As of 1.8.0, What Do You Think is Needed to Fix Bannerlord's End-Game?

[stevepine]

The game did take a step forward with the last patch. Finally... but I don't know about you.... I just don't feel motivated much to play because of the current state of end / late game.

For me, the last time I got close to "end game" in a play through, I was put off by the sheer, jaw dropping cost of starting and running my own kingdom... plus the heavy over reliance on the 'javelin / crafting' economy to finance anything.

So, anyway.... a simple question:

I'm curious to know your opinions about what identifiable steps are really needed to fix Bannerlord's end game?

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

They need to separate the economy into personal purchases vs kingdom fief system. Money should be used only to buy companions, mercenaries (by contract, not on an individual basis) and items. The actual lords should have their own system that doesn't intereact with money at all, like levying a pool of men that replenishes very slowly.

The current problem is that by the lategame you have infinite money, so the AI has to be given infinite money to keep up, meaning that wars last forever. The infinite money is caused by all the early game mechanics like selling trash items that you can spam with no limits. You end up supporting armies by selling vast amounts of garbage rather than by holding fiefs. By separating out the personal and the state economies, it would fix most of the fundamental problems i have with the game, not least the impetus to hoard every piece of loot you come across. You shouldnt be allowed to sell rusty helmets or rags for example, who in their right mind would actually want to buy that crap?

 

[NPC99]

Just because it was easy to conquer the whole map in Warband doesn't mean that is the only meaningful game objective or play style for Bannerlord. In a sandbox, you are responsible for your play style and set your own victory conditions.

 

[gromalleh]

How can you play at all if you can't marry anyone in 1.8.0?
It's a joke -- wait 1 month for update and now we need to wait 1 month more to fix bugs in 1.8.0.

 

[D0c1]

You end up supporting armies by selling vast amounts of garbage rather than by holding fiefs

i agree that this is the main issue.
if separating personal and state economy is too hard, they can simply up fiefs income and lower loot value.
of course, it needs a lot of work balancing it but it beats the current system of very profitable battles and negligible gold from devastating towns.

looting a village in warband gave huge amount of denars. devastating a town in bannerlord gives a pittance.

 

[Jehiel]

They need to separate the economy into personal purchases vs kingdom fief system. Money should be used only to buy companions, mercenaries (by contract, not on an individual basis) and items. The actual lords should have their own system that doesn't intereact with money at all, like levying a pool of men that replenishes very slowly.

The current problem is that by the lategame you have infinite money, so the AI has to be given infinite money to keep up, meaning that wars last forever. The infinite money is caused by all the early game mechanics like selling trash items that you can spam with no limits. You end up supporting armies by selling vast amounts of garbage rather than by holding fiefs. By separating out the personal and the state economies, it would fix most of the fundamental problems i have with the game, not least the impetus to hoard every piece of loot you come across. You shouldnt be allowed to sell rusty helmets or rags for example, who in their right mind would actually want to buy that crap?

I don't think we should limit and restrict what money can buy/do like that. That would gamify things too much and feel too gimmicky. I like the fact that the in game economy is one massive thing that operates the same at low levels as it does when you run a kingdom. It's just like reality, armies are paid with money and not invisible "reputation bucks" or anything like that.

Of course that makes it harder to balance and find issues so I agree there need to be more things that can eat into money and blobbing. But this is where other aspects can come into play like rebellions or smarter alliances so that small kingdoms can gang up on bigger ones. I would prefer to try to fix the problem by enriching the simulation system instead of just drawing a line through it and inventing something made up.

Also I disagree about not being able to sell those things - it's reasonable that you could find buyers for junk who would be interested in breaking down/melting down those items for re-use. It just needs to be cheaper, sure.

 

[Honved]

The problem, still, is that in the late game, you're "all dressed up and nowhere to go". You don't really "run" the kingdom, and there's no sense of doing things to improve it. Everything just respawns with "more of the same", stupid wars keep happening no matter the circumstances, and there's no long-term point in anything except taking castles and towns until you run out of castles and towns to take. The campaign is little more than a battle generator, and does so endlessly.

If Taleworlds were to put in even half of the kingdom management options that were in the Sword of Damocles mod for original M&B, that would make it feel like you were actually RULING something, rather than playing "Gofer" (go 'fer this, go 'fer that) for a bunch of brain-dead allies who half the time don't follow your orders anyway.

 

[niekdegrijze]

You end up supporting armies by selling vast amounts of garbage rather than by holding fiefs.

While this is the case, I don’t really care about tweaks to the economy. Gear prices, unit upkeep, income from fiefs, battle loot and prisoner ransom need to be more in line with each other.

For me the ideal would be that there are means to get enough wealth to capture a castle, but that you need that castle to be able to capture a town. And a town being the way to get a big steady income.

 

[Reiksmarshal]

Late game big time!

