Do the developers even care? MP is about to be empty for good.

[Zoonanay]

I just don't buy this. Warband was the golden goose. All Taleworlds had to do was modernize the appearance and make refinements on the what was already the best medieval combat simulation/action RPG available. No loot boxes required.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I can imagine Warband was lucrative gross to payout. And I agree, it's fair to say modernising Warband would've at least kept better player retention than er, this...

But we don't know their long-term plans yet, perhaps the idea is SP will be the hook for casual players to get stuck into, then push mod content as DLC, paying dividends to the modders and acting as a publisher. It would be a pretty good strategy, but would also look like this right now in EA, that MP is abandoned and SP the golden goose.

Perhaps once a stable version of the game is finished all will become clear, I only wish Talesworld would communicate their plans to us, even if it were a loose road-map.

They are a private company from what they say, no public investors to short or swap them, if they relayed negative information. I can only imagine the silence is related to the slow development pace, maybe some sort of third party restricions on the devs that are of the non-disclosure nature.

But I'm just spitballing at this point, I'm just trying to figure the alienation of a hardcore fan base from lack of communication as a wise move. Impassioned people won't leave series they love, especially if they feel disenfranchised, they'll grow bolder and louder until all meaningful conversation is lost in a storm of frustration and disappointment. Such a waste of potential insight and energy.

 

[eddiemccandless]

To adress the OP:
About the MP dying-its unfortunately partially true. I say partially, because not just the MP, but even more unfortunate, the SP numbers as well, the trend is downwards, freefall style.

There is no longer the need of claiming to be a "majority", or someone else being a "minority", the numbers say it all, if the game is enjoyable or not in its current state, and if the players even have faith it will imporove in the future, in the name of those who don't bother posting on forums:

隐藏: Downloaded from Bannerlord Steam Statistics

Seeing this makes me sad...

Now to say something i know for sure - Developers DO care about the game very much, MP included, and the game will surely not be abandoned, and will be continuously developed/updated.

Communication during the Alpha and Beta periods was very random, and iirc it was admitted by the team, but accepting community feedback, or even trying for a tiny bit of compromise was abysmal, with a few honorable exceptions, i must add.
Also, many decisions aren't being made by the developers you think they are, so we shouldn't jump to conclusions on that.

With the current low playerbase, and many year-long MP "fanatics" even having the game uninstalled, there is now no time pressure anymore, the Beta players were screaming their lungs out this will happen, and now that it did, there is no point in it anymore.
The devs now have all the time they need, since very few players are playing the MP especially, and hopefully several HUGE patches will bring the numbers back up.

Now to an earlier point about intentional delay - since all the classes have the same proefficiencies on all the weapons, even if it wasn't the case, stances are influencing every bit of combat in such an inconsistent manner, that there is no legitimate reason for different weapons to additionaly have different block delay, because the balance, swing speed, damage and all the usual weapon stats differencies is enough advantage/disadvantage, as it always is in all the M&B titles, adding the unneccessary stances influence.

I am not going to comment on the state of the game, but that graphic is actually not that bad. This are the statistics for Kingdom Come Deliverance during the first two months or so of release:

隐藏

And these are the statistics for Mordhau:

隐藏

Granted, we have covid19 going on which probably influences the result a little. And this does not say anything about MP (my bet would be that most players are playing SP). But if you look at the sheer activity on Steam the game is doing alright in that regard I would say. I am honestly surprised the numbers are still this high.

 

[Younes]

Those games didn't have 250k players at launch. Kingdom come has almost 100k and mordhau considering its a multiplayer has a lot more players. Just look at their current playerbase. It's so much higher then bannerlord MP has ever been

 

[Gibby Jr]

except mordhau took way longer to decline to 10% of the initial playerbase than bannerlord. also, all of mordhau's players are in MP (it is MP only), while we know only ~5% of bannerlord's numbers at any time are in MP.

 

[RCC_God]

Also mordhau has huge huge issues. I Know a few guys super entrenched in the competitive community and they have a big problem with burnout and balancing which makes it even more crazy how dead bannerlord id

 

[kXlIdRoberta // Seb Merc]

Myself I gotta say I lean more towards SP generally. I'd love to play more MP, but the game just runs kinda ****ty for me when I play MP vs when I play SP. Also one thing to look at is that we don't have mods and as far as I know not any player-driven servers(might be wrong on that part since I never play) which clans and communities often use.

