Dev Blog 26/09/19

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[parsehtml]<p><img class="frame" src="https://www.taleworlds.com/Images/News/blog_post_107_taleworldswebsite.jpg" alt="" width="575" height="290" /></p> <p>In this week’s blog, we will be concluding our miniseries of blog posts on sieges by discussing the assault phase, with a particular focus on how the game’s AI evaluates and reacts to unfolding events. </p></br> [/parsehtml]Read more at: http://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/127
 
RhodokPeasant said:
Hello everyone! I got a few questions: do the AI archers know to pick up arrows from their fallen comrades (they might run out of ammo in a long siege)? Or in other words, can AI pick up weapons? Should we have a command telling archers and soldiers to pick up arrows/bolts/javelins?

Archers can indeed pick up arrows, I believe there's a command for it. As far as I'm aware these are spent arrows, or used, that litter the ground. Whether this applies to other units such as skirmish though I don't know.

I have no doubt that during a siege, from an attackers standpoint picking up arrows will still be the case, but also it worries me slightly that defending archers should have a near endless supply of arrows and that this may not be the case, or has been something overlooked by the devs. Looking at the screenshot, on the battlements there is a basket of arrows close by. It would soon become one of those little annoyances to discover that archers would use all their arrows and not resupply, like you would expect from defenders during a siege.

It's interesting to hear how reactive the AI will be during sieges, especially archers and their ability to act independently "leave positions - utilise the best positions for shooting", giving us the player far less to micromanage and focus more on where we might be needed, like taking a strong force on a support roll across the many avenues of attack/defense. It all sounds very dynamic at this point I'm very excited to get stuck in!


 
tanglebones said:
RhodokPeasant said:
Hello everyone! I got a few questions: do the AI archers know to pick up arrows from their fallen comrades (they might run out of ammo in a long siege)? Or in other words, can AI pick up weapons? Should we have a command telling archers and soldiers to pick up arrows/bolts/javelins?

Archers can indeed pick up arrows, I believe there's a command for it. As far as I'm aware these are spent arrows, or used, that litter the ground. Whether this applies to other units such as skirmish though I don't know.

I have no doubt that during a siege, from an attackers standpoint picking up arrows will still be the case, but also it worries me slightly that defending archers should have a near endless supply of arrows and that this may not be the case, or has been something overlooked by the devs. Looking at the screenshot, on the battlements there is a basket of arrows close by. It would soon become one of those little annoyances to discover that archers would use all their arrows and not resupply, like you would expect from defenders during a siege.

It's interesting to hear how reactive the AI will be during sieges, especially archers and their ability to act independently "leave positions - utilise the best positions for shooting", giving us the player far less to micromanage and focus more on where we might be needed, like taking a strong force on a support roll across the many avenues of attack/defense. It all sounds very dynamic at this point I'm very excited to get stuck in!

At the present time arrows break when they hit something made of stone, so I assume in a siege, there won’t be many arrows to shoot back.
 
This blog says nice things i didn't see much into the many siege videos.

This resuplpy of arrows thing would be great, a castle with massive stock of arrows would have a great advantage ! I think one Warband mod done it.

See you in two weeks :facepalm:
 
iamastrangeloop said:
  Please just make the game hard, combat looks too easy on the current build. Those defenders don't put up much or any fight it seems to me, I know it's early still though, just my two cents. Games are too easy these days. I want to feel like those AI soldiers are fighting for their life and will do everything in their power to NOT be sliced by a sword instead of just accepting death. Please don't make it a hack and slash and have some realistic combat, enemies need to parry and dodge as much as they can, often using shields to block which should be hard to break their guard, they are supposed to be fighting for their life! You can bet if someone comes at me with a sharp blade I will be trying to block or dodge before they get that thing anywhere close to me.

A battle should be filled with terror and triumph and rage. I just don't feel that from this siege video, but I know it's early and there's still lots of time. Easy games are mindless time wasters, challenge is good, something to come back to. Not a whole lot of memorable easy games in my book, but the hard ones are worth coming back to again and again until you are victorious, and it will feel great.
Happy week-end people.

Easy games can be fun if they give you well desgined systems to beat your enemies with. Rome total war is probably the easiest in the series but it gives you so many options. No battle feels like a grind because you can approach it in a dozen ways, leading to interesting scenarios. Meanwhile total war attila has so many "hardcore" limitations on the gameplay that every battle is more or less the same.

Warband was more like the latter. It was tedious and grindy in the midgame because there were hundreds of sieges but nothing to break them up or make them more interesting. I would much prefer a game where you can steamroll the enemy 50 different ways than a difficult game where there is only one tactic.
 
