SP - General Bannerlord's Gameplay Has Gone Backwards In Multiple Areas From Warband

[Stevefree]

Very great points. I also felt the Viking Invasion Add-on also had a lot of great hidden gems as well.

One thing that drives me crazy is chasing down Lords so that you can recruit them. Having the mechanic back again for feasts and "holding court" so Lords could defect to you would be really great.

Just need to get some of that old code back into Bannerlord. I feel like this was rushed out because of the success of Kingdom Come. Who knows. It still feels so.... unfinished vs. the previous Warband and Viking Invasion.

 

[Ser Jon]

I shouldn't be surprised that someone thought that 80% of this has been addressed, but somehow I am a little surprised.

I totally agree.
Warband looked like its creators were the game's biggest fanatics.

But in Bannerlord, the creators are like robots who just do what they say above to make money.

In short, Bannerlord lacks the soul of its creators.

It's painful how accurate this is. Becoming a big company killed their creative vision.

 

[CrazyElf]

Feasts.
Feasts had multiple benefits for gameplay. You could host a feast yourself to gain relation with lords, which was good for roleplaying. Feasts brought lords/ladies together in one location, making it much less annoying to try and find them when you wanted to talk; and it was more immersive to see lords do something in their lives other than fighting all the time.
There was one problem with feasts- kings could hold feasts while losing a war. This could be solved by not letting the AI declare a feast while already at war.
Kingdom Court and Minister.
In Bannerlord, if you want to find lords to join your kingdom you must chase them all around the map personally to talk to them, which is unrealistic and very frustrating for many players. In Warband, you had a "Court", where your Minister could be talked to about political matters to receive political quests or send out diplomats to other kingdoms, and where Lords would travel to if they were interested in defecting to you. (This could be balanced in Bannerlord by them only waiting there for a while, and still requiring you to make a deal first).
Reactive Unique Companions.
Warband's companions would react more often to the player's actions based on their personality, and argue with each other and ask you to take sides, which made them feel more like people. Also, unique characters like Jeremus and Rolf had the same personality, stats, appearance and backstory in every playthrough, so people got more attached to them as characters than Bannerlord's randomly generated wanderers. Keeping the random wanderer system, but also adding a handful of non-random companions with more backstory, reaction dialogue and decisions to make, would give players stronger characters to identify with.

I think we are still missing these features. Taleworlds has said no feasts for now.

@five bucks - how do you see this game coming along?

 

[five bucks]

I think we are still missing these features. Taleworlds has said no feasts for now.

@five bucks - how do you see this game coming along?

I think work is very slow, at the current pace of work we need about another year for the game to get where it needs to be. So the fact TW is releasing in less than two months is extremely concerning.

Even if they are planning to keep updating post release, the game still isn't ready and nearly every system is either incomplete or terribly imbalanced.

 

[Ser Jon]

Perhaps they will look at the response to their announcement and re-evaluate? One more year in early access development would, or should, at least provide ample time to fix balancing issues and finish touching up or finalizing existing features.

 

[bonerstorm]

This is all I want from the beggining. I remember that people complaining too much because bannerlord is too much like warband before. But now, people just want a bannerlord that feel's like warband. I really really want to see these features in BL. Let's make this thread blow up so devs maybe actually care about this. And I wanna make that tag to myself. How do we add that ~~~~~~~~~ Good features that were in Warband, but are still missing in Bannerlord ~~~~~~~~~ to our profile ?
Edit: K I just did it

F***ing legend.

 

[fragtzack]

Hi all. If we compare Bannerlord to Warband, which was made 10 years ago, we see Taleworlds has definitely improved the visual presentation, the battle size, and added a lot of depth to some game mechanics, which is great.

However, some people call Bannerlord "shallow" and "soulless", because it is missing quite a few fun, immersive gameplay features from Warband, so it's actually gone backwards in those areas. These missing features include:

