SP - General Complaints and Suggestions

[kampfbock]

I wrote this in the wrong forum before, so here is a repost.
Before i start my wall of text rant let me start off by saying i really like this game and i am well aware that it is in EA and alot of stuff will be fixed and expanded upon. But i fear this will take much longer than many people think and i would like to pinpoint some things, which need to be prioritized to make this game enjoyable for longer than 50 hours.

1. AI is absolutely stupid in every regard. There is no meaningfull diplomacy, just hyper aggressive senselessness. Playing this game politically becomes so incredible tedious after a few hours. AI declaring war left and right without any strategic sense. It feels like i am in the world of warhammer 40k, where there is only war. The decisionmaking of the nobles once in a war isn't much better and this becomes only worse if the empire sprawls out alot, which they tend to do, since as already mentioned, there is always war on all fronts, even if you dont share a border with a certain country.
2. My complaint about diplomacy goes even further, since there is no real system for it in place. There is nothing except marriage, which i am not even sure does anything at all, except leading to childbirth.
3. The voting mechanic is so frustrating. So if you actually manage to hold together the kingdom despite the astonishing incompetence of your ruler and fellow nobles, you dont even get rewarded for it. Ok, i get it, vassals with no land should be prioritized, but that's not the only reason this system doesn't work like you want it to. Vassals can have already half a dozen fiefs and werent even present at the siege, still they are on the list, whereas i am not. The times this happened to me is now already in the dozens... How about we dont limit this stupid voting lists to 3 people and instead everyone can be voted on or atleast the people who were present for the actual siege, you know, like it was in actual history? Same with the voting if you propose a fief change. You initiate the vote and arent even on the ****ing list....unbelievable.
4. There are many more points, like the useless skilltree, since most skills arent implemented, the ****ed up economy and town management and of course the snowballing issue, which is comprised of many many little problems some of them i already mentioned here. But those little things shouldn't be too hard to fix. The AI and diplomacy aspect is what really worries me, since i imagine this to be not that easily fixed.

So here some propositions which i would really like to see in addition to the fixes of my main complaints:

1. Casus Belli: Maybe instead of going to war willy-nilly, how about there was an actual transparent reason for it, like for instance claims on land, rivalries or punitive actions against criminals. If someone doesn't have a casus belli, declaring war would still be possible, but it could be linked to various consequences. Like opinion penalty with vassals, notables in the kingdom and even foreign courts.
2. Claims: Give nobles the possibility to forge claims on fiefs and if someone held a fief once and lost it for whatever reason he should receive a claim on it. Claims on foreign fiefs could only be forged if you border them. Also this could be linked with the voting system, so people who have a claim are always on the voting list and get a boost on chance.
3. Factions: There is already a character trait system in place (honorable,generose, merciful and so on) also there is the relationship system, now combine these into a transparent, easily navigateable faction system within a kingdom. Some nobles would prioritize developement and a healthy economy, other might prioritize valor and want you to wage war and so on, this would ideally work in tandem with diplomacy and decisions for within and outside the kingdom. At the moment it is an absolute pain in the ass and you are basically forced to create a convoluted network analysis yourself and even then, at the moment i am not sure these things even work properly and are worth the hassle. I just increase relationships with everybody, since that seems to be the only thing that matters at all and even then not to a degree that actually changes much.
4. Dynastic management: Sure you can procreate and you can marry, but again i am not sure what is the actual use of this. Wouldn't it be cool if succession was an integral part of a game set in an early medieval setting? Succession laws, succession crises, inheriting claims and so on, you know the stuff that was actually important in those times.
5. Infighting: The faction and dynastic system could be coupled with more complex inner politics, which would ideally lead to some interesting infighting. Maybe we could even get different tiers of vasslas. Not everyone has to be a direct vassal to the king/queen, but rather there are powerful dukes/archons with cities, their vassals would own castles and if we go even lower their vassals could own settlements. This could lead to interesting inner politics on all these tiers. But even if we dont have the different tiers, if we at least have factions and dynastic/succession management it would already become much more interesting to manage your kingdom or mess with foreign kingdoms.
6. Diplomacy: The only thing resembling diplomacy at the moment are relations and marriage. Which is kinda barebones. If i marry within the Kingdom i am part of, it seems to do nothing... not even a relationship boost wih the clan, no extra support in votes or anything. Does it do anything, if i marry into a foreign kingdom? If yes, thats nice, but it barely scratches the surface of what could be possible. Defensive pacts, non aggression pacts, tributaries, trade agreements, the possibilities are limitless.
7. Fief and kingdom management: Fief management is boring and basically nonexistent. You just upgrade everything to tier 3, establish a few caravans (again i am not sure if this even does anything to boost the fiefs numbers, since i am not sure if the economy system and the fief system are linked properly). A starting point would be laws for your fiefs below the kingdom laws. Kingdom management is a little better with the laws, but still it boils down to tweaking some numbers and thats it. It doesnt really mash together with the rest of the systems and there are way too few laws. For instance there is this law of popular vote or whatever it is called, but aside from tweaking some numbers it has no real effect. Wouldn't it be cool if this would actually fundamentally change how the kingdom is run, or if the road tolls actually increased prices on the markets and so on.
8. Party management: Some influence on what my parties do would be really appreciated. For instance telling them to patrole regions, do quests, clear hideouts, recruit troops for garrisons etc.

