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
 
NUQAR'S Kentucky "Nuqar" James XXL said:
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.

Yeah...Expecting a game that comes out a decade later than the previous one to have slightly more combat variability and depth, ...so unrealistic. And if the combat is no more challenging than the same game we've all been playing for over 10 years what is the point? I personally am not that interested in playing a reskin of the same combat with different RTS mechanics, EVERYTHING else in the game gets a significant upgrade, why not combat/AI, one of the MAIN pillars of the game?
  I guess it comes down to WHY we play a game in the first place. Personally I like puzzles and challenges, to have to learn and out think the enemy, my skills and intelligence the mark of how well I do, not how long I have played for. Sure leveling up is fun, but if you're just grinding your way to success then you aren't necessarily playing any better than when you started, if there is no challenge, for me there is no game.
  But what is salient to me in a game may not be to others hence the need for different settings. That way If you want to be a superhero and dive headfirst into a sea of enemies with little to no backup and are able to cut them all down without thinking too much about your safety, sure! Or if you want it to feel like a real battle and have to think more strategically about which fights you get into in the first place, and have to use your allies and fight as a group to win, and maybe play a little more cautiously, OK! There can be room for several play styles in one game, it doesn't have to be just one way, the only limit is the devs creativity, and I for one am giving them the benefit of the doubt that they will deliver something amazing for us all. It's still early and things like this can be tweaked (or modded). Games now a days are constant works in progress even after the game comes out, so let's not limit our expectations of Bannerlord to what Warband was.
 
iamastrangeloop said:
Yeah...Expecting a game that comes out a decade later than the previous one to have slightly more combat variability and depth, ...so unrealistic.

I know you're being sarcastic but this is actually the case here. It is actually quite rare for direct sequels to improve dramatically on the previous game and most of the time the sequel is slightly worse. Add to that the fact that Taleworlds is based in a country with less game development expertise than Iran or Saudi Arabia, and it's not absurd to assume the game is going to be more or less the same as warband.
 
Bjorn The Hound said:
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.

  Yeah I made a realistic fighting mod for Blade and Sorcery VR (which is basically a sword fighting simulator if you haven't played it). The game actually gets me thinking a lot about Mount and Blade, because it's basically a smaller scale version of it but in VR. This was my first mod ever, I learned how to do it because the combat was too easy but I saw the potential of what the game could be, an actual sword fighting simulator where you can feel like you are really in a sword fight. I am by no means a master at modding but I would say it was pretty successful for a first attempt.
  In the original game the AI would just kind of stand there and their reaction time was so slow that kills were insanely easy and unless you were surrounded by like 10 people (even then it was possible and pretty easy to kill them all) you just wipe out the enemies without a thought, it's insanely fun, but the thrill doesn't last long, and I was yearning for more challenge to the combat, wanted to feel like I was fighting against another person because isn't that the point?
  So yes, the first thing I did was lower my health to where I could only take a couple of major hits before dying, because I really don't think anyone could survive taking more than 3 or 4 full on sword slashes (if that). Then, for weeks I tweaked the numbers in the JSON files for AI combat, slowly bringing them to a point where the AI would dodge if you tried to stab them, they would keep their sword up in defence when anyone was near, they would parry and try to block your slash if they were too slow to dodge, if they had a large medieval shield they would be very hard to hit but it was possible with lots of effort, and they would attack you quicker but with more variability as to when they would strike, making parrying and dodging their hits harder to predict, like a real fight. I gave AI characters different "brains" so that they would behave differently from each other and not all act identical, some would strike fast and often, some would be more cautious, some are fast, some are slower, like how people are in real life, each challenger has different strengths and weaknesses. This not only worked making the combat better for me, but also for AI against AI, whereas before they just sort of sliced each other up all in the same mindless robotic ways, now they dodged and parried hits from ANYONE fighting them. I didn't realize how cool it was what I had made until I sat back and watched some AI fighting each other and it looked like they were actually fighting now, concerned about their safety, trying to not be hit by a sword, sounds of clashing swords and shields wrang out as the AI now seemed to fight for their lives instead of just kill kill kill without any thought of defense. And the beautiful thing was you could just sit back and watch the AI fight each other and it was INTERESTING, to see who would win. Obviously this is all done by just timing and numbers and chance and who has the better weapon or shield, but the game now felt more organic and real, like these people were individuals and they didn't want to die. And when it was 4 AI vs. 2 other AI, you could usually count on the larger group of 4 winning, but sometimes the group of 2 would take down the larger group, and it was exciting to watch. The underdog now actually has a chance of winning and the numbers are stacked against them, but it was possible, if they got lucky and fought just right, they could win.
  I do however realize that implementing something like this on a larger scale like Bannerlord would come with a whole host of issues to work out, but if I can do it on a smaller scale with with ZERO modding experience beforehand in a couple of weeks, I'm pretty sure experienced devs could come up with some creative way of making the AI more intelligent with some tweaks of numbers. Maybe there could be different ways of thinking for AI, like when they are fighting as a large group they fight one way (more aggressive), and when they are mostly engaged with 1 to 3 enemies they could fight another way (more defensive minded) as just an example. I am pretty sure in a real fight I would find it hard to defend myself against more than 2 people at a time unless i'm surrounded by allies. Let's imagine for a moment walking around a large M&B battle where the AI isn't just mindlessly swiping at everyone who comes near, but also tries to not get hit by any means, the battle, to me, would be so much more exciting.
 
