Beta Controversies and Criticisms of Bannerlord Combat.

[almightycricket]

If I were developing this game, I would have started with a base game and then separated the development team into 2 sets. One for single player dev. and one for multiplayer who's only focus was balancing that and nothing else. Who knows maybe they did. I think one of the massive issues that hasn't been addressed is what, and if, changes one one side will affect the other.

 

[Semke]

I love the way you preach that no one has the "basis" or "facts" after they provide you with a different opinion than yours, and yet you yourselves are not making any input to back up your own "facts"? You were literally given a list of MP mods that were and still are the backbone of Warband player counts, including Native MP itself. Every single one of the big mount & blade youtubers literally spawned from multiplayer communities, most notably from Persistent World, Ironhawk and Resonant to name a couple. Also, Warband campaign fleshed out? Complete overstatement, it's a sandbox with no goal and is completely repetitive, don't get me wrong it's great, but to call it fleshed out is delusion. The main pill that you should swallow first is the fact that the Beta is strictly multiplayer, revolved around the combat system which is the DEFINING feature of the game.

 

[MountainBladesMan]

I have no reason to add anything when it only leads to running circles with someone who has never actually played multiplayer. Bye.

Think whatever you need to. We both know you never had a leg to stand on.

 

[almightycricket]

I love the way you preach that no one has the "basis" or "facts" after they provide you with a different opinion than yours, and yet you yourselves are not making any input to back up your own "facts"? You were literally given a list of MP mods that were and still are the backbone of Warband player counts, including Native MP itself. Every single one of the big mount & blade youtubers literally spawned from multiplayer communities, most notably from Persistent World, Ironhawk and Resonant to name a couple. Also, Warband campaign fleshed out? Complete overstatement, it's a sandbox with no goal and is completely repetitive, don't get me wrong it's great, but to call it fleshed out is delusion. The main pill that you should swallow first is the fact that the Beta is strictly multiplayer, revolved around the combat system which is the DEFINING feature of the game.

edits=*


Not sure if you're addressing me or not, but let's address some things.

1. Anyone can make a list, a quick google and ta-dah.
2. I never argued that MP wasn't important or a part of the community, just that looking at the content they focused on after release and what they seem to care about now (and what they advertise on their steam page) seems catered to a very specific audience.
3. Looking at the old forums and hell nexus and steam you'll see* some of the more recently updated and most downloaded and endorsed mods are SP.
4. The native single player experience was a bit rough sure, but it was super innovative for it's time and it's what drew so many people to this game.
5. Being a youtuber isn't really relevant to what I was talking about, but if you're into something you're gonna watch it and you're gonna draw people who like it to you. It's why pandering is so effective. Heck I don't even play rust but I like welyn, cause it's exciting to watch...kinda like people fighting other is...weird!
6. Speaking of warband player counts, they have been in the thousands for quite awhile and I doubt it was just MP, but seeing as I can't accurately find where the counts disseminate from I'll let that one be.
7.If you were gonna beta test something, would it be the offline campaign that doesn't have a server load, won't cause people to go offline for fixes, can be modded easily to suit each person OR would it be the aspect of the game that isn't easily fixed, can cause downtimes, and could potentially cause a server crash due to unexpected volumes and such?

 

[Lord Earl]

As someone who has always preferred SP, and installed a lot of SP mods, I will say that, as far as I can recall, multiplayer being added in Warband caused Mount & Blade to explode in popularity. Single Player is important and shouldn't be disrupted, but I think the multiplayer community did a lot to keep Mount & Blade relevant, just as the single player modders and players did.

In general, I see no need to fight between SP and MP players. To my understanding, many of the SP modders were also the MP modders, so it seems to be attacking yourself to fight about it.


I'm not so sure that mechanics designed for multiplayer have to be bad for single player, either.If it's no trouble,could someone enlighten me on this SP vs MP controversy, and why people are concerned that the design is favoring one over the other?