Claimants/Civil Wars.
In Warband, the player could support an AI "claimant", who claimed they were the true ruler of an existing kingdom, and could recruit you and other lords into a Civil War against that kingdom's ruler. Bannerlord has small rebellions, but only for one town, rather than the whole kingdom. Edit: This has been confirmed by Taleworlds for their long-term development plans.
Feasts.
Feasts had multiple benefits for gameplay. You could host a feast yourself to gain relation with lords, which was good for roleplaying. Feasts brought lords/ladies together in one location, making it much less annoying to try and find them when you wanted to talk; and it was more immersive to see lords do something in their lives other than fighting all the time.
There was one problem with feasts- kings could hold feasts while losing a war. This could be solved by not letting the AI declare a feast while already at war.
Kingdom Court and Minister.
In Bannerlord, if you want to find lords to join your kingdom you must chase them all around the map personally to talk to them, which is unrealistic and very frustrating for many players. In Warband, you had a "Court", where your Minister could be talked to about political matters to receive political quests or send out diplomats to other kingdoms, and where Lords would travel to if they were interested in defecting to you. (This could be balanced in Bannerlord by them only waiting there for a while, and still requiring you to make a deal first).
Reactive Unique Companions.
Warband's companions would react more often to the player's actions based on their personality, and argue with each other and ask you to take sides, which made them feel more like people. Also, unique characters like Jeremus and Rolf had the same personality, stats, appearance and backstory in every playthrough, so people got more attached to them as characters than Bannerlord's randomly generated wanderers. Keeping the random wanderer system, but also adding a handful of non-random companions with more backstory, reaction dialogue and decisions to make, would give players stronger characters to identify with.
Strategic command dialogue.
You could suggest to allied lords that they should travel to and attack/defend a location while you went somewhere else, which allowed you to strategize over AI's stupid moments and made you feel more like a ruler. Edit: A similar feature, telling vassals and clan parties to act defensively or offensively, was added in 1.5.10.
Promoting Companions into Lords.
Warband let you make your companions into Lords and Ladies, which was good for roleplaying and starting a new kingdom from scratch. Edit: This has been added to Bannerlord in 1.6.4!
Deserters.
In Warband they were roaming enemies on the map, providing more opponent variety than just looters or bandits, and being more challenging to fight due to their superior equipment. In Bannerlord they are only present in one quest.
Manhunters.
When there were too many bandits in an area, these bounty hunters would start appearing to chase them down. This helped fix excessive bandit spawns and added to the feeling of an alive world, and they also had a unique troop tree you could hire to your army.
Objective: Escape.
When you failed to sneak into an enemy town, you had to fight your way out wearing only a civilian outfit, which was exciting and made sneaking feel risky, and was much fairer than the current situation where you just instantly get thrown in jail if you fail the sneak check.
Assassins and Belligerent Drunks.
Lords who hate you would hire Bandit Traps and Assassins to attack you when you entered town. Belligerent Drunks would attack you in taverns. This made lord relations more relevant, added more immersion to the game, provided variety to combat, made town scenes more useful, and would also help make civilian outfits a more useful feature in Bannerlord.
Prison Break quests.
One of the coolest quests in the game, breaking a lord out of the center of an enemy stronghold by yourself and escaping before the guards killed you. Edit: Taleworlds has re-added this feature to Bannerlord in 1.5.9!
Political quests.
There were two political quests in Warband. Denounce Lord, where a noble would give you a quest to publicly insult a noble they dislike to reduce their influence, which required you to fight a duel and gained relation with the noble who gave the quest; and Resolve Dispute, where you could improve relations between two arguing nobles using Persuasion skills or giving gifts. These gave the player more roleplaying options, and something interesting to do during the vassal/ruler phase, which Bannerlord lacks.
In-depth Courtship.
In Bannerlord, getting married is just three quick conversations, which lacks immersion. In Warband you could learn about a potential spouse's personality and visit them repeatedly to build up relations and improve your chances of marriage, or even fight a duel to defend their honor, making the process more immersive and fun.
Collect Taxes Quest.
A lord would ask you to collect taxes in their fief. Halfway, the peasants would say they couldn't pay any more. You could choose to force them to pay the rest, which would trigger a battle. Edit: Taleworlds has re-added this feature to Bannerlord in 1.6.1!
Lord Duels.
A fun one-on-one fight with another lord from the same faction, which occurred if you insulted a lord in the Denounce Lord quest, decided to defend a lady's honor from an insult, or were insulted for being female by a sexist lord and you chose to duel them.
Skill Books.
These could be purchased and read over time to gain levels in a specific skill. This would be a good option for players to choose to spend money to get a boost in a particular skill, especially if it's a skill they don't get to use often, like Engineering.
Sword Sisters and Sexist Lords.
Unique female troops that did not occur naturally in the game world, who you could add to your army by rescuing peasant women and training them into skilled fighters. Edit: Taleworlds has re-added sword sisters in 1.9.0, although not upgradable via peasant women like in Warband. Also gone are sexist lords who were hostile to female player characters, required more effort to befriend, and who you could fight in a duel if they insulted your gender.
Multi-stage sieges.
When they lost the walls, defenders of a castle/town in Warband would try to defend the streets or the lord's hall, creating an intense close-quarters battle in interesting environments. In Bannerlord, the lord's hall is not used, and troops can retreat through the streets but do not attempt to fight you there. Edit: Taleworlds has re-added keep battles to Bannerlord in 1.6.1! However, troops defending the streets are still not mentioned.

