Devs and "Community" Employees Are Averaging Less than 1 Post Per Day - Where Is The Engagement?

Users who are viewing this thread

So why did they say they were going to build the game to meet community expectations if, in your opinion, community expectations don't mean jack ****?
What matters is what the people who paid for the product want. I don't know why you are arguing that the buyers' preferences should be considered irrelevant. You ARE a buyer, it only goes against your interests to argue otherwise.
They said they would use EA to "iron out any issues and refine the game by utilising feedback to bring it to the level" (i.e. performance level) "that both our community and we expect." In that context, they have failed to achieve the MP server stability expected on release, but it was never a blank cheque to accept alternative community design choices.
 
You are latching onto random nonsense so you can avoid replying to the actual point of the argument because you know you're wrong.
Or maybe because its a side thing and you kinda keep denying it.
Bioshock Infinite was not an Early Access title. Cut content is acceptable when you have not already sold the game saying you would have it. After that it just becomes false advertising which would not be acceptable in any other industry.
Cut content happens, and it is exactly the same thing as Bannerlord. A lot of the things that people want out of BL come from the old dev blog posts that came far before EA. Things got cut. It is precisely the same thing.
I already responded to this, and you ignored it: sure, they can add whatever they want, but not when it is massively delaying what people actually bought the game for.
We have now been waiting 10 years for Bannerlord to be complete and even after "official release" it still isn't. The delays need to end.
Delays are a fact of life. Delays are always going to happen. If TW has a thing that they think will work for the game, then there is no reason as to why they shouldn't add it to the game. They have control. When its right to add other features, then that will be time.

They can still add whatever they want to the game. And no, just because a feature isn't exactly how you want it doesn't mean that feature is there. Unironically VisionTM.
 
They said they would use EA to "iron out any issues and refine the game by utilising feedback to bring it to the level" (i.e. performance level)
That's a very strange interpretation considering the specific term "performance" is not used. In fact, the words "ANY issues" are used.

Half the features in the game either being straight up unimplemented or having no noticeable effect to the player falls under the heading "any issues".
Didn't you say you were going to leave the forums? So why are you still here? Almost everything in your post is intentionally missing the point of this discussion and focusing on random, irrelevant bull**** for the sake of not having to admit you're wrong because you have no response to the actual point.

I wasn't even arguing with you about cut content and somehow you managed to turn that into an argument.

Deranged whiteknight, Callum alt account, or just outright troll?
Delays are a fact of life. Delays are always going to happen. If TW has a thing that they think will work for the game, then there is no reason as to why they shouldn't add it to the game. They have control. When its right to add other features, then that will be time.
AVOIDABLE delays are not "always going to happen", they are a choice which Taleworlds has the option not to do when they have already received money from buyers to deliver a functional product, buyers who have already waited 8 years for the sequel and 2 years of early access and cannot be accused of being impatient. I'm pretty sure some people would have even died while waiting, if you think about it.

If Taleworlds wants to muck around doing other random crap nobody asked for they are perfectly welcome to do that after they have provided the complete product people paid them hundreds of millions of dollars for. You cannot refute this.
 
Callum alt account
This one. I was cloned in a vat in Ankara. Very high tech stuff, half of TW's profits went to it.
If Taleworlds wants to muck around doing other random crap nobody asked for they are perfectly welcome to do that after they have provided the complete product people paid them hundreds of millions of dollars for. You cannot refute this.
The point about delays is that they happen, and they happen a lot. They happen to AAA games, they happen to indie games. Devs over promise and the community gets mad that those promises didn't happen. It happened with NMS, it happened with Valheim, it happened with Squad. It is simply a fact of life, an unfortunate one, but still a fact.

I can. Taleworlds can muck around with doing whatever they want to with the game, its their game. That is the fundamental point. It isn't the community's game, it is the developers game. If there is something that they feel should be added to the game first then they are welcome to add it to the game first.

At this point neither of us are going to convince the other.
 
Callum alt account
Even Callum wouldn't go that far in uncritical defense of an indefensible hill. Some people side with the oppressed corporations because if the corps are wrong, then the world is an anarchist hellhole in their minds. There must be order and authorities to keep that order and every injustice can be rationalized away if you don't want to see it.
 
