Constructive feedback after playing a few hours

[Tukata]

Ok, so I really like the game but there are a LOT of things that could be fixed right now, and I'm not talking about the missing features that will be added in the following months. Here are just a few of them I can think of right now after something like 5 or 6 hours in the game :

• There is no one in the streets. I just compared one of the screen the dev gave us back during the development : and some screens I took at the beginning of the game while walking into the streets of Pravend (supposedly one of the biggest and most civilized cities in Vlandia) and the contrast is a bit shocking : . Am I in a ghost town of something ? I think the development is just too advanced at this point to add things like animals in the streets (pigs, chickens, dogs...) and new animations for the citizens to give more life to the city (just look at the NPCs in Assassin's Creed), but you could at least double or triple the number of random NPCs in towns (villages are fine). Right now it's really disturbing and... kinda lame. We're in 2020, I think that we have the technology to do better than that.
• The interactions with NPCs are... how to say it... non-existent ? In Warband you could talk to anyone and ask them several things like "How's the life in this town ?", "What's the town producing ?", stuff like that, but so far, I've noticed that it's impossible with every NPCs I've talked to. You can click on "I have a few questions to ask" but it gives me zero options. Here are my propositions for this : First, give us every option we had in Warband. Then, you could add an option a la Morrowind to ask to a random NPC what he does in life (and it would give us a random line of dialogue explaining us what's his situation in life. Useless but a lot of roleplay value), ask if he knows anyone needing help around, and ask for rumors. In taverns, we could ask to the musician to play something else or just stop playing (it could even piss off someone who was listening to the music and who would challenge us to a duel and start a bar fight), ask random guys in the tavern to drink with us, etc... Add some LIFE. Add some roleplay.
• Reduce the number of tournaments please. I don't know if it's a bug but in EVERY Vlandian city I've visited so far, there is ALWAYS a tournament. Tournaments should be pretty uncommon, it should be a big event, not something there is 24h/24 in every city. Plus, arena should give us more options like training our men like in Warband (but perhaps it was a mod ? I don't remember, anyway that should be a vanilla feature ).
• A lot of little graphical bugs here and there to fix, like this one for example, when I play this tavern game in Vlandia : all the pawns are the same color some you just can't know which is yours and which is your opponent's. I've also seen parts of town completely dark, like, not just in the shadows but completely black. Creepy. And things floating in the air. Well, right now these bugs are really the least of my concerns, there are more urgent things to do like...
• ...Nerfing forest bandits. Please. Right now it is totally unbalanced. We're not fighting forest bandits in rags but squad of elves snipers.
• I know that you are planning adding more quests but you should also increase the occurence of NPCs giving us quests. I've travelled in all Vlandia for an entire hour without meeting any NPC with a task to give me. There should be at least one quest to accept in every city at any moment, and I'd say something like... A quest to take every 3 villages you visit. Even if you have a stock of "minor" quests that are very common and more ambitious quests that you get less often. That'd be fine.
• Talking about quests, the tasks we complete should have influence on NPCs dialogues. Right now, I just finished a quest named Family Feud or something, I had to protect a guy against thugs who wanted to kill him. So, I provoked the thugs, saying that I would protect the guy over my life, then we fought, I killed two of them, then they killed the guy I was protecting, so the quest was over, aaaand... Nothing. They simply sheated their swords, came back to their initial positions, and when I talked to their leader, he was like "Yeah ?". Wtf, he should be ultra pissed, telling me that if he sees me again he'll skin me alive and that I'm lucky that he spared me, I should have dialogue choices to accept this outcome or continue to provoke him to avenge the death of the guy I was protecting, starting a new fight between me and them... It shouldn't give me back the options I have with normal NPCs ! Both of us were still covered in our respective bloods Here again, that's completely immersion breaking.
• Is it now impossible to enter a Lord's Hall ? Well, that could be explained by the fact by character is low level and doesn't have a lot of renown, I hope it's because of that.
• More dialogue options with lords you meet. Why can't I ask them if they are at war, how the war is going and what they are doing right now, like in Warband ? I feel like we have way less interaction options with them than in Warband. If it's only because I'm low level and have not been hired in their army, tell me.
• Perhaps it's just me but the map seems too brightful. At noon, the ground is glistening like snow in the sun. Maybe you should tone that down a bit
• Make gaining money a bit harder. It seems like I gains money 3 times more easily than in Warband. Perhaps you should find a middle ground between Warband ultra low rewards for quests and Bannerlord ultra high rewards. Or perhaps modify a bit the cost of our troops. I don't know.
• Give us the possibility to intervene in on-going battles we see on the map. I've just met two armies clashing near a village I was buying stuff in, and since one of the lords involved was Vlandian, I rushed to him in order to help him but I couldn't join the battle, the only option the game gave me was to ignore it. Is it because I'm not part of the Vlandian army yet ? Than it's nonsense, I should intervene in any battle I want, that should even be used as a form of introduction to Vlandian lords that still don't know me, like, at the end of the battle, we could have a scene like : "Thanks you for having helped us. And what's your name, honorable wandering knight ?" then you'd give him your name and it would considerably increase your rep and he would give you the possibility to enlist in his army.
• Why is our character spawning in a town without his horse ? I always have to steal a random horse at the entrance so that I can move in the town quickly withouth having to walk. Why don't we just appear on our horse when we choose to walk through the streets, like in Warband ? I don't understand that.
• Why are the build and age sliders hidden in the character creation menu ? Also, this character creation lacks a section to create tatoos and scars for our character.
• I don't how what's the general feeling about the "main quest" in the community but if I had to give mine... Well, not only the "main quest" is actually pretty useless but it's also quite annoying because it imposes a pre-designed background for our character. In Warband, our character was a blank page, a traveller from a far-away land, and it was up to us, players, to write his past (in our head). Plus, this main quest is also immersion breaking because you don't meet your brother anymore after he leaves you, and you can't find the members of your family that have been kidnapped. It really makes no sense. Wouldn't it be smarter to simply let the player choose his initial situation, if he has family or not, etc ? Let him play the tutorial with this brigand story only if he wants to ?
• Finally, that's just some proposition, and I know a mod will make it but... The features in the Freelance mod in Warband NEED to be added in vanilla Bannerlord. I really don't understand why it hasn't been made yet. I hope it will be done in the future

