Do you Think Bannerlord Will be More 'Feature Complete' than Warband was When it Leaves EA?

[stevepine]

So I came to Mount and Blade relatively recently through a friend who was a total addict... and in the end convinced me to give Warband or Viking Conquest a try.

In the end, I tried both and after initial scepticism, got hooked.

So I'm not super 'old guard' .... but have been playing for a few years. So, for those of you who have been playing M+B since you were suckling on your mother's teet lol... what do you think? - Do you think Bannerlord will have more features than Warband did on launch?

Genuinely curious to ask.

 

[danEN]

Native Warband was extremely barebones to me, if Bannerlord can't improve on that then the game is a joke.

 

[stevepine]

Native Warband was extremely barebones to me, if Bannerlord can't improve on that then the game is a joke.

Yeah, That's what I heard from some others. In a way, it gives me hope for the game.

I'm concerned about the hard-coding of Bannerlord though.... making mods limited (as revealed by that overhaul letter recently posted on the forums).That will really kill the future of Bannerlord, if kept in place.

 

[lukkyb]

the thing is i think people forget how bare warband was without mods like diplo and Floris since when was the last time you did a full vanilla run

 

[Mad Vader]

Wait, Warband had missing features? Maybe it lacked diplomacy and better formation AI, but otherwise it was not too lacking in features. The bigger problem was that many of the existing features were crude (compared to mods at least).
Interestingly enough, Bannerlord also lacks diplomacy and good formation AI. Lessons were not learned.

 

[Poddicus]

Got the original Mount & Blade in 2010, Warband shortly afterwards.

Even if native Warband singleplayer didn't have as much as people would like, it had enough be entertaining and its modability fueled its lifespan for years and still does.

Bannerlord is completely barebones in comparison, just by getting to the mid game where you're done with hunting looters its so empty, there's nothing to do other than fight AI lords and that's about it. The innovation that Warband did have like lorebooks to increase stats, courting, etc, its all gone.

Going off of what Taleworlds has as a "vision" I seriously doubt Bannerlord will match Warband in terms of actual content when it releases.
Callum said himself Bannerlord has pretty much everything Warband does but we know that's not true, not to mention the fact that half of Bannerlord's "features" don't even work.

Spoiler

Siege AI

Where's the version of the game shown to us at demonstrations, PC Gamer etc, the one that actually had stuff in it like you know, dialogue, more than just "Hello. Goodbye."

 

[ShakenSpeare]

Been playing since 2013, Warband quickly became my favorite game of all time. I played Native for a pretty long while before even trying any mods, and I still really enjoyed it at the time. It strangely felt more atmospheric and immersive to me than Bannerlord did.

At the very least a sequel should be the same game, but with some new features and improvements. Bannerlord takes some steps forward but takes other steps backward, some of the steps backward costing the quality of the game dearly.

Not to mention all the missing little details and little features others have mentioned, that each on their own doesn't necessarily impact the game that much gameplay-wise, but they add up and thus add to the game, a lot more than I would have thought before.

It just puzzles me how some of these features and mechanics in Warband were so basic and barebones, and somehow, someway, Bannerlord made them worse! That's not even including the ones that are missing. Quests are my favorite example. How could you make Bannerlord quests worse than Warband? Just... how?

 

[Bertman1942]

So I came to Mount and Blade relatively recently through a friend who was a total addict... and in the end convinced me to give Warband or Viking Conquest a try.

In the end, I tried both and after initial scepticism, got hooked.

So I'm not super 'old guard' .... but have been playing for a few years. So, for those of you who have been playing M+B since you were suckling on your mother's teet lol... what do you think? - Do you think Bannerlord will have more features than Warband did on launch?

Genuinely curious to ask.

Well, I have my 8k Steam hours and have been playing since 2011 and for good reason, Warband was a standalone and fantastic game, a game you could have played all day with the thousand mods and game mods and I'm sure I can speak for any Warband veteran who just wants Bannerlord to be like Warband again where you had the best moments, and I know it will never be as good as it was back then but when I see things like EA, Ranked MP or Voice-chat I get sick.

