Bannerlord is really just a broken game.

[creamboy]

Agreed. Game is straight up a scam. unplayable

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

After reading your response, I can see that you have some concerns about the level of worldbuilding and roleplay in Warband and Bannerlord. You feel that Warband was lacking in some areas, such as the quests, but it did have some immersive elements like the feasts and campaigns. You also feel that Bannerlord is lacking in these areas and that some of the mechanics, like influence and the transaction menu, detract from the roleplaying experience. Overall, it seems like you have a strong interest in immersive worldbuilding and roleplay, and you would like to see more of these elements in games like Warband and Bannerlord.

Robot detected

 

[Ulfhedinn_]

I've been lurking these forums for some time now, but this post made me register just to say I agree with pretty much everything OP said.

I obviously don't know the inner workings of TW, but it feels like Bannerlord's project lead is either very inexperienced or just simply does not exist. There are so many absurd, illogical design decision in the game it becomes kinda creepy. It seems to me like they just threw a lot of half-baked ideas into the mixer and pushed the button without even giving them a second pass. Just a couple of obvious pointers:

• Why do you have a full-fledged dynasty mechanic with children and everything when the game's pace is not even remotely close to allow this mechanic to work? You can experience all game's features (battles, leveling system, party management, fief management, kingdom management) in just a couple of in-game years, but children require unfathomable 18 years to grow up. I never came even remotely close to see my kids become of age.
• Why do you have a food supply system when pack animals provide effectively unlimited inventory space? In my last play-through I had a personal party of 500 and still carried enough food to last 3 in-game years. Excluding the need to constantly buy date fruit to have enough variety, this mechanic in completely pointless because the player is never even remotely close to run out. All it does is wasting developers' time because they have to make sure Bannerlord's idiotic AI parties carry enough food to not starve.
• Why do we have a full-blown simulated economy if it barely influences war and the player has pretty much 0 ways to interact with it outside of "buy low, sell high"? They obviously spent a lot of time implementing this system and balancing it, but the end result is completely pointless. For unknown reasons the economy is not simulated for weapons and armor - no, this stuff magically appears out of thin air when recruiting/upgrading troops. Therefore, you can spend all day raiding wood and iron villages of your enemies, but it will not matter even the slightest. They are still gonna vomit armies after armies of fully-equipped soldiers. As for player's interaction - you would think that simulated economy means the ability to establish trade routes or just the most basic ability to tell your caravans to not trade with a specific kingdom to limit their economy, but nope.
• Why do you remove the ability to issue commands to allied parties if your AI is completely braindead? At least in Warband we had some mechanism of circumventing AI inability to do anything even remotely intelligent, but in Bannerlord there's nothing.
• Why do you have hundreds of perks when there are approx only 5 that are even remotely interesting? Why create a barrage of completely pointless effects that are so small that you don't even notice they're there. There's a good reason why "2% increase" became a meme in Bannerlord's community. Why not make every skill go from 0 to 100 and think of like 5 interesting perks for each?
• Why do you implement your "encyclopedia for of war" system in the update featuring the new gang alleyway mechanic? This is the first time we actually have to pick companions with specific skills and traits for what is clearly an early-game activity, but you make it almost impossible unless you just know in advance which companions have high roguery. Or you can just mindlessly travel from city to city "discovering" all companions I guess. What could possibly be the reason for these two features being introduced in the same update?

And I can go on and on for all day long.

The worst part about all this is the fact that I cannot even blame them for trying to artificially bloat the game's feature list for the Steam page because some mechanics like simulated economy clearly took a lot of time, effort and care. It's more like nobody at TW doesn't possess even the slightest idea of what they're doing with Bannerlord. Which is a real bummer because the idea is fantastic and the game doesn't have any real competitors, so it really sucks that the implementation is... this.

+1

 

[kreamy]

i had an ironman save break. i think that also counts as broken

 

[gravur]

A sad "Yes" to much of the above. I wonder how TW's following & sales are doing. It seems like a great platform, a nice yet buggy combat simulator without much story beyond that. Perhaps time to move on & hope it gets mods that give it a real story.

 

[Forest-Bandit]

behold thy lord speakeath truth!!!

 

[Forest-Bandit]

the game gotta lots of potential tho let’s just hope they stay true to there word and continue updates for my guess till 4yrs from now

 

[Jehiel]

I've been lurking these forums for some time now, but this post made me register just to say I agree with pretty much everything OP said.