It is interesting that siege towers have levels. But is it possible that other siege machines have it? like the battering ram?
t5MaR0y.png
 
JuanNieve said:
It is interesting that siege towers have levels. But is it possible that other siege machines have it? like the battering ram?
t5MaR0y.png

Maybe they're companions and you need to keep 'em happy and well equipped as well as grind their levels up :lol:
 
NUQAR'S Kentucky "Nuqar" James XXL said:
iamastrangeloop said:
  Please just make the game hard, combat looks too easy on the current build. Those defenders don't put up much or any fight it seems to me, I know it's early still though, just my two cents. Games are too easy these days. I want to feel like those AI soldiers are fighting for their life and will do everything in their power to NOT be sliced by a sword instead of just accepting death. Please don't make it a hack and slash and have some realistic combat, enemies need to parry and dodge as much as they can, often using shields to block which should be hard to break their guard, they are supposed to be fighting for their life! You can bet if someone comes at me with a sharp blade I will be trying to block or dodge before they get that thing anywhere close to me.

A battle should be filled with terror and triumph and rage. I just don't feel that from this siege video, but I know it's early and there's still lots of time. Easy games are mindless time wasters, challenge is good, something to come back to. Not a whole lot of memorable easy games in my book, but the hard ones are worth coming back to again and again until you are victorious, and it will feel great.
Happy week-end people.

Easy games can be fun if they give you well desgined systems to beat your enemies with. Rome total war is probably the easiest in the series but it gives you so many options. No battle feels like a grind because you can approach it in a dozen ways, leading to interesting scenarios. Meanwhile total war attila has so many "hardcore" limitations on the gameplay that every battle is more or less the same.

Warband was more like the latter. It was tedious and grindy in the midgame because there were hundreds of sieges but nothing to break them up or make them more interesting. I would much prefer a game where you can steamroll the enemy 50 different ways than a difficult game where there is only one tactic.

  Who said anything about only one tactic? if the game is hard AND designed well you will have to get creative and come up with or find your own tactics that work, if the game is too easy then you are just picking and choosing which way you watch the enemy die. I am too old to enjoy just mindless slashing of brainless enemies anymore, it's been done to death, I don't want to feel like a god in this game, I want to feel like a soldier in an army, and that should feel exciting, and terrifying. I'm not talking Dark Souls or Sekiro hard where you are forced to memorize the enemies moves kind of stuff, but at the very least the combat should feel risky, like the person you are about to encounter could take you out if you aren't careful, haven't we had enough Dynasty Warriors? I am hoping for something a little more realistic. I do agree easy games can be fun, but at least give us the option for more realistic combat. I know modders will be able to make some harder modes but I'm hoping the base game's AI INDIVIDUAL combat can be challenging and not just cannon fodder dummies to slice up.

  I haven't played much Total War, not really into RTS games myself so I can't really compare, but M&B is quite different in combat because you are a soldier and not a god looking down on the battle watching everyone do their thing, so I feel it should immerse you in the individual role more, and I imagine any individual that's ever been in a real medieval war would say that it's scary as all hell...to see a massive force of enemy soldiers cresting a hill in the distance, knowing that the choices you and your fellow soldiers make in the next few minutes will decide if you will ever see the sun rise again, that's the excitement and fear that I want to feel for my character. If the game is too easy you lose that thrill of battle from the get go, it's just a micro manager hack n slash. Might as well call it "THOR Thundergod Kill Them All With No Problem and Blade"


  Just my personal preference, but I see where you are coming from. Hoping there will be difficulty settings so we can all play the way we want, and of course mods will solve the rest. =)
 
iamastrangeloop said:
NUQAR'S Kentucky "Nuqar" James XXL said:
iamastrangeloop said:
  Please just make the game hard, combat looks too easy on the current build. Those defenders don't put up much or any fight it seems to me, I know it's early still though, just my two cents. Games are too easy these days. I want to feel like those AI soldiers are fighting for their life and will do everything in their power to NOT be sliced by a sword instead of just accepting death. Please don't make it a hack and slash and have some realistic combat, enemies need to parry and dodge as much as they can, often using shields to block which should be hard to break their guard, they are supposed to be fighting for their life! You can bet if someone comes at me with a sharp blade I will be trying to block or dodge before they get that thing anywhere close to me.

A battle should be filled with terror and triumph and rage. I just don't feel that from this siege video, but I know it's early and there's still lots of time. Easy games are mindless time wasters, challenge is good, something to come back to. Not a whole lot of memorable easy games in my book, but the hard ones are worth coming back to again and again until you are victorious, and it will feel great.
Happy week-end people.