We need an end game invasion, for example in lore the Nords invasion in large numbers and attempt to conquer Calradia. That could be introduced as a late game challenge.

Flesh out the game a bit more!

-feast
-assassin missions
-more campaign map features like ruins, monuments, and clean up building placement (floating buildings)
-taverns in villages
-player homes without owning settlements.
-minor faction membership and become a shield brother (think free lancer mod)
-merchant bank system (loans, deposit coin, and earn intrest) give money a weight so that you can't carry millions around and have to store it somewhere.
-Named heros and champion NPCs for Ai faction leader parties
-Better bandit parties lead by outlaws/bandit heroes
-Be able to recuit minor faction troops and make these troops hybrid / elite for the culture.
-Hunting (boars, bears , stag, wolves, leopards)
-more unique regional trade goods like spices and ivory.
-stealing, backstabbing, and more rogue game play
-bamners, and music instruments on the battlefield like war horns.
-pick horse color!
-change clan members appearance
-Warband control over workshops (add raw supplies and don't sale produced items.) Allows the player to be able to make the workshop more profitable and sell the goods in a better market and more involvement overall.
- Ship travel, trade, an battles

 

[NPC99]

I don't think we should limit and restrict what money can buy/do like that. That would gamify things too much and feel too gimmicky. I like the fact that the in game economy is one massive thing that operates the same at low levels as it does when you run a kingdom.

??? item prices for the player bear no relation to any underlying economy. If unit upgrades included weapon/armour upgrade costs at the same prices charged to the player we'd never upgrade any troops.

 

[niekdegrijze]

??? item prices for the player bear no relation to any underlying economy. If unit upgrades included weapon/armour upgrade costs at the same prices charged to the player we'd never upgrade any troops.

That’s why those upgrade/upkeep costs should be in line with the income and gear costs. It is sort of funny that you can upgrade 50 troops to a tier with good armor, while you main character can barely afford anything

 

[Ulfhedinn_]

Many things can be added, but what would make me reinstall the game would be: IMPROVED MINOR FACTIONS!!!
Significant roles in gameplay for the minor factions and their types, mercenaries, outlaws and religious!

For example: as a Wolfskin I would like to prove my worth within and help this outlaw faction to rebel, being able to rise to faction leadership, form a new kingdom taking the lands of Battania and keep the respective faction units...

 

[CrazyElf]

Diplomacy needs a major revamp. Mods like Diplomacy and Banner Kings somewhat address this, but there needs to be more in the base game itself.

There should also be 'scalable quests' (ex: reasons to do quests later on in the game).

Kingdom management as well needs a expansion as to what people do to run a kingdom.

Armor and unit balance, although improved with 1.8.0, still needs a lot more work.

The AI, again also improved somewhat with 1.8.0, also needs a lot of work.

 

[NPC99]

That’s why those upgrade/upkeep costs should be in line with the income and gear costs. It is sort of funny that you can upgrade 50 troops to a tier with good armor, while you main character can barely afford anything

I agree the formula is economic nonsense. However, it worked in Warband and should now work in Bannerlord given the 1.8.0 armour balance tweak. It guarantees the player has a tough grind to develop his character. As the game is at least partially about striving to improve your character's equipment, stats and power, that would be undermined if the player could acquire master class armour as easily as troops can upgrade from one tier to another.

 

[Bluko88]

Diplomacy needs a major revamp. Mods like Diplomacy and Banner Kings somewhat address this, but there needs to be more in the base game itself.

There should also be 'scalable quests' (ex: reasons to do quests later on in the game).

Kingdom management as well needs a expansion as to what people do to run a kingdom.

Armor and unit balance, although improved with 1.8.0, still needs a lot more work.

The AI, again also improved somewhat with 1.8.0, also needs a lot of work.

Agree with this 100%

Diplomacy is basically non-existent in this game; it's just a war meter. Some basic options to settle things like non-agression pacts, giving up fiefs, demanding/requesting tribute, or wow imagine actual alliances. Also imagine wars were actually meaningful and lasted more then a few game days and recruits couldn't be instantly replenished.

In short there should be like actual kingdom relations and the plethora of "volunteers" and redundant battles needs to be drastically decreased.

Quest are also pointless after early game, they don't even scale well in rewards which is what's most baffling, despite the ridiculous requirements. But in truth you should be taking on different quests as you progress, you should not be delivering sheep at Clan Tier 6. There should be better things to do like establish trade relations or assassinate a rival clan, etc.

Kingdom Management is also lacking. You as a sovereign can't even give armies orders. Imagine if certain NPCs were actually good generals and you could actually entrust certain nobles to conquer things or at least not lose 1000s of men in a siege where they get surrounded. But nope you gotta most conquer the map yourself. Even the best and most famous commanders had reliable subordinates.

