release of the game, we have been hard at work to improve stability and performance for our players. This will continue to be a top priority for us. Naturally, we...

forums.taleworlds.com

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