I obviously don't know the inner workings of TW, but it feels like Bannerlord's project lead is either very inexperienced or just simply does not exist. There are so many absurd, illogical design decision in the game it becomes kinda creepy. It seems to me like they just threw a lot of half-baked ideas into the mixer and pushed the button without even giving them a second pass. Just a couple of obvious pointers:

• Why do you have a full-fledged dynasty mechanic with children and everything when the game's pace is not even remotely close to allow this mechanic to work? You can experience all game's features (battles, leveling system, party management, fief management, kingdom management) in just a couple of in-game years, but children require unfathomable 18 years to grow up. I never came even remotely close to see my kids become of age.
• Why do you have a food supply system when pack animals provide effectively unlimited inventory space? In my last play-through I had a personal party of 500 and still carried enough food to last 3 in-game years. Excluding the need to constantly buy date fruit to have enough variety, this mechanic in completely pointless because the player is never even remotely close to run out. All it does is wasting developers' time because they have to make sure Bannerlord's idiotic AI parties carry enough food to not starve.
• Why do we have a full-blown simulated economy if it barely influences war and the player has pretty much 0 ways to interact with it outside of "buy low, sell high"? They obviously spent a lot of time implementing this system and balancing it, but the end result is completely pointless. For unknown reasons the economy is not simulated for weapons and armor - no, this stuff magically appears out of thin air when recruiting/upgrading troops. Therefore, you can spend all day raiding wood and iron villages of your enemies, but it will not matter even the slightest. They are still gonna vomit armies after armies of fully-equipped soldiers. As for player's interaction - you would think that simulated economy means the ability to establish trade routes or just the most basic ability to tell your caravans to not trade with a specific kingdom to limit their economy, but nope.
• Why do you remove the ability to issue commands to allied parties if your AI is completely braindead? At least in Warband we had some mechanism of circumventing AI inability to do anything even remotely intelligent, but in Bannerlord there's nothing.
• Why do you have hundreds of perks when there are approx only 5 that are even remotely interesting? Why create a barrage of completely pointless effects that are so small that you don't even notice they're there. There's a good reason why "2% increase" became a meme in Bannerlord's community. Why not make every skill go from 0 to 100 and think of like 5 interesting perks for each?
• Why do you implement your "encyclopedia for of war" system in the update featuring the new gang alleyway mechanic? This is the first time we actually have to pick companions with specific skills and traits for what is clearly an early-game activity, but you make it almost impossible unless you just know in advance which companions have high roguery. Or you can just mindlessly travel from city to city "discovering" all companions I guess. What could possibly be the reason for these two features being introduced in the same update?

And I can go on and on for all day long.

The worst part about all this is the fact that I cannot even blame them for trying to artificially bloat the game's feature list for the Steam page because some mechanics like simulated economy clearly took a lot of time, effort and care. It's more like nobody at TW doesn't possess even the slightest idea of what they're doing with Bannerlord. Which is a real bummer because the idea is fantastic and the game doesn't have any real competitors, so it really sucks that the implementation is... this.

I don't understand why people like perfect be the enemy of good. You said it yourself, there are 0 other games out there like this. Even after Warband proved the formula works, there have been 0 attempts to do this type of game from an AAA dev or even a AA dev.

So do I care that all these elements have some flaws are are imperfect? Absolutely not. I still played 50+ hours since release and can't wait for the next update to start a new run using a two hander with throwing weapons which I never used before, so I am excited.

There will be patches, there will be mods, there will be continued improvement. The dynasty system, the fully simulated economy, the full 3D, third person battles with hundreds of units for each side will always be awesome and it's weird to me how easy some of you enjoy nitpicking the game instead of just playing it.

Also the praising of Warband while ignoring the advancements in Bannerlord is still hilarious to me. This is in regard to: "Why do you remove the ability to issue commands to allied parties if your AI is completely braindead?". WHAT!? The new army system (selecting parties to join your army, having them join your troops directly and controlling them as one) is like 1 million times better than the nonsense in Warband that I don't even understand this complaint. Thanks to the advancements of Bannerlord, you use the army system and what allied parties means nothing lol because if you cared that much, you'd just make them join your army?? Like seriously. This problem does not exist anymore. Use the Army system lol which is a fantastic improvement in Bannerlord. But hey, keep complaining.

 

[SadMoney]

I don't understand why people like perfect be the enemy of good. You said it yourself, there are 0 other games out there like this. Even after Warband proved the formula works, there have been 0 attempts to do this type of game from an AAA dev or even a AA dev.

