Dev Blog 19/04/18

[parsehtml][IMG]https://www.taleworlds.com/Images/News/blog_post_36_taleworldswebsite.jpg[/IMG] Medieval warfare was as brutal and terrifying as you might imagine. Soldiers fought for their lives in ferocious hand-to-hand combat using a variety of different weapons to protect themselves and defeat their opponents. Polearms, swords, maces and axes were used to devastating effect and anyone unlucky enough to be on the receiving end of a blow from one of these vicious weapons of war would certainly know about it. [/parsehtml]Read more at: https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/56

 

[Duchess Skye]

I mentioned it because TW made it sound like they were used in real medieval battles. Which I'm very certain they were not

Military bills evolved from repurposed agricultural billhooks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_(weapon)

However, war scythes were different from farming scythes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rzQwzg5_mo

Yes, I know. Pretty interesting stuff

Still, those are not farming tools, those are battlefield weapons

 

[Madijeis]

I mentioned it because TW made it sound like they were used in real medieval battles. Which I'm very certain they were not

Military bills evolved from repurposed agricultural billhooks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_(weapon)

However, war scythes were different from farming scythes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rzQwzg5_mo

Yes, I know. Pretty interesting stuff

Still, those are not farming tools, those are battlefield weapons

Farmers probably don't have the money to buy real weapons. I liked the fact that in Warband they just throw stones at you, wielding scythes, forks and clevers. Maybe some recruits in the game are so unprepared that they bring along their farming tools as weapon. Or they are just weapons for actual farmers. Anyway, can't wait to use a wooden fork in MP.

EDIT: Also, I dispute that "Centralization didn't exist"

Spoiler

 

[lolbash]

So what you're suggesting is that every single time I kill someone in Bannerlord I have to switch to my knife and stab him on the ground to make sure he stays dead?

Is that what you call fun gameplay for you? Because having to purchase a second weapon and manually pin down and stab a knight with a knife sounds tedious, boring, and stupid when I could be spending my time raiding, killing archers, having epic duels, or fighting big battles.

Sure cool daggers can kill knights, but mount and blade combat is too fast for stupid unfun crap like having to switch to a different weapon to kill a person.

The realisim mob here pisses me off. Thank god for Taleworlds for not making these guys game developers and focusing on FUN>REALISM, the most important aspect of any video game

*snip*

So what you're saying is that you want to make it so looters can ignore my heavy metal armor and stab me amd my elite army of troops to death?

This is not fun, or realistic... at all.

I like how you keep arguing that people fighting daggers is realistic and how they can go toe to toe with knights, but then your idea to somehow translate to making that a fun gameplay experience is by making it so armor is useless.

Theres no fun in having your expensive armor be useless when some level 1 tatter rag homeless dude can shank you....

Its not realistic to have knives to melt through metal...


What the hell is your game here? You are not arguing for realism, or fun game.

 

[Butterlord of Praven]

The farming tools gave me an idea.

How about a feature, when you raid a village or a town (please make this possible in Bannerlord, at least with mods) there is a greater diversity of people defending it. For example in Warband you had just farmers, some with Clubs, some with sickles but not a big variety. Instead, we could have people oft different professions fighting you, for example a blacksmith with decent power strikte and a big Hammer, farmers with scythes, woodcutters and carpenters with axes, miners with pickaxes and in towns merchants with daggers (I think you get the point)
That would be extremely nice imo

 

[Salmonsy]

[even more spaghetti]

Jesus man, where do you store all those spaghetti?

So what you're saying is that you want to make it so looters can ignore my heavy metal armor and stab me amd my elite army of troops to death?

No, because daggers in a medieval context are military greade weapons specifically designed for thrusting through gaps in armor and chainmail. They are not kitchen knives which are a household tool for cutting.

I like how you keep arguing that people fighting daggers is realistic and how they can go toe to toe with knights, but then your idea to somehow translate to making that a fun gameplay experience is by making it so armor is useless

No, I said that daggers were used to finish off heavily armored opponents and if you'd use them to actually fight they were a good way to get you killed. The second post was how I would implement DAGGERS (not kitchen knives) into the game.

I don't know if you are incapable of actually reading what other people post or if you get so angry whenever you think someone disagrees with the little ideas in your head but dude, get a grip, seriously.

 

[Duchess Skye]

Farmers probably don't have the money to buy real weapons. I liked the fact that in Warband they just throw stones at you, wielding scythes, forks and clevers. Maybe some recruits in the game are so unprepared that they bring along their farming tools as weapon. Or they are just weapons for actual farmers. Anyway, can't wait to use a wooden fork in MP.