Thanks for reading it, and sorry for my broken english, it's not my mother tongue. I hope that feedback was constructive and will help you to improve the game before the final release. I think I'll stop playing it for a while and perhaps wait for it to be improved. I don't regret buying it, though.

 

[LeeCalabrese]

I agree with pretty much all of these tbh

 

[Jamin85]

• ...Nerfing forest bandits. Please. Right now it is totally unbalanced. We're not fighting forest bandits in rags but squad of elves snipers.

I literally LOL'ed. Agreed.

 

[Puciek]

" Am I in a ghost town of something ? "

Can it be settings related? When I visited towns and villages, they were pretty alive. I play on max settings across board, battle size, graphics etc.

"Is it now impossible to enter a Lord's Hall ? Well, that could be explained by the fact by character is low level and doesn't have a lot of renown, I hope it's because of that. "

You need to be friends with faction to enter, or bribe the guards. Maybe high renown opens the doors too.

 

[oliwer]

Also im not sure if im only one who get confused about it but please put some marks which caravan i should escort. I get the side mission from brewery from somewhere idk. I have been looking for the caravan but it wasn not there.

 

[Tukata]

" Am I in a ghost town of something ? "

Can it be settings related? When I visited towns and villages, they were pretty alive. I play on max settings across board, battle size, graphics etc.

"Is it now impossible to enter a Lord's Hall ? Well, that could be explained by the fact by character is low level and doesn't have a lot of renown, I hope it's because of that. "

You need to be friends with faction to enter, or bribe the guards. Maybe high renown opens the doors too.