TL;DR: Prioritize AI improvement and look at Crusader Kings 2 and adopt some of those systems for this game.

 

[vemerce]

TL;DR: Prioritize AI improvement and look at Crusader Kings 2 and adopt some of those systems for this game.

I'm 120 hours into a single campaign, and I've had some of the issues you've complained about, but not all of them.

For instance, I joined Southern Empire early in my playthrough and we started kicking everyone else's butt. We were dominating on the map. I started to realize that if that continued, Southern Empire was going to be the only faction on the map. So I did the main quest and sacked a Southern Empire fief (the only they originally gave me, after I emptied its defenses) in order to start a kingdom. My kingdom originated in the middle of the Southern Empire's territory.

That's when I started to notice the incompetence of the AI. My army was pretty strong at this point, with mostly maxed out units. I think I pretty much carried the Southern Empire to where they had been. Still, their lords and ladies would come at me with their peasant armies and I'd cut them down... Over and over again. Every couple of days, they'd return with another army of fresh recruits. Meanwhile, the other factions started to collapse on the Southern Empire and take their border territories. From there, Southern Empire shriveled and disappeared.

Western Empire only had one fief left, so I went and took that so there would be less competition on the map. Northern Empire had already been wiped out by the Southern Empire before I made my kingdom. I stretched out and reclaimed all of the territory that the Southern Empire originally had while I was part of it.

After that long battle, it would have been nice to have some peace time. I tried to focus in on Smithing and work that up, but it wasn't long until the Asaeri were attacking me from the east, completely unprovoked. I skirmished with them back and forth for a while, and kept making peace deals. But they just kept attacking, so I eventually just went on a war spree and wiped them out to a few settlements. Vlandia then swooped in to take those.

Before I knew it, Vlandia had overtaken Battania, Sturgia, and half of the Khuzait Khanate. The only factions left with holdings on the map was my kingdom and Vlandia, and the kingdom window showed us at around equal forces.

Now it's worth mentioning, I was going out of my way to try to let every faction have a place on the map. I would have enjoyed a nice civil playthrough with wars here and there, but being able to focus on things like Smithing and Tournaments, too. But the other factions just don't want peace. As soon as you make a peace deal, they attack you again within a day or two.

Before I knew it, Vlandia was coming into my territory and attacking my fiefs. And they were the first real competition I was dealing with. They had slaughtered about 3-4 other factions and a lot of their troops were leveled up at first. We'd fight battles and I'd actually take some significant losses. We even went back and forth fighting over a couple of my fiefs. (Losing it, then sieging it again.)

