If they can't read or the major population can't, just do what Kingdom Come Deliverance did. Have a wandering tutor or something appear randomly in major faction cities whom can teach you to read and write. It could take coming back every x days or months for lessons, that way it feels earned. This could also be possible for faction/clan AI but very, very rare.
-
If you are reporting a bug, please head over to our Technical Support section for Bannerlord.
Books
- Thread starter Rafa911
- Start date
Users who are viewing this thread
five bucks
Knight at Arms
For a closer to home example, Viking Conquest's implementation was that you could learn to read at monasteries and it would take a few days of waiting at the monastery, in one sitting.
Coming back periodically would be a bit much of a hassle and dissuade players from using the feature, considering the point of it is to allow you to gain skill in certain areas without having to practice the skill.
In other words, books are supposed to let the player pay to get a little bit of skills in something, without having to grind gameplay they don't enjoy, or having to use cheats.
Either way I think adding a game mechanic of needing to learn to read isn't really necessary, nor a reason not to add the mechanic. It can be handwaved as the player character having picked up basic literacy at some point during their backstory and/or the books having good pictures and diagrams. Books should be implemented simply (so that TW actually is likely to do it), and mods can add further depth as wanted.
If literacy is rare, you can always have one of your companions read stuff to you, when you find a literate companion.
Your literacy could be a trait dependent on your background and you can't ever learn to read despite trying, just like Charlemagne and companion podcasts is all that you'll get.
Your literacy could be a trait dependent on your background and you can't ever learn to read despite trying, just like Charlemagne and companion podcasts is all that you'll get.
That's definitely better than immediate learning and isn't that far off from my own suggestion, just a bit quicker.
It's really not even half a chore, given how fast days go by in the game and how ridiculously easy the game is. I don't think this would dissuade anyone at all, except maybe the most exceptionally lazy players.
Having to return every few days or a month is hardly a grindy gameplay mechanic. Making something painfully easy is boring though. Where is the sense of achievement in that you go get the book, read it and then can read/know the skill immediately? It's boring and a lazy mechanic to implement on something lots of people want. And mods doing something isn't a solution either.
I disagree. Since lore wise we don't know how to read and most don't, books would be a great addition for skills/exp (and potentially NPC dialogue options) and a great pre-requisite to that could be learning to read. Hell, it'd be cool if learning to read and write could allow us to send love poems or letters to love interests, or threats and insults to rivals or the like. It isn't like you would have to beat a thousand lords to earn one book, it would be ridiculously simple to do. It could be going to an NPC and paying him for an automated lesson every x amount of in games days.
I would then ask: why should it be simple? Not everything has to be dead-brained and we shouldn't be advocating for this game to appease to those sorts of situations. Some difficulty is great.
Maybe we can get a literate companion to read us bed time stories.
If book implementation is considered "too complex", all hope is lost for Bannerlord. lol
I'd guess that the books got run by the "we didn't play Warband so we don't know why players liked this" committee or by the "let's do something better in some indeterminate post-release future" committee and got placed at the bottom of the todo list.
I'm guessing from most of the comments that barely anybody in this thread played Warband or the original Mount & Blade. FYI books were in those games as well.
Maybe TW thinks that console players might not be able to read and so they won´t understand what books are for?
five bucks
Knight at Arms
Let me respond to that question with a question, why does it need to give a sense of achievement? There's better ways of getting a rewarding feeling in the game than taking virtual reading classes.
The point of books, as I understood it, in Warband was a way of spending money to buff a certain skill. In Bannerlord, it would have the additional benefit of allowing players to buff a skill without needing to actually practice that skill.
Can't really say exactly why those people want books, but I see the following possible reasons:
* Bring back a gameplay factor that was in Warband
* Add a way of levelling skills without actually needing to practice them
* Give a reason to go into taverns/towns (to buy books)
* Add another thing that makes the world feel a bit more alive.
Implementing books, without implementing a literacy system, still fulfills all of those criteria. Less work required also makes Taleworlds more likely to actually *do* the feature, and it makes players more likely to actually *use* the feature if it doesn't require them to perform a chore before they can use books. Is that a reasonable statement?
Which lore are we basing this on? The player could read in Warband, there's nothing in the Bannerlord dialogue to say you can't read, and as I already said you can see people reading books in town.
You know what, a potential alternative solution that fulfills the same gameplay role as books is to have skill trainers. I think the literacy argument is silly, but if you want to get around it you can just pay people who have the knowledge of the book in their head and can train you in a particular skill in towns.
Essentially paying someone to "fast-track" your learning in Engineering, or Roguery, or so on, in a fastforwarded day, quicker than it would take the player to do themselves. These trainers could be inside the town scenes, which would also give players a reason to explore town scenes.
It would be really simple to implement, and it would avoid the literacy complaint you have.
Last edited:
I wouldn't take the illiteracy argument too seriously, it's just there to add another questy thing.
But the skill trainer idea is actually better than books and have more benefits that you described - you can also search for specific trainers that only teach up to specific skill level (see also Oblivion).
