A different perspective on XP gain.

Play as a dynasty over generations or play over the lifetime of your maincharacter?

  • Playing as a dynasty over generations. Slow gameplay. Endgame cant be reached in one lifetime.

  • Play as a maincharacter. Fast gameplay. Endgame can be reached within lifetime of starting character


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I see people suggesting a faster rate of leveling. Now I believe that is a result of unclear gamedesign/vision of the game.

I remember reading blog posts about the Clan system. How you can continue playing the game when your character dies, taking the role of an heir.
Children taking like 20(?) years to reach adulthood. Basically youre playing as a Clan over generations.

Now considering this vision of the game, a slow xp gain makes sense. You start your campaign with a 30 year old.(as far as I know)
I am guessing the game has/will have an increasing chance of natural death rising with age. Diseases will be implemented too.
So lets say you have 50 ingame years to develop your character.
Now, with this timeframe you can either have a slow xp gain and create a character with weaknesses and strengths, making the character unique, or a fast xp rate resulting in a jack of all trades supersoldier after a few years.

I think the problem here is that the current gameplay does not support playing as a Clan. It is not surprising to me that players feel like the leveling is slow when the game world feels like its designed to be a sandbox campaign for your starting hero and him only. The game is pretty much over before your children even get to adulthood. The wars are won, all the money made, all the workshops bought, the clan established.
You are a king's vassal within an hour of play. Kingdoms conquer vast landmasses in small timeframes.

Now I don't think theres anything wrong with either style of gameplay. I just think the game has to choose one of the two and follow through with features supporting the chosen gamedesign. A mix of the two just results in frustration manifested in people wanting faster xp and installing mods where their children reach adulthood after 2 ingame years.

I personally think the slower gameplay that was shown in the blogposts is more interesting. I wouldn't mind if your starting hero's purpose is to finish the "rebuild your clan" quest before dying, kickstarting the dynasty. Obvious problem here is a lack of features bridging the early and mid game. What is there to do between being nobody to being a general? What do the factions do in peacetime? If war is supposed to be constant there has to be some kind of de jure claim system. Maybe a revolt system making it hard for a faction to keep conquered lands. Cultural drift to combat that etc.

This is what I think the core problem of bannerlord is at the moment. I am interested to see if TW will be able to develop an identity to the game.
 
This is a good point - if there was more content for early levels then the slow levelling wouldn't feel like as much of an issue. If you look at the pace of, say, Total War games, where turn-to-turn actually very little happens in terms of border drift, to Bannerlord where in the space of about ten IRL minutes a big army can take away about half of a kingdom's territory.
 
Yeah there's currently a lot of missing content making the game feel more of a grind. Additionally, a year in game takes about 40 minutes but you don't spend the whole time on the campaign map. If you halved how long a year was maybe it would be less of an issue. The time it takes you to reach a certain age needs to be relative to the time it takes to reach a high level (20-30).

The pacing of the game was obviously too fast and it's a lot slower now in terms of kingdom snowball. I think if you played the game without save scumming on realistic it would be difficult for the player to conquer the whole map before your character died if ageing was faster.
 
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I see people suggesting a faster rate of leveling. Now I believe that is a result of unclear gamedesign/vision of the game.

I remember reading blog posts about the Clan system. How you can continue playing the game when your character dies, taking the role of an heir.
Children taking like 20(?) years to reach adulthood. Basically youre playing as a Clan over generations.

Now considering this vision of the game, a slow xp gain makes sense. You start your campaign with a 30 year old.(as far as I know)
I am guessing the game has/will have an increasing chance of natural death rising with age. Diseases will be implemented too.
So lets say you have 50 ingame years to develop your character.
Now, with this timeframe you can either have a slow xp gain and create a character with weaknesses and strengths, making the character unique, or a fast xp rate resulting in a jack of all trades supersoldier after a few years.