 

[WhiteEyedSh4rk]

Myself I gotta say I lean more towards SP generally. I'd love to play more MP, but the game just runs kinda ****ty for me when I play MP vs when I play SP. Also one thing to look at is that we don't have mods and as far as I know not any player-driven servers(might be wrong on that part since I never play) which clans and communities often use.

You are correct, there are no mods and custom servers in mp yet.

 

[Piconi]

Kingdom Come is a story-driven SP only game with replayability close to 0 compared to any M&B title.

And Mordhau is an MP exclusive, and those ML numbers are higher than re current bannerlord MP by several times.

Bannerlord having what neither of those two games have, BOTH the SP and the MP, and the SP having one of the best replayability value, means that the very low numbers represent the frustration of players in many areas of the game.
As i said, now the company can take its time, as there is almost no playerbase to lose, only to gain from now on, and i hope for a change in communication style and feedback acceptance in terms of some design choices.

 

[eddiemccandless]

Those games didn't have 250k players at launch. Kingdom come has almost 100k and mordhau considering its a multiplayer has a lot more players. Just look at their current playerbase. It's so much higher then bannerlord MP has ever been

Fair enough, that means that we must normalize the plots by the maximum number of players. Bannerlord still has a better or comparable decline with respect to the other two games (see below).

except mordhau took way longer to decline to 10% of the initial playerbase than bannerlord.

That is not true though. To answer this and the previous objection I prepared a very ugly, but I hope understandable, comparison of the population for Mordhau and Bannerlord. I squeezed Bannerlord's graphic to bring it to a comparable time scale and normalized so that the maximum values are comparable. Bannerlord is slightly above Mordhau.

隐藏

also, all of mordhau's players are in MP (it is MP only), while we know only ~5% of bannerlord's numbers at any time are in MP.

Fair point, but @Piconi was talking about both MP and SP in that post. That's why I brought both KCD and Mordhau up, I can't really think of another game that is close to Bannerlord in genre and scope except for Warband, but Warband never had big numbers. If it helps, Terraria also has worse numbers than Bannerlord and a similar curve, and as far as I know it is considered a very successful game. If you want to suggest similar games that did better than Bannerlord I would be glad to look at the data and see what happens.

Kingdom Come is a story-driven SP only game with replayability close to 0 compared to any M&B title.

And Mordhau is an MP exclusive, and those ML numbers are higher than re current bannerlord MP by several times.

Bannerlord having what neither of those two games have, BOTH the SP and the MP, and the SP having one of the best replayability value, means that the very low numbers represent the frustration of players in many areas of the game.

And these are reasonable observations, but you can't objectively say that that plot proves that Bannerlord is doing badly in terms of number of players unless you compare it to the same plot for a similar game. You can say it, but it's a gut feeling that might or might not be correct. Note that I don't doubt that the MP numbers are plummeting, I just don't see a disproportionate collapse in the number of players overall.

I don't mean to be a pain about this, I just think that it happens too often that people jump to conclusions about something because they already have an opinion formed about it, while taking an objective look at the data would tell a different story (that we may or may not like). And I guess that I am a bit of a data freak.

Bring up a game that we can agree is a reasonable comparison to Bannerlord which did much better and I will be happy to be proven wrong.

I would also honestly be really curious to see how the number of players in MP has changed over time, but I guess that there is no way to see that.

As i said, now the company can take its time, as there is almost no playerbase to lose, only to gain from now on, and i hope for a change in communication style and feedback acceptance in terms of some design choices.

I do think you are right on this one. But I also think that it is the normal development of things for most games, people get bored and move on, and might come back for updates (if you look at Terraria's plot you can see the spikes whenever they did big patches, it's actually kind of cool).

 

[DainMorgot]

That is not true though. To answer this and the previous objection I prepared a very ugly, but I hope understandable, comparison of the population for Mordhau and Bannerlord. I squeezed Bannerlord's graphic to bring it to a comparable time scale and normalized so that the maximum values are comparable. Bannerlord is slightly above Mordhau.