I don't think balance is too bad, though obviously there are units that underperform, and Khan Guards are still OP. Honestly if archers get nerfed a bit in terms of damage game will be in decent shape.


That said I would not expect much to change before release. This game is just being polished so that it can be sold on consoles and be stable enough for mods on PC (about the only real source of future PC sales let's be honest) even though the modding scene isn't what it used to be because this game is going to have been in Early Access for 3 years before it's "done". It's frustrating that Mount & Blade has/had all this potential, but it will never be realized because the Devs are either incapable or the Leads behind this game are so blind as to think having features like "party commands" would make the game too complicated.

It's already too complicated, too time consuming, and too shallow in terms of world/NPC interaction. And how anyone thinks this game will work on consoles is beyond me. This isn't Cyberpunk were you just shoot/club people and equip the occasional piece of armor/clothing. There's so much clicking, assigning troops, trading goods, etc. that are terrible with a controller. But who knows maybe there's even a dumb-downed version of Bannerlord and that's where most efforts have been going this entire time.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Maybe new character option once you claim the map, now you begin a new character in the world you conquered and can try to claim it yourself! Can you defeat YOURSELF?

 

[five bucks]

To specifically make the LATE game (kingdom phase) more fun:

* Bring back from Warband a way for the player to easily contact people and make vassalage, mercenary or marriage offers during the kingdom phase; e.g. kingdom court which people visit, or messenger system. This will take out frustration of having to chase people down when you have more important things to do.

* More fun diversions from the endless loop of sieges, menus and field battles in the lategame. Being attacked by assassins, being challenged to duels, hosting and attending feasts, or quests that are appropriate for a king to do and have a suitable reward; things like these will make lategame less repetitive and more fun.

* Make battles have Good Tactics. Fixing the biggest gameplay issues of cavalry not being able to land melee attacks making them underpowered, ranged units doing too much damage to armour making them overpowered, and spears and pikes not working properly, will remove the most obvious tactic that works against everything of spamming archers/horse archers and actually make us need to think about different tactics for different situations, thus making battles more challenging and fun! Morale should be more relevant too.

* Change the calculations for war, peace and tribute to be less frustrating so that we get occasional periods of peacetime and so that we actually can get tribute or peace out of a faction when we're beating them.

* Make autoresolve stop randomly killing high tier troops that would never die in the actual battle so that we can skip curbstomp battles and not get punished for doing so.

* Make AI kingdoms that have had no territory for 10 days stop existing (all their clans defect or go into exile) so they don't attack us forever after being defeated. And make them pay for their mercenaries!

* Add a cool down to the AI calling war/peace votes so we don't have to burn influence rejecting the same dumb vote over and over.

* Garrisons and Nobles should be more willing to negotiate or surrender so we don't have to actually sit through a whole siege to capture a castle which only has 30 men in the garrison when you have 1000.

* Engineering skill should speed up siege camp and siege engine construction so we spend less time waiting for 100 siege camps to win the game.

Do these things and lategame will be fun, rather than its "I want to jam pencils into my eyeballs" repetitive frustrating current state.

 

[Bjorn The Dead]

I do not know at this point.

I am only doing trade, tournaments and battles 99.9999% of the time. I can not find anything to do. Is there anything else to do that contributes gameplay? I do remember my mid game in Warband mostly doing lord quest to get relationship bonus. That was considerable amount of my game. But in Bannerlord, I do not have to do anything about that. It just increases with the lords in my faction. For other lords, I just have to release them after battles and since there are ridiculous amount of battle, there will be lots of friends out of my faction too.

I am in a dire need of a gameplay overhaul. Removing influence, adding a levy system, being able to be a commoner and ascending to a lordship, adding marshall, adding controversy, being able to be a king (I mean, seriously, I do not feel like a king in this game), being able to declare myself a king without some level of a clan tier.

stevepine, I know you asked about late game but my problems starts very early in this game.

Btw, for any modder out there, is removing influence out of equation and adding some new system possible? I hope, it is not hard coded or something.

 

[MostBlunted]

I do not know at this point.

I am only doing trade, tournaments and battles 99.9999% of the time. I can not find anything to do.

No, same for me but minus trade and tournaments.

The question must not be "how to fix" but "how to add an endgame".

 

[niekdegrijze]

I agree the formula is economic nonsense. However, it worked in Warband and should now work in Bannerlord given the 1.8.0 armour balance tweak. It guarantees the player has a tough grind to develop his character. As the game is at least partially about striving to improve your character's equipment, stats and power, that would be undermined if the player could acquire master class armour as easily as troops can upgrade from one tier to another.

Yes you are right. it would change the game totally, not sure how that would turn out. You could give only the highest end gear high prices, and lower the prices of all the other gear to get more in line with the upgrade costs.
But the main idea would be that you need towns and castles to finance an army, with a helping of trade/workshop. Selling rags after battles should not be the main income source