It's not my setting, I'm playing on Very High everywhere, and I've absolutely no technical problem. It's just that there are almost no one in the streets.

 

[JustinTime49]

Also im not sure if im only one who get confused about it but please put some marks which caravan i should escort. I get the side mission from brewery from somewhere idk. I have been looking for the caravan but it wasn not there.

Since the accompanying feature no longer exists, the Caravan will spawn at that town and will have a blue exclamation mark beside it. It might go back into the same town so you might have to wait for a few hours before they come out again.

Alternatively, you can enter the town, and at the top right switch to the garrison of the settlement, and see if the caravan is in fact there. If it isn't, you simply lost it and just have to pray it gets to its locations without being attacked.

 

[Mynas]

I do enjoy the beginning quest. You can ignore it if you want, I think. I haven't check the other points, but seem credible and were presented in a very constructive way.

 

[oliwer]

Since the accompanying feature no longer exists, the Caravan will spawn at that town and will have a blue exclamation mark beside it. It might go back into the same town so you might have to wait for a few hours before they come out again.

Alternatively, you can enter the town, and at the top right switch to the garrison of the settlement, and see if the caravan is in fact there. If it isn't, you simply lost it and just have to pray it gets to its locations without being attacked.

Oh so there is a marking lol. I realized its already in the way, when that message appeared; "The caravan that you are escorting is under attack". LOL

 

[Sawedoff]

Amen to all of this a thousand times!

 

[Crotiz]

NPCs are literally standing in a line middle of the street. Has to be fixed!

 

[Tukata]

I do enjoy the beginning quest. You can ignore it if you want, I think. I haven't check the other points, but seem credible and were presented in a very constructive way.

I ignored it but it's actually pretty immersion-breaking to know that your siblings have been kidnapped by a brigand and are nobody-knows-where and you're just like... Meh, I'll just do my adventures and not think about that anymore, especially if you're playing a honorable and brave knight who would litterally travel the entire world and face an army by himself to save his family if he had the option to. I can ignore the quest but I just can't forget it magically, unfortunately
Wouldn't it be pretty easy to just give the choice to follow this main quest or not right at the end of the character creation, leaving you play a "blank state" character if you want to ?

 

[Sirkad]

I mean this is all well and good but the game is early access. They released it before it was finished so that we could play it...If this was the final product lists like this would make sense but saying "you did not include this thing that you said you would" at this point is just wasted words. Just wait for updates and a lot of this will probably be resolved.

 

[Tukata]

I mean this is all well and good but the game is early access. They released it before it was finished so that we could play it...If this was the final product lists like this would make sense but saying "you did not include this thing that you said you would" at this point is just wasted words. Just wait for updates and a lot of this will probably be resolved.

I don't want to sound rude but... You know that the point of an Early Access is for developers to receive feedbacks from players and improve the game according to the feedbacks ?
They released the game before it was finished because they need feedback from us, also I've never said in my post anything about the mechanics that we know are going to be in the final release. When I'm asking "why X mechanic isn't in the game", it's because the dev never talked about including it in the future (so I'm just remembering them that it would be cool if they added this mechanic to the game).

If we want the final release to be even better, all of us need to criticize the content of the Early Access (in a constructive way that allow them to improve it, not insulting them of making a childish tantrum, devs should just ignore these ones) and help the devs.

 

[LeeCalabrese]

I ignored it but it's actually pretty immersion-breaking to know that your siblings have been kidnapped by a brigand and are nobody-knows-where and you're just like... Meh, I'll just do my adventures and not think about that anymore, especially if you're playing a honorable and brave knight who would litterally travel the entire world and face an army by himself to save his family if he had the option to. I can ignore the quest but I just can't forget it magically, unfortunately
Wouldn't it be pretty easy to just give the choice to follow this main quest or not right at the end of the character creation, leaving you play a "blank state" character if you want to ?