Mordhau's multiplayer player count is higher than bannerlord's by about 20 times. Will you honestly compare both SP+MP vs an MP game? lol

 

[eddiemccandless]

Mordhau's multiplayer player count is higher than bannerlord's by about 20 times. Will you honestly compare both SP+MP vs an MP game? lol

To adress the OP:
About the MP dying-its unfortunately partially true. I say partially, because not just the MP, but even more unfortunate, the SP numbers as well, the trend is downwards, freefall style.

There is no longer the need of claiming to be a "majority", or someone else being a "minority", the numbers say it all, if the game is enjoyable or not in its current state, and if the players even have faith it will imporove in the future, in the name of those who don't bother posting on forums:

隐藏: Downloaded from Bannerlord Steam Statistics

Seeing this makes me sad...

^ I was answering this, I am not the one who brought up SP

 

[Piconi]

It is all debatable, thats a given, but the fact is that in 2 months the player base is at 10% of initial numbers, additionaly, i must admit that the biggest upset to me is that i expected higher initial numbers, being an uncorrupted optimist, and MUCH higher sustainable average numbers after a couple of months, so i leave the possibility that its all in my head (even though i doubt it).

But after all the things happening in the MP Beta period, and many questionable SP design choices as well (positive and negative alike) i can't say i'm surprised the numbers are plummeting honestly.

I would like everybody to not be satisfied with such low numbers, as this game has an enormous potential, being a sequel to the franchise that has some serious borderline cult following.

 

[Tacostrom]

I agree with Piconi. The devs definitely care about the game and it's disingenuous to suggest otherwise. Unfortunately with these situations we have no idea what is going on inside the company and most likely decisions are not actually made by developers themselves but by management. As Piconi said, player count is low now, they have plenty of time to work on things.

 

[Zoonanay]

Fair enough, that means that we must normalize the plots by the maximum number of players. Bannerlord still has a better or comparable decline with respect to the other two games (see below).



That is not true though. To answer this and the previous objection I prepared a very ugly, but I hope understandable, comparison of the population for Mordhau and Bannerlord. I squeezed Bannerlord's graphic to bring it to a comparable time scale and normalized so that the maximum values are comparable. Bannerlord is slightly above Mordhau.

隐藏

Fair point, but @Piconi was talking about both MP and SP in that post. That's why I brought both KCD and Mordhau up, I can't really think of another game that is close to Bannerlord in genre and scope except for Warband, but Warband never had big numbers. If it helps, Terraria also has worse numbers than Bannerlord and a similar curve, and as far as I know it is considered a very successful game. If you want to suggest similar games that did better than Bannerlord I would be glad to look at the data and see what happens.



And these are reasonable observations, but you can't objectively say that that plot proves that Bannerlord is doing badly in terms of number of players unless you compare it to the same plot for a similar game. You can say it, but it's a gut feeling that might or might not be correct. Note that I don't doubt that the MP numbers are plummeting, I just don't see a disproportionate collapse in the number of players overall.

I don't mean to be a pain about this, I just think that it happens too often that people jump to conclusions about something because they already have an opinion formed about it, while taking an objective look at the data would tell a different story (that we may or may not like). And I guess that I am a bit of a data freak.

Bring up a game that we can agree is a reasonable comparison to Bannerlord which did much better and I will be happy to be proven wrong.

I would also honestly be really curious to see how the number of players in MP has changed over time, but I guess that there is no way to see that.



I do think you are right on this one. But I also think that it is the normal development of things for most games, people get bored and move on, and might come back for updates (if you look at Terraria's plot you can see the spikes whenever they did big patches, it's actually kind of cool).

April 29 Mordhau has 60000 players, by May 27 it's 33835.

April 4 Bannerlord has 250000 players, by April 27 81987.

It's also worth noting Mordhau didn't fall below 15% of its original numbers for 4 months, whilst it took Bannerlord 2 months to fall to 10% of its original.

Mount and Blade is in a niche genre, you've got Mordhau, Chivalry, War of the Roses back in the day, but as a genre it is particularly small especially for MP. There aren't going to many comparable statistics, and if there are the digital world moves quickly and back-testing beyond 5 years probably won't be relevant anymore.

