Bannerlord's lazy way of balancing through limiting player

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LioneI

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Here a couple exemples:
  1. - Number of compagnons
  2. - workshops
  3. - caravans
  4. - Number of parties you can create
  5. - etc..

  6. All of the above is limited for the player. Some are strictly limited, some depend on player's clan tier but still limited to a certain number.
  7. Overall I think there are too much unexplained limitation for an open world rpg. This limits the players freedom in the game and thus affects the immersion. I think it's safe to say those restriction are not only unrealistic but also senseless for the game's lore. However, I understand that they were introduced for the sake of balance, but it's a very lazy way of dealing with balance issues. Usually open-world sandbox games tend to use this type of balancing at the last resort in order to not limit the player's freedom for no good reason. But it's seems like Talewords didn't bother itself at all, and just put a lame limitation on the player to balance things.
Let's take Caravans. Instead of the 2 caravans per player limitation we could for exemple allow unlimited amount of caravans and :
- Increase the cost of a caravan
- Decrease income from caravans
- Introduce some sort of inflation or corruption : with every additional caravan, each new caravan brings less income
- etc.. For this case, only this comes to my mind, but I'm sure there are a lot more ways to deal with it without holding the player.



Voila that's it, I just didn't like the way taleworlds dealt with those issues. And by the way, I don't care if AI is also limited, just give the player more freedom.

Sorry for grammer, hope you understood
 
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I agree with the caravans but not with everything else, it gets to a point where the player would just become op every game unless there's something like an incremental cost of either influence or finance.

In any case the limits serve the same purpose as any soft cap would and taleworlds at this point wouldn't even get it working properly by 1.0 even if they tried.
 
In any case the limits serve the same purpose as any soft cap
As you said, limiting the player is necessary. But there is a difference between the means
Just putting a max cap and limiting the player is unimmersive and doesn't fit the genre of sandbox/open world.
 
As you said, limiting the player is necessary. But there is a difference between the means
Just putting a max cap and limiting the player is unimmersive and doesn't fit the genre of sandbox/open world.

Right that’s called clever game design - or lack there of… anyone can make arbitrary checks and balances to just “ keep the player from being OP “ or prevent snow balling . The superior developer creates interesting game mechanics to achieve this
 
I like the fact things are capped, the only cap I dont like is the clan tier, why 6? Seems so low and is way to easily attained and then reputation is worthless
 
There a lot of bunz backwards balancing attempts with this.
1 Workshops, oh okay for artificial balancing you can only buy so many, wouldn't want the player to have too much money... except I always have tunz of money piling up and it's hard to even spend it! Even buying 500K armor or 700K vassals (on 1.6.4 and 1.6.5 they are greedy?) is not enough to empty my wallet, just from answering the endless conga line of enemy armies from mid game on! Even early game a single lord take down is worth a couple months or more of workshop profit! SO why even bother with fake limit when the game just throws money at you anyways. And I call it a fake limit because there's no reasonable explanation why you couldn't by businesses all over the world!
2 Caravan, limited amount and uses a clan member up, granted at some point you will have a lot of clan members (second gen baby boom) but by then you don't even need the income. Plus of course the chance of caravan destruction and diminishing returns of multiple caravans. Really we should multiple types of caravans, a commercial one like we have and a supply/town one that we make solely to help supply our town and isn't limited to using a clan members or clan caravan count. And ditto about the ease of getting money from loot of course too.
3 Clan combat parties, limited to clan rank and +1 from 250 leadership perk. Oh okay you don't want the player too make too many clan parties and make a big army and beat all the AI.... oh but I do anyways with just my 1 party... this one's just weird because it's just a very brief window where this is useful. Only when you have made a kingdom (thus can make army) but have not got any vassals or mercs would it even be a good idea to make more and more clan parties and even then would only benefit a player that seeks to use numbers for a combat advantage at the expense of speed and of course actual expense since clan parties eat up your money more then basically anything else in the game!

I have to say, I only use armies and clan parties to get leadership high. Even after getting the 250 +1 party perk.... I don't even bother to send them out. I have to personally set them up too or they will take e my special troops and smash them into auto calc battles! I just let them all sit around breeding and do all fighting alone. Once I have a swarm of clans, why should I risk my clan mates?
 
Caravans, workshops and even fief taxes are pointless in bannerlord, there are so many other ways to make easy money by just playing the game normally. You will accumulate more trash than you can possibly sell even if you aren't actively seeking fights, while your only expenditure is troop upgrades. Removing the limit wouldn't unbalance the game in the slightest because the economy is already fundamentally broken, and it's basically impossible to go broke.

I personally don't think you should be able to sell anything to shops except raw resources, and even then it should be something you get from becoming a respected trader or something. Selling trash items was tedious ****e in Warband, but in Bannerlord it completely breaks the game. Calradia is now just a massive crypto economy of infinite swords that come from nowhere. You hire a recruit for 10 denars, but his equipment is worth about 100 to sell. A khan's guard's equipment (if you get all of it for yourself) is worth enough to hire and train up 10 of them. It's a farce.
 
