Bannerlord is missing many good features from Warband and VC

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Yep, it's a bad game design. There's no mystery with the companions you get, you just look up where they are and go get them. It's like reading a book that tells you what happens in the following chapters each page. There's no reason to ever talk to anybody, it's just anti immersion and anti interactive. The game has huge design problems, not sure where TW's goes from here.
Guess ya'll haven't played enough to notice in order to update the encyclopedia you need to interact with a settlement/person otherwise the information will get old. The encyclopedia was in Warband and was similar except you had to have a dialog. Its the same just less interactive, which honestly most people blow through the interactions after the first few because they are similar. You're honestly telling me the extra 30 seconds of being forced to a dialog really made the game for you? lol I agree with the rest of the sentiment, but this is particular subject should be last on our list of improvements to care about
 
Seems the original poster forgot to mention claimants. I understand the the 3 Empire factions are like Claimants but the other factions could have claimants and maybe the claimants randomly become active over time especially if one faction gets too big and dominate over the map.
I think I met a Claimant. a guy just standing in a castle and brief convo with me. I just got that feeling Ohh he might be a Claimant that is not coded in yet .
 
Encyclopedia is what ruined this game for me. In Warband it was this interactive world were if I wanted to find out something I would have to ask, I didnt had to open Google chrome and see who is this or who was that, I could just ask someone, I could get information from people. Bannerlord, instead of improving upon this, decided to put Google chrome inside the game in the form of wikipedia, it's boring, its unnimersive and it takes control from the player, which is probably the biggest fault
Yeah encyclopedia was areally bad design choice. They really did go the exact wrong way on that. Now imagine had they had actual clues hidden in the audio banter of a tavern - thats immersion and fun detective work.

You couldn't get information reliably in Warband; some of the people you talked to simply wouldn't know and you had no way to tell beforehand who did or did not. There was a range limit on it as well. This made it incredibly frustrating to track down people who were out on long range pursuits or raids because everyone who should know their location was too far away and no one nearby could tell you.

It was pretty annoying at the time and made quests like Deliver a Message and Tax Collection somewhat more risky than they should have been.

You're honestly telling me the extra 30 seconds of being forced to a dialog really made the game for you?

At least one of the posters you're replying to as described Bannerlord's towns as lifeless and pointless to wander about in compared to Warband's, so the nostalgia goggles are strapped on pretty tight.
 
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Well then they released every day patches for bugfixing, now comes nothing. maybe corona regulations in turkey hit them, but at least make a announcement or something. it comes nothing for month. its like they couldn't handle the code and give up.
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By my unofficial count it is more than 5 weeks since the last "main" version. (I don't do beta.) Given the large number of bug threads, I have a respect for any honest effort to bug-fix. It's nice that a staffer DOES apparently read the bug threads and bundles them off to the devs when there's enough data to proceed.

But... heavens! Can't somebody work on low-hanging fruit, just to keep the Early-Accessors happy? I mean, if the community can examine the code base for perks, and could determine that the coders made math errors (0.003 is NOT 3%), I would expect all that kind of dreck could be cleared up in a week... but it's not done yet.

Tale Worlds, you need to give us some hope that the lights are on and people are working on giving us the game we thought you were making. Either gather some low-hanging fruit and ease our experience in more frequent-but-less-all-encompassing patches, or, at least give us some feedback to let us know what's up.
 
Well then they released every day patches for bugfixing, now comes nothing. maybe corona regulations in turkey hit them, but at least make a announcement or something. it comes nothing for month. its like they couldn't handle the code and give up.


By my unofficial count it is more than 5 weeks since the last "main" version. (I don't do beta.) Given the large number of bug threads, I have a respect for any honest effort to bug-fix. It's nice that a staffer DOES apparently read the bug threads and bundles them off to the devs when there's enough data to proceed.

But... heavens! Can't somebody work on low-hanging fruit, just to keep the Early-Accessors happy? I mean, if the community can examine the code base for perks, and could determine that the coders made math errors (0.003 is NOT 3%), I would expect all that kind of dreck could be cleared up in a week... but it's not done yet.

Tale Worlds, you need to give us some hope that the lights are on and people are working on giving us the game we thought you were making. Either gather some low-hanging fruit and ease our experience in more frequent-but-less-all-encompassing patches, or, at least give us some feedback to let us know what's up.
They have, you aren't looking. TW stated many times they aren't fixing the original perks as they are redesigning them all and they will be implemented skill by skill. If you look at the original perks a lot of them were useless unless you were just a governor or a just a party leader and the new ones are multifaceted which provide appropriate bonuses for multiple types personal/gov/party/formation leader. You need to realize implementing perks that have already been decided to be cut is a waste of time and would also impact the balance of the game which would need to be accounted for when removing.
 
