Dev Blog 14/06/18

[parsehtml]<p><img class="frame" src="https://www.taleworlds.com/Images/News/blog_post_44_taleworldswebsite.jpg" alt="" width="575" height="290" /></p> <p>Should you enter, let’s say, a castle for the first time, you would get lost in minutes. The debris of that ruined tower would not have fallen so handily as to be climbable to the top. The path to the Lord of the castle would not be perfectly illuminated with torches which leave empty, useless halls in darkness. And, should you enter a real battle, there wouldn’t be overturned carts conveniently distributed so you can move from one cover to the next. This is because there is a big (and obvious) difference between real life and video games: life doesn’t have to be fun. A level designer’s work is to create these set pieces where you live your great adventures: places and landscapes that present just the right amount of challenge, which, at times, guides you like an invisible, subtle hand, and evens the scales so that every fighter on the battlefield has a fair chance. In this week’s blog, we talk with Gökçen “Cuce” Karaagaç, one of our level designers, who will explain more about his job and what he is doing for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord.</p></br> [/parsehtml]Read more at: http://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/64

 

[lolbash]

The fence is only passable by cavalry for game balancing purposes.

I understood the purpose of those fences, what I am objecting to is that it looks silly for soldiers capable of hacking down doors and gates to be blocked by a stick at hip height (as it is in Warband). An iron fence or a solid stone wall would make a more believable obstacle.

So you are arguing to throw out balance out the window because it breaks realism?

This is another case of fun>realism. Look, the first paragraph of the developer blog shows what Taleworlds thinks.

And, should you enter a real battle, there wouldn’t be overturned carts conveniently distributed so you can move from one cover to the next. This is because there is a big (and obvious) difference between real life and video games: life doesn’t have to be fun

Lile BayBear said, this is almost entirely for game balancing reasons, and Taleworlds shpuld not throw it away just because "muh immersion".

Or as a different type of obstacle, how about water? There could be a weight threshold (which could be influenced by strength and a swimming skill) that lets the lightly armed swim while the heavily armed drown. For balancing purposes, I think it can be just as good, and unlike an unbreakable stick, it does not break immersion.

Not only is this a terrible suggestion because of the before mentioned reasons, but this is also because of how heavily nerfed heavy infantry is, but this is pretty much almost a hard counter to heavy infantry formations if some tshirt wearing infantry can just swim behind you. Last thing Bannerlord needs right now is for heavy infantry to be useless.

You're trying to think of solutions for a problem that does not exist.

Remember,

Fun>Realism.

 

[Orion]

I understood the purpose of those fences, what I am objecting to is that it looks silly for soldiers capable of hacking down doors and gates to be blocked by a stick at hip height (as it is in Warband). An iron fence or a solid stone wall would make a more believable obstacle.

So you are arguing to throw out balance out the window because it breaks realism?

That's not what he said at all. He said if they were replaced with iron fences or stone walls then they would look like more formidable obstacles to infantry but cavalry would still be able to jump over them. Which is to say, they would provide the exact same balancing effect and would provide a clearer visual indication that they are impassable by infantry. Gameplay would be unchanged, as this would be an entirely superficial difference.

You're also horribly stuck on your notion of what heavy & light infantry are and how they're going to be represented in Bannerlord. You keep asserting that heavy infantry is nerfed and practically useless compared to light infantry, but this has been thoroughly discussed in the relevant thread and you haven't convinced anyone there. Why would your same argument be more convincing here?

 

[lolbash]

So are we just going to entirely ignore his suggestion where he suggested to replace fences with water and allow exclusively light infantry to swim over it?

This is also not ignoring the fact that skinny wood fences are axtually a buff to archers, because arrows can pass through the gaps of the fences, but not through solid stone.

 

[Grumpy181155]

and back on topic. 

Great blog.  I love that Sturgian city and I am really looking forward to this being released.

 

[The Meddling Monk]

Good blog, and I for one am looking forward to hand-crafted scenes. I think it'll give the world more 'character'.

 

[aged3]

It’s looks like they’re no where near finished. Why do they act like they’re “polishing” when they havnt even completed parts of the map???

 

[SirMairaki]

It’s looks like they’re no where near finished. Why do they act like they’re “polishing” when they havnt even completed parts of the map???

In some cases, completing parts of the map is polishing. In this case it looks like he's just adjusting city layouts a bit here and there which would certainly fall under the polishing stage of development. Looks like just balancing and QOL changes to me.

 

[monoolho]

It’s looks like they’re no where near finished. Why do they act like they’re “polishing” when they havnt even completed parts of the map???

I wouldn't judge it like so. It is possible that they finished the rough map, and thought it looked too bare, and adding more towns, fiefs and villages is a nice way to keep things better. Also it looks that >85% of their SP maps are done. The way it is described in the blog, what they are doing is improving on the finished map, and not "completing it". As in you build a house, and instead of considering it done, you start adding a little exhaust here, a sun panel there, do a paint job and a wallpaper over here... It's to improve the overall quality.