So do I care that all these elements have some flaws are are imperfect? Absolutely not. I still played 50+ hours since release and can't wait for the next update to start a new run using a two hander with throwing weapons which I never used before, so I am excited.

There will be patches, there will be mods, there will be continued improvement. The dynasty system, the fully simulated economy, the full 3D, third person battles with hundreds of units for each side will always be awesome and it's weird to me how easy some of you enjoy nitpicking the game instead of just playing it.

Also the praising of Warband while ignoring the advancements in Bannerlord is still hilarious to me. This is in regard to: "Why do you remove the ability to issue commands to allied parties if your AI is completely braindead?". WHAT!? The new army system (selecting parties to join your army, having them join your troops directly and controlling them as one) is like 1 million times better than the nonsense in Warband that I don't even understand this complaint. Thanks to the advancements of Bannerlord, you use the army system and what allied parties means nothing lol because if you cared that much, you'd just make them join your army?? Like seriously. This problem does not exist anymore. Use the Army system lol which is a fantastic improvement in Bannerlord. But hey, keep complaining.

Mate, before assaulting other people's opinions you should probably try to comprehend why "inderectly controlling other parties by issuing orders" is quite different to "spending some influence mana to turn your party into a bigger party".

 

[MariusTitus]

1 million times better than the nonsense in Warband

Warband had relations between lords that mattered, and campaigns shown that - Respected lord as marshall? Everyone followed him and stuck even when their land burned. Some scumbag? Barely had 1 party, and that ran away after a day because they had more interesting stuff to do. Saw ample amount of times where 1 lord could help other that was under attack, but didn't, simply because he disliked him. In BL everyone and everything is just flat. No difference between scumbag that would see his country burn just to stuff his pockets (good times of provoking wars, mmmmm) and honorable lord that loves to battle. It's just robotic "let's declare war because they look weak, spend influence to call everyone". There's a whole lot of lot that was different (and better) in WB, kingdoms could fall because they weren't holding together from inside. Maybe this will come in future patches and I hope so, but if something's "full release" it shoulda been in from the get go, so keeping low expectations.

Maybe people nitpick this game BECAUSE they play it and see all the weak points?

 

[Zoogielord]

I think they over extended themselves trying to do too much, and thus making a lot of the issues mentioned here come across as unrefined if not pointless. I'm just surprised that many of the things pointed out here are still things that were issues in early access, and it makes the game really tedious to play and gets in way of the core of the game - a battle simulator with a paint the map aspect to it. I just came back from early access and played it again but most of the issues here make me want to quit. I appreciate them trying to make a 'full' experience, but unfortunately alot of this gets in the way of the core experience - a medieval battle simulator with a paint the map aspect to it. This feature bloat looks like it took away resources from the things that matter most. Honestly, the map could have been smaller too. Its gigantic, and by the time you're knee deep into it it becomes tedious because of all the other issues identified by other people in this thread.

Some of this stuff looks like they should have just made it into a DLC if they weren't going to make it something that doesn't detract from the core experience. At least they'd get paid to do it. I normally don't suggest making 'core' features DLC, but in this case i don't think these things are "Core" and they're done in a way that detracts from the actual core of the game.

 

[Jehiel]

Warband had relations between lords that mattered, and campaigns shown that - Respected lord as marshall? Everyone followed him and stuck even when their land burned. Some scumbag? Barely had 1 party, and that ran away after a day because they had more interesting stuff to do. Saw ample amount of times where 1 lord could help other that was under attack, but didn't, simply because he disliked him. In BL everyone and everything is just flat. No difference between scumbag that would see his country burn just to stuff his pockets (good times of provoking wars, mmmmm) and honorable lord that loves to battle. It's just robotic "let's declare war because they look weak, spend influence to call everyone". There's a whole lot of lot that was different (and better) in WB, kingdoms could fall because they weren't holding together from inside. Maybe this will come in future patches and I hope so, but if something's "full release" it shoulda been in from the get go, so keeping low expectations.

Maybe people nitpick this game BECAUSE they play it and see all the weak points?

The AI can and certainly be improved and no one is arguing that. I'm just saying there's a big difference between "this game is trash and it does nothing right" and "its pretty good as is but the AI needs to improve in these areas".

Also I need to point out the MAJOR rose tinted glasses about the marshall system. Seriously? I played Warband for 500+ hours. The marshall system sucked. You needed to call everyone to you, wait until they go there, and then go to seige something and HOPE they don't break away to chase a group of looters or something lol. It was a incomplete, 2000s era broken mess. As I pointed out originally, the army system in warband basically evolved out of the broken marshall system and is 2 million times better (the number grew because you helped me remembered how bad the marshall system was).