You couldn't get information reliably in Warband; some of the people you talked to simply wouldn't know and you had no way to tell beforehand who did or did not. There was a range limit on it as well. This made it incredibly frustrating to track down people who were out on long range pursuits or raids because everyone who should know their location was too far away and no one nearby could tell you.

It was pretty annoying at the time and made quests like Deliver a Message and Tax Collection somewhat more risky than they should have been.



At least one of the posters you're replying to as described Bannerlord's towns as lifeless and pointless to wander about in compared to Warband's, so the nostalgia goggles are strapped on pretty tight.
They didnt have risk at all, it was the only thing that made it interesting. Thats the point of it, its a medieval simulator, encyclopedia feels like having a phone and everytime you get into a city you get wifi so you learn absolutely everything that is happening in the world. Literally every single piece of information is stored there, not just where lords are. How is that you get into a place and you know who's family this lord's is, who's enemy this lord's is???? For real? Can you tell me that is not dumb and unimmersive? Warband was smart because every information was integrated into the game, again, encyclopedia forces you to lose control of the player breaking the immersion completely
 
They didnt have risk at all, it was the only thing that made it interesting. Thats the point of it, its a medieval simulator, encyclopedia feels like having a phone and everytime you get into a city you get wifi so you learn absolutely everything that is happening in the world. Literally every single piece of information is stored there, not just where lords are.

Can you tell me that is not dumb and unimmersive? Warband was smart because every information was integrated into the game, again, encyclopedia forces you to lose control of the player breaking the immersion completely

The player is unable to weigh that risk though, which is what makes risk interesting. It was a very low reward quest at any rate, but made annoying because the paper penalty was mild (-2 relations, IIRC?) but the opportunity costs could be high as you spent 10 or 15 days stomping around Calradia, trying to figure out where a certain lord was.

The encyclopedia doesn't break my immersion from the medieval simulation aspect of Bannerlord. It isn't dumb either. It is a concession to the fact I'm playing a game and not actually living in the 11th century. I mean, unreliability was one of the common complaints about Warband's locator system and TW actually (mostly) fixed it in Bannerlord.

How is that you get into a place and you know who's family this lord's is, who's enemy this lord's is???? For real?

In Warband? Why, the encyclopedia, of course.
(pic taken on a fresh playthrough, day 1, no character interactions aside from the opening quest merchant)
GNJ67aQ.jpg

:xf-wink:
 
The fact that people can even remotely draw comparisons between a decade old game made by 2 people and one that released in 2020 by a studio of devs is shameful. Trying to "aha gotcha" on decade old feature comparisons is pretty cringe.
 
The player is unable to weigh that risk though, which is what makes risk interesting. It was a very low reward quest at any rate, but made annoying because the paper penalty was mild (-2 relations, IIRC?) but the opportunity costs could be high as you spent 10 or 15 days stomping around Calradia, trying to figure out where a certain lord was.

The encyclopedia doesn't break my immersion from the medieval simulation aspect of Bannerlord. It isn't dumb either. It is a concession to the fact I'm playing a game and not actually living in the 11th century. I mean, unreliability was one of the common complaints about Warband's locator system and TW actually (mostly) fixed it in Bannerlord.



In Warband? Why, the encyclopedia, of course.
(pic taken on a fresh playthrough, day 1, no character interactions aside from the opening quest merchant)
GNJ67aQ.jpg

:xf-wink:
Just because it was in Warband doesnt change its not bad in Bannerlord. First of all it wasnt that hard to find a lord, 10 -15 days is a complete exaggeration and would happen if its your first playthrough. Again my problem with Encyclopedia is that it trashed all the dialog options with lords. Since you can know everything inside the encyclopedia they scrapped dialog and now thats why talking with a lord is just blank. They didnt even replaced it, they just left it blank, now lords not only have no personality but they have also have no practical use when talking to them. Keeps look beautiful, but why would you go inside them? If you need to learn something press N. This may sound practical, but there is a problem: its boring. It may serve you as a strategy player, it may serve the player who is just there to conquer everything and become a king as fast as they can, but it doesnt serve the RPG players, it doesnt serve the player who wants a less playing a game experience and more a having a role in this game experience which is why the first game captivated me so much, even with the little content it had it was already enough for me. They didnt expand upon it and scrapped everything that captivated me in Warband and just left the war and combat. I cant even remember the encylopedia from Warband because I spent less than a second there, where now its vital to know everything through it.
 