That's a very strange interpretation considering the specific term "performance" is not used. In fact, the words "ANY issues" are used.
I'm sure you noticed that performance optimisation, debugging and stability (eliminating crashes) has been TW's primary focus throughout EA. Why would they 'offer' to add whatever features the community wanted to an unstable base without knowing what would be requested in terms of workload and compatibility when they were working to a limited timescale? In any event, this community isn't a unified voice that agrees on everything particularly when you get down to details on the precise implementation of any feature. Very few people will have identical mod lists to suit their tastes.
 
The point about delays is that they happen, and they happen a lot.
The point is what I already said which is that Taleworlds has the option to *not* have those delays happen, by not working on random things nobody asked for which delay the things people did pay for.
Bannerlord is now one of the longest developed, most delayed games in existence. That's not a normal amount of delay.
It isn't the community's game, it is the developers game.
It is not the developers' game anymore because they sold it for approxmiately $100,000,000+ to the collective community of buyers.
At this point neither of us are going to convince the other.
Yes, let's stop here.
Even Callum wouldn't go that far in uncritical defense of an indefensible hill.
You're right, he's better than that.
Why would they 'offer' to add whatever features the community wanted to an unstable base
Let me link you to the post where I told you I wasn't saying that: https://forums.taleworlds.com/index...-is-the-engagement.455860/page-5#post-9844308
 
Last edited:
You answered your own question. Reddit allows community self-censorship. You are very unlikely to see a subreddit where everyone is saying the game is bad because negativity in general gets downvoted.
You realize I was replying to a comment practically saying "we aren't that bad, there are places more toxic than us, like Reddit"? If anything, you just prove my point.

Not that I necessarily agree though, there are plenty of subreddits where you can criticize a game without being downvoted. Try asking people what they think of Engineers in /r/EliteDangerous/ for example. The general consensus is that they aren't fun and even bad for the game. Now of course if you say the devs sucks, they should get fired and they should hire modders instead, you'll probably get downvoted anywhere, and rightfully so. I'm sure you can notice the difference between both statements.

/r/StarCitizen is really the only place I can think of where you can't criticize the game at all because people are still too high on hopium and susceptible to the sunk-cost fallacy.

Yeah, us pearl clutchers asking for the servers to not crash every 15 minutes for almost 4 years now is way out of bounds.
I've never said that. A whole game mode being pretty much unplayable, if I'm understanding correctly, is obviously unacceptable. You are indeed entitled to a functioning game.

That has nothing to do with insulting people because you feel you aren't being heard.
 
Last edited:
Let me link you to the post where I told you I wasn't saying that: https://forums.taleworlds.com/index...-is-the-engagement.455860/page-5#post-9844308
I read that the first time and still don't see how it bears any connection to the TW quote under discussion. It represents your view (and possibly a majority view) of what TW should be committed to, not what TW said or committed to. EA has been frustrating for everyone. Unfortunately, as the roadmap is unfinished and bugs and modding issues persist, it continues under another guise. At TW's slow pace of development, this may stretch out for another year or two for all I know. So, TW seem overwhelmed by their current commitments, making it unwise to add more, especially when we primarily need stability and resolution of modding issues for progress.
 
I read that the first time and still don't see how it bears any connection to the TW quote under discussion.
You seem to think I said TW should add any random community suggestion. I linked you that post to clarify that I'm not saying that and never have been.
It represents your view (and possibly a majority view) of what TW should be committed to, not what TW said or committed to.
I'm saying that TW should be committed to what they have committed themselves to.
EA has been frustrating for everyone. Unfortunately, as the roadmap is unfinished and bugs and modding issues persist, it continues under another guise.
Could I please ask what the major modding issues are at the moment? That isn't a facetious/sarcastic question, I'm actually curious - how is progress on documentation, providing all the tools modders need, stability, ability for modders to change things in the code, etc?
So, TW seem overwhelmed by their current commitments, making it unwise to add more
See, that's exactly what I've been saying this whole thread (and for the past 2 years): Taleworlds should not be working on random things nobody asked for and they just added on a whim, as opposed to their existing committments that they are struggling to fulfill.
 