I just argued for why they did. Not all farmers, but all farmers who fought

EDIT: Also, I dispute that "Centralization didn't exist"

Spoiler

That doesn't say me anything

 

[lolbash]

No, because daggers in a medieval context are military greade weapons specifically designed for thrusting through gaps in armor and chainmail. They are not kitchen knives which are a household tool for cutting.

I know. And I asked how are you going to translate this into a fun gaming and combat expereince in the game. You answered "make it ignore armor". You're literally asking to make it so looters can have the ability to kill heavily armored armies.

No, I said that daggers were used to finish off heavily armored opponents and if you'd use them to actually fight they were a good way to get you killed. The second post was how I would implement DAGGERS (not kitchen knives) into the game.

And your idea is stupid, Let me quote it again

give them low base damage, no or almost no scaling with powerstrike and strength but full armor penetration. That way even INT or CHA builds could contribute to a battle by going after high value targets like the enemy lord or elite troops which would probably sport some of the best protection that's in the game

Literally asking for looters to have the ability to kill armored troops. How do you not see a gameplay and realisim flaw in your suggestion? Its terrible. Its not fun. Its also not even realistic either. Its just plain stupid.

Heres a better use case for daggers

In organized, tight formation-based battles, there would be virtually no room to swing longer swords or two-handed weapons, you're packed into a mosh pit and would hit your allies as much as your enemies. The obvious example is the Roman legions. In the classical/Republican period they used the Gladius, a short thrusting sword that was consistently shorter than the swords used by their opposition, particularly the Gauls, who used long slashing swords. That didn't mean that the longer sword won simply because it was longer, clearly. Shorter weapons are faster and more precise, and they don't require over a metre of room to use either. In the organized (and usually very slow) combat that the Romans participated in the shorter sword was superior for all the reasons listed, as well as the fact that you didn't wear yourself out after 10 minutes of fighting swinging some great piece of metal through the air.

See? If Sundeki can think of a way to make daggers, fun and even able to appease to the "mega ultra make the game realistic" fanboys then so can you.

 

[RoboSenshi]

Boring AF. Release the game please.

 

[Vinny]

Wow, you guys over at Taleworlds are really running out of ideas huh? This is the epitome of low hanging fruit. How much longer do you need to stall...

 

[Madijeis]

EDIT: Also, I dispute that "Centralization didn't exist"

Spoiler

That doesn't say me anything

Dude. Frederick II Hohenstaufen. The most powerful medieval Emperor. He severely limited the power of the nobles, effectively centralizing the State. I could also bring up Philip Augustus, just to say that Feudalism didn't completely kill centralization, and there were sovereigns that could prohibit paesants from arming themselves.

 

[Innocent Flower]

In humoring Sir Spaghetti*

Would it not be cool to rugby tackle a knight to the ground and then stab him in the face?

If you're a mass of peasants, and you're up against knights, you've got two choices and a non-choice.

One is to run away
One is to flail at the knight with ineffectual weapons.
The other is to put the balls to the wall, use some great team work, tackle the knight, keep him to the ground, and **** him up on the floor.

And I think if you wanna play the knight in a peasant-killing-simulator, you deserve the latter.

*Would it be mean to hope it catches on?

 

[Noobfest]

I think being able to use the pommel of a sword to inflict blunt damage would be a great addition. You could give 2 handers the ability to switch to half-swording making it a thrust only weapon, too.

 

[Vissy]

It's nice to have dev blogs targeted towards new players, but are you marketing these dev blogs to new players too?

 

[Bonky!]

Hold up.

  You enter into town, and you are jumped in the streets.  You're only equiped with a dagger.

Realism.  Fun.

How useful do you want that dagger to be?

I apologies in advance, I appreciate your efforts to deal with children, but it's not realistic that' you'd be jumped in town with only a dagger, unless we're dealing with countries that ban weapons among the populace (which I doubt is a thing in wartorn calradia, given weapon hunts were more a peace time thing).  Swords, smaller axes, clubs... All these things are appropriate sidearms that one could bring into towns without appearing to be a dangerous weirdo. Polearms, crossbows,longbows, great weapons were all "battlefield" weapons that you wouldn't bring into town, but you could carry a longsword at your hip in a tavern and wouldn't even have to bring up something like the second amendment.


