Bannerlord VS the Original M&B

[roberto_sc]

I saw that there are a lot of posts and videos comparing Warband and Bannerlord. But I never played Warband, I had a blast playing the "original" M&B many years ago.

I got excited when I saw the console announcement (because I don't own a PC anymore). Then I went to the forums to read about Bannerlord and saw a LOT of people complaining about how bad the game is. Missing features and dull, shallow. So I'm feeling a bit like the guys from this thread were feeling back in 2016, thinking it doesn't matter how bad people say it is, it's probably much better than M&B and therefore awesome.

I'm a guy that is happy to buy a game to play for 50 hours, I don't have the time and patience to play something for 500 hours. I wonder if the people who are complaining are the super fans who spent a lot of time and effort in this game and wish it was much deeper, probably like Warband with mods is. If this is the case the game can be bad for them but good enough for me, I guess.

So I'm writing to ask how Bannerlord is compared to the original M&B, for someone interested in some sandbox singleplayer experience.
Thanks!

 

[Madijeis]

The engine is stronger and allows for more complexity than the one M&B originally shipped with, thus it has quite a lot of potential. Most forumites believe that potential hasn't been met, and I tend to agree, since there are features missing from their official plans.

There is a lot of talk of features being "removed" from warband, but really it is more along the lines of them not being re-implemented in what isn't a sequel so much so as a very different product, with a lot of emphasis on the "simulation" side rather than the rpg aspects. Which is why most of the features that haven't been reimplemented are the rp-friendly ones, such as feasts. I've never really felt the immersion from those, if you have you might be upset. The smithing system adds a lot of the immersion I sought out.

As a game you get into for short bursts at a time, it's probably a good purchase. Would reccomend to get it with atleast 25% off on steam

 

[Askorti]

Bannerlord is a lot of fun if you don't get too deep into it. It is a shallow game indeed, but if as you say, you just want a game for 50 hours, it will do just fine.

Many people are very jaded against BL (in part, rightfully so) because for one, it doesn't have some of the features of Warband, and for two the development process of it has been abysmally slow and for three, it's still very much incomplete. But if you simply jump in at release, without all this previous context, it's an alright game. Not great, but it's alright.

 

[MostBlunted]

You´ll have a lot of fun in the first 50 hours. Early and mid game are good, lategame is dull but it takes some time to get there. I´m pretty sure you´ll enjoy your first playthrough and won´t even notice most issues we are talking about here.

 

[niekdegrijze]

Agreed, you will enjoy your first play through!

 

[Honved]

As a battle generator, and not much more, Bannerlord should be fine. It's got a few balance issues, but original M&B did as well. Bannerlord is visually more impressive, but even shallower from a campaign perspective, and all but useless as a role play experience. The Companions and Lords are now randomly generated, and are basically non-entities for any kind of interaction, failing to live up to even the rather low bar set by original M&B in that aspect.

The real vitriol and condemnation come from the failure of Bannerlord to provide some of the already meager kingdom management options which were added in Warband, and from TaleWorlds backing down on a long list of promised features such as castle building, an actual "economy", and other things which matter in a long campaign, but are irrelevant to a simple "battle generator". It's not so much that Bannerlord is significantly worse than its predecessor in its basics, but that it's still a relatively empty shell of a game after a decade of development. It's fine for 50 hours of play, but that's about it.

I just spent an evening playing an old M&B mod: Sword of Damocles, which adds a heap of kingdom management features to original M&B, far beyond anything in Warband or Bannerlord. If modders could do that with the old engine, why can't the developers do something interesting with the new "improved" engine? The downfall of the mod is that "Universities" work in reverse, causing your "badboy" (infamy) to increase instead of gradually decrease, so after the AI builds Universities in most of the cities and then you conquer them, you can't avoid becoming the most hated ruler in Calradia, while you race to build up a kingdom strong enough to face the inevitable Legion invasion.

 

[Ser Jon]

I agree with the others.

At the very least, your first playthrough or roughly 50hrs of the game, you will completely enjoy. Especially with 1.8. Beyond that, about mid game or late game, every issue will become apparent and you may not enjoy or at least enjoy it as much as you did those early 50 hours.

 

[adrakken]

ISo I'm feeling a bit like the guys from this thread were feeling back in 2016, thinking it doesn't matter how bad people say it is, it's probably much better than M&B and therefore awesome.

I'm a guy that is happy to buy a game to play for 50 hours, I don't have the time and patience to play something for 500 hours.

So I'm writing to ask how Bannerlord is compared to the original M&B, for someone interested in some sandbox singleplayer experience.
Thanks!

1. Anyone saying a game is just plain going to be better no matter what just because its new, are not people to listen to. Its actually an obscenely stupid thing to say. There are a lot of examples of sequels of games that sucked compared to the originals.

2. Not all games are for everyone. Many people do not play RPGs because they just plain take too long and if you are a 50 hours kind of player, this game is more than likely not the kind you will enjoy. It can easily take you over 50 hours just to become a faction leader depending on your actions, skill and luck.

