Hello all,
I've recently gotten into Bannerlord again with the release of the game, and I'm looking into the still missing and yet to be implemented features. But I also wanted to ask the opinion of some of you who have admittedly much more experience with the game than I do. Excluding mods, I was wondering what's a feature that is upcoming on the roadmap or missing from Warband that would dramatically improve Bannerlord as a vanilla Sandbox or uh Campaign experience?
For me?
I think it would have to be a more robust trait system. Not more traits mind you, just way more gameplay impact. With it's current implementation it's kind of a waste to have in game. Only like 1 or 2 traits cause NPCs to actually object and it's pretty trivial. You should have to really consider who your Companions are going to be, rather than simply recruiting whoever has "good stats". If you're playing some noble gallant knight type, having some murderous thug in your party should cause issues. If a "kind" companion doesn't like it when you raid, a "mean" companion shouldn't like it when you give villagers grain for free.
Yeah it's pretty arbitrary, but it would add some kind of depth to game. Where it could have real dramatic effect is with Lords. i.e. maybe it's not such a great idea to recruit a "dishonest" Lord since they'll hop to another Kingdom first chance they get or start a rebellion (well not really a feature as is).
We see some hints of the potential of traits (like when you take a Town/Castle and you show Mercy/Loot/Devastate) but by itself it's rather insignificant.
My runner ups would be...
- Diplomacy: Just let us have truce periods, alliances, and some actual negotiation for peace. Also better reasons for starting wars in the first place "casus belli" as they say.
- Less Talking: Since TW seems entirely unmotived to do anything with most dialogue in this game, I think most current interactions should be menu based. i.e. no more talking to stupid little bandit parties, just let me attack them and be done with it. Same with Lords too really. Don't need to have a "parley" when you outnumber the enemy 5 to 1. Again if player wants to demand surrender, that's something the player should initiate. Just so many pointless conversations in this game that waste player time. Collectively I bet millions of hours have been wasted by players talking to bandits, when 95% of the time there's no reason to.
- Army/Kingdom Management: Being a sovereign feels pretty pointless. Basically all you do is stop vassals from voting on stupid wars. Being able to give armies targets, having lobbying for policies, you know basically anything that would add meaningful gameplay to the campaign map ya know? Just imagine if there was some kind of intrigue in the game; i.e. certain Lords in a Kingdom would loosely ally together or at least support each. Again anything that adds depth to the pointless campaign map.
- Training: Needs to be ways to level up troops outside of combat. Like maybe when waiting on the map you can train troops, get your recruits ready for the next war. Also I'd include skills too. Need to have books or something that let you passively level up skills. Real annoying all these Lords have 100-200 level skills, but you'll be lucky to get a clan member to 100 in just one skill.
There is nothing on the roadmap or from Warband that would dramatically improve Bannerlord for me.
It retains WB's **** lategame and TW's put nothing towards making it any more fun than grinding through sieges in WB.
edit: the game would be unironically improved by making it much shorter, so it would scale better for people who are just using it as medieval battle simulator, rather than forcing you to fight like hundred huge field battles and two hundred sieges to complete a playthrough.
You speak the truth. Most of the reason 20,000 people are playing this game regularly isn't because it's that great; it's because if you only got an hour or maybe a few hours on the weekend it's going to take FOREVER to do anything in this game. I bet a good 30-40% of active players are still trying to build their first kingdom from whenever they started in Early Access. Though I'm sure the rest have their game modded to kingdom come.
Honestly the map is too big. I've played Bannerlord for over 1000 hours and I still don't know where half the castles are. **** me if I remember villages at all. Even towns I have to check, cause I remember the Kingdom, but the position?
I really think Warband scale map would be better. Like 3-4 Towns per Kingdom, maybe 6 or so castles. Then you know owning a fief feels a lot more important. Also seems like a downgrade from Warbard you can't be the fief lord of a village. Wouldn't that be interesting if you could manage a village, but were still subservient to the Castle/Town Lord and had to pay taxes/levies? Basically there would be levels of lordship, like there actually were in a feudal society.
But yes the real kicker is the repetitive battles in the end. Makes every campaign an eventual slog unless you're really power gaming things.