I think the problem here is that the current gameplay does not support playing as a Clan. It is not surprising to me that players feel like the leveling is slow when the game world feels like its designed to be a sandbox campaign for your starting hero and him only. The game is pretty much over before your children even get to adulthood. The wars are won, all the money made, all the workshops bought, the clan established.
You are a king's vassal within an hour of play. Kingdoms conquer vast landmasses in small timeframes.

Now I don't think theres anything wrong with either style of gameplay. I just think the game has to choose one of the two and follow through with features supporting the chosen gamedesign. A mix of the two just results in frustration manifested in people wanting faster xp and installing mods where their children reach adulthood after 2 ingame years.

I personally think the slower gameplay that was shown in the blogposts is more interesting. I wouldn't mind if your starting hero's purpose is to finish the "rebuild your clan" quest before dying, kickstarting the dynasty. Obvious problem here is a lack of features bridging the early and mid game. What is there to do between being nobody to being a general? What do the factions do in peacetime? If war is supposed to be constant there has to be some kind of de jure claim system. Maybe a revolt system making it hard for a faction to keep conquered lands. Cultural drift to combat that etc.

This is what I think the core problem of bannerlord is at the moment. I am interested to see if TW will be able to develop an identity to the game.

I think there is are several issues here.

First, Most people don't have a "generational" attention span. I highly doubt most people will play a 1000 hour campaign to take advantage of being able to take advantage of playing their children and their children's children.

Second, its not a whole lot of fun to be 20+ hours into the game with only 60 in 1-hd slash, getting worked over by every Tier 2 infantryman you try to duel. Your also not competitive in tournaments until you have at least 80-100 skills and even then probably won't beat a lord or maybe even some high tiered units participating. I mean should you have to play 60-80 hours just to have the same weapon skills as AI lords. Also what about critical skills like leadership and charm? How many hours should you have to play to have decent scores in this? 100? 200? Yeah way too long.

Third, as cool as it sounds to have children and be able to play them at some point, the second you have to play as one of your children, your having to level a brand new character yet again. Also, there is the strong possibility that when your "heir" takes over, it will have a borked as hell skill build that has nothing to do with how you enjoy playing your games.

So while the generational aspect sounds cool, it is no for everyone and I would go as far as say, it is probably not for most people. Most people would rather have a decent feeling of progress and feel powerful by the time you are powerful, i.e. in possession of a couple castles, maybe a city or two and commanding enough influence to rally every lord in your kingdom to your banner an create a powerful army. It just doesn't feel right having only 60 weapons skill while commanding a 1000 man army.

Personally, I kind of hope they make generational gameplay optional.
 
I'm not cool with the idea that it should take several lifetimes for your character to get good. If that's really what's necessary to get the dynasty system to work as it should, then I'd rather just cut the dynasty system out of the game and just deal with 1 character's lifetime.
 
There is so much going on about this.. Do people against ageing and stuff realise that their playthrough will be well over before their character come even remotely close to death from old age?
I'm day 1200 in my longest game, i'm 44 and my first born is 9. Not even close to have to play him, unless I could die in battle or get executed cause of all the heads I made roll on the floor.. And the campaign is almost over, it'll just be Battania vs Kuzaits

The option to enable death in battle is already well enough to mitigate this imo, if you don't want the generational playthough when it'll be implemented, disable death.

Also, the xp gain is broken right now, it won't stay that way, it's already way faster in 1.1.0.
 
Before now, M&B focused on one character leading an individual warband, with skill progression & timescale appropriate to match. This worked. Some Total War games and Paradox' CK2 featured multi-generational dynasties with typical playthroughs lasting centuries. This also worked.

One gets the impression that Bannerlord is attempting to bridge the gap between the two concepts. Whether or not they'll eventually succeed has yet to be seen, as so many features have yet to be implemented (plus unintended dynamics like the infamous "steamroll" are just getting in the way right now). But I gotta say that early indications aren't exactly encouraging.

