***Community Feedback ROADMAP - What Taleworlds still needs to fix!***

Does this roadmap represent your basic wants for Bannerlord?

  • Yes

    Votes: 387 86.6%
  • No

    Votes: 60 13.4%

  • Total voters
    447

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I think much of the problem stems from the fact we have a very dedicated community who are willing to put their time into making threads like this. Problem you say? Well this isn't the first thread like this - nor even the first one this week. This community is constantly pushing out threads like this - which while individually great aren't always going to noticed by the developers.


There are hundreds of threads like this.

Now that is a good thing; it means we have a passionate community but also means our feedback comes in dozens of walls of text on a weekly basis. The dev's would spend more time reading our books then they would making the game if they read everything.

What might be better is if we just had one of these threads - titled 'Top Community Feedback' or something; which either links to other threads or just holds all the current info. Outline exactly what we want to show in there; and then we can use that as a main page. That way someone doesn't need to create a whole new thread every week to say the same things (and get annoyed if TW miss it). That way there is only one page TW need to spend the majority of their time in and the community can see what has been actioned.

I know this has no doubt been recommended before however we already have something similar for the suggestions pages;

Bro, you are missing the point, or just want to repeat information for the sake of repeating. TW need to get stuff done. period.
 
Edit: and honestly, what bothers me the most is that there are huge problems with the core gameplay that are not being addressed, or even acknowledged. Mounted units can not hit troops on foot consistently. Collisions between units are wonky. The sense of progression is hit and miss, between the fact that armors are only mildly relevant and the leveling progression (plus the fact that unit hitpoints don't really change between low level units and high level units). Companions feel like placeholders (and honestly they kind of are). After release I was one of the most vocal proponents of "let them work, they will fix things eventually". Now I am like... will they though? I still don't think that raging and absolute negativity in the forum are going to help, but I can definitely understand the frustration.
If there is a ticket in support, it is acknowledged. Maybe it is not fixed as fast as some people hope for, but all reports are checked. (You may feel that the support responses are too generic, but what it actually means if they say "forwarded to developers" is that we have an internal ticket open for processing.)

I know that mounted archers are being checked, I am not sure about collisions, but if you link me the support ticket I can check, if sense of progression refers to skill progression, it is part of our current priorities (listed in the according thread), if it is about becoming a superhero (for lack of a better term) or deeply realistic damage and armor models, IMO that it is not part of what M&B is about. Having said that, further balancing is always possible. For companions, I think we will explore avenues to improve the existing system, but not build a separate system for "unique" companions as some have suggested.

But he is talking about putting pressure on the company in general - and that's negative for the company.
That statement and what followed, alongside other not so constructive discussion, is also negative for me as a developer for the reasons I laid out (which don't bother with hurt feelings n what not :razz: ). And just to be clear - I don't mind if people vent their frustrations in a variety of ways. It is human and sometimes all we can bother to do. All I'm saying is that I don't believe in the notion that it is the way to go to help with development or facilitate a particular outcome moreso than constructive activity.

I'm not saying that you should consider "This game sucks" type of comments right away, but if a person is criticising the game in a salty/negative manner but with a proper language, it doesn't make that criticism invalid.
Sure and I (and others) do try to read and discuss a broad range of feedback in structured and unstructured ways. Still, the more destructive the feedback is wrapped, the harder it becomes to process.

Not an example to this - but at least people deserve an explanation about the features scrapped/removed/kept on-hold so that they can adjust their expectations about Taleworlds' vision
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/what-we-have-in-bannerlord-pre-release-dev-diaries-but-not-in-game-by-now.436973/ This thread is 2 months old - btw.
Lots of the things noted there are before my time in the company, but even skimming over the first couple of points, I can tell that at least some have been responded to (like the peace treaties [function as kingdom decisions now], prisoner barter [ai does it, even against player will atm, giving the player a choice is in our list of current priorities] and village upgrades[was attempted, couldn't be made to work as desired and was ultimately dropped for the management at the walled center level]) . Not in a dedicated topic like what you linked, but throughout the forum discussions. I don't think I will be able to go over both that and this thread this weekend but I will put it into my forum backlog heh

I think most people generally just want to know whether TW has the intention or desire to begin adding more substantial features in future updates, or clarification on whether certain aspects of the game will be expanded upon at all (like diplomacy/interaction between factions, my personal gripe) or whether they will remain basically as they are. Since a lot of the stuff that was planned seems to have been scrapped.
I understand that and we do try to provide some insight into priorities through the dedicated SP and MP topics (where I also responded to quite a few inquiries) and our (likely more entertaining) video development updates. We have, however, decided against sharing overly much from the long term backlog - which to me is an acceptable compromise between different interests. It is certainly more information than prior to having the roadmap statements & video updates, yet helps to avoid making false promises / hyping people for things that are very much in flux and may not work out at all. IMO it also allows for a useful amount of agility in our development.