 

[almightycricket]

As someone who has always preferred SP, and installed a lot of SP mods, I will say that, as far as I can recall, multiplayer being added in Warband caused Mount & Blade to explode in popularity. Single Player is important and shouldn't be disrupted, but I think the multiplayer community did a lot to keep Mount & Blade relevant, just as the single player modders and players did.

In general, I see no need to fight between SP and MP players. To my understanding, many of the SP modders were also the MP modders, so it seems to be attacking yourself to fight about it.


I'm not so sure that mechanics designed for multiplayer have to be bad for single player, either.If it's no trouble,could someone enlighten me on this SP vs MP controversy, and why people are concerned that the design is favoring one over the other?

Well I'm in agreement with you, but people seem to think everyone is on one side or the other.

As for your question; NPC's are fodder in comparison to online combat skill ceilings. They rely on programming AI to make decisions and such, where players are whole different beast. Also take into account a lot of people start off in SP and then goto MP where things are much different. There you have the divide. If you make the two different they have to relearn all the bad habits they learned in SP, if you make them the same then you have an entire community trying to change things for different reasons and a lot of conflict ensues. On top of that you have older players with a lot of expectations and things they like from older games, and people just coming to the franchise butting heads and creating..like factions. It feels almost as bad as American politics.

 

[Lord Earl]

The best example of that I could think of is chamber blocking. When mowing down hordes of NPC mooks, it was annoying when one of them chamber-blocks you totally by accident. So, you could make an argument it should be turned off in SP for NPCs, or NPCs in general.

Is there any major point of contention that has come up lately, with SP design versus MP? Most of the stats and mechanics, if well designed I'd figure they'd work well for both.

 

[almightycricket]

Most of the contention seems to be less about what should change and more about who's asking, rather than how it actually affects the game. Some smaller topics seem to be about the delays and whether they are necessary. It think what really heats people up though is when they compare it to warband and try to use that as a reason for change. I loved warband, but it definitely felt janky. I will say though a lot of the changes seem to be not in the spirit of the franchise so I can see why a lot of the veteran players are mad.

List of issues by a respected beta tester (Also for transparency seems to lean to MP)

 

[gospell]

M&B has lived so long because the game is friendly for modification. And it doesn't matter SP it or MP mods

 

[almightycricket]

M&B has lived so long because the game is friendly for modification. And it doesn't matter SP it or MP mods

I don't think MP itself will be moddable, SP could be made to be MPish, or maybe private MP servers will be a thing as in most games. But for tourney purposes which a lot of people attend apparently, it will matter.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Sometimes I go swing my weapon and it no go where I think it should or my guy swings it over his head instead of where I said. I miss the other guy and then he kill me. In warband it always go where I say it to go. I would rather it always go where I say it go in Bannerlord too. Hate stances, hate chain, like simple, constant, reliable warband combat.

 

[almightycricket]

Sometimes I go swing my weapon and it no go where I think it should or my guy swings it over his head instead of where I said. I miss the other guy and then he kill me. In warband it always go where I say it to go. I would rather it always go where I say it go in Bannerlord too. Hate stances, hate chain, like simple, constant, reliable warband combat.

I think that the simplicity is nice, but it also restrains creativity. I think combat needs polish and once it has it, will be great.

 

[Kribble118]

Which is why the most popular mods for M&B are multiplayer oriented? You have no idea what you're talking about. Stick to auto-blocking bots please.

lol no, thats just plane ****ing wrong. MB has always been and will always be a single player game first multiplayer game last. Go play mordhau and stop trying to ruin our bannerlord experience with your perfectly tuned combat and "balanced" features. Do you not realize how much some of these balancing features can take away from the SP player experience. How the hell am i supposed to be immersed in a world that makes no ****ing sense? Do you think the medieval age in our world was balanced to give everyone a fair shot? No it wasn't and bannerlord while being a video game should take into consideration some balance, if im playing SP and my shield breaks 2 mins into the battle I'm going to be pissed.

 

[gospell]

I don't think MP itself will be moddable, SP could be made to be MPish, or maybe private MP servers will be a thing as in most games. But for tourney purposes which a lot of people attend apparently, it will matter.