I don't want BL to just be a Warband 2.0 copycat with prettier graphics. That said, Warband was disproportionately successful...a game which wound up having far more appeal and longevity than anyone would've predicted a decade ago. Sure, both we and the devs want Bannerlord to be different, but Tale Worlds ought to think long and hard about what made M&B so successful in the first place, and be very careful about fundamental deviations from that formula. Otherwise they risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

My own feeling: A multi-generational approach can work. And maybe eventually it actually will. But fundamentally, if that's what happens, then Tale World's won't have made a Mount & Blade game, but something else entirely. Is that good? Bad? I don't know. I do know it's risky as hell.
 
There is so much going on about this.. Do people against ageing and stuff realise that their playthrough will be well over before their character come even remotely close to death from old age?
I'm day 1200 in my longest game, i'm 44 and my first born is 9. Not even close to have to play him, unless I could die in battle or get executed cause of all the heads I made roll on the floor.. And the campaign is almost over, it'll just be Battania vs Kuzaits

The option to enable death in battle is already well enough to mitigate this imo, if you don't want the generational playthough when it'll be implemented, disable death.

Also, the xp gain is broken right now, it won't stay that way, it's already way faster in 1.1.0.
Will it be like this on release? Maybe maybe not, TW could decide to change how fast characters age and make it faster we just don't know.
I've personally had misgivings about the whole aging because of several reasons
1) it doesn't really feel like M&B anymore
2)why have a character creation if you're characters just come and go
3)having to re-level a character isn't something I'm a big fan of

Edit* I just had a sudden thought maybe TW is making it difficult to make a good looking character so we can't get attached to them. :wink:
 
Will it be like this on release? Maybe maybe not, TW could decide to change how fast characters age and make it faster we just don't know.
I've personally had misgivings about the whole aging because of several reasons
1) it doesn't really feel like M&B anymore
2)why have a character creation if you're characters just come and go
3)having to re-level a character isn't something I'm a big fan of

Edit* I just had a sudden thought maybe TW is making it difficult to make a good looking character so we can't get attached to them. :wink:
They could make it faster, but I don't really think so, I think they delivered the game in a state of what they thought would be the good pace for it. Maybe they'll speed it up, but it's already speedy af, considering Warband had full year-round calendar.

Why doesn't it feel like M&B anymore? You'll have conquered the entire map 5 times before you'll die, you'll stop playing before that, it's already a choice.

I don't really view it as a re-level, more like a CK2 like passing of the torch, where your sons inherits some of your skills
 
They could make it faster, but I don't really think so, I think they delivered the game in a state of what they thought would be the good pace for it. Maybe they'll speed it up, but it's already speedy af, considering Warband had full year-round calendar.

Why doesn't it feel like M&B anymore? You'll have conquered the entire map 5 times before you'll die, you'll stop playing before that, it's already a choice.

I don't really view it as a re-level, more like a CK2 like passing of the torch, where your sons inherits some of your skills
Idk why I can't put my finger on it but it feels like we're moving in the direction of something like CK which is fine, but it isn't Warband. Maybe it's just an irrational feeling but it's one I can't shake.
 
I see people suggesting a faster rate of leveling. Now I believe that is a result of unclear gamedesign/vision of the game.

I remember reading blog posts about the Clan system. How you can continue playing the game when your character dies, taking the role of an heir.
Children taking like 20(?) years to reach adulthood. Basically youre playing as a Clan over generations.

Now considering this vision of the game, a slow xp gain makes sense. You start your campaign with a 30 year old.(as far as I know)
I am guessing the game has/will have an increasing chance of natural death rising with age. Diseases will be implemented too.
So lets say you have 50 ingame years to develop your character.
Now, with this timeframe you can either have a slow xp gain and create a character with weaknesses and strengths, making the character unique, or a fast xp rate resulting in a jack of all trades supersoldier after a few years.

I think the problem here is that the current gameplay does not support playing as a Clan. It is not surprising to me that players feel like the leveling is slow when the game world feels like its designed to be a sandbox campaign for your starting hero and him only. The game is pretty much over before your children even get to adulthood. The wars are won, all the money made, all the workshops bought, the clan established.
You are a king's vassal within an hour of play. Kingdoms conquer vast landmasses in small timeframes.