 

[vonbalt]

Native M&B is barebones there is no denying it, warband improved a few things but never claimed to be M&B2 just an upgraded version.

My problem with Bannerlord is that it tries to be extremely deep in some things (economy) which is great but it's almost all under the hood while in other things much more visible to the players (dialogues, diplomacy, ai, immersion in general etc) it manages to be even more barebones than warband in certain places.

They should have taken warband as a base and built upon it, adding more, improving or overhauling existing features instead of axing them if they can't fit it into a boring button.

After the wonderful Viking Conquest DLC that focused heavy on immersion and QoL features i was sure they would follow that route but unfortunately i was wrong, from multiplayer to singleplayer in general there a more misses than hits from TW with what the community expected from the game.

Now about the thread's question, i'm not sure but do hope they will listen to the community and improve Bannerlord more until the end of EA, some things it does great but many others are very underwhelming, time will tell.

 

[stevepine]

Native M&B is barebones there is no denying it, warband improved a few things but never claimed to be M&B2 just an upgraded version.

My problem with Bannerlord is that it tries to be extremely deep in some things (economy) which is great but it's almost all under the hood while in other things much more visible to the players (dialogues, diplomacy, ai, immersion in general etc) it manages to be even more barebones than warband in certain places.

They should have taken warband as a base and built upon it, adding more, improving or overhauling existing features instead of axing them if they can't fit it into a boring button.

After the wonderful Viking Conquest DLC that focused heavy on immersion and QoL features i was sure they would follow that route but unfortunately i was wrong, from multiplayer to singleplayer in general there a more misses than hits from TW with what the community expected from the game.

Now about the thread's question, i'm not sure but do hope they will listen to the community and improve Bannerlord more until the end of EA, some things it does great but many others are very underwhelming, time will tell.

Yeah, I agree with everything in your post. Thanks for the reply.

I'm just a bit worried with the 'hard coding' of parts of bannerlord - Mods can and should save the game - but Taleworlds need to let that happen.

 

[Highest of all Landers]

I get conflicting messages from Bannerlord. On one hand we have a feature to continue playing as an heir, which would indicate that the plan was for us to spend a lot of time on a single save, but on the other hand, it looks like no effort was really put in on anything past early game, I end up abandoning saves before getting to experience the heir feature as I get bored by fighting AI lords over and over again.

It would give me some peace of mind if they said they planned to focus development on adding stuff for early, then mid and then work on late game activities.

As for feature complete, we have no way of knowing what TaleWorlds considers feature complete, we only get a list for what they will work on during this cycle (Statement for Single Player thread).

Yeah, I agree with everything in your post. Thanks for the reply.

I'm just a bit worried with the 'hard coding' of parts of bannerlord - Mods can and should save the game - but Taleworlds need to let that happen.

On the hard code complaint, there is some stuff that it would be nice to have a proper way of doing, instead of finding a work around, like custom skeletons for races other than human and there is poorly written code and parts of code that aren't easily accessible, but it does not make modding impossible, it just requires a lot more work and the bigger the changes the more fragile they are to changes in code.

As an example of what I meant, some time ago I was looking into replacing troops equipment and I found out that copying the entry that defined a soldier and changing its equipment wasn't enough, it wouldn't prevent the previous equipment from being loaded and it would mix both my changes and the default. If I wanted only my version to be considered, I would have to find where it was being loaded and rewrite that part of the code to clear the equipment list before adding mine. It worked but rewriting it was annoying because there was plenty of poorly written code (like variables with undescriptive names such as flag1, flag2, node1, node2) and I had to make sure it was working exactly as the original plus + changes. One or two patches later they changed the format and code for equipment and I would have to do the same thing over again.