NUQAR'S Kentucky "Nuqar" James XXL said:
Taleworlds is based in a country with less game development expertise than Iran or Saudi Arabia

You do know those prince of persias were developed by Ubisoft and not by Iranians right ? I dont recall any game from neither SA nor Iran.
 
Both Saudi Arabia and Iran have made a handful of mid budget games which mostly sold domestically, including a famous unchartered clone. Turkey's game market mostly consists of mobile games from what I understand. Warband alone probably surpasses all of the saudi and iranian games in sales, but warband is a fluke which sold well above its budget.
 
NUQAR'S Kentucky "Nuqar" James XXL said:
Both Saudi Arabia and Iran have made a handful of mid budget games which mostly sold domestically, including a famous unchartered clone. Turkey's game market mostly consists of mobile games from what I understand. Warband alone probably surpasses all of the saudi and iranian games in sales, but warband is a fluke which sold well above its budget.

Examples ? I am just curious. Couldnt find anything noteworthy in wiki "games developed in SA/Iran.

Edit: Unearthed: Ibni Battuta you were talking about I assume.
Interesting, I know Ibni Battuta from history. He is the Marco Polo of Islamic world. He even visited Beylig of Osman when it was still the smallest princedom of Anatolia and Osman was the king. He even had said "this man is the wisest of all Turkmen chieftains". Saying this even though his chiefdom was still the smallest and weakest then proved to be the one conquering all the others mean a lot for Ibn Battutas intelligence.

There was another wanderer but he had contraversial sayings about Turks named ibn Arabi but he lived earlier if I recall right.

The game seems trash though its metacritic score is 11/100.
Shame that such a huge potential was resulted this badly. Hopefully they make a decent sequel.

I must say, I think you are quite wrong. In this part of the World, I think only Ukraine can be at same level with Turkey. They have Cossacks(not a huge fan of),  STALKER(used to be good but too old now), Metro especially last game( if Metro is their M&B, Exodus became their Bannerlord)
 
KhergitLancer99 said:
They have Cossacks(not a huge fan of),  STALKER(used to be good but too old now), Metro especially last game( if Metro is their M&B, Exodus became their Bannerlord)
Metro Last Light is their Bannerlord, Metro Exodus is their M&B 3 that may just never come out.
As for STALKER 2 , its release date is 2021, so it may just release before Bannerlord's full release too.
  :fruity:
 
NUQAR'S Kentucky "Nuqar" James XXL said:
iamastrangeloop said:
Yeah...Expecting a game that comes out a decade later than the previous one to have slightly more combat variability and depth, ...so unrealistic.