I do agree more relationship things are a good idea but at the same time this game doesn't need to be CK3. Different genres.

 

[MariusTitus]

The AI can and certainly be improved and no one is arguing that. I'm just saying there's a big difference between "this game is trash and it does nothing right" and "its pretty good as is but the AI needs to improve in these areas".

Also I need to point out the MAJOR rose tinted glasses about the marshall system. Seriously? I played Warband for 500+ hours. The marshall system sucked. You needed to call everyone to you, wait until they go there, and then go to seige something and HOPE they don't break away to chase a group of looters or something lol. It was a incomplete, 2000s era broken mess. As I pointed out originally, the army system in warband basically evolved out of the broken marshall system and is 2 million times better (the number grew because you helped me remembered how bad the marshall system was).

I do agree more relationship things are a good idea but at the same time this game doesn't need to be CK3. Different genres.

I played WB for 2k+ and tbh I miss these marshall jobs. World felt different with all the intrigues and stubborn lords in it. Ey, nobody's calling the game trash. People don't usually criticise something maliciously, it's more because they care about it and want it better. Some may turn bitter, but in the end, if they'd hate it, they wouldn't spend their time anywhere near it (like these forums). Everyone wants the game better, we waited a looooong time for it. So far it's far from great, once the wow effect from battles is gone, you notice how bland it is. Not to say WB didn't suffer from same mid-game boredom, but that's more reason to make it better here.

 

[SadMoney]

@Jehiel nobody's looking at Warband through nostalgia glasses.

I never said anything about marshal system being a flawless masterpiece. It was a barely functional broken mess, but at least we had some way to issue commands to other parties. Bannerlord is somehow even worse because you don't have this option (and no, the army system is not an adequate replacement).

In fact, that's the best way I can describe the overwhelming majority of features in Bannerlord - they are equally bad or somehow even worse that in Warband.

Diplomacy was already terrible with no options other that "me declare war" and "me sign peace", but now it's somehow even worse due to removal of truces and kingdom destruction. Plus, tribute mechanic is absolutely horrendous.

Relations with lords were pretty lackluster to put it politely, but now they're so bad it's laughable. You can have - 100 relations with somebody and marry their daughter without any problems. Or be the most hated person in the world due to executions and still being elected as a new ruler of your kingdom. Don't even get me started on how much marriages have regressed.

Prison breakes were already bad, now they are even worse. At least in Warband you fought through the actual city/castle instead of some generic boring prison dungeon.

You see the pattern here? Warband was never a good game (blasphemy, I know). It was a broken mess with some promising ideas in desperate need of polishing, but Bannerlord's take on these ideas is at best equally bad, and most of the time it's somehow even worse.

Also, nobody realistically expects Bannerlord to be "CK3 with battles". What people do expect is core mechanics that you spent of lot of time interacting with being at least tolerable.

A quick example - Bannerlord has the worst diplomacy system I have even seen in a game. I don't want it to be as complex as CK3 or EU4 or whatever. I want it to stop being literally the worst ever implementation of this feature. Is that a bar too high for you? Because for me it certainly is not.

 

[froggyluv]

@Jehiel nobody's looking at Warband through nostalgia glasses.

I never said anything about marshal system being a flawless masterpiece. It was a barely functional broken mess, but at least we had some way to issue commands to other parties. Bannerlord is somehow even worse because you don't have this option (and no, the army system is not an adequate replacement).

In fact, that's the best way I can describe the overwhelming majority of features in Bannerlord - they are equally bad or somehow even worse that in Warband.

Diplomacy was already terrible with no options other that "me declare war" and "me sign peace", but now it's somehow even worse due to removal of truces and kingdom destruction. Plus, tribute mechanic is absolutely horrendous.

Relations with lords were pretty lackluster to put it politely, but now they're so bad it's laughable. You can have - 100 relations with somebody and marry their daughter without any problems. Or be the most hated person in the world due to executions and still being elected as a new ruler of your kingdom. Don't even get me started on how much marriages have regressed.

Prison breakes were already bad, now they are even worse. At least in Warband you fought through the actual city/castle instead of some generic boring prison dungeon.

You see the pattern here? Warband was never a good game (blasphemy, I know). It was a broken mess with some promising ideas in desperate need of polishing, but Bannerlord's take on these ideas is at best equally bad, and most of the time it's somehow even worse.