 

[stevepine]

I get conflicting messages from Bannerlord. On one hand we have a feature to continue playing as an heir, which would indicate that the plan was for us to spend a lot of time on a single save, but on the other hand, it looks like no effort was really put in on anything past early game, I end up abandoning saves before getting to experience the heir feature as I get bored by fighting AI lords over and over again.

It would give me some peace of mind if they said they planned to focus development on adding stuff for early, then mid and then work on late game activities.

As for feature complete, we have no way of knowing what TaleWorlds considers feature complete, we only get a list for what they will work on during this cycle (Statement for Single Player thread).



On the hard code complaint, there is some stuff that it would be nice to have a proper way of doing, instead of finding a work around, like custom skeletons for races other than human and there is poorly written code and parts of code that aren't easily accessible, but it does not make modding impossible, it just requires a lot more work and the bigger the changes the more fragile they are to changes in code.

As an example of what I meant, some time ago I was looking into replacing troops equipment and I found out that copying the entry that defined a soldier and changing its equipment wasn't enough, it wouldn't prevent the previous equipment from being loaded and it would mix both my changes and the default. If I wanted only my version to be considered, I would have to find where it was being loaded and rewrite that part of the code to clear the equipment list before adding mine. It worked but rewriting it was annoying because there was plenty of poorly written code (like variables with undescriptive names such as flag1, flag2, node1, node2) and I had to make sure it was working exactly as the original plus + changes. One or two patches later they changed the format and code for equipment and I would have to do the same thing over again.

Did the changed / reformatted code format in the end still have undescriptive variables? or is it better now? (A better quality of code I mean)

 

[Highest of all Landers]

Did the changed / reformatted code format in the end still have undescriptive variables? or is it better now? (A better quality of code I mean)

Haven't checked, I didn't want to go over my changes again after another patch, and I thought it was time for a break, so I uninstalled the game.

It is also worth saying that poor quality doesn't necessarily mean incompetence, it may simply be inexperience. The variable names I mentioned is something you usually see on code written by people that are just starting with programming, the awareness to write your code for people other than you to understand comes with time and mentoring.

 

[Magello]

I started in 2011 and it really feels similar to me feature wise. They are both bare bones but the difference is mount and blade and then warbands features worked better together. I played through so many times and it was fun and exciting start to finish. Bannerlord just doesn't seem to flow. The beginning is fun but that is only the first couple hours

 

[eddiemccandless]

To me the main difference is that Warband was built on a solid foundation of good core gameplay. Bannerlord simply isn't.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Lets do a break downs
Char development: Warband: Concise, straightforward and dependable, BAnnerlord: Cluster**** of punishing opaque mechanics more suitable for a ****y MMO I don't wanna play,

Diplomacy: WB : Barebones but functional, Bannerlord: both too complex and too stupid at once for the player to comprehend. WAR WAR WAR,,,cuz WAR

Companions: WB Custom characters with relation circle kind of fun many easy to build custom, BL Randomized randos, dice roll on if there stats will let them level in a timely manner or not.... needs a lot of work IMO....

Fief vassal: WB: Be king's friend take fief get fief 90% of the time. BL: ???????? proximity helps and a buncha dum crap you can't control....

Fief King: WB you the last say always, have tax punishment to encourage sharing, BL: You get no say ever and also unlimited taxes..... bouquet... so there's no reason to share but the game makes you share...whatever

Getting Vassals: WB: Easy to get crappy vassals, long con to get loyal one's, BL: They want money money money and for you to be unrealistically large in power, so much so that you don't actually need vassals.

Vassal Control: King makes war and peace, limited control over vassal parties, BL: Vassals make war and peace ruler has no control over anything.....

Going Mad dog (early ruler) WB: are you a bad enough dude to fight everyone on the map (yes)? BL: If you don't press the make kingdom button nobody cares about you and you make war a peace at you leisure as long as you have the funds... I actually like this as it adds to more gameplay option and a healthier long game, BL gets this one!

Raids: WB: Significant $$$ for time spent, BL: Just waste you time to lose relations, would get more $$$ fighting looters....