3. I will not compare Bannerlord to either M&B or Warband because those games are completed. If I were to compare them now, I would say Bannerlord is the worst of the three because of all the bugs, unfinished and broken "features" and lack of working mods and total conversions. Warband is still the shining example of greatness for this series because of the mods that filled the game out with all the things the Developers either failed at or left out of the game.

The Mount and Blade series is great because its a sandbox and has a rich community of modders that gave us a ton of toys to play with in it. Right now Bannerlord is lacking most of those toys and most of us cannot wait for Taleworlds to stop developing and get out of the way, while also hopping they stop adding in "features" that remove a lot of the sandbox aspects of the game. "Features" easily get in the way of ideas mod makers have.

Point is. Right now no one should be judging Bannerlord against the others yet as it is not finished and we have no idea what the developers are going to do that is going to harm the mods that can make the game the best of the series.

 

[Dabos37]

I saw that there are a lot of posts and videos comparing Warband and Bannerlord. But I never played Warband, I had a blast playing the "original" M&B many years ago.

I got excited when I saw the console announcement (because I don't own a PC anymore). Then I went to the forums to read about Bannerlord and saw a LOT of people complaining about how bad the game is. Missing features and dull, shallow. So I'm feeling a bit like the guys from this thread were feeling back in 2016, thinking it doesn't matter how bad people say it is, it's probably much better than M&B and therefore awesome.

I'm a guy that is happy to buy a game to play for 50 hours, I don't have the time and patience to play something for 500 hours. I wonder if the people who are complaining are the super fans who spent a lot of time and effort in this game and wish it was much deeper, probably like Warband with mods is. If this is the case the game can be bad for them but good enough for me, I guess.

So I'm writing to ask how Bannerlord is compared to the original M&B, for someone interested in some sandbox singleplayer experience.
Thanks!

99,9% of people complaining here have invested +1000 hours in this game already ( I am one of these people), and probably more time writing in the forum.

Buy the game, you are going to find it pretty enjoyable.

 

[roberto_sc]

Thank you all for your answers, it was what I was hoping to hear!!

 

[Bluko88]

So I'm writing to ask how Bannerlord is compared to the original M&B, for someone interested in some sandbox singleplayer experience.
Thanks!

Eh in terms of presentation Bannerlord is certainly superior to the original Mount & Blade. Animations and physics are totally night and day.

In terms of actual content & gameplay I'm not so sure. I never touched Warband until Bannerlord came out, and I gotta say that Warband definitely has more "heart" to it then Bannerlord. (I know you said original M&B, but really they aren't that radically different.) NPCs in particular are quite lifeless in Bannerlord - which is not a good thing in anything styling itself as an RPG.

You'll definitely enjoy your first 50 hours - just don't expect to do much more then form a 100 man mercenary band and participate in a few sieges. Fiefdom and Kingdom creation take a lot of time, probably 100 hours or more for those who are new to it. My first 50 hours back in 2020 I didn't even understand what folks were upset about - thought everyone was a bunch of whiners. But once I got to the 100 hour mark and realized development was going to be non-existent is when I started to get sour. Truly wish in hindsight I had the better judgement to stop back then.


That said it's already obvious gamescom version is significantly different to version 1.8 now, of course that could be good or bad. Been more then a few patches that totally botched whole parts of the game (literally couldn't select multiple formations for many months). So there's very real concern among us "super fans" the release could be less then stable. Definitely wait for reviews.

Bannerlord isn't a bad game, it's just very unfinished, which is rather frustrating after years of development and another 2 years of Early Access on top of that.


Also stay away from the Campaign if you do play. The main quest (if you can even call it that) is notoriously bad - terrible writing and premise. Literally the definition of tedium especially late game portion. My only pro is that it provides some world lore. Sandbox is an infinitely better experience.

 

[Grank]

So I'm writing to ask how Bannerlord is compared to the original M&B, for someone interested in some sandbox singleplayer experience.
Thanks!

No contest. Bannerlord is absolutely better than the original M&B. The reason people here are complaining is because Bannerlord is ridiculously shallow despite its potential, and said potential is actually really not that hard to achieve, as already proven by the many mods currently available to download.

As of now, you can get some amazing mods like Realistic Battle, Fourberie (crime life), and Serve as a Soldier (like Freelancer), but as the game itself is still in development, the mods can be rather unstable too. The problem is, you're on console. I don't know if you will be able to use mods at all, but the base game is not that bad, really.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

I'm a guy that is happy to buy a game to play for 50 hours, I don't have the time and patience

You are the target demographic, make sure to also pre-order for your console of choice. If you only play a game for 50 hours, I don't think you'll have anything to complain about. You won't even know how 90% of what happened in the game works. It's very suspicious to me that you would never play Warband or WFnS if you enjoyed the OG game. It goes on sale all the time.