An open letter to the competitive community

[Hairless]

I would rather wonder how this will help make the game better overall. Well, maybe if it works out, we'll get a slightly better balance of factions and units, but in the final, who will be interested in the competitive scene in a few months? If a battle comes out, then no one will play skirmish, because it just doesn't have as competitive potential as a battle.
If we got some better combat instead, because the current one is *****. And it would also like servers, because without them you do a balance for a few people, because most prefer to stay on the warband.

With all respect to your warband boomerism, skirmish is superior to battle in every aspect on competetive grounds. I know your nostalgia hits hard, but idk how waiting 3 minutes for a flag gives teams better competetive experience. Flag mechanics here bring way less randomness, and way more ways to actually play around them, multiple spawns allow more rapid and fast paced playstyle, instead of one life slow paced mode. You should stick to Bannerlord to a while to undestand it yourself, instead of being another warband boomer who didn't even taste the true potential of skirmish, yet is fast to judge on how "tRaSh iT iS".

Now the the original topic. The more I think about removing limits, the more I realize how bad it will influence the game. The main reason behind removing them is to collect data for the developers. The problem is, most people are already used to them, and most people know playing without at least 3 infantry makes the game boring run-away simulator. So, these people who support this idea will simply move limitls into gray zone/gentleman agreements. And beacuse of that,no true data will be gathered, as most matches are still gonna be matches with limits, but only with "agreements". So for the best sake of community, Beast should be kept with limits, and other, fast paced week/2weeks tournament should be hosted without them. We already have weekend cup comming, and AVRC promissed to make something himself, so why don't we just let these tournaments burn instead of straight breaking place where it all started?

 

[hoonii]

I, and according to all the posts here many other are supporting the idea of not removing the class limits from BEAST but instead making a separate tournament to try things out there.
Why devs want BEAST to be without the class restriction is very clear; the biggest competitive scene. But I bet 20 bucks half the clans will withdraw from the tournament(majority of which from lower brackets) after realizing how exhausting and unfun it is to play against 6 cav spam or 3-3 tactics for 8 weeks straight. BEAST is the only big competitive scene around and people want to have fun in it and you can't tell them "**** your fun we will balance the game." You can just see how many clans are not eager to play without restrictions when you get your own tournament out and barely any clans sign up apart from the few big ones.

I'm sorry @AVRC and other devs but the last months have left deep scars on the player base and not many people are willing to believe that you guys will %100 remedy this balance issue after this said 8 weeks.

Yet again I'm behind my idea that we should wait for the "Monday patch" that is supposed to be a buff for the infantry and see things out from there. You have uttered some hope giving words like "Patches will be much more frequent now" or such. Hopefully you guys will not disappoint your community

 

[Tryerror]

With all respect to your warband boomerism, skirmish is superior to battle in every aspect on competetive grounds.

nonono. The feeling of 15 vs 15 or 20 vs 20 where the most intense and heartbeating competitive fights I ever had. The feeling of 10 infs cleashing against each other of 5 or more cav clashing are amazing - intense. When you have like 7 very good players but another clan has like 15 good ones, he has the better cards. Having a few very good people on the battleground only happens when you are in legendary tier like Arthur, Minamoto, Lu Boo or something. When you cant bring enough people to the battleground to match even numbers because you only take a selected few into your ranks, you better have some allied clan to help you out in battle. You are seperated in the community and dont have any allied clans? - well sucks to be you, you have to fight 10 vs 20 or better watch out when you challange others.
The whole thought of Clans made way more sense and fun when you had those bigger battles. Not only to speak when Nations bring 100 vs 100 on the battlefield to once and for all fight things out.
Oh my the good old times, how nostalgic. Ahh, I miss it.

 

[sniparsexe]

bruh I'm not even a multiplayer guy but you write it in a such way that Now I want to participate lol (I won't but, good luck!)

 

[Younes]

With all respect to your warband boomerism, skirmish is superior to battle in every aspect on competetive grounds. I know your nostalgia hits hard, but idk how waiting 3 minutes for a flag gives teams better competetive experience.