I personally don't think you should be able to sell anything to shops except raw resources, and even then it should be something you get from becoming a respected trader or something. Selling trash items was tedious ****e in Warband, but in Bannerlord it completely breaks the game. Calradia is now just a massive crypto economy of infinite swords that come from nowhere. You hire a recruit for 10 denars, but his equipment is worth about 100 to sell. A khan's guard's equipment (if you get all of it for yourself) is worth enough to hire and train up 10 of them. It's a farce.
I played a warband mod called lords of calradia that had a loot = supplies feature I really liked. You could give your loot to a base you made and it would help you get recruits, or be used to upgrade recruits. This of coursed worked because the player couldn't just get normal recruits, only very basic ones (think villages militia but worse), unless they owned a fief. By making this base and giving it loot you could get a more intermediate type of troops, better then the junk recruits but still not as good as proper faction troops.
 
Taleworlds is limiting the players via their balancing due to the players complaining since launch that the game is too easy. the ai is too dumb. etc.
and instead of making a better ai, they just nerf the players. typical
 
Caravans, workshops and even fief taxes are pointless in bannerlord, there are so many other ways to make easy money by just playing the game normally. You will accumulate more trash than you can possibly sell even if you aren't actively seeking fights, while your only expenditure is troop upgrades. Removing the limit wouldn't unbalance the game in the slightest because the economy is already fundamentally broken, and it's basically impossible to go broke.

I personally don't think you should be able to sell anything to shops except raw resources, and even then it should be something you get from becoming a respected trader or something. Selling trash items was tedious ****e in Warband, but in Bannerlord it completely breaks the game. Calradia is now just a massive crypto economy of infinite swords that come from nowhere. You hire a recruit for 10 denars, but his equipment is worth about 100 to sell. A khan's guard's equipment (if you get all of it for yourself) is worth enough to hire and train up 10 of them. It's a farce.
You’re right: since one facet of the game has a lack of balance, you should make the rest of the game have a complete lack of balance.

That makes more sense then trying to balance the part that is completely out of balance
 
I notice how there is NEVER mention of how purchasing shops is always automatic and as well as hiring companions in all these “don’t give me any limits” gripe sessions.

Why is everyone always willing to sell you a shop? Why do you think this should be something extended to you infinitely? Why do you think every horse thief and woman impersonating a man wants to work with you? Why do you feel they should all want to work with you regardless of how many already are?

I agree there may be more dynamic methods, but just blowing the doors off of everything and depleting the choices that players already have to make (I only have so many shops so need to make them count) doesnt anywhere near achieve what you’re claiming it will: provide more engaging game play.

This is more tantamount to just having a tantrum that the game limits you at all. And as I’ve said other places, this game was never designed to put the player in the position of being a “god” with unlimited, omnipotent reach across the game. But I’m waiting for actually suggestions of how to implement limitations other then “number caps”. At least with number caps, you are free to mod them out if you don’t like them
 
And as I’ve said other places, this game was never designed to put the player in the position of being a “god” with unlimited, omnipotent reach across the game.

Then why does the AI follow completely different rules to the player, and why is the game world basically static without player agency? There is even a "Chosen One" main quest storyline. It's clearly a player-centric game, even if it simulates a lot outside the player's immediate vicinity.

You’re right: since one facet of the game has a lack of balance, you should make the rest of the game have a complete lack of balance.

That makes more sense then trying to balance the part that is completely out of balance

What I mean is that instead of removing these few limits, the entire system should be overhauled. I would even go as far as saying it's a waste of time to remove or add limits to things like caravans and workshops. Making money is so ridiculously easy in normal, casual, mindless gameplay that there is no reason to ever use the other systems. Something has to be done about this first.

Believe it or not, I am actually in favour of limiting caravans and businesses somehow. It makes zero sense that you can just turn up somewhere, say "I own this place now", and never come back, but still collect revenues. I think something that makes the income less passive would be a good soft limit. You should have to actually go and collect the money, or otherwise be a regularly presence in the area to avoid losing it.
1. You might have to fend off rival bids for your business. Someone might offer your staff more money and you have to either offer more, or fend off the usurper somehow.
2. The business might need you to hunt down criminals, the same way you get quests from notables.
3. The business might only be profitable if you procure the best goods or somehow create a monopoly to exploit.
4. If your caravans lose money, or if they get killed, nobody works for you and you have to start your own caravan to build up a reputation again.
 
The arbitrary limits on the player feel frustrating, but are also necessary and I think it's the implementation of those limits that hurts the game. Now I haven't played Bannerlord in a few months but in Warband there was a Merchant Guild and you had to talk with the guild master in a town to setup a workshop, and that usually involved doing some errands or quests for the guild.

So it would make a lot of sense if similar mechanics were used in Bannerlord. You talk with the local Guildmaster or whoever, perform some tasks for them and gain influence with the guild, and gradually be allowed to open/buy workshops and caravans. And eventually, they will tell you that the guild prohibits any one person from owning too many caravans, workshops, etc.

I just hope TW plans to do this in the future and that the current limits are just temporary, because I think it would be a lot more fun to work for the Merchant's Guild and build a trade empire over time than just be stuck with hard, immersion braking level caps.
 
Now I haven't played Bannerlord in a few months but in Warband there was a Merchant Guild and you had to talk with the guild master in a town to setup a workshop, and that usually involved doing some errands or quests for the guild.

You didn't, you could start a workshop in any town with non-negative relations. The thing that made it less OP is that money was harder to come by than in warband, where loot from a battle would only be about 1000 max unless you got lucky, and tax income was piss.
 
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