Easy games can be fun if they give you well desgined systems to beat your enemies with. Rome total war is probably the easiest in the series but it gives you so many options. No battle feels like a grind because you can approach it in a dozen ways, leading to interesting scenarios. Meanwhile total war attila has so many "hardcore" limitations on the gameplay that every battle is more or less the same.

Warband was more like the latter. It was tedious and grindy in the midgame because there were hundreds of sieges but nothing to break them up or make them more interesting. I would much prefer a game where you can steamroll the enemy 50 different ways than a difficult game where there is only one tactic.

  Who said anything about only one tactic? if the game is hard AND designed well you will have to get creative and come up with or find your own tactics that work, if the game is too easy then you are just picking and choosing which way you watch the enemy die. I am too old to enjoy just mindless slashing of brainless enemies anymore, it's been done to death, I don't want to feel like a god in this game, I want to feel like a soldier in an army, and that should feel exciting, and terrifying. I'm not talking Dark Souls or Sekiro hard where you are forced to memorize the enemies moves kind of stuff, but at the very least the combat should feel risky, like the person you are about to encounter could take you out if you aren't careful, haven't we had enough Dynasty Warriors? I am hoping for something a little more realistic. I do agree easy games can be fun, but at least give us the option for more realistic combat. I know modders will be able to make some harder modes but I'm hoping the base game's AI INDIVIDUAL combat can be challenging and not just cannon fodder dummies to slice up.

  I haven't played much Total War, not really into RTS games myself so I can't really compare, but M&B is quite different in combat because you are a soldier and not a god looking down on the battle watching everyone do their thing, so I feel it should immerse you in the individual role more, and I imagine any individual that's ever been in a real medieval war would say that it's scary as all hell...to see a massive force of enemy soldiers cresting a hill in the distance, knowing that the choices you and your fellow soldiers make in the next few minutes will decide if you will ever see the sun rise again, that's the excitement and fear that I want to feel for my character. If the game is too easy you lose that thrill of battle from the get go, it's just a micro manager hack n slash. Might as well call it "THOR Thundergod Kill Them All With No Problem and Blade"


  Just my personal preference, but I see where you are coming from. Hoping there will be difficulty settings so we can all play the way we want, and of course mods will solve the rest. =)
I agree. Searching for strategies to overcome the difficulties is a great interest in M&B. I hope the game will be well balanced and we could have difficulty settings.
 
iamastrangeloop said:
Who said anything about only one tactic?

Well judging by the battles in the beta, it's going to be just that. Warband had virtually zero tactical depth and battles were more or less just a stat grind with positioning and tactics playing no real role. You could surround an enemy entirely but if they had better stats they would always win. Bannerlord right now is the same, if not worse. The combat has never been particularly deep or varied in singleplayer, so expecting a challenging game is an unrealistic expectation I think.
 
Real solution is AI for challenging game. No one can deny that. But there is another indirect solution for this. That is damage dealt and taken. Correct me if I am wrong, in Warband hardest difficulty ratio is 1:1 as much as I remember. In other games, this ratio is more customizable than WB and not always but usually, this kind of difficulty settings enforce player use another intended features or the solutions they come up with. Ofcourse, in these games you only control your character not hundreds of troops so I don't know what could happen if this is implemented in Bannerlord.
 
Any more than 1:1 damage just encourages the player to do cancerous horse archer strats to game the AI more. A lot of these kinds of system-driven games lead to un-fun exploit gameplay if you restrict the player too much. For instance in warband the best way to win a siege is to grab a bow and kill all the defenders yourself, which is neither challenging or fun, but the game mechanics push you to play like that. Similarly the best way to win battles is to spam cavalry and abuse the awful stunlock mechanics to delete any army instantly.

Challenging games are created by having the optimal playstyle require more skill. The problem with warband's singleplayer is that the optimal strategies are easy as hell but also time consuming. Making the AI better won't necessarily help here because the whole premise of the game right now is based around grinding and linear progression. They would have to rethink most of the game to make something compelling.
 
JuanNieve said:
It is interesting that siege towers have levels. But is it possible that other siege machines have it? like the battering ram?
t5MaR0y.png

How I didnt notice this is beyond me! That is pretty cool and I think will be rather important with machines such as battering rams as you'll be able to protect them better (roof for example).

sirjoey said:
Will there be achievements for Bannerlord on release?

This, but I wouldnt be surprised if there isn't. But there again, there won't be too much missing so perhaps they will add any missing ones afterwards (i.e creating your own kingdom)
 
Tactics are shallow in M&B basically because formations fight like robots even if outnumbered or flanked, for example.

