A Week Away From Launch - The Game Still Feels Very Empty

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I recently played 1.9, and the game still feels very shallow and empty. After years of development, I doubt my feedback is very different from countless others, but this game is in desperate need of immersion/roleplaying elements.

I know voice dialogue is coming, but I don't see that changing the experience dramatically. A few other quick bullets:
  • Factions and Lords have no personalities or unique behaviors, they're literally all the same people (just different visuals/models)
  • The game is a constant war/battle simulator. However, when war isn't happening, the only things the player can do feel either mundane, repetitive and dull. There's no intrigue or player satisfaction
  • The AI logic around diplomacy is a mess
  • There's no point in having a wife or clanmates. They either treat you like a stranger or don't add any value to the player experience, other than producing irrelevant children (who mature to the same generic characters) or adding a body to your armies
I don't know, I just can't in good faith recommend this game to my family and friends. What's very shocking to me is that this forum/community is quite negative around this topic. You'll notice countless posts and threads regarding the lack of role play/immersion. And yet, this is never acknowledged by the devs or TW. It would be so easy for TW to say "We know RP is a huge gap right now, and this is on our radar to address". Instead, it seems the focus is on foundational pieces that have been worked on for years, or things the community doesn't care about.
 
Yeah, I am also really keen that they expand stuff outside of battles, especially families, characters and peacetime mechanics. Sorely needed to make a proper RPG/strategy game of this caliber and style.
 
I recently played 1.9, and the game still feels very shallow and empty. After years of development, I doubt my feedback is very different from countless others, but this game is in desperate need of immersion/roleplaying elements.

I know voice dialogue is coming, but I don't see that changing the experience dramatically. A few other quick bullets:
  • Factions and Lords have no personalities or unique behaviors, they're literally all the same people (just different visuals/models)
  • The game is a constant war/battle simulator. However, when war isn't happening, the only things the player can do feel either mundane, repetitive and dull. There's no intrigue or player satisfaction
  • The AI logic around diplomacy is a mess
  • There's no point in having a wife or clanmates. They either treat you like a stranger or don't add any value to the player experience, other than producing irrelevant children (who mature to the same generic characters) or adding a body to your armies
I don't know, I just can't in good faith recommend this game to my family and friends. What's very shocking to me is that this forum/community is quite negative around this topic. You'll notice countless posts and threads regarding the lack of role play/immersion. And yet, this is never acknowledged by the devs or TW. It would be so easy for TW to say "We know RP is a huge gap right now, and this is on our radar to address". Instead, it seems the focus is on foundational pieces that have been worked on for years, or things the community doesn't care about.

TW doesnt say that because they dont need to financially -meaning they dont need this forums approval to make a huge profit which they already have. Their main focus is stability for Consoles and then just hope the PC crowd is at least "OK" with it but again nothing can move their agenda needle at this point as the sales were already made and enough casuals said "Gud game'
 
TW doesnt say that because they dont need to financially -meaning they dont need this forums approval to make a huge profit which they already have. Their main focus is stability for Consoles and then just hope the PC crowd is at least "OK" with it but again nothing can move their agenda needle at this point as the sales were already made and enough casuals said "Gud game'

I dont think this is the case. They spend over a year longer in Beta development (but it was really Alpha if we're being honest with ourselves) than they initially programmed and announced. The only reason they would be releasing the game now UNFINISHED would be if they were desperate for the money and the only way they could meet this new deadline was because they cut corners and stripped the game back to the shell it is today, "promising" some of the rest of the features in patches after the game is released.

No decent well-oiled company would do this to their new prized game which they had been working on for over a decade. This is half the game we expected it to be when they were putting out development blogs all those years ago and they know it. That's why you won't see a developer in here or similar threads trying to defend this aspect.
 
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Truly disappointing that this is the best they're willing to do. Even the battles aren't very fun for long because the ai is just plain dumb. I keep feeling like I must be missing something, but no. What a sad mess.
 
No decent well-oiled company would do this to their new prized game which they had been working on for over a decade

Do what? Disappoint a niche fanbase by selling out to the masses? Happens all the time in Music, Movies and Video Games. Profit is what drives companies that started with the best artistic intention and its naive to think otherwise. Sure they may care to the extent they consider it a Quality product -but that can and in this case will vary wildly from Developer to long term fan.
 
I recently played 1.9, and the game still feels very shallow and empty. After years of development, I doubt my feedback is very different from countless others, but this game is in desperate need of immersion/roleplaying elements.