The fact that people can even remotely draw comparisons between a decade old game made by 2 people and one that released in 2020 by a studio of devs is shameful. Trying to "aha gotcha" on decade old feature comparisons is pretty cringe.

Warband was made by a studio, dude. The second part was more people forgetting what Warband actually is, not what they wish or thought it was in their minds. Something that comes up a lot around here lately.
 
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I don't know man, I think people are reading too much into this encyclopedia thing, as It stands, Bannerlord isn't as immersive sure as previous titles, but the encyclopedia surely is not to blame.

We need beter lord interactions and conspiracies, make alliances and enemies Duels and retributions. Scheming.
 
Just because it was in Warband doesnt change its not bad in Bannerlord. First of all it wasnt that hard to find a lord, 10 -15 days is a complete exaggeration and would happen if its your first playthrough.

I'm not exaggerating in the slightest. I just did those quests (Tax Collection and Deliver Message) a few times less than a week ago (because grinding relations in native WB w/o tweaking capture rates is terrible) and they could easily stretch to 10-15 in-game days if the lord was out of range of his family members or other relevant characters and actively moving. Sometimes you get lucky and they are in the next town over, that happens too, no problem admitting that. But it was leaning hard on a busted-ass system.

Again my problem with Encyclopedia is that it trashed all the dialog options with lords. Since you can know everything inside the encyclopedia they scrapped dialog and now thats why talking with a lord is just blank. They didnt even replaced it, they just left it blank, now lords not only have no personality but they have also have no practical use when talking to them. Keeps look beautiful, but why would you go inside them? If you need to learn something press N.

I go inside keeps to talk to lords/ladies to accept quests.

In Warband, I only did it to get the relations boost during a feast (a whole +2 for the host) or introduce myself to a lady, all of whom were carbon-copies outside of appearance and certain poetic preferences.

This may sound practical, but there is a problem: its boring. It may serve you as a strategy player, it may serve the player who is just there to conquer everything and become a king as fast as they can, but it doesnt serve the RPG players, it doesnt serve the player who wants a less playing a game experience and more a having a role in this game experience which is why the first game captivated me so much, even with the little content it had it was already enough for me. They didnt expand upon it and scrapped everything that captivated me in Warband and just left the war and combat. I cant even remember the encylopedia from Warband because I spent less than a second there, where now its vital to know everything through it.

Well, for starters, they haven't scrapped the dialog system yet. It is sitting there in the code, usable and everything. Just not padded out as a feature.

I suppose part of my issue is that I knew the lord's and ladies in Warband were just templates. Some of them started the game fixed, but the majority were randomized every playthrough. But the point was that once you knew what a lord's template was, you could know exactly what they would say in any given situation, you knew what quests they could give (or rather, which ones they wouldn't give), you knew how to boost relations, etc. Even the companions have the same templated personalities (and a lot of them are assholes, in spite of the dialogs), which was really disappointing and annoying, because they have the closest anyone got in WB to character development.

That was why I never played it as an RPG, except in the lightest sense. I agree that there should be more and better character interactions in Bannerlord. And not just character interactions, but fief interactions: I should have some obligation to my fiefs -- of course, free to ignore it but at a penalty -- in exchange for them paying me. There is no way to build tall (to use the CK2 term) rather than wide in Bannerlord and there should be. My companions should occasionally have their own business to attend to, issues and concerns that I can either address or ignore.

But going back to messed up character locator won't actually add any of that, it will just make Neretzes' Folly even worse than it already it.
 
Warband was made by a studio, dude. The second part was more people forgetting what Warband actually is, not what they wish or thought it was in their minds. Something that comes up a lot around here lately.

The original M&B was developed by a man and his wife. That's where all this started.

Doesn't mean you should be able to compare a modern sequel to it's decade old super indie counterpart and see anything but vast strides not just graphically but design wise also. Playing gotcha with a decade old game is cringe, this game, that we have today, should be far and away the better game.

It's not like the initial ran the innovation train straight to the end. Their was lots to be worked on and a lot of stuff that clearly could be implemented in the base game that of course people expected. You expect a little innovation and original designs from a studio that has come so far. Not just a better looking game and similar or slightly better features.

Just because your happy with such progress doesn't mean everyone has to be, and it certainly isn't the objectively reasonable stance to take.
 
The original M&B was developed by a man and his wife. That's where all this started.

Doesn't mean you should be able to compare a modern sequel to it's decade old super indie counterpart and see anything but vast strides not just graphically but design wise also.

...

It's not like the initial ran the innovation train straight to the end. Their was lots to be worked on and a lot of stuff that clearly could be implemented in the base game that of course people expected. You expect a little innovation and original designs from a studio that has come so far. Not just a better looking game and similar or slightly better features.