It really surprised me that they didnt just do it the viking conquest way, you choose at the start of the character creation whether you want to or not participate in a storymode, hopefully they add it in sooner rather than later

 

[Sirkad]

I don't want to sound rude but... You know that the point of an Early Access is for developers to receive feedbacks from players and improve the game according to the feedbacks ?
They released the game before it was finished because they need feedback from us, also I've never said in my post anything about the mechanics that we know are going to be in the final release. When I'm asking "why X mechanic isn't in the game", it's because the dev never talked about including it in the future (so I'm just remembering them that it would be cool if they added this mechanic to the game).

If we want the final release to be even better, all of us need to criticize the content of the Early Access (in a constructive way that allow them to improve it, not insulting them of making a childish tantrum, devs should just ignore these ones) and help the devs.

Yes but you realize the feedback shouldn't be "Add this feature you told us would be included and you are actively developing".right?

There is some constructive feedback in the thread but a lot of it is "I want X that you promised us".

An example of constructive feedback -> "Forest bandits are overpowered"

An example of non-constructive feedback -> "Streets are empty"..."Conversations with NPCs are non-existent" etc.

 

[Tukata]

Yes but you realize the feedback shouldn't be "Add this feature you told us would be included and you are actively developing".right?

I know that, but where in my feedback is there something like that ? Apart from the number of citizens in the streets (who may be planned to be increased in the future but nothing is certain since downgrad is pretty common in the videogame industry, just look at the first screens of Watchdog and The Witcher 3), none of the mechanics I talked about have been announced as "planned for the final release".
I voluntarily not talked about any mechanic I know will be in the final release.

 

[_Heron]

Good points. Some other stuff I would like to see addressed:

- Why aren't there dedicated armour and weapon traders in towns? Seems like a step back from Warband.
- Tournaments are way too frequent. It's almost like there's a tournament in every single town.
- Speaking of tournaments, why exactly do we fight in our own armour there? Makes them almost impossible the first few hours and super easy once you got your heavy armour going.
-Progression feels very slow. 16 hours in and I didn't get a weapon skill above 60. It will take forever until I can mount more than a skill 10 horse. Building up relations with NPCs is super slow as well.
- Companion management needs a better UI. I don't know if my companions leveled. I don't know how to level them, how to assign skills to them. I have found out how to assign them to a party task (e.g. healing), but I can't seem to find any information about what changes with this assignment.
-Why do crossbows cost 21000 gold? Really messed up my early game as I put a lot of point into crossbows during character creation...
- UI suggestion: It would be nice to see at what price (ranges) I bought a certain (stack of) trade good(s).

 

[Lucas Hood]

There's definitely a lack of balance, this is a good list and constructive criticism.

But honestly the screenshots you posted look bugged to me, I've had similar occurrences, I've been to so many cities in the game and sometimes they're overflown with people it looks beautiful, then sometimes there's hardly anyone in sight and some of the important NPC's just stand in one line, so I think it's just bugged out.

My major gripe so far is the grind, I think they've made it way too grindy, especially considering you age really quick. Everyone is better than me, literally, everyone in the game has way better stats, my companions shouldn't even be my companions they should be my masters, they have 10000x better stats than I do. I've been playing for 14 hours now, I'm level 5, had a ridiculous amount of fights and my two handed skill which is my highest skill is only 65. They either should've made progression quicker or your starting game better in terms of stats, because you just feel like an ultra weakling.

Those so far are my only gripes, besides that my experience has been excellent, I can't turn it off at the moment.

 

[Tukata]

But honestly the screenshots you posted look bugged to me, I've had similar occurrences, I've been to so many cities in the game and sometimes they're overflown with people it looks beautiful, then sometimes there's hardly anyone in sight and some of the important NPC's just stand in one line, so I think it's just bugged out.

Could you post a screen of your game when you're in a city with a lot of people ?