But yeah, as daggers are now, they might as well be a fashion accessory put into their own slot, for the extreme case in which you actually do lose all your weapons somehow, but mostly as a fashion accessory. Daggers need a buff

No apologies nessecary.  It's a far-fetched, hypothetical scenario.  I was thinking begining of the game or a serious role-player, perhaps.


  I'm not entirely sure how damage will be handled in Bannerlord.  Will a dagger inflict the same wound as a sword, with the same pierce damage?  I'm guessing that weapon inertia will play a role giving the edge to the sword. 

  Given their reach and lack of blocking, I think giving daggers a bonus against armour would be the way to go.  You could even take this idea a step further and make it particular to the blade.  This way long, pointy things would take precendence over kitchen knives.

 

[Harmi]

That info about daggers means that there will be a mission where you need to assassin the king or prison guard or some vassal.

Uhhhhhh were did you read that?

I just realised that new game mechanics are made often because they are needed in story. If not, then the story writers might still get their inspiration from game mechanics.

 

[Rabies]

All this bollocks about the role of peasants in the armies of medieval Europe is irrelevant!

Let's stick to the gameworld, shall we? In Warband-era Calradia, we know that peasants did not keep their own battle-weapons - they used farm tools when they had to fight. Whether this was due to the law of the land or to the fact that they couldn't afford weapons of their own is unclear. Peasants were NOT conscripted into Lords' armies: a Lord (or anybody else) could only hire willing volunteers, and if they proved themselves in battle they could pay for those recruits to have better equipment.

In Bannerlord-era Calradia, it seems a bit different. I've seen a screenshot on this forum (think it was in a very old devblog, or perhaps a screengrab someone did from a video, but I can't begin to know where to look for it!) of the recruitment screen for a village. If I remember correctly, if the village belongs to you you have a slider for "recruitment rate" (or similar). You can set it towards the low end and it's cheaper, or you can can set it towards the high end and it costs more. There was possibly an effect on the village's productivity as well (high recruitment rate lessens productivity), but my memory of it is a bit hazy. It may also have been the case that you needed to leave a companion behind in the village to train the recruits, but again my memory is a bit hazy on that too.

So that's how the "feudal" system of Calradia worked in terms of peasants' military obligations to their Lord. It was different from Medieval Germany or France or whatever.

On daggers: they're in the game, so it would be nice if Taleworlds could find a niche situation for them in combat where they are actually a useful go-to weapon - otherwise it's a waste of time including them at all. It's been hinted that their speed and accuracy at exploiting chinks in suits of armour could be a factor - I'd be interested to know more about how this might work in practice.

 

[Duchess Skye]

Dude. Frederick II Hohenstaufen. The most powerful medieval Emperor. He severely limited the power of the nobles, effectively centralizing the State. I could also bring up Philip Augustus, just to say that Feudalism didn't completely kill centralization, and there were sovereigns that could prohibit paesants from arming themselves.

Yes, you would be quite right. I was generalizing when I said that 'centralization did not exist in medieval europe'

However, neither Frederick not Augustus ever banned the peasants from owning weapons. So they're not too relevant I'm afraid

All this bollocks about the role of peasants in the armies of medieval Europe is irrelevant!

No, since that is what I was discussing. I already said that I'm fine with them in the game

 

[Duchess Skye]

In humoring Sir Spaghetti*

Would it not be cool to rugby tackle a knight to the ground and then stab him in the face?

If you're a mass of peasants, and you're up against knights, you've got two choices and a non-choice.

One is to run away
One is to flail at the knight with ineffectual weapons.
The other is to put the balls to the wall, use some great team work, tackle the knight, keep him to the ground, and **** him up on the floor.

And I think if you wanna play the knight in a peasant-killing-simulator, you deserve the latter.

*Would it be mean to hope it catches on?

Or... I'll just get a horse. See what you filthy peasants can (or rather can not) do then

There's always a way to break the system

 

[Sir Mordred]

The link to the blog is not working for me.

Going to www.taleworlds.com is also not working for me.

You can get to the blog by going through the Bannerlord steam page

 

[Rabies]

All this bollocks about the role of peasants in the armies of medieval Europe is irrelevant!

No, since that is what I was discussing. I already said that I'm fine with them in the game

Ok, but what's your point, then?

You said farm tools had no place on the battlefield. In Mount & Blade that isn't true, so what exactly is the purpose of you bringing up the whole topic? It seems like argument for argument's sake to me.