TW was fairly upfront about what BL was going to be through the devblogs (I don't recall them showing much campaign footage during the big game events). Some of the stuff was cut, true, but what they were showing was Warband 2.0 with better graphics, clans and kids. The core gameplay loop, certainly, was said to be almost exactly the same.

Playing gotcha with a decade old game is cringe, this game, that we have today, should be far and away the better game.

The encyclopedia being better in BL is what he is complaining about.
 
Just want to say that I miss those features too. Some of them seems like they would be really easy to implement. I mean, how much effort would it take to make companions that were not just random numbers? And random numbers that often don't make sense at that, e.g. a swordsman with high weapon skills and 2 in strength.
 
Just want to say that I miss those features too. Some of them seems like they would be really easy to implement. I mean, how much effort would it take to make companions that were not just random numbers? And random numbers that often don't make sense at that, e.g. a swordsman with high weapon skills and 2 in strength.

Gotta agree here. There is some serious things in both the Lore aspect of the game and Quality of Life (losing formation every save/mods losing order etc) that really should just be given to a small team to sort out quickly.
 
Credit to u/dropbbbear on r/mountandblade (I DID NOT MAKE THIS LIST, I COPY PASTED IT WITH HIS CONSENT)

Bannerlord has made some great improvements to the Mount&Blade series in terms of graphics, field battles, moddability and overall polish, and I'm very thankful to Taleworlds for that. But in terms of stuff to do and immersion, it actually feels heavily lacking compared to M&B: Warband (from 10 years ago) and M&B: Viking Conquest Reforged (from 6 years ago). That isn't good for a sequel.

To be fair, Bannerlord is only half of the way through Early Access, so missing content makes sense. But what's worrying is Taleworlds' complete silence on what content the game will actually have at the end of Early Access.

So, this is a list of WB/VC features Bannerlord doesn't have which have not been mentioned on Taleworlds' roadmap, meaning they may have been forgotten about, and aren't coming back unless people ask for them. Some of these features are small, but combined they made WB and VC more immersive and entertaining than just killing looters and map-painting.

WARBAND MISSING FEATURES

  • Feasts: Parties the player and AI lords could hold for other lords. They helped slow down factions who were conquering large parts of the map too quickly by giving them something to do other than be at war 24/7. They gave the player another way of gaining relation with lords and ladies, gathered them all in one place for convenient talking/flirting, and feasting had a related quest where you gathered food from all around the map to make your feast impress the other lords. Feasts made Calradia feel more like a real world, and gave us Harlaus butter memes.
  • Lord strategic dialogue: The AI can often be quite stupid while on campaign. In Warband, you could actually tell lords to go somewhere and attack or defend it, which helped mitigate AI stupidity.
  • Manhunters: They spawned in Warband to hunt down bandits when their numbers started getting too high. In Bannerlord, this system could be tweaked: allow the player to spend money to put a Bounty on bandits in the area of one of their villages, and Manhunters would begin spawning there and hunting any threats to your village's prosperity, allowing you to go do more important/interesting things.
  • Quests: Exciting quests like the Prison Break quest where you rescued a lord from captivity and fought your way through the dungeons to freedom, or the Tax Collector quest where you gathered money from a town for a lord which might result in a riot, and many more.
  • Handcrafted companions: Think Jeremus, Ymira, etc. These companions had in-depth backstories and reactions to world locations, interacted with each other, and they had personalities you could get attached to. You could also make companions into vassals for your kingdom, which was useful if you had angered too many existing nobles.
  • Village improvement options: Build manors, messenger posts, schools, etc. This allowed the player to focus on building up a specific village to improve their strategic options in that area.
  • Courtship: Ladies had likes and dislikes, you could learn poems suited to their personality from poets and hear gossip, there were romance quests. Rather than just trying to roll the correct RNG on a skill check, Warband courtship was more like trying to build a relationship with a person.
  • Dueling lords: You could challenge a lord to a duel (or be challenged by them) if they insulted your honor or competed with you for a lover. This would give more intrigue to the player in their interactions with lords and ladies and add a fun extra challenge.
  • Deserters on the map: These guys were more interesting to fight than looters and bandits because they had better, military-grade equipment.
  • Tournament Armor/Weapons: All fighters in a tournament recieved gear of equal quality in Warband. In Bannerlord, gear quality is variable, so you can get a weapon in the tournament that is almost totally useless against some armors.
  • Books: You could buy these and read them to level skills. This would be a good gold sink, and also be a realistic way of letting the player level skills that are difficult to do in the early game; for example, read a book about siege engines to level your Engineering skill, without having to start a whole siege.
  • Lord personalities affecting behaviour: For example, warlike lords would constantly start fights with other factions, and calculating lords would leave allies to fend for themselves in fights. This influenced the player's choice in vassals and added another layer of strategic depth.
  • More battle maps: Bannerlord seriously lacks variety in field battle scenes.
  • Permanent message log: The current message log resets after an event, leading you sometimes to wonder what the hell just happened?
  • Follow option: You could auto-follow caravans or lords without actually getting locked into their party, which made the mid-game a lot less tedious.
  • Actual redheads: It's pretty silly that Bannerlord has a whole Celtic faction, but no real gingers. Is red hair bugged? I know DCC Mod adds in red hair.
  • Miscellaneous small things: Some lords being sexist (would be less likely to give you fiefs and they could insult you for being a woman, but you could duel them to defend your honor), more food variety (eg. sausages/chicken), Sargoth being in the north instead of the south, greater variety in equipment between cultures (eg: right now Aserai use a lot of Sturgian armor), and last but not least, "It's almost harvesting season!" These all added to immersion in Warband's medieval world.
VIKING CONQUEST: REFORGED