Could I please ask what the major modding issues are at the moment? That isn't a facetious/sarcastic question, I'm actually curious - how is progress on documentation, providing all the tools modders need, stability, ability for modders to change things in the code, etc?
TW's primary focus has been stabilising and optimising performance of the game. First for pc players, now for console players. They could have chosen to only provide modding tools after release, so, we're grateful that these were made available much earlier. However, juggling those priorities leaves modding issues. For example:
1. Engine code behind Sandbox Main_map has changed with hardcoded optimisation fixes that benefit player performance but currently impede modding alternative campaign maps. AFAIK TW intend to resolve these, but their timescale is uncertain.
2. Custom MP servers have been released, but the lobby system ties them to unstable official servers. I know very little about MP but its moddability seems fairly barebones ATM.
3. TW's focus on refactoring the game has destabilised the modding tools. Editor performance has degraded during EA. The v1.0.2 beta seems the worst version so far. Again, this will be resolved at some point.
4. Moving more C# code from Internal to Public is an on-going discussion between modders and devs.
5. Building scenes is a massive time sink for TW and an equally massive task for full conversion modders. Because SceneEditData files (which allow modders to edit Native scenes for makeovers) are large these are only shipped for a few example scenes. AFAIK only a few more will be provided, requiring lots of custom scenes.
6. API documentation wasn't released until e1.8.0 (IIRC) C# modders have to rely on decompilers to try and interpret TW code and Harmony to inject patches to modify it.
7. TW official documentation is evolving but isn't comprehensive. New modders find lots of minefields.
8. XML error messages are generally uninformative and modding new cultures is not for the faint-hearted, because the engine imposes lots of required dependancies.
 
See, that's exactly what I've been saying this whole thread (and for the past 2 years): Taleworlds should not be working on random things nobody asked for and they just added on a whim, as opposed to their existing committments that they are struggling to fulfill.
I assume you are talking about the massive battle scene revamp with regional maps. IIRC this was at the time when they were messaging how they have limited time because they wanted to release soon, and used it as a reason to reject all suggestions. And then suddenly they announced they are embarking on a massive revamp of scenes that was never an issue with players, and that it will be finished way after the release.
This was greeted by a lukewarm approval of average players who always want new content, but it caused a mini-outrage among hardcore fans like yourself. In reality, their sceners were probably underutilized and they can't code (i.e. work on gameplay and performance where the problems are). Someone higher up (the Arma guy or something?) probably decided to give them something big to do and get the players distracted for a time from multiple postponements and slow progress.
TLDR: it's not outrage-worthy
 
I assume you are talking about the massive battle scene revamp with regional maps. IIRC this was at the time when they were messaging how they have limited time because they wanted to release soon, and used it as a reason to reject all suggestions. And then suddenly they announced they are embarking on a massive revamp of scenes that was never an issue with players, and that it will be finished way after the release.
This was greeted by a lukewarm approval of average players who always want new content, but it caused a mini-outrage among hardcore fans like yourself. In reality, their sceners were probably underutilized and they can't code (i.e. work on gameplay and performance where the problems are). Someone higher up (the Arma guy or something?) probably decided to give them something big to do and get the players distracted for a time from multiple postponements and slow progress.
TLDR: it's not outrage-worthy
New content is always fine; more armor, scenes, maps, etc...the only issue I would say with this example is they barely gave us any info when they embarked on this 'distraction' with the battle/map correlated scenes/OOB. The only thing we were advised is that there doing that, adding said battle maps/OOB. No other communication/depth beyond that (regardless if we feel they should), afaik, no mention they were altering the troop-party organization assignments, the 'slider' mechanic for the pre-battles, etc...Honestly, if they had created more than a forum paragraph on their intentions with it from the outset (but they never besides some vague bs), maybe some pre-feedback/points of issues from players could have made that process more streamlined and what an EA would usually be intended to do?
We wait the whatever X months in 'hope', it comes out finally, and there is a lot of questions from the player base as to why they did it this or that way; and to date (now nearly a year) no changes/QoL has been made to it since.
The 'locking' mechanic doesn't work well, troop positions reset/scramble when you adjust sliders, companions on mounts mess some positions up, subset troop organization (prioritize HA/throwables) doesn't organize properly, some formations don't line up with where you place/face them, etc...; not to mention the shenanigans with siege OOB situations. OOB alone as a content is great, but they put it in, then abandoned it, half-assed like many other features.
 
