About updates and mods and blablabla

[Blacke]

A new update has come and my game is now crashing, obviously because I have mods, and once again this is irritating.

Bannerlord, Stellaris, etc, all those promising games rely too much on modders too improve their vanilla version, which turns to be too repetitive (dare I say "boring" ?) after several hours.

Many players are asking for ages:

- a proper banner editor (because we are all artists after all)
- a proper characters editor (so our children won't look like perfect clones)
- a proper troops editor (so we can fully run the army we want)
- mixed genre troops (because variety is a good thing)
- similars Calradia At War/Scum & Villainy great features (so we can experience a constantly changing world with various unique interractions)
- and so on...

These things already exist, but they aren't official and, by extension, potentially unstable once an update pops up. Like today...

I guess there is a real problem with some PC video games such this one nowadays.

We spend too much time begging modders for updates (sometimes with little result) and tweaking XML files, rather than simply enjoying a stable and fully featured game.

Looks like devs are trading "fun for players" for a "feast for modders". A shame.

I do have respect for modders, many have wonderful ideas which enrich games so much. To be fair, without modders, I wouldn't be playing Bannerlord by now. And I'm not talking about full revamps, only few features like the ones I mentioned above.

But I also have respect for the fun I can experience in a game, especially when I paid the full price and waited a whole year following the early access period.

Just sharing a player's opinion rather than trying to convice anyone here, so feel free to agree/disagree.

Anyway, I really love Bannerlord but I guess I can't bare this situation anymore. I just give up for another year and come back to see if things has changed in 2024.

Meanwhile, I might have an evaluation to post on Steam and I wonder what I'm going to write...🤐

 

[JunKeteer]

Played through my fair share of frustrations since EA; full-release was no different then any other EA/beta numbered patch. See mods that have potential but I'm just going to take a break until a stable/'complete' version of the game is present and the entailing variety of mods/potential with a stable environment.

 

[Lucius Confucius]

Use the steam feature to lock your game version. Then download only mods for that version and you can play with stability forever.

 

[Cullam]

Mods will continue to break until the game is finished and it´s more about fixing minor issues.

 

[Blacke]

Use the steam feature to lock your game version. Then download only mods for that version and you can play with stability forever.

Locking the game's version for stability is more a good tip than a real solution.

The real problem is that nowadays many promising PC games (like this one) rely too much on modding.

And this situation seems to be accepted by eveyrone, devs, modders and players.

The game costs $49.99 (probably less if you look for good deals of course).

Do you think it's fair to pay this amount to manually lock ourselves in a single version, so we can enjoy a stable environment for a bunch of (good) unofficial mods, only because the game isn't fun enough by himself ?

Doesn't feel right to me.

 

[Cullam]

Mods are awesome for every game. That´s one thing I give TW a lot of credit for. Without modding I guess I would have -300 hours playtime in Bannerlord.

The problem is that TW decided to go into EA too early and into "full" release too early. For whatever reason...

Just imagine most mods won´t break with every update, this would be awesome, and before the end of time we´ll get to this point I guess.

 

[Blacke]

Mods are awesome for every game. That´s one thing I give TW a lot of credit for

Not sure I get it, for what actually would you give TW credit ? Is that because mods exist in general or the fact TW allows mods ?

If it's mods in general, I rather want to thanks modders directly, because without them the game misses too many features, even the simplest ones.

If it's because TW allows people to create and provide mods, well that is kind of TW indeed, but the way I see it, it looks like allowing people to have cars but not maintaining roads in good condition for them.

Sorry to be that guy, but for the various reasons we both mentioned, I fail to see why I should give TW credit about anything related to modding so far, because it does look like an endless mess.

 

[Cullam]

That TW desinged the game with mods in their mind.

And of course I agree, I´m also VERY thankful for each modder even for the small mods that won´t break with every minor update like keeping your own banners if you join a kingdom.

 

[froggyluv]

That TW desinged the game with mods in their mind.

Why wouldnt they -mods increase their sales. you're thinking its a purely altruistic endeavor and I can assure its not

 

[Cullam]

PC EA sales + consoles sales would be enough to leave the game away and go on to the "space game", but TW is still trying.

Even with if TW would have said mods will be like Warband, the PC crowd would have bought it day one, as I did. Console players won´t even any have option for the next 10 years because it´s a niche game for "them".

EDIT:

Also for PC, there is no real alternative, if there is any, please tell me which one (singleplayer).

EDIT 2:

For MP there are a lot that are and will be more succesful ever than Bannerlord. Does anyone, at this point, still believe that someone will care about Bannerlord MP when it comes down to Esports?

 

[Blacke]

That TW desinged the game with mods in their mind.

I believe we should aim a bit higher than praising TW for an idea they once had while developping the game, probably several years ago.

Because as far as I know good intentions usually collide with reality.

They might have wanted to create a nice environment where modders are feeling rewarded for their contributions and players more than happy to have paid almost $50 (!!) for a stable game where every updates means even more quality features. It is, indeed, a nice story. 💞

I have no idea what's going on with TW and EA, or whatever. To be fair I couldn't care less, I'm a player, not an accountant.

But if they have money issue they could start thinking about releasing some DLC from time to time. I'm sure they are many of us more than willing to pay for more music tracks (which I personnaly love) and, guess what...new features that mods already provide.