Also, nobody realistically expects Bannerlord to be "CK3 with battles". What people do expect is core mechanics that you spent of lot of time interacting with being at least tolerable.

A quick example - Bannerlord has the worst diplomacy system I have even seen in a game. I don't want it to be as complex as CK3 or EU4 or whatever. I want it to stop being literally the worst ever implementation of this feature. Is that a bar too high for you? Because for me it certainly is not.

+1

 

[MariusTitus]

Diplomacy was already terrible with no options other that "me declare war" and "me sign peace"

There was trade agreements, non-aggresion treaty and alliances, or was that a part of diplomacy mod? I can't tell since every mod there had diplomacy, I thought that's part of base game

 

[Life_Erikson]

The AI can and certainly be improved and no one is arguing that. I'm just saying there's a big difference between "this game is trash and it does nothing right" and "its pretty good as is but the AI needs to improve in these areas".

Also I need to point out the MAJOR rose tinted glasses about the marshall system. Seriously? I played Warband for 500+ hours. The marshall system sucked. You needed to call everyone to you, wait until they go there, and then go to seige something and HOPE they don't break away to chase a group of looters or something lol. It was a incomplete, 2000s era broken mess. As I pointed out originally, the army system in warband basically evolved out of the broken marshall system and is 2 million times better (the number grew because you helped me remembered how bad the marshall system was).

I do agree more relationship things are a good idea but at the same time this game doesn't need to be CK3. Different genres.

Warband was a game that bearly worked as it was. And somehow Bannerlord managed to be a one step forward, two steps back situation with four times the ammount of employees and 10 years of development time.

Whilst it is true that there are aspects of the game that have been improved, the most important part is that others, bearly working before, have stopped working altogether making the game pretty much unplayable. Diplomacy, overall balancing and economics not being linked to army creation to just name a few. Not going into detail to the lack of soul this game has even compared to Warband.

Most of us don't have rose tinted glasses on concerning the shortcomings of Warband and yet STILL Bannerlord falls short.
The things Bannerlord does better cannot shine since core mechanics that are necessary to enjoy the game still don't work properly or aren't present.

It is also worth noting, that Warband (a game as you say was in large parts a broken mess) had working (and important) features which are to this day (and forever) missing from Bannerlord. What does that say about Bannerlord?

@Jehiel nobody's looking at Warband through nostalgia glasses.

I never said anything about marshal system being a flawless masterpiece. It was a barely functional broken mess, but at least we had some way to issue commands to other parties. Bannerlord is somehow even worse because you don't have this option (and no, the army system is not an adequate replacement).

In fact, that's the best way I can describe the overwhelming majority of features in Bannerlord - they are equally bad or somehow even worse that in Warband.

Diplomacy was already terrible with no options other that "me declare war" and "me sign peace", but now it's somehow even worse due to removal of truces and kingdom destruction. Plus, tribute mechanic is absolutely horrendous.

Relations with lords were pretty lackluster to put it politely, but now they're so bad it's laughable. You can have - 100 relations with somebody and marry their daughter without any problems. Or be the most hated person in the world due to executions and still being elected as a new ruler of your kingdom. Don't even get me started on how much marriages have regressed.

Prison breakes were already bad, now they are even worse. At least in Warband you fought through the actual city/castle instead of some generic boring prison dungeon.

You see the pattern here? Warband was never a good game (blasphemy, I know). It was a broken mess with some promising ideas in desperate need of polishing, but Bannerlord's take on these ideas is at best equally bad, and most of the time it's somehow even worse.

Also, nobody realistically expects Bannerlord to be "CK3 with battles". What people do expect is core mechanics that you spent of lot of time interacting with being at least tolerable.

A quick example - Bannerlord has the worst diplomacy system I have even seen in a game. I don't want it to be as complex as CK3 or EU4 or whatever. I want it to stop being literally the worst ever implementation of this feature. Is that a bar too high for you? Because for me it certainly is not.

+1

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

There was trade agreements, non-aggresion treaty and alliances, or was that a part of diplomacy mod? I can't tell since every mod there had diplomacy, I thought that's part of base game

That was the Diplomacy mod. The base game was hardly any better than Bannerlord, The AI just abused it less.

 

[MariusTitus]

That was the Diplomacy mod. The base game was hardly any better than Bannerlord, The AI just abused it less.

Aye aye. +1 to your post btw, you summed it up nicely.

 

[MasterDracer]

Warband was a finished game, bannerlord isn't. It should be still in beta in my opinion.