But in the end, Vlandia was just as stupid as the other factions and kept coming at me with peasant armies. I got them back into their original territory, and part of Battania, and tried to hold a border with them there. I was partly successful there for a long time. But I had to micro-manage it. My AI lords and ladies in my faction would constantly declare war on Vlandia, and I'd have to go make peace before they could take anything. Even when I disavowed every policy that made war beneficial to them, my lords and ladies were still bloodthirsty.

I don't know what the solution would be, but part of me wishes that each faction could hold at least one city on the map, unless the player directly intervenes and takes that from them. But it would require that faction to go into peaceful mode, stay within their fief a lot more, and for none of the other NPC's to attack their last holding.

I don't particularly want to see the map dominated, by any faction, be it NPC or mine.

Also, a real problem that prevents you from restricting aggression is that you can't keep lords and ladies imprisoned for any length of time in Bannerlord yet... It's bugged and they immediately escape to rally new armies. lol

 

[kampfbock]

I don't particularly want to see the map dominated, by any faction, be it NPC or mine.

Also, a real problem that prevents you from restricting aggression is that you can't keep lords and ladies imprisoned for any length of time in Bannerlord yet... It's bugged and they immediately escape to rally new armies. lol

Ye i dont want to see that either or if it happens it shouldn't be somethign that happens within a few years. Kingdoms should ideally undergo a cyclic developement of rise and fall and if they fall something new should be born out of the ashes. But in this game kingdoms either rise or fall and there is no going back from that, other than tedious player intervention and even then you just reverse the roles and make one kingdom blob instead of the other. I haven't seen any internal strife yet, sure i as player can break off and form my own kingdom and from time to time some lord even gets persuaded by the AI to betray their liege, but even then they just join up another existing kingdom, rather than forming their own. The kingdoms are just monolithic blocks like modern states and don't feel medieval and feudal at all.

Basically i want the political aspect of this game to be more than just constant warfare. I want diplomacy, intruige and economic developement of kingdoms. Sure i can do other things than politics, like smithing,trading, tournaments and whack-a-mole with bandits, but these systems have no real interaction with each other, trade and smithing have no significance for the political part and vice versa. It's just a way to make money, what do you use that money for? War.... Tournaments are just another way to get renown and equipment, what do you use it for? War... and what is politics in this game? War.... When i started i really thought this would be crusader kings 2 with actual gameplay. Now after 100 hours i can't even see it as strategy or roleplaying game any longer, rather it is combat experience like mordhau with a map and the tease of roleplaying, which totally gets thrown out of the window, once you notice, that you can't plan anything in this game and the moment you try to roleplay is the moment you hav to submit yourself to the most frustrating and tedious chores imaginable, playing wack-a-mole with never ending smallfry stacks.

In my last game i played as imperial, i was generos and merciful, everyone in the southern empire and even within the other loved me, still, of course i wasn't even on the voting list for for anything once i got my first fief and just stopped giving a crap about it altogether, evenm when i initiated fief changes, not on the list, so i also stopped giving a crap about intruige....Then the neverending war against khuzaits started, after beating down stack after stack,sieging one town and castle after another, i just started chopping heads off as soon as i imprisoned anyone and became a cruel and dishonorable man, hated by most and what were the ocnsequences for this behaviour? Again nothing....

After southern empire conquered the whole map, only because of me i was on the list 2 times, that was right at the beginning when i joined, never again was i able to vote for me ever after, no matter what i did. And even then, i didn't even care about it at that point, since there is nothing to do with your fiefs other than stocking up the treasure and clicking a few buttons until you reach rank 3 in everything. It s just another money and influence printing machine so you can wage war more effectively.... So why should i even care about it in the first place? Basically there is never any reason to become more than a mercenary or a landless vassal, just join up armies and then do battle....