I know you're being sarcastic but this is actually the case here. It is actually quite rare for direct sequels to improve dramatically on the previous game and most of the time the sequel is slightly worse. Add to that the fact that Taleworlds is based in a country with less game development expertise than Iran or Saudi Arabia, and it's not absurd to assume the game is going to be more or less the same as warband.

Comparing completely independent games and developers and then extrapolating conclusions is rather pointless as they all have nothing to do with each other. I can tell you from a project management viewpoint that these kinds of outside conclusions are rather comical and without merit. They only seem to make sense from a global view and largely come from individuals needing to make conclusions out of fear and impatience. Bannerlord is clearly an improvement over Warband in most respects and the parts that need polishing (i.e infantry combat and some bits of AI) are being polished with the beta testing.
 
BayBear said:
Comparing completely independent games and developers and then extrapolating conclusions is rather pointless as they all have nothing to do with each other. I can tell you from a project management viewpoint that these kinds of outside conclusions are rather comical and without merit. They only seem to make sense from a global view and largely come from individuals needing to make conclusions out of fear and impatience. Bannerlord is clearly an improvement over Warband in most respects and the parts that need polishing (i.e infantry combat and some bits of AI) are being polished with the beta testing.

As someone who's been in the beta since the start, I disagree. Infantry combat and the AI are the core mechanics of the game and if they aren't fixed, the game will be borderline unplayable. And even then the other elements like visuals and sound design and controls are in many ways worse than warband.

My point is that it's naive to assume Bannerlord is going to be substantially better than warband when Taleworlds has only made one game so far (warband is nothing more than a few patches on mount and blade, plus multiplayer), and the unmodded experience of that game is medicore at best and mindnumbingly boring at worst.

I don't know of any development studio which has suddenly produced a game far surpassing anything they've made before, and with Taleworlds the situation is even worse because most of the people they seem to have hired are interns or inexperienced graduates, and it shows in just about every aspect of the game. Turkey just doesn't have the same pool of skilled developers as Western Europe or America since they have nowhere near the same sized game industry, so it's not like someone with a backlog of expertise can come into the company without hiring a translator.
 
I was thinking too even bad Bannerlord would be ten time better than Warband, but i'm not that sure now ! There is many many things not really good and in those bad things many are better done in Warband ! After seven years you can start asking yourself about the development hell theory !
 
NUQAR'S Kentucky "Nuqar" James XXL said:
Infantry combat and the AI are the core mechanics of the game and if they aren't fixed, the game will be borderline unplayable. And even then the other elements like visuals and sound design and controls are in many ways worse than warband.

Hence why the game is in beta.. Beta’s aren’t only glorified demo’s like most modern games and core mechanic refinement takes time to perfect (I know you can sympathize).

My point is that it's naive to assume Bannerlord is going to be substantially better than warband when Taleworlds has only made one game so far (warband is nothing more than a few patches on mount and blade, plus multiplayer), and the unmodded experience of that game is medicore at best and mindnumbingly boring at worst.

To each his own. I’m looking forward to all of the graphical, feature, depth and quality of life improvements in Bannerlord. Not to mention all of the back end improvements normal players won’t ever see. “Substantial” is subjective. I understand and sympathize that others may have seen it all and aren’t too impressed with the improvements over Warband.

I don't know of any development studio which has suddenly produced a game far surpassing anything they've made before, and with Taleworlds the situation is even worse because most of the people they seem to have hired are interns or inexperienced graduates, and it shows in just about every aspect of the game. Turkey just doesn't have the same pool of skilled developers as Western Europe or America since they have nowhere near the same sized game industry, so it's not like someone with a backlog of expertise can come into the company without hiring a translator.