I think they could add some "focus" parameter to each formation, which is affected by tactical events like amount of physical effort done by the formation,  harrassment received, proximity with friendly strong units, being attacked from behind or from the flank, being surrounded or outnumbered, fighting from lower ground, etc.
This parameter would make troops respond more slopply in combat by swapping targets randomly and being "distracted" more easily.

This way the game would emulate tactical importance to the battles.
 
iamastrangeloop said:
NUQAR'S Kentucky "Nuqar" James XXL said:
iamastrangeloop said:
  Please just make the game hard, combat looks too easy on the current build. Those defenders don't put up much or any fight it seems to me, I know it's early still though, just my two cents. Games are too easy these days. I want to feel like those AI soldiers are fighting for their life and will do everything in their power to NOT be sliced by a sword instead of just accepting death. Please don't make it a hack and slash and have some realistic combat, enemies need to parry and dodge as much as they can, often using shields to block which should be hard to break their guard, they are supposed to be fighting for their life! You can bet if someone comes at me with a sharp blade I will be trying to block or dodge before they get that thing anywhere close to me.

A battle should be filled with terror and triumph and rage. I just don't feel that from this siege video, but I know it's early and there's still lots of time. Easy games are mindless time wasters, challenge is good, something to come back to. Not a whole lot of memorable easy games in my book, but the hard ones are worth coming back to again and again until you are victorious, and it will feel great.
Happy week-end people.

Easy games can be fun if they give you well desgined systems to beat your enemies with. Rome total war is probably the easiest in the series but it gives you so many options. No battle feels like a grind because you can approach it in a dozen ways, leading to interesting scenarios. Meanwhile total war attila has so many "hardcore" limitations on the gameplay that every battle is more or less the same.

Warband was more like the latter. It was tedious and grindy in the midgame because there were hundreds of sieges but nothing to break them up or make them more interesting. I would much prefer a game where you can steamroll the enemy 50 different ways than a difficult game where there is only one tactic.

  Who said anything about only one tactic? if the game is hard AND designed well you will have to get creative and come up with or find your own tactics that work, if the game is too easy then you are just picking and choosing which way you watch the enemy die. I am too old to enjoy just mindless slashing of brainless enemies anymore, it's been done to death, I don't want to feel like a god in this game, I want to feel like a soldier in an army, and that should feel exciting, and terrifying. I'm not talking Dark Souls or Sekiro hard where you are forced to memorize the enemies moves kind of stuff, but at the very least the combat should feel risky, like the person you are about to encounter could take you out if you aren't careful, haven't we had enough Dynasty Warriors? I am hoping for something a little more realistic. I do agree easy games can be fun, but at least give us the option for more realistic combat. I know modders will be able to make some harder modes but I'm hoping the base game's AI INDIVIDUAL combat can be challenging and not just cannon fodder dummies to slice up.

  I haven't played much Total War, not really into RTS games myself so I can't really compare, but M&B is quite different in combat because you are a soldier and not a god looking down on the battle watching everyone do their thing, so I feel it should immerse you in the individual role more, and I imagine any individual that's ever been in a real medieval war would say that it's scary as all hell...to see a massive force of enemy soldiers cresting a hill in the distance, knowing that the choices you and your fellow soldiers make in the next few minutes will decide if you will ever see the sun rise again, that's the excitement and fear that I want to feel for my character. If the game is too easy you lose that thrill of battle from the get go, it's just a micro manager hack n slash. Might as well call it "THOR Thundergod Kill Them All With No Problem and Blade"

That. I have always been worried when game companies seemed to dumb their product down as to appeal to a "wider" audience. I'm sure that such a mindset is mostly motivated by their inability to study the market very well, which in turn motivates them to choose the least risky path in designing and marketing their game. This is probably why many titles revolve around an omnipotent, unbeatable hero that has a very special place in the game world. Since game development is also a business, they also tend to stuff the product with various flavors, which, in theory, should attract consumers with different preferrences (I'm looking at those Hollywood-style rags showcased in a DevBlog, the stereotypical Battanian troops and the almighty cavalry charges).

I also cannot get over their obsession of making a game look and feel "cool" for younger audiences. I remember my gaming experience very well, and as a teen, I was always inclined to stay away from arcade and gamey products. Instead, I always yearned for something that, in my imagination, was simulating real events. This is why I chose Mount&Blade over World of Warcraft, Quake or any other bombastic title at the time. After all these years, my way of choosing games is pretty much the same.
 
JuanNieve said:
It is interesting that siege towers have levels. But is it possible that other siege machines have it? like the battering ram?

castle walls have levels, so maybe you need the same level of tower. Better wall, taller/higher wall, more time/resources to build the siege tower. That would be my guess.
 
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