Now I don't think theres anything wrong with either style of gameplay. I just think the game has to choose one of the two and follow through with features supporting the chosen gamedesign. A mix of the two just results in frustration manifested in people wanting faster xp and installing mods where their children reach adulthood after 2 ingame years.

I personally think the slower gameplay that was shown in the blogposts is more interesting. I wouldn't mind if your starting hero's purpose is to finish the "rebuild your clan" quest before dying, kickstarting the dynasty. Obvious problem here is a lack of features bridging the early and mid game. What is there to do between being nobody to being a general? What do the factions do in peacetime? If war is supposed to be constant there has to be some kind of de jure claim system. Maybe a revolt system making it hard for a faction to keep conquered lands. Cultural drift to combat that etc.

This is what I think the core problem of bannerlord is at the moment. I am interested to see if TW will be able to develop an identity to the game.

The main issue is the experience you need for something is exponential while the experience you can gain is capped and doesn't grow it actually decrease with limit cap being reached. And leveling only work on number of skill point. So right now to have any kind of progression you need to be a jack of all trade but master of none.(give you lot of SP so you can level up and give more focus so you level up other skill ect) . I want to play a merchant at least until 125 for the renown doing trade but that grindy and actually almost impossible as even going to level 100 (with all focus put into this and all characteristic i can gain into social) because by the time you can have enough experience there is probably a single empire dominating Caldaria and you are still clan level 1.

They really need to buff experience at least when you focus on something cause right now focusing on something is impossible. Actually Warband with the limited number of skill point you chose to spend in the direction you wanted made super soldier (because leveling up combat stats was easy) but really focused character as you could not have high agility strength and charisma.

I really miss the old system and think it should be reimplemented . Especially the ability to really gain something be it training troop or gaining health . Here the gain are so minor and most of the time not really usefull (perk system suck) even if you focus on it.
Man miss going full strength adding health to your character and making a extreme warrior or a max charisma with a really high leadership .

On thing that multigenerationel can be done would be to GIVE thing without being shy like a really shrewed merchant with more money than he could spent should be able in 5/6 hours max to be the best he can be . Then he buy a castle and die 3/4 hours later and his son (which he at least influenced his education) for exemple is focus on leading army and can turn rable in soldier . Using this skill he fight in the war of his suzerain and gain territory and fame 10/12 hours gameplay. Then the next generation is actually a rogue that undermine the kingdom he is in and manage to get independance in a civil war that broke his country. ect ect

If you need 100+ hours to be just above average in the one thing your character is focused on ... yeah people won't do generation of play if one take 300 hours. (that the number of hours i played warband).
P.S: I have 60ish hours of play in bannerlord more than half being me trying to reach that level 125 in trading ... didn't succeed as of now.
 
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I think there is are several issues here.

First, Most people don't have a "generational" attention span. I highly doubt most people will play a 1000 hour campaign to take advantage of being able to take advantage of playing their children and their children's children.

Second, its not a whole lot of fun to be 20+ hours into the game with only 60 in 1-hd slash, getting worked over by every Tier 2 infantryman you try to duel. Your also not competitive in tournaments until you have at least 80-100 skills and even then probably won't beat a lord or maybe even some high tiered units participating. I mean should you have to play 60-80 hours just to have the same weapon skills as AI lords. Also what about critical skills like leadership and charm? How many hours should you have to play to have decent scores in this? 100? 200? Yeah way too long.

Third, as cool as it sounds to have children and be able to play them at some point, the second you have to play as one of your children, your having to level a brand new character yet again. Also, there is the strong possibility that when your "heir" takes over, it will have a borked as hell skill build that has nothing to do with how you enjoy playing your games.

So while the generational aspect sounds cool, it is no for everyone and I would go as far as say, it is probably not for most people. Most people would rather have a decent feeling of progress and feel powerful by the time you are powerful, i.e. in possession of a couple castles, maybe a city or two and commanding enough influence to rally every lord in your kingdom to your banner an create a powerful army. It just doesn't feel right having only 60 weapons skill while commanding a 1000 man army.