It goes like this:
-Taleworlds hypes the game up, makes us wait years.
-Forum is active, people are speculating, having fun with memes and discussing everything in a civil way.
-Taleworlds releases Early Access to the hyped playerbase, it's barebones and downright bad.
-Forum is very active, people are suggesting how to improve things and reporting bugs but are generally very hopeful.
-Taleworlds is tone-deaf and responds vaguely to suggestions or bug reports (if they do at all.) Progress is VERY slow.
-Forum is still active, people are starting to realize that maybe things won't be all peachy, some complaining begins.
-Taleworlds deflects or ignores concerns, since they have a "vision" of what the game should be like and there's no roadmap or anything.
-Forum is less active, three main camps form: Hopeful people, Doomers, White Knights.
-Taleworlds has two people occasionally saying: "Yeah, I forwarded it to the devs." No meaningful changes are made.
*Years pass*
-Forum is a wasteland filled with mostly Doomers and White Knights. The Hopeful people are probably someplace else, or lurking.
-Taleworlds is silent, development is almost non-existent, no major features are added and those that are do little to improve the experience.
-Forum is basically Mad Max: Fury Road without the half-naked girls.
-Taleworlds do the Tone-deaf Gigachad move and act like they've done great things and release is near! Game is still the same as EA.
-Forum is basically The Road with Viggo Mortensen.
-Taleworlds releases the game and it's basically the same game it was two years before. They cease communicating completely.
-Today.

Long story short: if you let your vase out in the rain for two years and don't plant anything in it, don't expect there to be anything but mold, weeds and decay.
0c05214815aca08208caa749c00bce02.gif


:smile: IMO apart from the bug/crash reports section of this forum, there are too few of us posting anything likely to attract much engagement. The forums are pretty inactive. Any constructive comments about roadmaps/design etc. have already been made multiple times.
This. The community has said what it could have said. Many times. They were mainly ignored, for whatever reason. I still like the game, but cant play it without mods, because theres a LOT of issues and features that were no-brainers that could have been added since EA v1.5, yet didnt. People, me included, end up giving up after a while and only can only hope™ for the best, enjoy and support mods when possible.

Havent seen it mentioned before, but most likely because of lack of connitment, but the EA price was much lighter than it is now. Full release price for EA version 1.9.03 is a burden too heavy to let go. I have basically white Knighted for TW before, when it had yet to release the EA, but now... its hard to justify their actions when greed is so apparent.
TLDR: it's not outrage-worthy
This, +1.

And this is why forum activity has decreased. Suggestions were made, hope was given, results were not delivered, suggestions were ignored, hope was shattered, so activity dies out little by little.

Not to mention the crusaderaboos/history-mad toxic players and modders out there, intentionally "removing trash normies" with toxic behaviour, because they're entitled unintelligent boys and think that medieval theme means medieval behaviour, and plainly discourage fruitful engagement.
 
Last edited:
It goes like this:
-Taleworlds hypes the game up, makes us wait years.
-Forum is active, people are speculating, having fun with memes and discussing everything in a civil way.
-Taleworlds releases Early Access to the hyped playerbase, it's barebones and downright bad.
-Forum is very active, people are suggesting how to improve things and reporting bugs but are generally very hopeful.
-Taleworlds is tone-deaf and responds vaguely to suggestions or bug reports (if they do at all.) Progress is VERY slow.
-Forum is still active, people are starting to realize that maybe things won't be all peachy, some complaining begins.
-Taleworlds deflects or ignores concerns, since they have a "vision" of what the game should be like and there's no roadmap or anything.
-Forum is less active, three main camps form: Hopeful people, Doomers, White Knights.
-Taleworlds has two people occasionally saying: "Yeah, I forwarded it to the devs." No meaningful changes are made.
*Years pass*
-Forum is a wasteland filled with mostly Doomers and White Knights. The Hopeful people are probably someplace else, or lurking.
-Taleworlds is silent, development is almost non-existent, no major features are added and those that are do little to improve the experience.
-Forum is basically Mad Max: Fury Road without the half-naked girls.
-Taleworlds do the Tone-deaf Gigachad move and act like they've done great things and release is near! Game is still the same as EA.
-Forum is basically The Road with Viggo Mortensen.
-Taleworlds releases the game and it's basically the same game it was two years before. They cease communicating completely.
-Today.

