Differences to Warband

[John the Roleplayer]

Not anyone can practise to be that good. That's why I bring up the matter of different perspectives. I have played Warband for a long time as well, not as long as competitive players, but still. And I couldn't even begin to do the stuff I see in some duelling videos. I have neither the ability nor the ambition to get to that level, the game is about something else for me. It's not about it being difficult, it would be truly impossible for me to learn. I physically don't have the reflexes for it.

That is why not everyone desires a high entrance-barrier. You compare the game to other competitive multiplayer games, but that is not all Warband and Bannerlord are, and they can consequently not be designed with that as the only or even primary focus.

 

[shin]

That is why not everyone desires a high entrance-barrier. You compare the game to other competitive multiplayer games, but that is not all Warband and Bannerlord are, and they can consequently not be designed with that as the only or even primary focus.

I feel like just covering your ears and ignoring the benefits of conquerable difficulty in relation to a great multiplayer experience, is outrageous. It doesn't need to be spelled out that the correlation is there. Your argument is entirely anecdotal, about your own experience.

People buy en-masse and play for many years multiplayer games that are difficult and that is time proven over the last two decades.

 

[Achilles_TheIV]

Multiplayer is not in Taleworlds’ business model. Extreme dumbing down of mechanics and overall gameplay to cater to their more larger audience.

 

[John the Roleplayer]

[...]
People buy en-masse and play for many years multiplayer games that are difficult and that is time proven over the last two decades.

It may feel that way, because that is the segment of gaming that you have the closest relation to, but that is not what statistics show us.

 

[Younes]

[...]
People buy en-masse and play for many years multiplayer games that are difficult and that is time proven over the last two decades.

It may feel that way, because that is the segment of gaming that you have the closest relation to, but that is not what statistics show us.

Counter strike, League of legends, Rainbox six siege, fortnite,...


Its easy to get a hold on the basic mechanics but mastering them is something else.


And those graphs trying to prove something are garbage because it ignores factors like availability, where phones obviously have a foothold since anyone has one at this point.

 

[Apollo ?]

Everyone literally has a phone xD everyone can be a mobile gamer hahahaha that graph proves nothing but your incompetence

Even so, that graph literally shows PC gaming on its own. Nearly equals console gaming which includes a wide variety of consoles and demographics. When was the last time you saw an advert for PC gaming? All you see is PS this and Xbox this

 

[John the Roleplayer]

I'm not saying Bannerlord should try to appeal to people who prefer mobile games, of course not. The graph is merely intended to show that the players of PvP multiplayer titles are not "the masses" of the gaming industry, it's just one segment.

That is moving away from the original point though. I only meant to say that I think it better to design a game to be more accessible to a larger variety of people. If the combat was primarily focused on highly competitive PvP, that would influence all other levels of the game as well, including singleplayer, and might put off those who play primarily for other aspects of the game. The developers have to consider all this, which is why they cannot design everything with MP PvP as their main priority. That is not to say that it should be no consideration at all, but it has to be balanced not only within itself, but also against the other elements of the game.

Spoiler

I always understood this illustration as a humorous comment on the Warband MP experience. Here it was presented as a model of how Bannerlord should be designed as well. Not only can I not agree with that, I also strongly suspect that this design was not entirely intentional for Warband either, at least not at first. 

 

[Roz]

They should have continued to use warband's combat system. All the changes in bannerlord have been asked to be deleted by player.

 

[Goldfire223]

I think this has been a really high-quality discussion about the state of combat in Bannerlord. But for the sake of contributing a little more to the discussion, I see this issue quite similarly to Resonant who created a video that does a nice job at highlighting the concerns of people on both sides of the argument. If you haven't seen it I recommend you give it a watch and see if you agree with his points or not.



Regardless, I feel like there is also an unspoken majority of people who could care less if the combat is a high skill or low because they largely care about only the singleplayer. And honestly, that's where I stand, because I fell in love with the singleplayer of Warband and could only stomach the multiplayer for maybe 5 minutes. But now I'm excited about Bannerlord 's multiplayer because even if it's at a low skill level, it's fun, so maybe Taleworlds is doing something right. Only time will tell. I only hope that Taleworld takes discussion like this to heart, add more customization to the multiplayer and continues to evolve the combat mechanics so both sides can be content.

 

[JustinTime49]

Spoiler

Regardless, I feel like there is also an unspoken majority of people who could care less if the combat is a high skill or low because they largely care about only the singleplayer. And honestly, that's where I stand, because I fell in love with the singleplayer of Warband and could only stomach the multiplayer for maybe 5 minutes. But now I'm excited about Bannerlord 's multiplayer because even if it's at a low skill level, it's fun, so maybe Taleworlds is doing something right. Only time will tell. I only hope that Taleworlds takes discussion like this to heart, add more customization to the multiplayer and continues to evolve the combat mechanics so both sides can be content.

Hmm, I know what you mean but I have to kinda disagree. I myself am looking more towards SP, but the amount of parallels between the two modes makes me worried combat wise. Warband was easy to grasp and learn, but hard to master. Bannerlord has many of its moments, but I fear with the way combat is there isn't going to be much desire to improve when you can master the most effective styles(being combos) after a few hours. Nevermind the multiplayer problems with this issue for a sec, as this lines up with SP as well. When it comes to AI difficulty, dueling won't even be a challenge, yet there is literally a specific quest that allows you to duel to complete it! If we have similar interactions such as lord duels and whatnot, I fear that because casual players and veterans alike can master the most effective combat strat so easily, many menacing situations such as gang confrontations or tourney duels will just be overwhelming boringly easy(like WP nervous man), because the fact is, game AI simply cannot compete with the human brain.