I can tell you that a 8% retention rate after 2 months, is no bueno for a slow-pace game development project. If it were AAA this wouldn't even be a conversation, they'd be working on Bannerlord 2: Gimme Money already and be calling 5m sales a win. But if you've invested 8 years+ development, 8 years of your life, I'd hope for a better player retention than that.

Sometime in 2021 Bannerlord might be in a enjoyable state, but it's already missed launch potential. We can all call it EA, but in reality we know 5m were sold because it was effectively Bannerlord's Launch. I have a feeling the Full Release may not get the numbers originally hoped for.

 

[Biyonik]

April 29 Mordhau has 60000 players, by May 27 it's 33835.

April 4 Bannerlord has 250000 players, by April 27 81987.

It's also worth noting Mordhau didn't fall below 15% of its original numbers for 4 months, whilst it took Bannerlord 2 months to fall to 10% of its original.

Mount and Blade is in a niche genre, you've got Mordhau, Chivalry, War of the Roses back in the day, but as a genre it is particularly small especially for MP. There aren't going to many comparable statistics, and if there are the digital world moves quickly and back-testing beyond 5 years probably won't be relevant anymore.

I can tell you that a 8% retention rate after 2 months, is no bueno for a slow-pace game development project. If it were AAA this wouldn't even be a conversation, they'd be working on Bannerlord 2: Gimme Money already and be calling 5m sales a win. But if you've invested 8 years+ development, 8 years of your life, I'd hope for a better player retention than that.

Sometime in 2021 Bannerlord might be in a enjoyable state, but it's already missed launch potential. We can all call it EA, but in reality we know 5m were sold because it was effectively Bannerlord's Launch. I have a feeling the Full Release may not get the numbers originally hoped for.

I doubt it will get much better judging from their stances from the class system discussion

 

[WhiteEyedSh4rk]

We can all call it EA, but in reality we know 5m were sold because it was effectively Bannerlord's Launch. I have a feeling the Full Release may not get the numbers originally hoped for.

I would call it open beta. We all thought of ea release as Bannerlords launch, but seeing the state in which it still is, you just can't call it a ready game. The full release will be less huge, but I think more stable. People will be more cautious this time, but when TW actually manages to make it a ready game til then, the player numbers will be higher and stay that way, I'm sure.

 

[MArdA TaleWorlds]

Even though we can't disclose how much we sold the game, the 5 million figure is false information. I don't know how Steamspy gets that data but that is not the case.

 

[Maximuuus]

Even though we can't disclose how much we sold the game, the 5 million figure is false information. I don't know how Steamspy gets that data but that is not the case.

That's probably the answer everyone waited from TW on this topics

 

[Zoonanay]

Even though we can't disclose how much we sold the game, the 5 million figure is false information. I don't know how Steamspy gets that data but that is not the case.

Ah, thankyou for the clarification. Steamspy can be dubious.

I would call it oben beta. We all thought of ea release as Bannerlords launch, but seeing the state in which it still is, you just can't call it a ready game. The full release will be less huge, but I think more stable. People will be more cautious this time, but when TW actually manages to make it a ready game til then, the player numbers will be higher and stay that way, I'm sure.

Agreed, gameplay has a ways to go no matter your opinion on its degree of readiness.

As you say, stability will be a major factor in the full release, without it modders will struggle and newer players may be driven away from server crashes as I imagine many were on EA release.

If it is stable though, and assorted balancing/design issues have come to a compromise between TW Design and Community Design, then a steady growth is likely possible similar to Rainbow Six Siege's. However, it does seem a missed opportunity to get a head start on that growth, instead of cultivating 15k dedicated players it could've been 30k, even 45k from base.

Alas, the opportunity has passed and the path has been chosen, as long as TW stays the course there'll be a good SP anyway, from that the MP community could grow and thrive in time with mods and regular patches.

 

[method man]

Even though we can't disclose how much we sold the game, the 5 million figure is false information. I don't know how Steamspy gets that data but that is not the case.

Thank you for responding to the community's most pressing complaint. Me and all my clanmates were very anxious to know the sales figures, as this was what bothered us most about this game. 10/10 communication, you love to see it.