Long story short: if you let your vase out in the rain for two years and don't plant anything in it, don't expect there to be anything but mold, weeds and decay.

Humor aside, this is an excellent summary.

From my perspective, this could all have been avoided with better community involvement, communication and engagement. Even if the Devs or Senior Leadership disagreed with the community on the game's direction, there's absolutely a way to frame this back without causing too much damage. I will say again, I really don't know how their community team is collecting a check, there is no way they're working 40 hours a week. If I were TW leadership, this is borderline time stealing, and hard to justify.
 
I assume you are talking about the massive battle scene revamp with regional maps
Not solely that - it's a mix of many different things which apparently nobody outside of TW themselves asked for that has been ongoing since launch. For example: snapshots with Instagram filters feature (we already have built in screenshots with steam wtf?), a time consuming console port starting despite the game not even finished, barbers, sallying out, the troop formation slider system which replaced a system which worked just fine and I have heard nothing but complaints about, etc.

None of these on their own would be cause for annoyance but the constant trend of TW seeming to misallocate priorities and make tone-deaf decisions is the issue. It stretches back before Early Access even, some decisions like the MP class system (implemented despite massive ongoing community pushback), perk systems, board games etc..., Stuff which would have been nice, but not when the core game wasn't even working yet. There's no use crying over spilt milk, but when someone has a long track record of spilling milk, you just want to point to the stinky puddles on the floor and say "can I have that glass of water now?"
TW's primary focus has been stabilising and optimising performance of the game. First for pc players, now for console players. They could have chosen to only provide modding tools after release, so, we're grateful that these were made available much earlier. However, juggling those priorities leaves modding issues. For example:
1. Engine code behind Sandbox Main_map has changed with hardcoded optimisation fixes that benefit player performance but currently impede modding alternative campaign maps. AFAIK TW intend to resolve these, but their timescale is uncertain.
2. Custom MP servers have been released, but the lobby system ties them to unstable official servers. I know very little about MP but its moddability seems fairly barebones ATM.
3. TW's focus on refactoring the game has destabilised the modding tools. Editor performance has degraded during EA. The v1.0.2 beta seems the worst version so far. Again, this will be resolved at some point.
4. Moving more C# code from Internal to Public is an on-going discussion between modders and devs.
5. Building scenes is a massive time sink for TW and an equally massive task for full conversion modders. Because SceneEditData files (which allow modders to edit Native scenes for makeovers) are large these are only shipped for a few example scenes. AFAIK only a few more will be provided, requiring lots of custom scenes.
6. API documentation wasn't released until e1.8.0 (IIRC) C# modders have to rely on decompilers to try and interpret TW code and Harmony to inject patches to modify it.
7. TW official documentation is evolving but isn't comprehensive. New modders find lots of minefields.
8. XML error messages are generally uninformative and modding new cultures is not for the faint-hearted, because the engine imposes lots of required dependancies.
Thanks, this is very informative.
 
There's another 90%? Where?

I'd be very willing to bite my tongue and give Bannerlord a million 100% reviews if it would convince the game industry that this is a profitable genre that they should all get in on. I think Taleworlds gave it their best shot and their best is at most "good enough". Any chance of a truly great version of this game formula will probably have to come from somewhere else.
Part of the issue is that very few development studios are interested in making their own game engine and Bannerlord requires it. One of the early answers the guy gives in this video is about why devs don't really want to make their engine a lot of the time. But to have like 1600+ agents on the field at once, with acceptable performance and graphical fidelity, it takes something that you can't get out of modifying Unity or Unreal.
Not solely that - it's a mix of many different things which apparently nobody outside of TW themselves asked for that has been ongoing since launch. For example: snapshots with Instagram filters feature (we already have built in screenshots with steam wtf?), a time consuming console port starting despite the game not even finished, barbers, sallying out, the troop formation slider system which replaced a system which worked just fine and I have heard nothing but complaints about, etc.
People were asking for a console port since before launch. Same with sally out battles.
 
Back
Top Bottom