More contents, stability and also money for TW, sounds like fun for everyone isn't it ? And it doesn't have to be a story this time, others games run well with DLC.

But wait...is releasing DLC inspired by mods "stealing others work" after all? A legit question.

I'm not modder myself, but I noticed many mods has been released precisely because their authors thought a feature was actually missing from the game.

So they have decided to do it themselves and share it with everyone.

Take these few examples:

- Kingdom Destruction (the author litteraly wrote "TaleWorlds couldn't get one guy on this?")
- More Hero Interactions ("Adds multiple interactions with heroes to spice up your play-through and improve immersion.")
- Distinguished Service ("This mod allows basic soldiers, who meet certain criteria, to ascend to companion-dom following battle.")
- I Don't Want Your Eldest Member ("In vanilla game (...) they will only offer the eldest member that is available for marriage")
- Over 2000 More Generated Names ("I was frustrated with the limited amount of names generated for PC and NPC characters in base game")

Pretty sure the list of frustrated modders is bigger than my arm. If Bannerlord could provide official (and stable) features such the ones mentioned above I have little doubt a majority of people would be so glad, modders included.

But I'd like to end this post with the quintessence of what is going wrong with Bannerlord by providing this last mod:

- Vlandian Lion Remover ("That stupid lion has been annoying me ever since the game's release. Why do I need to represent Vlandia if I'm not Vlandian ?")

Yep, the game is supposed to be fully released by now and you still need a mod to remove some unwanted sigil in a armor. How dumb is that ?

Anyway TW if you are around it might time to act.

 

[JunKeteer]

Pretty sure the list of frustrated modders is bigger than my arm. If Bannerlord could provide official (and stable) features such the ones mentioned above I have little doubt a majority of people would be so glad, modders included.

But I'd like to end this post with the quintessence of what is going wrong with Bannerlord by providing this last mod:

- Vlandian Lion Remover ("That stupid lion has been annoying me ever since the game's release. Why do I need to represent Vlandia if I'm not Vlandian ?")

Yep, the game is supposed to be fully released by now and you still need a mod to remove some unwanted sigil in a armor. How dumb is that ?

Anyway TW if you are around it might time to act.

Death by a thousand cuts. They're struggling to get the base platform performing as is, much less look at these 'minor' issues the playerbase has been complaining about for years now since EA.
Those mod examples (any many more) have been present since the very beginning and rarely do I see any become obsolete because TW managed to get it patched into the game in some form.

 

[Blacke]

Also for PC, there is no real alternative, if there is any, please tell me which one (singleplayer).

The closest I could think of is Manor Lords, expected in 2023.

 

[guiskj]

In a dream I had, TW would focus all efforts on stabilizing the game, being honest with themselves that their main canpaign is mostly a proof-of-concept for their platform, and work directly with modders to help foster multiple different total conversion mods, both for single and multi player.

I could see a very successful marketing strategy of "This game costs U$50 and you can access unlimited different interpretations of it! From a recreation of Middle Ages British Isle, to recreations of well-beloved fantasy realms!".

It would remind me of NWN1, in a sense.

 

[froggyluv]

PC EA sales + consoles sales would be enough to leave the game away and go on to the "space game", but TW is still trying.

If they had disabled the ability for modding they would have lost over half their early Sales as hardly a soul from the original old school fanbase would tolerate that. The "buzz" created for the series was kept alive by the longterm fanbase and Modders so that as well would have been gone.

You can try and minimize it all you want -but if they disabled the ability to mod their game they would take a huge hit.

 

[Underuse2307]

Use the steam feature to lock your game version. Then download only mods for that version and you can play with stability forever.

Which feature is this?

How do i activate it?

 

[Blacke]

If they had disabled the ability for modding they would have lost over half their early Sales as hardly a soul from the original old school fanbase would tolerate that. The "buzz" created for the series was kept alive by the longterm fanbase and Modders so that as well would have been gone.

Putting an end to modding isn't the solution.

That being said, be aware that many mods actually exist simply because players think some features are missing.

If Bannerlord had similar features, but made officials (like the ones I previously mentioned, which are rather simple ideas, not full revamps), delivered through updates or a couple of DLC, the game and the community would be in a much better shape.

Once again, all we got so far are petty updates with a list of "fixes" and barely new features (if we can really call that "features"...). And half of mods can't follow the pace. And I'm really frustated about this.

This way of handling things has to end or the game will soon turn into a legacy state, only kept alive by an even smaller niche community for the years to come.

Why not after all ? It seems to have worked well with Warband.

But I'm not sure this is the best way to have some return on investment for TW. And I'm not sure I paid $49,99 for that as well.

 

[Cullam]

The closest I could think of is Manor Lords, expected in 2023.

The setting might be the same but Manor Lords is more like a RTS.

 

[Lucius Confucius]

Which feature is this?

How do i activate it?

On steam, right click Bannerlord in games list, go to properties. Then the betas menu. There you can select an older version to play on. Now download mods manually from nexus that are compatible with that version.

 

[mongoid]

Mods will continue to break until the game is finished and it´s more about fixing minor issues.

Hahaha I see what you did there! Very good sir!