Another point are the sieges.... i just started going afk for them after a while, since they always play the same and the AI does everything by itself anyway and if you try to give orders the units start running against walls or stop moving altogether....

This is my whole point, the game teases you with endless possibilties for strategy and roleplaying, but in actuality there is nothing there besides the tease. It is just a badly made map-painter with ok combat and tactics gameplay, but if i want that i can just play mordhau or total war and have a better experience....

I will just go as trader for my next playthorugh, because then i can atleast have fun with manipulating the markets and just dont give a **** about how geopolitics developes, even though the question remains, what is the reason you do this in the end? Why earn money if there is no reason to sink it into anything other than ways to make more money? And if you decide to sink it into politics, we are at neverending warfare again, until 1 kingdom rules over everything foreverafter.....

 

[Dalla1]

Well i just leave here +1
I have over 80h at the moment and i dont really know what i can do with my kindom insted of being at war and rally troops

 

[kampfbock]

Well i just leave here +1
I have over 80h at the moment and i dont really know what i can do with my kindom insted of being at war and rally troops

People always answer, "well it is a sandbox game, you make your own fun"... that just seems to be an excuse for no content. A game can be sandbox and still have engaging mechanics to play around with for hundreds and thousands of hours. This game as it is now has no replay value at all except the multiplayer combat. And this is really sad if we consider that all the potential is right there.

We just have to hope that they plan to even use this potential, but then again the question is how long will it take to actually bring it to that point....

 

[Kangamangus]

Well, at this point I'm just happy Bannerlord is here and playable in some form. If the core experience doesn't really do it for you, maybe some expansions or the modding community will find a way to scratch that itch?

Not meaning to dismiss any of your concerns or criticisms, just pointing out that more game/more satisfaction might come from unexpected avenues. All of the above might take some time, though. How much? I don't have a crystal ball. ...but I will say that TW has been keeping their nose to the grindstone. I've seen more updates and fixing in two weeks that this game has been out than some AAA titles that have gone half year and are still unplayable in many regards.

 

[kampfbock]

.but I will say that TW has been keeping their nose to the grindstone. I've seen more updates and fixing in two weeks that this game has been out than some AAA titles that have gone half year and are still unplayable in many regards.

Ye they certainly have been busy and as i have said the groundwork is there... i am just worried they will never use it to the full potential. As you said modding will probably be the solution, but then again how reliable is that, as long as the game isn't really finished and gets constantly updated. So even with that, we gonna have to wait some time. And that is the main point, how much longer will this actually take. I dont think this game wil be finished anytime soon.

And the sad part is, there really is no other game attempting what this game does. I love crusader kings and paradox titles in general for its complex strategy and deep roleplaying possibilities, i love total war for its tactical gameplay and i love mordhau and m&b for its combat, but all of those only do these things by themselves. Bannerlords campaign seems to attempt to bring all the things together. Have the deep and complex roleplaying and strategic elements of crusader kings, the tactical warfare of total war and the nice gritty skillbased combat. It is the only game that attempts this and i love taleworlds studio for doing so, but i am very skeptical if they can actually pull it off and if they manage to do so, how long will this take....From the current state of the game and the fact that it took 8 years to come to this, i am guessing another few years. And by that point i just hope the systems wont be totally obsoloete and out of date, like the combat already feels compared to a title like mordhau.

 

[Kangamangus]

Ye they certainly have been busy and as i have said the groundwork is there... i am just worried they will never use it to the full potential. As you said modding will probably be the solution, but then again how reliable is that, as long as the game isn't really finished and gets constantly updated. So even with that, we gonna have to wait some time. And that is the main point, how much longer will this actually take. I dont think this game wil be finished anytime soon.