 

[Fietta]

With all respect to your warband boomerism, skirmish is superior to battle in every aspect on competetive grounds. I know your nostalgia hits hard, but idk how waiting 3 minutes for a flag gives teams better competetive experience. Flag mechanics here bring way less randomness, and way more ways to actually play around them, multiple spawns allow more rapid and fast paced playstyle, instead of one life slow paced mode. You should stick to Bannerlord to a while to undestand it yourself, instead of being another warband boomer who didn't even taste the true potential of skirmish, yet is fast to judge on how "tRaSh iT iS".

Now the the original topic. The more I think about removing limits, the more I realize how bad it will influence the game. The main reason behind removing them is to collect data for the developers. The problem is, most people are already used to them, and most people know playing without at least 3 infantry makes the game boring run-away simulator. So, these people who support this idea will simply move limits into gray zone/gentleman agreements. And because of that, no true data will be gathered, as most matches are still gonna be matches with limits, but only with "agreements". So for the best sake of community, Beast should be kept with limits, and other, fast paced week/2weeks tournament should be hosted without them. We already have weekend cup coming, and AVRC promised to make something himself, so why don't we just let these tournaments burn instead of straight breaking place where it all started?

Uh, pretty sure a one-life competitive mode was announced to be in the works a few months back somewhere (correct me if I'm wrong) due to popular demand. Multiple flags just mean that cavalry goes to the other two whilst you have a full engagement on one flag (basically the same as battle except instead of cavalry riding to the other flags, they'll come to the one flag). You don't have your 3 infantry, one on each flag, they're all together on one flag much like battle. It's why people would also be happy with a one-life skirmish mode, because it's pretty much the same as battle as the full engagement is always near one of the flags and not all of them at any one time. Multiple lives removes any form of competitive outbreak, lack of 'clutches' as they can just respawn, getting multiple kills meaning much less and aren't as valuable, individual skill gets saturated by 'morale', doing a cool switch isn't memorable. I'd be happy to play a one-life skirmish mode for sure, but multiple lives just ruins the sweatiness of having to stay alive and do some really cool clutch play, you've also got to remember that leadership is a major factor in Native, having to call in your cavalry at the right time on flag for the infantry clash, while calling someone to push the archer so we don't get crossfired on the flag; we only have one life, so calls have to be pristine, can't afford to lose one of you. Just because a game mode is in a 10 year old game, doesn't mean it's not relevant or 'boomer', Skirmish (Conquest) has been around for decades in other casual games, they're timeless.

I agree with the second point though, removing class limits in my opinion would be detrimental to the BEAST's tournament name and could potentially cause more issues than not and AVRC said that if BEAST decline then they'll just make one themselves, so we might aswell just take that instead of potentially ruining the name and comp scene. I think data would be gathered though, but I doubt the patch would come shortly after the tournament, so just stay with BEAST's standard format.

 

[OurGloriousLeader]

For me (actually having tried both Warband battle and Skirmish a fair amount, thus making me the chosen one), I think Skirmish has better designed objective play, but the respawns kill it for me. Battle is fairly boring in that you wait for the flag and where it spawns being rng, this is absolutely correct and a fair criticism - the competitive community made moves against both, which were fought all the way but vastly improved the game, but they still remained present as issues. I was an advocate for further improving the objectives we played around in battle for a long time.

The respawns though, I don't see how it makes things more "fast paced". It drags fights out and makes death less punishing, and perhaps most importantly massively buffs classes that can have an impact over range aka archers and cav. Respawn areas also render whole areas of the map practically no-go areas. I had an argument with @Silvernj about pushing archers in Xauna, where we wrecked some xbow losers but they simply spawn in an area you can't get into and shoot you lol. The counter is "not push there" - what terrible game mode design! No wonder inf are constantly crying about archers, when the archers can kite 5m and go somewhere where even if you kill them, you're still in a bad place.

I was interested to see someone raise the Insurgency game mode, which has respawns and is a great comparison if you also look at CSGO, which doesn't. I challenge anyone to play both modes and consider the former the more competitive mode, even though both are well designed.

The biggest issue the Warband Boomer community faced was constant resistance to change and trying new things. I hope the Bannerlord TikTokkers don't make the same mistake and continue trying new things. My ideal game mode would be something like Skirmish with single lives.

 

[Fietta]

My ideal game mode would be something like Skirmish with single lives.