Some of these seem small on their own, but all together, they create a major improvement in variety and immersion. Without (most of) these features, or similar features to replace their benefits, Bannerlord will not be a good sequel to Warband.

Taleworlds has said it is committed to making Bannerlord to the community's expectations. Based on various threads and polls on the forum and elsewhere, a large part of the community wants Bannerlord to have all the good features of Warband. So, can we please get an official statement from Taleworlds on this?

This is a great thread on how to make Bannerlord better.

 

[Ull]

A legendary post.

 

[Remmik]

This is a great thread on how to make Bannerlord better.

Too bad it isn't going to happen

 

[Ser Jon]

This is a great thread on how to make Bannerlord better.

Imagine how the game could be if they tried to follow most of this. If they think it sells well now, it'd be flooding gold into their pockets if they just put in a bit more effort and reworked existing mechanics to function better alone and with other mechanics.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Imagine how the game could be if they tried to follow most of this. If they think it sells well now, it'd be flooding gold into their pockets if they just put in a bit more effort and reworked existing mechanics to function better alone and with other mechanics.

I doubt it. Millions of people bought bannerlord on release day without knowing anything about the game beyond "it's warband 2".

I don't think even a major rework of the game is going to bring a new wave of sales. Even high profile "rereleases" like no man's sky or Rome 2 are mainly for customer trust than actually drawing new people in. If anyone is still tangentially interested in bannerlord they've either already bought it or stopped paying attention

 

[Ser Jon]

I doubt it. Millions of people bought bannerlord on release day without knowing anything about the game beyond "it's warband 2".

I don't think even a major rework of the game is going to bring a new wave of sales. Even high profile "rereleases" like no man's sky or Rome 2 are mainly for customer trust than actually drawing new people in. If anyone is still tangentially interested in bannerlord they've either already bought it or stopped paying attention

That's possibly true. But I can maintain hope, at the very least. I want to see Bannerlord succeed, even if it might take a few more years to do so. I just hope the devs also want it to succeed beyond meager effort.

 

[Ull]

I doubt it. Millions of people bought bannerlord on release day without knowing anything about the game beyond "it's warband 2".

I don't think even a major rework of the game is going to bring a new wave of sales. Even high profile "rereleases" like no man's sky or Rome 2 are mainly for customer trust than actually drawing new people in. If anyone is still tangentially interested in bannerlord they've either already bought it or stopped paying attention

This is unreasonable pessimism. People are still waiting for a good M&B experience. I don't think they still got what they expected and we already know expansion packs are on the way for Bannerlord.

 

[Lone Star Ranger]

This is unreasonable pessimism. People are still waiting for a good M&B experience. I don't think they still got what they expected and we already know expansion packs are on the way for Bannerlord.

EXPANSION PACKS ? they havent even finished the damn game ... they can shove expansions down their throats till we get a stable game that doesn't crash whenever the hell it wants to... I gave up playing vanilla because if im gonna crash anyways might as well enjoy mods that add more life and content to the game that the devs never gave it . worse yet the stuff they do add tends to mess things up more often than not... 1 step forward 4 steps back. I had hoped that in 2 years they'd have came up with something to keep the base game interesting but its pretty bleak at this point and their pessimism is pretty understandable as I too was optimistic until seeing what we have been given as a "FULL RELEASE" Ive lsot all faith in these devs and depending on what they do with this "released" game will determine wether I trust them anymore in the future. I know I'm not the only one who wanted this to be even a little better...

 

[RozBritanicus]

Bannerlord needs all this content to be a successor to warband. I think Bannerlord is ok the battles amazing. The rest needs lots of work, TW should stop with the stripping done of features. People are intelligent and don't need extra simple game features.