Personally, I kind of hope they make generational gameplay optional.

Yes ageing is too slow for generational game play to work at all. An average character will spend about 30hrs on the campaign map before they die. Then imagine all the time you spend doing other activities like battles etc. I think ageing should be sped up especially if they are going to speed up levelling.

You can conquer the whole map in 30hrs (6000 in game days days) on the campaign map. Therefore, generational gameplay is pointless right now.
 
Idk why I can't put my finger on it but it feels like we're moving in the direction of something like CK which is fine, but it isn't Warband. Maybe it's just an irrational feeling but it's one I can't shake.

lol, you captured in two sentences more clearly what it took me four meandering paragraphs to express.
 
Before now, M&B focused on one character leading an individual warband, with skill progression & timescale appropriate to match. This worked. Some Total War games and Paradox' CK2 featured multi-generational dynasties with typical playthroughs lasting centuries. This also worked.

One gets the impression that Bannerlord is attempting to bridge the gap between the two concepts. Whether or not they'll eventually succeed has yet to be seen, as so many features have yet to be implemented (plus unintended dynamics like the infamous "steamroll" are just getting in the way right now). But I gotta say that early indications aren't exactly encouraging.

I don't want BL to just be a Warband 2.0 copycat with prettier graphics. That said, Warband was disproportionately successful...a game which wound up having far more appeal and longevity than anyone would've predicted a decade ago. Sure, both we and the devs want Bannerlord to be different, but Tale Worlds ought to think long and hard about what made M&B so successful in the first place, and be very careful about fundamental deviations from that formula. Otherwise they risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

My own feeling: A multi-generational approach can work. And maybe eventually it actually will. But fundamentally, if that's what happens, then Tale World's won't have made a Mount & Blade game, but something else entirely. Is that good? Bad? I don't know. I do know it's risky as hell.

Yeah I think when the game feels less empty and ageing is sped up a multi-generational approach can work. Right now so much is missing, all you can do is a few quests and repetitively fight enemy parties over and over. Then eventually conquer castles and towns.

Imagine if you could spend a good proportional of your lifespan doing criminal activities building up criminal gangs in cities under your control.

We're also missing a main quest line with our brother who disappears and you never hear from again.
 
Maybe if there was more family interaction, some sort of education feature to direct your heir/other kids the way you want in term of skills so that way you have a base in what you actually want for the next character you'll play (the heir), then the slow pace of aging and time in general could be less of an issue for some people.

And yeah, in case someone wants to stick with one only character from start to end, maybe they should simply have the generational feature as optional.

Otherwise I think passing from heir to heir can be a viable interesting gameplay if they make the family/royal house something lively enough. I'm sure this will be a lot of work though, since that's pretty disconnected from the grindey gameplay Mount and Blade has to its core. It will require building a whole, real and complex relational side to it. If they don't make it a big multidimensional thing, then it will be much less desirable.

In any case, I won't be thinking too much about this right now, there is so much to do before doing something of the sort.
 
I see people suggesting a faster rate of leveling. Now I believe that is a result of unclear gamedesign/vision of the game.

I remember reading blog posts about the Clan system. How you can continue playing the game when your character dies, taking the role of an heir.
Children taking like 20(?) years to reach adulthood. Basically youre playing as a Clan over generations.

Now considering this vision of the game, a slow xp gain makes sense. You start your campaign with a 30 year old.(as far as I know)
I am guessing the game has/will have an increasing chance of natural death rising with age. Diseases will be implemented too.
So lets say you have 50 ingame years to develop your character.
Now, with this timeframe you can either have a slow xp gain and create a character with weaknesses and strengths, making the character unique, or a fast xp rate resulting in a jack of all trades supersoldier after a few years.

Not really, though.

Even with a fast XP rate, the learning limit mechanic limits(sic) the ability to become a 'jack of all trades supersoldier.' Even with the slow rate, 50 years is more than enough time to hit those same limits.