This for sure. I've been a fan of Skirmish, don't think anyone has called it a bad game mode, it's just got no competitive vibes.

Alright, back on-topic before I have to warn myself and anyone else that wants to discuss game modes in this thread.

 

[KSHMR]

With all respect to your warband boomerism, skirmish is superior to battle in every aspect on competetive grounds. I know your nostalgia hits hard, but idk how waiting 3 minutes for a flag gives teams better competetive experience. Flag mechanics here bring way less randomness, and way more ways to actually play around them, multiple spawns allow more rapid and fast paced playstyle, instead of one life slow paced mode. You should stick to Bannerlord to a while to undestand it yourself, instead of being another warband boomer who didn't even taste the true potential of skirmish, yet is fast to judge on how "tRaSh iT iS".

Now the the original topic. The more I think about removing limits, the more I realize how bad it will influence the game. The main reason behind removing them is to collect data for the developers. The problem is, most people are already used to them, and most people know playing without at least 3 infantry makes the game boring run-away simulator. So, these people who support this idea will simply move limitls into gray zone/gentleman agreements. And beacuse of that,no true data will be gathered, as most matches are still gonna be matches with limits, but only with "agreements". So for the best sake of community, Beast should be kept with limits, and other, fast paced week/2weeks tournament should be hosted without them. We already have weekend cup comming, and AVRC promissed to make something himself, so why don't we just let these tournaments burn instead of straight breaking place where it all started?

Hairless is right. A very substantial amount of the total ''battle'' matches that were played in Warband comprised of two stages. The first stage was waiting for the flag to spawn and the second was fighting for the flag. Skirmish is better for competitive in all aspects even though battle mode is definitely going to be nice to see.

 

[The_Great_White]

Hairless is right. A very substantial amount of the total ''battle'' matches that were played in Warband comprised of two stages. The first stage was waiting for the flag to spawn and the second was fighting for the flag. Skirmish is better for competitive in all aspects even though battle mode is definitely going to be nice to see.

Great competitive gamemode where I spawn behind you and shoot you in the head

 

[Aeronwen]

The best data for balancing the game obviously comes from a tournament such as BEAST.

• Teams of all different levels are playing the same maps and factions each week
• Teams are already sorted into skill based divisions
• Most competitive teams are always looking for & finding in game ways to min/max their performance

There is simply nothing else atm that can provide such quality information. This is still Early Access, if we want a better game experience at the end of EA we need to be prepared to do our part.

If everyone has to learn to play archer or cav for a few weeks is that the end of the world?

 

[OurGloriousLeader]

Hairless is right. A very substantial amount of the total ''battle'' matches that were played in Warband comprised of two stages. The first stage was waiting for the flag to spawn and the second was fighting for the flag. Skirmish is better for competitive in all aspects even though battle mode is definitely going to be nice to see.

Kinda a weird metric to judge things by stages. Skirmish has 3 stages; teams take a flag each and their cav skirmish over the other, teams fight, then they respawn and fight again. Damn, that's 33% better than battle!

You should have infinite gold so there are infinite stages, making it the greatest esport.

Great competitive gamemode where I spawn behind you and shoot you in the head

?

 

[Hairless]

If everyone has to learn to play archer or cav for a few weeks is that the end of the world?

Let me translate:
If everyone has to be forced to do something they don't like in their free time which they want to spend properly for few weeks is that the end of the world?

????????

 

[The_Great_White]

Let me translate:
If everyone has to be forced to do something they don't like in their free time which they want to spend properly for few weeks is that the end of the world?

????????

This translation is pretty accurate, thank you!

 

[jipped]

I know people are complaining. Hopefully TW knows about the "Slow Bug" every time you die in shield wall.

Its been 1 or 2 patches since its been in effect

 

[Shemaforash]

With all respect to your warband boomerism, skirmish is superior to battle in every aspect on competetive grounds. I know your nostalgia hits hard, but idk how waiting 3 minutes for a flag gives teams better competetive experience. Flag mechanics here bring way less randomness, and way more ways to actually play around them, multiple spawns allow more rapid and fast paced playstyle, instead of one life slow paced mode. You should stick to Bannerlord to a while to undestand it yourself, instead of being another warband boomer who didn't even taste the true potential of skirmish, yet is fast to judge on how "tRaSh iT iS".