Once again I don’t see the reason for making conclusions about Taleworlds’ ability to deliver Bannerlord. They will either reach your standards or they won’t. The only thing we can do is accept & appreciate the effort Taleworlds’ has spent to give us what no other developer would try. Luckily for us Taleworlds is receptive to our forum feedback and is listening, even if they don’t always verbally express so.
 
if you are interested in a combat system that reflects the idea of: "intuitively simple but difficult to master" and that expands the current combat system to a higher level then I post the link to the topic I wrote today that talks about combat mechanics.

https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?topic=387532.0
 
BayBear said:
NUQAR'S Kentucky "Nuqar" James XXL said:
iamastrangeloop said:
Yeah...Expecting a game that comes out a decade later than the previous one to have slightly more combat variability and depth, ...so unrealistic.

I know you're being sarcastic but this is actually the case here. It is actually quite rare for direct sequels to improve dramatically on the previous game and most of the time the sequel is slightly worse. Add to that the fact that Taleworlds is based in a country with less game development expertise than Iran or Saudi Arabia, and it's not absurd to assume the game is going to be more or less the same as warband.

Comparing completely independent games and developers and then extrapolating conclusions is rather pointless as they all have nothing to do with each other. I can tell you from a project management viewpoint that these kinds of outside conclusions are rather comical and without merit. They only seem to make sense from a global view and largely come from individuals needing to make conclusions out of fear and impatience. Bannerlord is clearly an improvement over Warband in most respects and the parts that need polishing (i.e infantry combat and some bits of AI) are being polished with the beta testing.

Totally agreed.
 
FBohler said:
BayBear said:
NUQAR'S Kentucky "Nuqar" James XXL said:
iamastrangeloop said:
Yeah...Expecting a game that comes out a decade later than the previous one to have slightly more combat variability and depth, ...so unrealistic.

I know you're being sarcastic but this is actually the case here. It is actually quite rare for direct sequels to improve dramatically on the previous game and most of the time the sequel is slightly worse. Add to that the fact that Taleworlds is based in a country with less game development expertise than Iran or Saudi Arabia, and it's not absurd to assume the game is going to be more or less the same as warband.

Comparing completely independent games and developers and then extrapolating conclusions is rather pointless as they all have nothing to do with each other. I can tell you from a project management viewpoint that these kinds of outside conclusions are rather comical and without merit. They only seem to make sense from a global view and largely come from individuals needing to make conclusions out of fear and impatience. Bannerlord is clearly an improvement over Warband in most respects and the parts that need polishing (i.e infantry combat and some bits of AI) are being polished with the beta testing.

Totally agreed.

Double agreed.
 
NUQAR'S Kentucky "Nuqar" James XXL said:
My point is that it's naive to assume Bannerlord is going to be substantially better than warband when Taleworlds has only made one game so far (warband is nothing more than a few patches on mount and blade, plus multiplayer), and the unmodded experience of that game is medicore at best and mindnumbingly boring at worst.

I don't know of any development studio which has suddenly produced a game far surpassing anything they've made before, and with Taleworlds the situation is even worse because most of the people they seem to have hired are interns or inexperienced graduates, and it shows in just about every aspect of the game.

If you thought unmodded Warband was mediocre at best and clearly you think that Bannerlord is not going to be good then why do you spend so much time here in the forum? Just curious.

As to your comment about not knowing of any studios not producing games that are better than the previous one is just nonsense. Have you played Metro Exodus? I didn't think very much of the Metro series before it, but Exodus was fantastic. In fact you just reminded me that I have yet to go back to it and play the new game plus hardcore mode they added.
There are countless other games that are arguably much better than the previous ones.