The books can still add some kind of an upgrade to the player and NPCs regardless of the skill trainers AND actually have interesting lore to read.
foreveralone.jpg
A very literate female companion that poses as a male knight would work best.
Because games should feel rewarding? As if your time is well spent and that time grants you something of achievement. Without those things, a game is lifeless and boring.
Now, why should it be dead-brained and or simple? Where's the benefit in that, except for lazy players not wanting to do anything of optional effort?
It's not just about what the books give you though, it is also about how you get them and what they can offer to the immersion and play outside of skill/exp gain. And where do you get this information that most players are unlikely to spend time on this book suggestion? Also, why should we be asking for and condoning making this game more and more simple? Why are we appeasing people like that? It's half the reason why MP is in such a garbage state.
I read it somewhere that most of the population in Bannerlord cannot read in other threads that brought up books before. Is that not actually part of the lore?
The literacy thing isn't all that serious, I'm just trying to provide context into why this suggestion could work lore wise and with existing game mechanics, and offer ways to implement so that it isn't too hard but still grants the player a feeling of achievement and success.
That could be an optional part of introducing books and education training though, that you could skip it and just hire a smarty pants to do all the stuff for you, but I would still argue that books and a more than "run to buy x immediate reward" way of getting them would be very beneficial to the game.
I don't agree with and never will agree with dumbing down the game or its experiences for an audience that's more casual than casual. It's already been part of the reason MP is destroyed, but if it keeps things from being implemented into SP for their convenience, it will for sure mean the death of this game. At least to me...
A very literate female companion that poses as a male knight would work best.
I was thinking something more along the lines of Klinger, but that could work too. So long as she looks like this in the end:
five bucks
Knight at Arms
I don't really want to disagree with you too much because I don't dislike your idea THAT much (VC did something similar and it was fine), but the way you're arguing is rubbing me the wrong way:
And I'm getting annoyed at the strawman line of argument. Nowhere did I say the game should be "dead-brained". And calling players "lazy" is a line of thinking I've taken issue with before. This is an entertainment product, not a job.
Player effort which adds skill-based challenge or depth to a game, or has to be included to avoid hurting immersion = Good.
Player effort which doesn't add skill-based challenge or depth to a game, and can be dropped without hurting immersion = Bad, does not make the game more fun, should be minimized if there isn't a very good reason for it.
As to your asking why, I already answered that: To make it easy for Taleworlds to implement the feature because, as you and I both know, this is a complex game already and they are reluctant to take on additional work; and also because people will be less likely to do it.
You could try and incentivize it by making books give ridiculous skill gains to make them worth the effort, but that would in turn hurt immersion ("why can I become a master in every skill solely from reading books?"), which is your main argument for adding it in the first place.
But whatever. I don't think I'll convince you, and as I said I don't hate your idea that much (just the reasoning behind it at this point), and TW isn't reading this anyway, so let's agree to disagree.
I already said that other parts of this game are the parts that are supposed to be rewarding. Not every feature needs to be forced to feel rewarding, when it already exists for a different purpose (avoiding grinding skills you don't enjoy practicing). I also pointed out that simply returning to a location a couple of times isn't a skill-based challenge. So it isn't rewarding, it's just a chore.
And I'm getting annoyed at the strawman line of argument. Nowhere did I say the game should be "dead-brained". And calling players "lazy" is a line of thinking I've taken issue with before. This is an entertainment product, not a job.
Player effort which adds skill-based challenge or depth to a game, or has to be included to avoid hurting immersion = Good.
Player effort which doesn't add skill-based challenge or depth to a game, and can be dropped without hurting immersion = Bad, does not make the game more fun, should be minimized if there isn't a very good reason for it.
As to your asking why, I already answered that: To make it easy for Taleworlds to implement the feature because, as you and I both know, this is a complex game already and they are reluctant to take on additional work; and also because people will be less likely to do it.
Since the game doesn't actually say (at least, not to my knowledge) that the player never learned to read, there is no immersion lost from just being able to read right away. So the immersion gain of having to learn to read is utterly minimal, not worth having to go through a chore to get it for a feature which is supposed to be a time-saver.
Because I know that a lot of people have said on these forums they want to be able to spend money to put points in a skill, without having to practice that skill. That's the benefit of books (or skill trainers as others have suggested). But if they have to go through a lengthy process of chasing a tutor NPC around the map over a period of months before they can do it, in addition to spending money on both the tutor and the book, then they may as well just practice the skill instead as it would be less hassle and wouldn't cost them money.
You could try and incentivize it by making books give ridiculous skill gains to make them worth the effort, but that would in turn hurt immersion ("why can I become a master in every skill solely from reading books?"), which is your main argument for adding it in the first place.
I'm not condoning making the game more simple. I'm opposing adding complexity where it isn't necessary.
But whatever. I don't think I'll convince you, and as I said I don't hate your idea that much (just the reasoning behind it at this point), and TW isn't reading this anyway, so let's agree to disagree.
Never seen it anywhere in the dialogue. Either way it wouldn't even necessarily include the player.