Finally, substantial is very much in the eye of the beholder. To me, a fair bit of what we are working on is substantial (and takes into account player feedback). I think one of the frustrations is that a lot of it goes towards addressing base game functionality and / or introducing or wrapping up known content rather than new shiny stuff.

Right but management is exactly the problem here. Management is where the vision comes from, not the individual developers.
I see these types of post a fair bit recently and find them a bit odd. The development of the game is primarily coordinated between Armagan and the various development teams. You may not disagree with all the choices made, but there isn't a "suit" slapping our hand for shareholder interests.
 
I see these types of post a fair bit recently and find them a bit odd. The development of the game is primarily coordinated between Armagan and the various development teams. You may not disagree with all the choices made, but there isn't a "suit" slapping our hand for shareholder interests.
I've seen a few posts from developers saying they suggested good changes to "management" and it was rejected, for example Mexxico said he suggested actual reasons for factions going to war like border incidents and this was rejected a couple years ago, something along those lines atleast.

They may not be corporate but clearly they're the main reason the game is extremely hollow. I feel like a broken record saying it but it really feels like they've focused way too much on accessibility for wider audiences and consoles and that has ****ed any chance of depth to the game.

It would almost make it easier to take if you did have shareholders forcing you, but knowing it's the companies own decisions is painful.
 
I've seen a few posts from developers saying they suggested good changes to "management" and it was rejected, for example Mexxico said he suggested actual reasons for factions going to war like border incidents and this was rejected a couple years ago, something along those lines atleast.

They may not be corporate but clearly they're the main reason the game is extremely hollow. I feel like a broken record saying it but it really feels like they've focused way too much on accessibility for wider audiences and consoles and that has ****ed any chance of depth to the game.

It would almost make it easier to take if you did have shareholders forcing you, but knowing it's the companies own decisions is painful.
+1. Very painful.
 
which ones?
Some of the equipment changes. The only one I can remember off by hand is the Northern Bow on the Sturgian Veteran archers.

Spartacus does a video series where he breaks down every unit in the game, compares it to it's rivals and offers suggestions of improvements. It's really good quality stuff!

 
I've seen a few posts from developers saying they suggested good changes to "management" and it was rejected, for example Mexxico said he suggested actual reasons for factions going to war like border incidents and this was rejected a couple years ago, something along those lines atleast.

They may not be corporate but clearly they're the main reason the game is extremely hollow. I feel like a broken record saying it but it really feels like they've focused way too much on accessibility for wider audiences and consoles and that has ****ed any chance of depth to the game.
Taking that particular example, I am not sure that suggestion would necessarily make for a better experience as it sounds less organic and more scripted (X event happened so Y must go to war instead of the current cumulative effects of events & contextual factors (like character traits) - because, of course, wars have reasons now as well). Maybe the systems could have been combined, but going from idea to implementation is hardly ever a guaranteed success.

There are also a fair few deep systems in the game. Much like warband, though, I feel there is plenty of room for improvement in terms of making it understandable and interactable for players. (Before the recent patch, plenty of people likely didn't know that AI lords resolve issues. Probably something similar is true for gang leaders attacking and taking over each others alleys. Or take the war and peace discussions that occur around not having war exhaustion - there is war exhaustion, but it is one amongst many factors and thus has less relevance overall.)
 
Taking that particular example, I am not sure that suggestion would necessarily make for a better experience as it sounds less organic and more scripted (X event happened so Y must go to war instead of the current cumulative effects of events - because, of course, wars have reasons now as well). Maybe the systems could have been combined, but going from idea to implementation is hardly ever a guaranteed success.

There are also plenty of deep systems in the game. Much like warband, though, I feel there is plenty of room for improvement in terms of making it understandable and interactable for players. (Before the recent patch, plenty of people probably didn't know that AI lords resolve issues. Probably something similar is true for gang leaders attacking and taking over each others alleys. Or take the war and peace discussions that occur around not having war exhaustion - there is war exhaustion, but it is one amongst many factors and thus has less relevance overall.)
I think it would go a long way to explain these deep systems in the game so we have a chance of understanding it. Is it safe to assume the encyclopedia is bare bones on many of these behind the scenes function because your waiting till the end of EA to do it?

I made this comment in another thread
At some point @mexxico you (or whoever is actually in charge of this) may need to spend some time creating some entries for the encyclopedia to describe many of these things that are under the hood and not so easily noticeable to the average player. Of course this is one of the last things that yall should do before release but it is sorely needed, like many of the current concepts not in the encyclopedia.