  • Ship travel and ship battles: This added an entire new dimension to combat and travel on the world map. It would make infantry-focused factions more viable if they could quickly make a boat to travel by river, like they did in real life. In fact, it seems like some Bannerlord factions like Sturgia are already designed as if boats were in the game; Sturgia's territory is cut in half, making it difficult for them to efficiently move their forces around.
  • Ambush attacks: This added further immersion and strategy to overworld combat, and would be a great use for the Scouting, Tactics and Roguery skill trees.
  • Hunting boar and deer: A fun diversion, and another way for the player to find food while on campaign, or make money, or gain relation with other lords by going out hunting together during a feast. Sneak up on the boar, and then either catch it before it escapes, or kill it before it gores you!
  • Minigames: Working as a farmer, miner, or lumberjack, which added a way of making money that wasn't just fighting or trading.
  • Setting camp: In VC, your camp could provide basic fortifications if you were attacked in the field, and also provided a morale bonus for resting.
  • Dog companion: A doggo friend who could even help in battle. This was teased for Bannerlord literally 5 years ago, and is unused in game files, but hasn't been mentioned since.
  • Robbing lords: You could take good equipment from captive lords for a large relationship penalty.
  • Custom start, custom end goals: You could choose to start as a king/noble to skip the earlygame grind, and you could set smaller victory goals such as making a certain amount of money or being a powerful warlord. This allowed the player more roleplaying freedom in choosing their own path, rather than the current endgame which is always to become a lord, start a family, and own all the cities.

I'm a newcomer to the Mount and Blade franchise, but even as a newbie all seem like obvious things that should be included in the game, particularly if they had them in the previous games. How hard can it be to replicate sh*t you've already done as a developer in another game?
Am I missing something here?
 
I'm a newcomer to the Mount and Blade franchise, but even as a newbie all seem like obvious things that should be included in the game, particularly if they had them in the previous games. How hard can it be to replicate sh*t you've already done as a developer in another game?
Am I missing something here?
Different engine so you still have to recreate the entine thing from scratch.
 
The more I read this the more I actually realise why I can't properly enjoy SP - because it is missing all the main features that made Warband fun (and not even things included within this post which have been broken such as character progress (which in turn allowed you tailor your character with things such as party limits etc) to the clan system breaking the way fiefs are handled and the general family system (the clan system could have been a perfect improvement upon warband's families with the style of more a ck2 system, but I feel it has been sorrowfully wasted, throwing out the window of opportunities such as titles for different levels of nobles (dukes, counts, barons)), changes to quite a lot of female 'lords/commanders'. I find it cool we have them in the game but the balance of male - female is way too high imho, but hey, that's me and wishing to try and remain historically accurate (i know some of you will throw 'muh it isn't a historic game, it is its own world' so don't try that argument because I know where it'll go))

Honestly? I think that the game feels extraordinarily bare. So many features which should have been included before new things were added haven't been put it, old systems have been stripped and changed for...? The sake of changing it? And the essence of Mount & Blade isn't currently in the game atm. Hopefully a lot of it will return, but I fear that it'll be left to modders to really change the game to the direction of what we at large desire (if that really a decent hold left on the PB)
 
Feasts are absolutely needed. The 24/7 warfare really sets a stressful pacing that doesnt let us calmly enjoy the game (smithing, trading, etc). I always feel the need to join the wars because otherwise a faction will snowball.
 
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