Potentially having to fight multiple battles on the same scene might seem like it could get boring, but one advantage of it is that the player can get used to fighting on their own turf - get to know the contours of the battlefield, good defensible positions, ambush points (if the AI has Line of Sight?), etc. Makes "home advantage" a bit more meaningful, and gives you a more personal connection with your territory.

This. It may feel like a region you know by heart almost. It is possible that it will give that impression of home turf, and it seems way better than generic randomized maps. But it would be good to still be able to see some randomness here and there, especially for overhaul mods.

I would like to know if it is a system of X number of maps that are randomly selected based on biomes, or if the campaign map is a "grid", and every part of the grid is locked into a specific scene, so whenever you fight on that particular side of the village, it'll be the same scene, thus, it's the same battlefield (from a different angle or at a different section perhaps).
It does look heavy work, and I can see the why delays because of this choice they've made, and I can feel the quality improvement of the world overall exactly because of this.

It will be a bit more "limited" of course, but handcrafted stuff is better. Skyrim used no random generators on its map and look where it is now, soon it'll be ported into the old nokia cellphones...

But I still think that Total War games have the more adequate option (but I do not know how they make it or how it works): where the battle is fought in a place that is localised within the campaign map, literally. Maybe TW is doing something similar and I just do not know... It would be awesome. And with the gigantic scenes they can make in this new engine, maybe it allows to only load the closest elements of the gigantic scene so they can actually make gigantic scenes that represent parts of the campaign map, and only load a specific place within that scene for the battle to occur... Maybe that's wishful thinking...

Only 2-3 months until gamescom...

 

[Rackie]

Btw just noticed something, What the actual *** is that shirt. lol

 

[Rackie]

I foresee two main "pros" about handmade battle scenes.


2) Making a really HUGE single scene to represent a "tile" of the overworld map, and then just placing the troops at different locations each time the player joins a battle to make it look/play different as many times as possible.

That would be cool, but thats not how it is. But it would be possible

 

[NPC99]

Btw just noticed something, What the actual *** is that shirt. lol

Pink Floyd animals t-shirt. 

 

[KhergitLancer80]

Sturgian city is my favourite screenshot so far.

Btw. there is a cave on the mountain the castle is located on.
I bet we will find easter eggs and stuff in every city.

 

[Innocent Flower]

favorite faction question is pretty much always khuzait (or empire) so why not leave this out in the future posts in place for another picture ?

Yeah, seems i'm not the only one who's noticed this. It has me a little worried, honestly. Maybe the other factions suck?

 

[KhergitLancer80]

+Innocent Flower

no

 

[Ki-Ok Khan]

The Q&As I could found on favourite faction.

隐藏

None = 1
Empire = 2
Khuzait = 4
Aserai = 3
Battania = 3
Both Empire And Aserai = 1

https://tw.greywool.com/i/wcOsp.png

Poll on the Turkish subforum

隐藏

 

[DtheHun]

R.I.P. procedural generation, but spawning the horseman on random 75° slopes is something I won't cry for.

 

[kundoujun]

why I can not jump over small  fences ?I have knee,ok?  Please ,providing a more reality enviroment, letting player to choice how to fight  with enemy by using tools provided by designer. In that way,I can excavate ditches to disrupt cavalry charges.  please ,do  not  disappoint  me.

 

[DtheHun]

why I can not jump over small  fences ?I have knee,ok?  Please ,providing a more reality enviroment, letting player to choice how to fight  with enemy by using tools provided by designer. In that way,I can excavate ditches to disrupt cavalry charges.  please ,do  not  disappoint  me.

And there must be a Shovel Knight achievement.

隐藏

 

[KhergitLancer80]

The Q&As I could found on favourite faction.

隐藏

None = 1
Empire = 2
Khuzait = 4
Aserai = 3
Battania = 3
Both Empire And Aserai = 1

https://tw.greywool.com/i/wcOsp.png

Poll on the Turkish subforum

隐藏

Count the both Empire and Aserai to both of the factions.
None=1
Empire=3(one of them is Armagan so consider that as well)
Khuzait=4
Aserai=4
Battania=3

I think Empire and Aserai are focused a lot.
I can see Aserai cities and architecture are shared a lot and we get to see empire in majority of the gameplay videos.

 

[Innocent Flower]

vlandians and sturgians console eachother, they're just there for that northern audience. Did Taleworlds want a game closer to home? (battania's a bit of an outlier here, but I think there's something still said for it)

I feel like Vlandians/sturgians are going to end up bland. The Vlandians are the familiar people for most and we already know the sturgians are getting watered down. Just seems like a shame, really.