You probably misunderstood me
I meant that the warband lived for a long time because there are many different mods and it doesn’t matter sp or mp mod

 

[Kripaz]

Well, what do you expect? MP isn't a priority so not much work has to go into it before it can be released whereas the singleplayer takes time. TaleWorld knows it can afford to alienate its multiplayer fans seeing as there are so few of them and they'll probably be leached off to game like Mordhau or Chivalry anyways. The main feature of Mount and Blade is and always has been the singleplayer campaign, and only someone who is acting in ignorance or bad faith (both in your case) would say otherwise.

Thanks for beta-testing our game for us. You can go now.

Remove multiplayer! Am i right?

 

[helari]

I think the "M&B is mainly a singleplayer game" thing started when the newer and fresher multiplayer medieval combat games like chivalry and mordhau came out and people didn't see a point playing a crusty medieval slasher from 2009.

Frankly I think that the situation has potential to change now that there is a game that can compete with Mordhau and now that Chivalry is already very old hat.

Don't underestimate the way simply up to date graphics can skew the popularity. (As if Chivalry's and Mordhaus meta gameplay isn't broken as ****)

edit: TBH I think there should be more player customisation, at least on custom servers in bannerlord (warband style gear picking, non monetised subtle armor cosmetics or changing the secondary coloration of your characters clothes separate from the team color that's more prominent on you during the game).

 

[danEN]

 

[Bran34]

lol no, thats just plane ****ing wrong. MB has always been and will always be a single player game first multiplayer game last. Go play mordhau and stop trying to ruin our bannerlord experience with your perfectly tuned combat and "balanced" features. Do you not realize how much some of these balancing features can take away from the SP player experience. How the hell am i supposed to be immersed in a world that makes no ****ing sense? Do you think the medieval age in our world was balanced to give everyone a fair shot? No it wasn't and bannerlord while being a video game should take into consideration some balance, if im playing SP and my shield breaks 2 mins into the battle I'm going to be pissed.

Honestly if you're so hung up on the shield durability thing you realize that the values can just be different between the two modes, right? Almost every other change that gets proposed by these guys is to make the combat more consistent and reliable. If you don't care about getting into the nitty gritty details of the system, you will never notice the difference

Infact, this is already the case! Armor system works entirely differently between MP and SP, for instance. MP armor system does not take into account limbs.... for some reason. Lots of us don't care for that. If it were changed, you would never know if you don't play MP. So let the MP people have their balance, it won't affect SP anyway.

Lots of changes to the combat system that have happened actually don't affect SP at all, really. Stances, kick mechanics, chambering, swing delays, etc etc. Against AI and in SP, you would never have noticed or cared about the difference between WB and BL.

Lots of you are acting like entitled brats that are going to have their experience wrecked by people who like the MP over SP/SP over MP in this game. There are communities around both, and you need to understand that both can be catered to without detriment to the other.

 

[Varrak]

Imo, both SP fans and MP fans are putting some "not accurate" claims to support their imaginary side against other, in this thread.

First of all, warband obviously didn't last that long for the sake of Multiplayer, but singleplayer mods and it's giant modding community. NW is even worst example to back this up since it's glory comes from muskets and artillery, and not really from shield/sword thing.

That doesn't mean Multiplayer isn't important and that should be ignored for the sake of SP, as some SP fanboys said in this thread.

I mean, i love multiplayer a lot that i probably wouldn't get the game if it was only SP, and same goes for SP that if the game was only MP i wouldn't get the game. There are players like me, who enjoy both SP and MP, that's why i said "members in this thread trying to defend their imaginary sides" because it's imaginary, there is no such thing like SP vs MP.

I'm pretty sure what TW tries to achieve is that a common ground for both gaming experiences. I won't particularly put my suggestions for combat system, until Duel gamemode is out.

 

[Bran34]

I'm pretty sure what TW tries to achieve is that a common ground for both gaming experiences. I won't particularly put my suggestions for combat system, until Duel gamemode is out.

Precisely this. And it's not a hard balance to achieve. It was achieved pretty well with Warband, so obviously it can be done again.