Captain Mode - Not big enough?

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Scarf Ace

Sergeant Knight at Arms
I should start this thread by saying that I'm a big fan of Napoleonic's Commander mode, and much of this post is basically comparing Nappy to Bannerlord.

The main difference I see when comparing the two is the scale - Napoleonic has no hard limit on player counts other than those specified by the server, and unit sizes are flexible too. It also is generally based on large random maps. This means that the battles generally have a pretty epic feeling, even though they don't even approach historical numbers. My only real beef with Commander mode is that there's no routing mechanic, which can make battles drag on for too long.
Oh, and I'm not a big fan of black powder warfare.

BL's Captain mode seems to be designed for 5v5 - no more, no less, and the bot numbers seem to be very small compared to what is typically used in Napoleonic. This is a bit weird when you consider that TW has claimed on multiple occasions that better optimisation should allow for larger battles than in Warband. I do like the look of the maps though, although I'm skeptical about the flag system, and I hope that the corridors and chokepoints aren't overdone.

My point, I guess, is that Bannerlord should perhaps have two distinct Captain modes. One would be the one they showcased - 5v5, carefully designed, possibly even viable for competitive play.
The other should be just "Screw it, let's make it really big" mode. Let us have some hugeass captain battles, bring servers to their knees, drive everything up to 11. Let us go completely mad without the need for mods.
It would be a very fun mode for casual play, like the humongous siege servers we have today.
 
DrTaco said:
One mode with options and scalability would be better practice in programming and game design.
From what I understand there will be (probably competitive) matchmaking. I guess to better word what I meant, it's that the mode needs the flexibility to let us also have big stupid battles with it.
 
Scarf Ace said:
BL's Captain mode seems to be designed for 5v5 - no more, no less

We know from the Gamescom videos that the captain mode is not locked to 5v5, there was 4v4 and 3v3 in a few videos, maybe we can also increase the player amount but either it's not ready/optimized enough or they just didn't bother to show it yet. I hope we can increase it more too but even if it's 5v5 max it's already a good number for me, it'll be fun as hell. :party:
 
Bigger battles will be neat, its good idea to have small and big battles so everyone will be happy.
Big battles in multi are epic its just so cool to fight large groups of the enemy. :fruity:
 
Also, bear in mind that AI and network don't go along very well. Those are demanding in resources. One or two AI isn't a big deal, but we are talking about more than a hundred of soldiers, here. And their AI is supposedly better than the one of Warband and DLCs.

I'm not saying it is THE issue, but it certainly is one.
 
Actually I don't think there is any performance issue.

Mr Armagan said that engine can easily support much more players (and troops) in captain gamemode, but they designed like that in order to give this gamemode fast-played game style, like 5-10 minutes gameplay for each match (or something like that)

I think matchmaking will support 1v1 to 5v5 since most of the players will choice that, majority would prefer small fast gameplays. And those who would want bigger battles (incl. me) will probably be able to host/join a 10v10+ game out of matchmaking system in server list.
 
Varrak said:
Actually I don't think there is any performance issue.

Mr Armagan said that engine can easily support much more players (and troops) in captain gamemode, but they designed like that in order to give this gamemode fast-played game style, like 5-10 minutes gameplay for each match (or something like that)

I think matchmaking will support 1v1 to 5v5 since most of the players will choice that, majority would prefer small fast gameplays. And those who would want bigger battles (incl. me) will probably be able to host/join a 10v10+ game out of matchmaking system in server list.
Yeah, the point of the small scale to me seems to be more about skill, pace and perhaps competitive viability.
I just really hope they make the mode scalable enough to let us go mad on custom servers, and that they don't make the mistake of hardcoding maximum player and bot numbers.
Although the way Warband is, it's unlikely they'd make that mistake.
 
The gamemode is completely scalable, this includes both player and troop counts. So far we are happy with how the game plays with 5vs5, however that's not to say that we won't offer games of up to 8vs8 at release. Troop count can be set by the server.

We are still tweaking it and trying to find a nice balance to keep the gamemode fast and fun to play.
 
Callum_TaleWorlds said:
The gamemode is completely scalable, this includes both player and troop counts. So far we are happy with how the game plays with 5vs5, however that's not to say that we won't offer games of up to 8vs8 at release. Troop count can be set by the server.

We are still tweaking it and trying to find a nice balance to keep the gamemode fast and fun to play.

Good to hear. This is a game mode I have been personally looking forward to for awhile now because of the strategy component. In addition to the smaller arena style game play shown to us so far, I think a good amount of people would like to see a more grand battle of 1v1, 2v2, or 3v3 involving 300+ troops on the battlefield. Sounds completely possible with what you say. Similar to NW commander battle, but with friends.

Keep up the good work, i'm looking forward to it!
 
A good thing about 3v3 is that is should be easier for public players like me to work together as a team. Something I've noticed in NW is that getting people to agree where to go on the map and whether to attack early or defend is hard when there are a lot of players on each team. People tend to split up and aren't able to support each other, partly because there is too much going on in chat making it hard to communicate effectively, and people don't want to wait around for a dozen people to come to a consensus- and of course people often disagree on what course of action to take.

With few players on each team, they can firstly quickly see what troop types the other players have and decide to complement those units with their own unit choice as they see fit and secondly, with or without the use of chat, they are more likely to follow one another on the map and try and work together.

But of course it is good news that we can have larger teams than 5v5.
 
Scarf Ace said:
My only real beef with Commander mode is that there's no routing mechanic, which can make battles drag on for too long.

I felt the same about the lack of a routing system.
I think the 'time left' counter should be shortened as one team's morale is low enough. This would at least prevent losing players from trolling the winning side by hiding until the time expires.
 
Hey folks, do you think it will be possible to allow Captain's mode with Players vs AI, to let some people join a "main player" during a campaign?
Cheers :smile:
 
rosiker said:
Hey folks, do you think it will be possible to allow Captain's mode with Players vs AI, to let some people join a "main player" during a campaign?
Cheers :smile:
You mean like Invasion mode, but with troops instead of companions?
 
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