God forbid if their solution is like Total war where they just inflate lords and kings stats unbelievably high to compensate for the lackluster AI. Creating difficult AI attack patterns would be welcome but in at least captain mode, I have yet to see those occurrences.

 

[Shatti]

i will be disappointed if i can't Move my spear like this

 

[Shemaforash]

you're already disappointed then mate

 

[Emogma]

Why not just make it easy to learn but hard to master? Like, in Warband I could play the singleplayer pretty easily and not have to worry about any of the advance techniques. Just make it the same for Bannerlord, increase the skill cap required to master the combat system but just make it so that you don't need to necessarily know all the fancy tricks when you're going through a single player session.

 

[pepette]

Hello,

I've been playing warband since a very long time and just had my hands on the beta and here are my thoughts on combat.
It is much slower. Chambers are harder to land or the window isnt as early as in warband, you can hardly bumpslash since horses a much less manoeuvrable (even the camel). You can kick but it won't guarantee a free hit for medium and slow weapon anymore. You can nudge just like on cRPG (was it?) and that's uh, pretty cool. Feints are pretty much the same.

As an overall, spamming is even more rewarding, hitboxes are weird af and old cheesy game play is much less existant. I am very skeptical about it. It honestly feel like a big mod on warband.

 

[Gragnok]

Why not just make it easy to learn but hard to master? Like, in Warband I could play the singleplayer pretty easily and not have to worry about any of the advance techniques. Just make it the same for Bannerlord, increase the skill cap required to master the combat system but just make it so that you don't need to necessarily know all the fancy tricks when you're going through a single player session.

Making a game easy to learn but hard to master is much easier said than done. I would imagine that this principle is the holy grail for many devs who want to attract a large number of players but retain a thriving community for years after release.

Currently i enjoy the combat. I feel there are improvements to be made and i still need to experiment with some things on a dueling server but its very promising and most importantly i think its fun!

 

[Ruler of Calradia]

overpowered stabs

Are they overpowered or realistic? Historically, stabs with swords and some other weapons were best way to fight against people in armor, unless your weapon had enough mass to be useful as a mace. Swords usually were middle ground between thrusting and slashing so you could do more than just thrust with them, but thrust was still best against armor.
It depends on the armor why exactly stabbing is best, with some you had to find the gaps in the armor, but against chain mail you might even be able to pierce it with stabs - but usually that only works if mail is not that good or if there is something hard underneath, like bone instead of muscle or anything else that is flexible.

With warband level of detail for animations, it would make sense to have slow but really powerful thrusts, representing soldier trying to find gaps or weak points in the armor and then delivering powerful thrust there.
For Bannerlord, it would be great if slashes would be the easy way to go, while thrusts would have a chance of triggering special animation where character thrusts his weapon to gaps or weak points in the armor, or with some armor, just thrusting through the armor. Chance of triggering special animation should ideally not be just randomly generated number, but it should be based on where you hit. Thrusts should be more difficult to aim, and if you hit the right spot and longer animation triggers, it should still be counterable somehow. However anything that deals with special animations and counters is much harder to make in enjoyable manner for game like Mount & Blade. So maybe just go for slower but more powerful thrusts and have some variations in animation.
Its hard to say without being able to test both of those systems.

 

[Ruler of Calradia]

i will be disappointed if i can't Move my spear like this

I really hope that slashes with spears will either be really weak or you cant do them. Thrusting is what spear is for. You can ofc use even basic wooden stick and a good whack to the head with one of those will do something even if you wear armor, so its not entirely useless. And it was real technique, though usually limited to single combat and i have no idea how often you should do anything but thrusts with spears.

 

[Piconi]

Question to those in the beta. What feels different compared to Warband, is the combat improved in some way?

There is no right answer to that question IMO, every patch or two, it changes very much, but now already a couple of patches in, we have improved movement (no sliding anymore) and such.

As said many times before, chambering is next to impossible to time right, and chaining attacks gives no real advantage over attack spaming, since  blocking has some unintentional delay not yet explained enough and fixed.

Too bad you don't have a Beta yet mate, i trust you would give some proper quality feedback, and entering discussions in order to improve the game. If i had one more extra, i would give it to you mate.

In the meantime before you get the beta ( i hope you will soon), maybe you could advise us here in the ?️ ???????? ???? ?????????? - Archive thread, as the latest sketch is the minor faction representing the Finnic tribes. We (at least I) need some inspiration for the 3 tier of troops of the Sons of the Forest minor factions, so maybe you some sketch of your own or post some pictures of warriors we don't know about of the early medieval sami, permian and other surrounding tribes.

 

[Shatti]

i will be disappointed if i can't Move my spear like this

I really hope that slashes with spears will either be really weak or you cant do them. Thrusting is what spear is for. You can ofc use even basic wooden stick and a good whack to the head with one of those will do something even if you wear armor, so its not entirely useless. And it was real technique, though usually limited to single combat and i have no idea how often you should do anything but thrusts with spears.

it's not a lance, it's a war spear
have u ever heard of broadhead spear,
it's designed for this martial art kinda stuff
slashing with is is deadly
it's a large blade not a normal pointy one

although , i get ur point if u mean, spears which are used with shields, they are very pointy & only for thrust

 

[Younes]

You can still use a spear as a staff, you can knock someone the **** down.