Whilst its great to see TaleWorlds working hard on pushing decent updates to fix the issues with the current release of the game, I'm sure the thing 99% of us are interested in seeing is snowballing come to a halt...
In that regard, I have some bad news. Despite the attempts to limit it somewhat by changes made in update 1.2 and 1.4, I am actually seeing one of fastest Snowballs in my four characters in my latest save, created solely in this update.
70 days in, the Battanians have completely conquered, bar a single city and castle, the Western Empire. To be honest, I hadn't put much hope in the latest patches doing much to slow it down. Snowballing is a result of what I can only presume is dozens of contributing factors, balancing issues and currently missing features, and I imagine seriously limiting it through a soft approach, instead of hard limitation on the AI's ability to wage war, will require months of fine tweaking to existing gameplay, which doesn't even take into account future imbalances brought about by the introduction of hopefully loads of new features to the game as Early Access roles on...
I'm worried for Bannerlord. It has loads of potential, and for an early access game, nearly everything is there for it to be an incredibly fun experience which will allow the community and developers to work together to create a masterpiece... But snowballing will seriously limit that. Put simply, a Mount and Blade game, entirely based around long term play, is going to rapidly loose its tester base when a save lasts a year, maybe two, before one faction emerges as a hegemon, if not outright owner of all Calradia. Never mind the fact I imagine testing of late game features and more general stability, performance and such as years or even decades in game pass is going to simply be none existent, because few people will be playing saves more than one to three years...
I hate to say it, because its pretty crushing, but considering I imagine getting it truly balanced will be months of work... Right now I would prefer to see that heavy handed approach I was discussing earlier, hard limitations to AI warfare. Perhaps, unless you are a vassal for of a faction or have created your own kingdom and have several fiefs to your name, war between AI nations should be limited to the taking of a one or two fiefs before a peace of 50 - 100 days is imposed? I'm not sure how difficult such hard limitations to impose would be to code into the game, but I imagine it must be simpler then trying to somehow balance warfare and snowballing in its current form, even without considering the game is still missing basic features to prevent this like real diplomacy, such as alliances and coalitions.
I think at this point, most people who want to seriously dive into a single player game and truly have a great Mount and Blade experience in Bannerlord, would prefer heavy handed measures the likes of which we have put up with before in a slightly dressed up form (Cough 'Feasts' Cough), then continue to have games end after a year or two whilst TaleWorld tries to do what I imagine is going to be one of the hardest challenges developing this game presents, getting a balance between a totally static world and snowballing superpowers right.
ON A SIDE NOTE - Has anyone else noticed that since the initial, pre-patch release, the textures of clothing when in discussion with people, especially those you meet out in the campaign mode, now seems to load incredibly slowly? I'm not sure if I was simply totally blind when I first played the game (I doubt it as its blaringly obvious), but for some reason now I can be talking to someone and it can take up to 30 seconds before the game seems to load clothing textures outside of just these blurred colours.
In that regard, I have some bad news. Despite the attempts to limit it somewhat by changes made in update 1.2 and 1.4, I am actually seeing one of fastest Snowballs in my four characters in my latest save, created solely in this update.
70 days in, the Battanians have completely conquered, bar a single city and castle, the Western Empire. To be honest, I hadn't put much hope in the latest patches doing much to slow it down. Snowballing is a result of what I can only presume is dozens of contributing factors, balancing issues and currently missing features, and I imagine seriously limiting it through a soft approach, instead of hard limitation on the AI's ability to wage war, will require months of fine tweaking to existing gameplay, which doesn't even take into account future imbalances brought about by the introduction of hopefully loads of new features to the game as Early Access roles on...
I'm worried for Bannerlord. It has loads of potential, and for an early access game, nearly everything is there for it to be an incredibly fun experience which will allow the community and developers to work together to create a masterpiece... But snowballing will seriously limit that. Put simply, a Mount and Blade game, entirely based around long term play, is going to rapidly loose its tester base when a save lasts a year, maybe two, before one faction emerges as a hegemon, if not outright owner of all Calradia. Never mind the fact I imagine testing of late game features and more general stability, performance and such as years or even decades in game pass is going to simply be none existent, because few people will be playing saves more than one to three years...
I hate to say it, because its pretty crushing, but considering I imagine getting it truly balanced will be months of work... Right now I would prefer to see that heavy handed approach I was discussing earlier, hard limitations to AI warfare. Perhaps, unless you are a vassal for of a faction or have created your own kingdom and have several fiefs to your name, war between AI nations should be limited to the taking of a one or two fiefs before a peace of 50 - 100 days is imposed? I'm not sure how difficult such hard limitations to impose would be to code into the game, but I imagine it must be simpler then trying to somehow balance warfare and snowballing in its current form, even without considering the game is still missing basic features to prevent this like real diplomacy, such as alliances and coalitions.
I think at this point, most people who want to seriously dive into a single player game and truly have a great Mount and Blade experience in Bannerlord, would prefer heavy handed measures the likes of which we have put up with before in a slightly dressed up form (Cough 'Feasts' Cough), then continue to have games end after a year or two whilst TaleWorld tries to do what I imagine is going to be one of the hardest challenges developing this game presents, getting a balance between a totally static world and snowballing superpowers right.
ON A SIDE NOTE - Has anyone else noticed that since the initial, pre-patch release, the textures of clothing when in discussion with people, especially those you meet out in the campaign mode, now seems to load incredibly slowly? I'm not sure if I was simply totally blind when I first played the game (I doubt it as its blaringly obvious), but for some reason now I can be talking to someone and it can take up to 30 seconds before the game seems to load clothing textures outside of just these blurred colours.