Off the top of my head:
uhmmmm The Witcher: Wild Hunt
Batman Arkham City
Half life 2
Any Grand Theft Auto Game
Any number of Call of Duty Games
The Bioshock games
Mass Effect 2
Super Mario World
Mario Galaxy 2
RDR2
Halo2
I haven't played it yet but the new God of War game seems like everyone loved the hell out of it
Tony Hawk Pro skater 2
Skate 2
Skate 3
Wolfenstein 2 the New Colossus
Injustice 2
Far Cry 2, 3, 4 etc...
The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, Oblivion, SKYRIM
The list goes on, so if you can't at least think of ONE game that was made better than the last I'm not sure you really play much of them, or are so stuck in the past that you can't enjoy the present.
 
A lot of those are really subjective....

BayBear said:
Bannerlord is clearly an improvement over Warband in most respects and the parts that need polishing (i.e infantry combat and some bits of AI) are being polished with the beta testing.

I agree with the first part of that sentence, but not really the second part. You mention infantry combat (which in itself a big part of the game), but it is combat in general that is a problem, and particularly the combat between infantry and cavalry, as well as essential bits of AI. Taleworlds told us they tried letting infantry make good use of their spears, and it made it too hard for cavalry- so they have made infantry make bad choices. That is not a small issue! The cavalry runs infantry over, horses barely suffer any penalty for ramming into something so infantry cannot stop them unless they run into scenery or the infantry manages to get a near-perfect polearm stab in the chest of the horse...I cannot be bothered to go into everything, but the problems are not minor.

More worrying is that there is no sign of the major problems going away. I am in the beta, and know now what other beta players have been talking about for so long. No offence, but have any of you 3 (strangeloop, Baybear or FBohler) played the beta? It sounds as if you are being complacent, imagining that the beta will unfailingly iron out any problems.
 
DanAngleland said:
A lot of those are really subjective....

More worrying is that there is no sign of the major problems going away. I am in the beta, and know now what other beta players have been talking about for so long. No offence, but have any of you 3 (strangeloop, Baybear or FBohler) played the beta? It sounds as if you are being complacent, imagining that the beta will unfailingly iron out any problems.

Yeah they definitely are subjective, that's why I said "arguably better".
Nope, not really interested in playing MP. I mostly play M&B for the SP.
I am not so naive to unfailingly think that the beta will iron out any problems, but I for sure hope that they will fix some of them, that's why I'm here giving my opinion on what I find lackluster in the video.
 
iamastrangeloop said:
If you thought unmodded Warband was mediocre at best and clearly you think that Bannerlord is not going to be good then why do you spend so much time here in the forum? Just curious.

I don't hate mount and blade or bannerlord, but after playing this game to death and making a total overhaul mod, I'm just frustrated with how sloppy taleworlds is sometimes. Warband has a tonne of fundamental gameplay problems, many of which make the game a pain to enjoy past the first few hours into a campaign. And now Bannerlord is making all the same mistakes as the previous game, plus an extra helping of utterly incomprehensible game design choices which nobody asked for and nobody (in the beta) likes.

What makes this so much worse is that most of these issues are things I could have fixed myself. For instance in warband there is a battlefield morale system which straight up doesn't work, and it also has a huge impact on performance. It either wasn't prototyped or it was just coded in a rush. I prototyped one myself and in a few days had a much better system than the original. I was astounded. This is like a major gameplay mechanic which doesn't work. And I have no training as a developer, I'm just some guy.
The game is full of stuff like this, to the point where the diplomacy mod for warband is like 90% code fixes and is the baseline for almost every mod. It makes me less and less enthusiastic about bannerlord when I see stuff like this which was unaddressed even up until the final warband patch this time last year.

I really want to like bannerlord, and I guess I stick around in the hope that they will listen to some of the endless paragraphs of detailed criticism they are getting in the beta threads. But at this point I really can't see the game being anywhere close to even my lowest expectations back in 2013. I know this sounds kind of harsh and pessimistic but I can't shake this feeling.
 
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