I know voice dialogue is coming, but I don't see that changing the experience dramatically. A few other quick bullets:
  • Factions and Lords have no personalities or unique behaviors, they're literally all the same people (just different visuals/models)
  • The game is a constant war/battle simulator. However, when war isn't happening, the only things the player can do feel either mundane, repetitive and dull. There's no intrigue or player satisfaction
  • The AI logic around diplomacy is a mess
  • There's no point in having a wife or clanmates. They either treat you like a stranger or don't add any value to the player experience, other than producing irrelevant children (who mature to the same generic characters) or adding a body to your armies
I don't know, I just can't in good faith recommend this game to my family and friends. What's very shocking to me is that this forum/community is quite negative around this topic. You'll notice countless posts and threads regarding the lack of role play/immersion. And yet, this is never acknowledged by the devs or TW. It would be so easy for TW to say "We know RP is a huge gap right now, and this is on our radar to address". Instead, it seems the focus is on foundational pieces that have been worked on for years, or things the community doesn't care about.
Yep

Too late to do anything about it now. I think TW really just wants to make Bannerlord a "showcase" game at this point. Something that looks neat, that you can make trailers out, and streamers can show off heavily edited bits to their audiences. All that RPG gobldy gook is just too much work.

The amount of "imagination" one needs to make any sense of all the random wars kind of borderlines on psychotic. You know the sort of person who'll just make up some random NPC in the tavern is a spy. I mean if you're an adult and still got that level of imagination, great for you. You can probably write the next "Harry Potter" with your ability to spin yarns like that from nothing. Me I see a pile of legos and imagine less what sort of cabin I can make, and more how much it's going to hurt when I step on them in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom.


At this point I really just want TW to "wrap it up" so those passionate enough and willing to sacrifice their free time can actually realize Bannerlord's potential. No amount of time is going to help TW finalize the game or create any sort of meaningful NPC interactions. Just basic stuff like vassals that rebel when a Kingdom starts to get too big and/or claimants would add some level of intrigue. But honestly we'll be lucky to see some actual Diplomacy mechanics a year from now.

I have no doubt overhaul mods will completely overshadow the base game in a year or two, regardless if they have voiced dialogue or not. (Also Voice Over is kind of pointless, unless you know you actually have good dialogue to begin with.)
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Keep in mind that this game opens up so many possibilities and so much potential via modding. It's repeatedly made clear that they're focusing on making the game stable to facilitate that. If they focus on adding various features, that would mean leaving those bugs alone (in fact it would cause more). Meaning a modder might have his creativity limited because if he used a certain module in a certain way, the game would crash or cause an unwanted behavior that the modder can't touch. From what I can see, they're trying to avoid that. That's why there is always so many crash fixes each patch.

Sure it would be nice if they could be stable and immersive and all that, but hey. Cut them some slack.
 
Keep in mind that this game opens up so many possibilities and so much potential via modding. It's repeatedly made clear that they're focusing on making the game stable to facilitate that. If they focus on adding various features, that would mean leaving those bugs alone (in fact it would cause more). Meaning a modder might have his creativity limited because if he used a certain module in a certain way, the game would crash or cause an unwanted behavior that the modder can't touch. From what I can see, they're trying to avoid that. That's why there is always so many crash fixes each patch.

Sure it would be nice if they could be stable and immersive and all that, but hey. Cut them some slack.
I agree. I think they realized it would be better to release a functional but unfinished game rather than a dysfunctional but finished game. In itself, it is already a confession on their part. And it is the best decision they could make.
 
I agree. I think they realized it would be better to release a functional but unfinished game rather than a dysfunctional but finished game. In itself, it is already a confession on their part. And it is the best decision they could make.

I don't know. I get your point, but this is also a game/franchise that has generated millions in sales. It feels like poor management and infrastructure if they have defaulted to this strategy, all the while ignoring their most passionate community members (the users of this forum).
 
I agree. I think they realized it would be better to release a functional but unfinished game rather than a dysfunctional but finished game. In itself, it is already a confession on their part. And it is the best decision they could make.
If they can manage to stop the crashes - it's still pretty 50/50 chance a large battle crashes either at the start/mid-way or somehow still duplicate myself as a prisoner (=immediate crash visiting said castle). And the longer a save file exists (even one that started on the newest version), the crashes occur more frequently; we're about a week from their 'official' launch.
I can't imagine how they can get that to work with mods (or steam workshop); or even just one or two mods. I can play Kenshi/Skyrim/Fallout/etc...with 100+ mods and still get more stability than the current base BL.
 
Do what? Disappoint a niche fanbase by selling out to the masses? Happens all the time in Music, Movies and Video Games. Profit is what drives companies that started with the best artistic intention and its naive to think otherwise. Sure they may care to the extent they consider it a Quality product -but that can and in this case will vary wildly from Developer to long term fan.

That why I said no decent company would. An un-decent company would absolutely do this.
 
That why I said no decent company would. An un-decent company would absolutely do this.

"Decent" is subjective. At their current trajectory they will not deliver the finely calibrated and fleshed out PC game the majority of the long term fanbase hoped for or expected, so by your own definition -they will not be decent but they will be financially successful.
 
"Decent" is subjective. At their current trajectory they will not deliver the finely calibrated and fleshed out PC game the majority of the long term fanbase hoped for or expected, so by your own definition -they will not be decent but they will be financially successful.

I don't think so. As I said in my original point, I think the only reason they are releasing it in the state it is, is because they absolutely need to. But agree to disagree.
 
My point of view: I've spent the entire time since EA release in vanilla, trying to find the bugs, offer the suggestions, to make this a game I want. It's still a long way from that.

Now I say - bring on the mods!!
 
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