I’d be salty too if I missed out on the peak of mount and blade multiplayer

 

[Pacemaker]

With all respect to your warband boomerism, skirmish is superior to battle in every aspect on competetive grounds. I know your nostalgia hits hard, but idk how waiting 3 minutes for a flag gives teams better competetive experience. Flag mechanics here bring way less randomness, and way more ways to actually play around them, multiple spawns allow more rapid and fast paced playstyle, instead of one life slow paced mode. You should stick to Bannerlord to a while to undestand it yourself, instead of being another warband boomer who didn't even taste the true potential of skirmish, yet is fast to judge on how "tRaSh iT iS".

Now the the original topic. The more I think about removing limits, the more I realize how bad it will influence the game. The main reason behind removing them is to collect data for the developers. The problem is, most people are already used to them, and most people know playing without at least 3 infantry makes the game boring run-away simulator. So, these people who support this idea will simply move limitls into gray zone/gentleman agreements. And beacuse of that,no true data will be gathered, as most matches are still gonna be matches with limits, but only with "agreements". So for the best sake of community, Beast should be kept with limits, and other, fast paced week/2weeks tournament should be hosted without them. We already have weekend cup comming, and AVRC promissed to make something himself, so why don't we just let these tournaments burn instead of straight breaking place where it all started?

I don't think multiple spawns help the "competitiveness" at all. If an archer gets singled out early in a fight, he has to be escorted out of his spawn or risk getting spawnraped by the enemy cavarly, if they are smart enough. If I kill a cav, I have to account for him zooming out of his spawn ready to revenge kill me. All this and the fact that good teams literally play around the spawn system along the lines of "don't fight there, it's close to their respawn" tells me that this concept is just fundamentally incompatible with this game mode and we will probably gravitate away from it in the future.

 

[Gibby Jr]

With all respect to your warband boomerism, skirmish is superior to battle in every aspect on competetive grounds. I know your nostalgia hits hard, but idk how waiting 3 minutes for a flag gives teams better competetive experience. Flag mechanics here bring way less randomness, and way more ways to actually play around them, multiple spawns allow more rapid and fast paced playstyle, instead of one life slow paced mode. You should stick to Bannerlord to a while to undestand it yourself, instead of being another warband boomer who didn't even taste the true potential of skirmish, yet is fast to judge on how "tRaSh iT iS".

Battle was not a perfect mode for competitive and the older games in Warband with huge round times and the waiting you describe were definitely poorly thought out. However, for the majority of the time competitive Warband has been around the flag spawned within a minute of the round start and games from 2016 onward had the flag spawn within 45 or 30 seconds of the round start.

Multiple lives was a poor idea imo, not only because it inherently makes each life less valuable but largely because of the natural buff it gives to archers and cavalry and how it incentivises less aggressive/decisive play. It's interesting that you think Battle created slow paced gameplay when it almost always created a single engagement in which the round was decided in 20-30 seconds. There was additional waiting time which needed to be removed by improving the gamemode but the engagements themselves were always fast-paced.

Battle had poor flag mechanics which desperately needed revamping and Skirmish offers some interesting solutions for that, although teams could be just as defensive in Skirmish if they wanted to. If each team goes to a far flag and waits then there is no action until those flags despawn and the middle one spawns, so it is just as possible to play a long, boring and defensive game of Skirmish.

I think it would be very interesting to try out a version of Skirmish which was single-life, though that would also need to come with a total revamp to the class system or a return to free gear selection. Nobody is going to pick a peasant over a tanky class if they only have one life.

 

[Indi4N]

bannerlord is false god

 

[Zoonanay]

In casual Skirmish I have less down-time than in casual Battle.

In competitive though, I spend much more time skirting around, baiting and waiting in Skirmish than I ever have done in Battle.

As said though, mutliple spawns really hamper its competitive side. Clutches are less satisfying, mistakes less costly, opportunities less valueable, a significant buff to cavalry and a minor one to archery, viewer readability is diminished...

However, Skirmish does make a nice semi-competitive mode. A way for new players to transition from chaotic Siege and TDM to a more ordered and determinable single-life competitive gamemode without all the down-time or single-life frustrations.