With that limiter in place, the difference between fast and slow isn't whether you have a character with 'weaknesses and strengths' - it's how long you have to spend playing a character with *just* weaknesses and no developed strengths.
 
The big problem I personally have with the generational gameplay is it simply takes way too long. Realistically, when playing a character normally it'll take around 3-4 real hours to go through an entire year in the game, often more if you're fighting a lot (which tends to be the main activity in the game anyway). Your character starts in his 30s and probably won't die until he's in his 60s or 70s, possibly even later. That means that on average, you'll be playing the game for 90-150 hours before you even get a chance to play as your heir.

I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to play a game where you haven't pretty much maxed out your character within 50 hours, maybe 75 hours at most if the gameplay loop is tremendously fun in and of itself. If there isn't constant, meaningful progression for that entire lifespan there's no way that myself or likely the average player will actually keep on playing that long, and let's be honest, no singleplayer game could ever realistically hit that amount of content, not without an absolutely massive team and an immense amount of money to just shove increasingly ridiculous amounts of content into the game.

The only possible solution to this would be to increase the rate of time passing drastically, and by that I mean by a factor of at least 4-5 times faster as it is currently. That would mean only having to spend around 20-30 hours on a single character before moving on, which is still slow but very much attainable in a standard Mount and Blade playthrough. This could also be folded into a separate gamemode, for example you have your standard game that plays like it does now and you have a "generational" game where time is sped up drastically and xp gain is slowed down.

In a nutshell, the generational gameplay sounds amazing on paper but just won't work in the present state of the game, or at least not for the majority of people who just won't be willing to put in 150 hours in a singular savefile where they can't progress very quickly. The OP does have a point in that this requires a fundamental rethink of what the goal of this game should be.
 
The big problem I personally have with the generational gameplay is it simply takes way too long. Realistically, when playing a character normally it'll take around 3-4 real hours to go through an entire year in the game, often more if you're fighting a lot (which tends to be the main activity in the game anyway). Your character starts in his 30s and probably won't die until he's in his 60s or 70s, possibly even later. That means that on average, you'll be playing the game for 90-150 hours before you even get a chance to play as your heir.

I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to play a game where you haven't pretty much maxed out your character within 50 hours, maybe 75 hours at most if the gameplay loop is tremendously fun in and of itself. If there isn't constant, meaningful progression for that entire lifespan there's no way that myself or likely the average player will actually keep on playing that long, and let's be honest, no singleplayer game could ever realistically hit that amount of content, not without an absolutely massive team and an immense amount of money to just shove increasingly ridiculous amounts of content into the game.

The only possible solution to this would be to increase the rate of time passing drastically, and by that I mean by a factor of at least 4-5 times faster as it is currently. That would mean only having to spend around 20-30 hours on a single character before moving on, which is still slow but very much attainable in a standard Mount and Blade playthrough. This could also be folded into a separate gamemode, for example you have your standard game that plays like it does now and you have a "generational" game where time is sped up drastically and xp gain is slowed down.

In a nutshell, the generational gameplay sounds amazing on paper but just won't work in the present state of the game, or at least not for the majority of people who just won't be willing to put in 150 hours in a singular savefile where they can't progress very quickly. The OP does have a point in that this requires a fundamental rethink of what the goal of this game should be.

My single player games last for weeks. 4 to 5 times faster LOL.... that's not a generational sandbox, that's an evening's play through while waiting to play Call Of Duty next time the boredom gets to intense. Are you sure you want to play this type of game? To most the game is ending far to quickly after snowballing at about 10 hours.
 
My single player games last for weeks.
Out of curiosity how much time do you put into it per day?

Personally, I've played 4 campaigns so far and have 90 hours logged into Steam. In my own opinion it's silly that I'd only just be reaching the point at which I'd even have a possibility of playing as a new character and finally progressing to become a vassal or somesuch. It would take an absolutely tremendous amount of content -more than most major RPGs (with far more resources than Taleworlds has) in fact- to actually keep me occupied for that entire period while also feeling like I'm progressing somewhere.
 
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