 

[MandeepSingh025]

Except you don't spend your entire time in the game fighting in just one area. You move around. If you spend your entire time fighting in one small area of the map and you see the same place twice that's not unrealistic or immersion breaking at all! You don't have a problem with fighting in the same castle or village twice, so why is fighting in the same field battle in the same locality such a big issue?

Is the difference between one group of rocks and trees on a plain and another group of rocks and trees on a plain really that massive to you?


You're completely misunderstanding and mis-applying the fallacy while trying to sound smart. The difference between me and someone with Gambler's Fallacy is that the gambler thinks that because something is probable to happen it must be going to happen, whereas I am merely stating the low probability of something happening, not saying that it will definitely not happen. Therefore, I am not making a fallacious statement.


I asked for a source. That isn't a source. Where did you get that information? Provide proof.

That argument is like saying "you are end-user, you don't have to think about how TW are going to develop their maps."

No, because you still have not provided proof for your statement that there is absolutely no overlap between the people who would work on such a feature and the people who would improve the game (and even within your statement, optimization counts as an important improvement that lots of people want/need). Therefore I would not be satisfied if I had to see the game lose actual gameplay features it needs so they can waste time just for you to satisfy your wants for randomly generated field battles which, if you're really being honest with yourself, are not really necessary.

Totally! Your questions are excellent and demonstrate a genuine desire to learn. It’s inspiring to see someone actively seeking information and engaging in lively discussion. It is a great opportunity to showcase your passion and knowledge. Asking questions can help you gain a deeper understanding of yourself and your life. Curiosity will be a valuable *et on your journey. Use your curiosity and never stop exploring. You can learn so much by asking questions.

Data Science Classes in Pune

 

[Crisagon]

Hi all. If we compare Bannerlord to Warband, which was made 10 years ago, we see Taleworlds has definitely improved the visual presentation, the battle size, and added a lot of depth to some game mechanics, which is great.

However, some people call Bannerlord "shallow" and "soulless", because it is missing quite a few fun, immersive gameplay features from Warband, so it's actually gone backwards in those areas. These missing features include:

Claimants/Civil Wars.
In Warband, the player could support an AI "claimant", who claimed they were the true ruler of an existing kingdom, and could recruit you and other lords into a Civil War against that kingdom's ruler. Bannerlord has small rebellions, but only for one town, rather than the whole kingdom. Edit: This has been confirmed by Taleworlds for their long-term development plans.
Feasts.
Feasts had multiple benefits for gameplay. You could host a feast yourself to gain relation with lords, which was good for roleplaying. Feasts brought lords/ladies together in one location, making it much less annoying to try and find them when you wanted to talk; and it was more immersive to see lords do something in their lives other than fighting all the time.
There was one problem with feasts- kings could hold feasts while losing a war. This could be solved by not letting the AI declare a feast while already at war.
Kingdom Court and Minister.
In Bannerlord, if you want to find lords to join your kingdom you must chase them all around the map personally to talk to them, which is unrealistic and very frustrating for many players. In Warband, you had a "Court", where your Minister could be talked to about political matters to receive political quests or send out diplomats to other kingdoms, and where Lords would travel to if they were interested in defecting to you. (This could be balanced in Bannerlord by them only waiting there for a while, and still requiring you to make a deal first).
Reactive Unique Companions.
Warband's companions would react more often to the player's actions based on their personality, and argue with each other and ask you to take sides, which made them feel more like people. Also, unique characters like Jeremus and Rolf had the same personality, stats, appearance and backstory in every playthrough, so people got more attached to them as characters than Bannerlord's randomly generated wanderers. Keeping the random wanderer system, but also adding a handful of non-random companions with more backstory, reaction dialogue and decisions to make, would give players stronger characters to identify with.
Strategic command dialogue.
You could suggest to allied lords that they should travel to and attack/defend a location while you went somewhere else, which allowed you to strategize over AI's stupid moments and made you feel more like a ruler. Edit: A similar feature, telling vassals and clan parties to act defensively or offensively, was added in 1.5.10.
Promoting Companions into Lords.
Warband let you make your companions into Lords and Ladies, which was good for roleplaying and starting a new kingdom from scratch. Edit: This has been added to Bannerlord in 1.6.4!
Deserters.
In Warband they were roaming enemies on the map, providing more opponent variety than just looters or bandits, and being more challenging to fight due to their superior equipment. In Bannerlord they are only present in one quest.
Manhunters.
When there were too many bandits in an area, these bounty hunters would start appearing to chase them down. This helped fix excessive bandit spawns and added to the feeling of an alive world, and they also had a unique troop tree you could hire to your army.
Objective: Escape.
When you failed to sneak into an enemy town, you had to fight your way out wearing only a civilian outfit, which was exciting and made sneaking feel risky, and was much fairer than the current situation where you just instantly get thrown in jail if you fail the sneak check.
Assassins and Belligerent Drunks.
Lords who hate you would hire Bandit Traps and Assassins to attack you when you entered town. Belligerent Drunks would attack you in taverns. This made lord relations more relevant, added more immersion to the game, provided variety to combat, made town scenes more useful, and would also help make civilian outfits a more useful feature in Bannerlord.
Prison Break quests.
One of the coolest quests in the game, breaking a lord out of the center of an enemy stronghold by yourself and escaping before the guards killed you. Edit: Taleworlds has re-added this feature to Bannerlord in 1.5.9!
Political quests.
There were two political quests in Warband. Denounce Lord, where a noble would give you a quest to publicly insult a noble they dislike to reduce their influence, which required you to fight a duel and gained relation with the noble who gave the quest; and Resolve Dispute, where you could improve relations between two arguing nobles using Persuasion skills or giving gifts. These gave the player more roleplaying options, and something interesting to do during the vassal/ruler phase, which Bannerlord lacks.
In-depth Courtship.
In Bannerlord, getting married is just three quick conversations, which lacks immersion. In Warband you could learn about a potential spouse's personality and visit them repeatedly to build up relations and improve your chances of marriage, or even fight a duel to defend their honor, making the process more immersive and fun.
Búsqueda de recaudación de impuestos .
Un señor te pediría que recaudaras impuestos en su feudo. A medio camino, los campesinos dirían que no podían pagar más. Podrías optar por obligarlos a pagar el resto, lo que desencadenaría una batalla. Editar: ¡Taleworlds ha vuelto a agregar esta función a Bannerlord en 1.6.1!
Señor Duelos.
Una divertida pelea uno a uno con otro señor de la misma facción, que ocurrió si insultaste a un señor en la misión Denunciar al Señor, decidiste defender el honor de una dama de un insulto o fuiste insultado por ser mujer por un señor sexista y elegiste batirte en duelo con ellos.
Libros de habilidades.
Estos se pueden comprar y leer con el tiempo para ganar niveles en una habilidad específica. Esta sería una buena opción para que los jugadores opten por gastar dinero para mejorar una habilidad en particular, especialmente si es una habilidad que no usan con frecuencia, como Ingeniería.
Asedios de varias etapas.
Cuando perdían los muros, los defensores de un castillo/ciudad en Warband intentaban defender las calles o el salón del señor, creando una intensa batalla cuerpo a cuerpo en entornos interesantes. En Bannerlord, el salón del señor no se usa y las tropas pueden retirarse por las calles, pero no intentan luchar contra ti allí. Editar: ¡Taleworlds ha vuelto a agregar batallas de mantenimiento a Bannerlord en 1.6.1! Sin embargo, todavía no se menciona a las tropas que defendían las calles.

Algunos de ellos parecen pequeños por sí solos, pero en conjunto crean una mejora importante en variedad e inmersión. Sin (la mayoría de) estas características, o características similares que reemplacen sus beneficios, Bannerlord no será una buena secuela de Warband.

Taleworlds ha dicho que está comprometido a hacer que Bannerlord cumpla con las expectativas de la comunidad. Según varios hilos y encuestas en el foro y en otros lugares, una gran parte de la comunidad quiere que Bannerlord tenga todas las buenas características de Warband. Entonces, ¿podemos obtener una declaración oficial de Taleworlds sobre esto?

And you could read books to raise skill points, I dont understand the policy of taking 1 step and 2 back

 

[Zorion_no]

And you could read books to raise skill points, I dont understand the policy of taking 1 step and 2 back

Well you have some companies who do this practice where they do it to sell dlc's with the "all new feature" which you had in the previous version of the game.
Take Civ VI, where alot of the things that was in Civ V ended up behind paid dlc's down the line..
I'm hopeing they dont do it, and that the designstrategy of TW is that they will add it in later, or that they just didnt think theese things "mattered" to us the customers.