Also is the studio still focused on early and mid game? The late game is lacking right now and the only difference between being a vassal and a king is the king gets the final say on votes. Just curious if there is more to expect there or we should keep our expectations low.
 
I think it would go a long distance to explain these deep systems in the game so we have a chance of understanding it. Is it safe to assume the encyclopedia is bare bones on many of these behind the scenes function because your waiting till the end of EA to do it?
I think that is an ongoing discussion. We recently (this week) spoke about an idea to explain some of the mechanics there more in detail. It's still at the inception phase, though, so we will see what comes of it exactly.
 
I think that is an ongoing discussion. We recently (this week) spoke about an idea to explain some of the mechanics there more in detail. It's still at the inception phase, though, so we will see what comes of it exactly.
That is great news and if done properly will surely improve the feedback you receive by a lot.
 
I think that is an ongoing discussion. We recently (this week) spoke about an idea to explain some of the mechanics there more in detail. It's still at the inception phase, though, so we will see what comes of it exactly.
Great to hear, I spend too much time on here explaining mechanics to people (hopefully correctly :lol:).
 
Maybe you could provide an example from another title of what sort of vision statement / clarification you are looking for other than what people know the Mount & Blade franchise for and what was stated in the various product descriptions.
I'll take a stab at it. This is from the steam page and is what I will base the TW vision of what Bannerlord is,

"Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord is the eagerly awaited sequel to the acclaimed medieval combat simulator and role-playing game Mount & Blade: Warband. Set 200 years before, it expands both the detailed fighting system and the world of Calradia. Bombard mountain fastnesses with siege engines, establish secret criminal empires in the back alleys of cities, or charge into the thick of chaotic battles in your quest for power."

From here there are some points listed with explanations.
Strategy/Action RPG
Singleplayer Sandbox
Extensive Character Creation and Progression
Realistic Economy
Skill Based Directional Combat
Breathtaking Battles
Extensive Modding

From this list I see a vision for the game but the details to be a little light for my understanding of it. I think an expansion of what each of these would look like in the completed game would help some to better understand and to limit expectations. Some of these seem clear,

Action RPG is clear, the Strategy Part I think is less. Are you shooting for deeper Strategy level or is what we currently have in place a good measure of the level?

establish secret criminal empires in the back alleys of cities doesn't seem to be clear with the systems we have seen currently in the game/are we meant to expect this to be a style of play or a distraction?

I don't have them all listed but these are some examples. We have those who think the game is 90% content as intended, but then we have those who feel this is the second coming and we only see about 50% of what TW has for Bannerlord.

I completely understand if there is nothing you can say on this subject because you may not be able to say and expectations need to be managed due to possible unforeseen circumstances. But I hope this provided a little of an explanation for perhaps some of the animosity being felt in the forums. I come read and post here because I love what Warband is and I have a lot of fond memories leading to probably an unhealthy level of excitement for Bannerlord.

Thank you and sorry it took so long to respond. I had to wait until I had a break during my day job.
 
@Duh_TaleWorlds I don't know that there is a ticket for the collision problems, because it's not something that can be ascribed to a single bug like, say, the sound bug of doom or the fuzzy armors. However there are threads on this topic in the suggestion forum.


As far as mounted units go, I wasn't even talking about horse archers. I am talking about melee units with swords and other weapons with a relatively short reach, that just can not hit units on foot consistently. Even for players it's tricky starting out, eventually you get used to it and tilt the camera angle (awkwardly) to adjust for it, but it is a very noticeable difference with how smooth mounted combat felt in Warband. Part of it has to do with the physics of the game and the collision mechanics, and I realize that it is not something easy to get right, but it's also one of the fundamental building blocks of the game (related to this is the fact that you kind of glide through troops when charging at them, instead of the satisfying trampling that was in Warband).

As far as the progression goes, leveling is part of it, but another part of it is gear. I has been observed that armors are not as effective as they should be, and some suggestions were posted on how to address that.


The bottom line is that there really isn't as much of a difference as there should be between a newbie peasant and a full decked knight (talking about single player here). Not in terms of skill and not in terms of gear.

A final note on management: I am not talking about shareholders myself. I am talking about whoever is in charge of the development process. It is undeniable that there are some issues with management of your company, otherwise we would not be where we are after almost a decade of work. I also understand that this is not necessarily a conversation that you can have on this forum, and Taleworlds inner working are not really something that concern us. What concerns us is the game itself and the overall vision for it. That is not being shared, and I can understand that, but then all we can do is evaluate the game based on what it has and how it changes over time. As I usually say, I will hold my evaluation until after the product is actually released. But I definitely can say that the way progress is going so far is concerning.