And the sad part is, there really is no other game attempting what this game does. I love crusader kings and paradox titles in general for its complex strategy and deep roleplaying possibilities, i love total war for its tactical gameplay and i love mordhau and m&b for its combat, but all of those only do these things by themselves. Bannerlords campaign seems to attempt to bring all the things together. Have the deep and complex roleplaying and strategic elements of crusader kings, the tactical warfare of total war and the nice gritty skillbased combat. It is the only game that attempts this and i love taleworlds studio for doing so, but i am very skeptical if they can actually pull it off and if they manage to do so, how long will this take....From the current state of the game and the fact that it took 8 years to come to this, i am guessing another few years. And by that point i just hope the systems wont be totally obsoloete and out of date, like the combat already feels compared to a title like mordhau.

Yeah...after playing Mordhau I realized how simple M&B's combat was in contrast. Though I will say I LOVE the the fact that Bloodlust perk isn't a thing in M&B! Got really tired of the native sweaties eating blade after blade, arrow after arrow, only to swing their two-hand around and instantly get full health.

Well, unless you had interest in providing feedback or testing the early access, you might wanna put this on the shelf for awhile. Come back later, don't burn yourself out if you aren't liking what is currently here. I appreciate Bannerlord in it's current state, mostly because it's finally real!

 

[Vendetta2.0]

Well i just leave here +1
I have over 80h at the moment and i dont really know what i can do with my kindom insted of being at war and rally troops

I have over 100h and im in the same position.

 

[Vendetta2.0]

I have read now a lot of threads about the snowballingissue and for myself it is indeed gamebreaking right now. Nevertheless the devs are working on it and that is good news.
Reading all those threads and having already over 100h gameplay, my personal opinion is that:

First the lack of diplomacy in the factions itself - for example effects of relations inbetween lords or the ruler, unhappy lords that might lead to rebellions etc. By the end of the EA they should have implemented at least some functions of innerstatepolitics.

Second: the lack of international diplomacy. I think the first steps here can be very easily implemented and I think we will see some changes here soon. Simple alliances against an overaggressors etc. I dont think we will see some sort of paradox diplomacy in the near future tho, like causus belli or revenge features. Maybe in the far future.

Most of the other things can be annoying indeed, but dont really solve the problem in the long run and do not bother me that much to be honest. Things like garrisons that starve to death, lords weird recruitementpaths, perks not working or a lot of bandits capturing lords. Those things can be solved easily and I am sure they will be sooner than later

 

[kampfbock]

yes certainly some things are much easier to fix than others. That is also why i am not that hung up on perfomance issues or imablances right now or the broken/missing features, i am looking beyond that. Even if they fix all the broken stuff right now, even if the AI gets better, what is the point if the game stays a combat simulator with a beatiful map? Sure for some people that might be just what they want, it is not enough for me though.

You could say that i just have a vision for this game that might be totally off the mark and just isn't what the devs were going for and maybe most people dont even want.... In that case i wont bother much longer with this game and just write those 50€ off as an investment for 100 hours of entertainment over a week.
Still i at least want to take my chance and make my voice heard to maybe get the game i would want to see^^

 

[Vendetta2.0]

yes certainly some things are much easier to fix than others. That is also why i am not that hung up on perfomance issues or imablances right now or the broken/missing features, i am looking beyond that. Even if they fix all the broken stuff right now, even if the AI gets better, what is the point if the game stays a combat simulator with a beatiful map? Sure for some people that might be just what they want, it is not enough for me though.

You could say that i just have a vision for this game that might be totally off the mark and just isn't what the devs were going for and maybe most people dont even want.... In that case i wont bother much longer with this game and just write those 50€ off as an investment for 100 hours of entertainment over a week.
Still i at least want to take my chance and make my voice heard to maybe get the game i would want to see^^

I understand you very well and I absolutely agree. I think most people realise what potential this game has. I mean why else would you spend 100+ h on a ass****ed bugridden half finished game? Yet tw is a small company and I feel they are doing what they can. This just showed the one week of patch every day. Maybe in the future, maybe with the money tw made, maybe an other company will make the game we dream of.