I do appreciate you taking the time to talk to people. I honestly think a lot of people here would feel better about the state of things if Armagan himself took the time to do a "ask me anything" style session, but I doubt that it will ever happen.
 
All I'm saying is that I don't believe in the notion that it is the way to go to help with development or facilitate a particular outcome moreso than constructive activity.
True - and I agree. But you also have to consider the fact that most of those people actually gave constructive feedback for months or years. They all ended up in trash bin.
Not in a dedicated topic like what you linked, but throughout the forum discussions. I don't think I will be able to go over both that and this thread this weekend but I will put it into my forum backlog heh
Yes some of them are mentioned but no direct official announcement about that. I'm not asking you to go over that in this weekend obviously - and I know @Dejan also took notes in that thread. 2 months passed - no action. It shouldn't be rocket science to ask what happened to them and why. I know Dejan is not lazy, so it should be related to some internal communication issues - which probably increased with coronavirus work-from-home culture. Even if this is the case, people need to know that so that can "understand" it. It's not super hard to create a thread and go over them one by one in a week and answer them all. Not as a bulk but perhaps as a progressive list. Add more into list, like "ABC is suggested in https://taleworlds.some.fancy.forum.link but rejected ( or rejected because of XYZ )". Even lock the thread if you want.

In-thread posts are destined to be dismissed - threads not.
 
Thanks for the replies Duh. I agree wholeheartedly with the OP and what others are writing - it would be great to get a proper idea of what the vision for Bannerlord is. @Magello described it perfectly in the sense that it is really difficult to determine if the game is 50% complete in terms of vision, or 90% and just being tidied up. Personally I would love to have more of an idea from the big man himself about what his vision is for the game - that way people can align their expectations accordingly.
 
I know that mounted archers are being checked
Moreso melee cavalry and their incompetence (though it does vary depending on weapon used).
If it is about deeply realistic damage and armor models, IMO that it is not part of what M&B is about. Having said that, further balancing is always possible.
Warband had armor that was much better at mitigating damage. Realism aside, unrealistically weak armor causes gameplay problems in SP. Companions and AI lords die really easily in battle, partly because good armor gives them little protection (also attributable to their poor self-preservation and AI being bad at blocking). Both ranged cavalry and ranged infantry are overpowered because arrows do so much damage through armor that regular infantry, especially shieldless, are highly likely to die before they can get in melee range (and even if they do, most ranged units are still decent melee combatants anyway). These balance problems then cause boring tactics. It's also unintuitive and unsatisfying that the player can spend huge amounts of money on armor for it to provide maybe a couple extra hits worth of protection. And because units die so quickly despite armor, fights always feel like they end too fast for the player to savor them or execute tactics in the long term.

So, realism isn't the only reason we complain about the armor, by any means. It has been such a big complaint for so long. Is the reason it hasn't been changed that someone at TW has an absolute committment to not having separate balance for SP and MP, no matter the detriment to the SP game?
For companions, I think we will explore avenues to improve the existing system, but not build a separate system for "unique" companions as some have suggested.
Then I'll remove the uniqueness part from the OP.
There is value in companions who stay the same in each playthrough, because people cared about them but nobody really cares about the obviously randomly generated wanderers' personalities. But if the existing wanderers really are going to be improved, that's okay.
prisoner barter- [ai does it, even against player will atm, giving the player a choice is in our list of current priorities]
Is this an internal TW list, or are you talking about the line in your Statement that says "captivity balance & player choice"? Anyway thanks, I will change that in the OP to indicate that it is a current priority.
and village upgrades[was attempted, couldn't be made to work as desired and was ultimately dropped for the management at the walled center level])
I don't even blame Taleworlds for not delivering on that. It was obviously way too ambitious.
We have, however, decided against sharing overly much from the long term backlog - to avoid making false promises / hyping people for things that are very much in flux and may not work out at all. IMO it also allows for a useful amount of agility in our development.
Obviously TW needs to avoid overextending themselves. But at the same time in what world can a company of ~100 people not be able to commit to offering the same features a company of ~10 people managed 10 years ago? Bannerlord being Warband + graphics + sieges was my absolute lowest expectation for the game, and yet after all these years of development, it's not even that.
 
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Then I'll remove the uniqueness part from the OP.
There is value in companions who stay the same in each playthrough, because people cared about them but nobody really cares about the obviously randomly generated wanderers' personalities. But if the existing wanderers really are going to be improved, that's okay.
Please don't remove the unique companions. Just color code for "TW said no because they are unreasonable and can't think of two things at the same time". :grin:
No procedurally generated NPC can ever replace a unique one that's been lovingly hand-crafted and dialoged up, and you summed up the crucial RPG reason well.
And most importantly, it takes very little effort to create them and make them work alongside the random paper dolls.
 
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