Prison Break: WB: Use own gear, fight outside scene, can tell prisoner to stay safe, BL: Use crappy civ gear, fight in tight corridors and can't control prisoner, get a permanent +1 wounded (-1 deployment) every time you fail, yes it's a bug but it's still in the game.

Tournament: WB Great money decent challenge, can control team, BL less money, less challenge but can't control team so......

Siege: WB: Sacrifice lots of infantry or just park Xbows in front of walls and laugh, BL Sacrifice lots of infantry or just park Xbows in front of walls and laugh OR retreat party and murder the 500 worthless bots with your character! I kinda got give this one to BL, killing the entire town solo is hella fun! Gives me those goldeneye 64 feels sneaking around the walls sniping em down

Shops: WB dependable passive income forever , BL comparably much less income, much less stability and must be very picky about which ne to make, shops get lost do to wars and changing faction identity.

Marriage: WB: male: win tourney a couple times DONE, Female do you want ? and have ?? BL: BOTH Most annoying dialogue game ever I hate it so much, I've done it 50+ times by now, it needs to GTFO of the game!
Recruitment: WB Gain relation with village get more and better troops BL: Gain relation with 1 of 2-4 npcs for better and more troops

BL Only stuff
Caravan's: They get killed by looter all the ****ing time now...... also companions are better as emissary or governors IMO
Childs: WIP still? It's okay I like this feature, NPC skill training in general needs a lot of improvement though.
Pillaging: oh.. I can get a worthless amount of money and **** in my own face, OR lose 15 morale...... yeah finally a quality feature!
Emissary: Yeah it works you can build up a lot of good relations over time passively, it's good THIS ONE IS GOOD! Now, add it to villages too !
Board Games: It's cool, I think we could use a bit more +relation for doing it though as it is time consuming. I mean I'd rather they were Chess but still it's cool.
Governors: I like it, it's cool min/maxing for benefits, I do again think NPC skill gaining need some help though...actually lots of help
Rebellions: Calradia house flipper here I come! I love it! The more the better! Delivering hoes to gang leaders and hoarding food all over the map I become the evil business man gobbling up cheap real-estate all over the map and not sharing!
Executions: I like having the option, of course it's bad for a long game and makes a short game very very short

 

[jak1up]

I hope it is...

 

[Aurex]

So I came to Mount and Blade relatively recently through a friend who was a total addict... and in the end convinced me to give Warband or Viking Conquest a try.

In the end, I tried both and after initial scepticism, got hooked.

So I'm not super 'old guard' .... but have been playing for a few years. So, for those of you who have been playing M+B since you were suckling on your mother's teet lol... what do you think? - Do you think Bannerlord will have more features than Warband did on launch?

Genuinely curious to ask.

Take this from someone who's played the first Mount and Blade with the first lord of the rings mod for something like 500 hours, then Warband for 2000 and Prophesy of Pendor (magnificent mod) for other 2000, plus 500 hours of multiplayer and at least other 1000 in Napoleonic Wars.
They were all messy, glitchy but absurdly enjoyable experiences. Even fire and sword had a charm that Bannerlord is sorely lacking.

Technically, I would answer this to your question: yes. Bannerlord will *technically* have more features than Warband on release date. But the issue here is, will the features make any sense, work properly or add anything enjoyable to the game? In that case, my blackpilled answer would be: "most certainly not."

Sorry to be the doomer of the situation, but I've followed the whole thing closely and the developer are either badly organized, not willing to finish what they started (and deliver what they promised) or... well. Lacking enough talent or ability to make anything better than Warband, which was already limited but charming, since it worked WITH those limitations, not against them.

 

[flashn00b]

Something tells me that this game will be in Early Access forever, not gonna lie.

 

[NamingIsHard]

Played since about 2006(can't remember exactly, may be 2005 or 2007, at ending of my primary school), when playthrough started at Zendar. That very first version I have ever played is very bareboned, but Warband later is "feature complete" from my perspective. But for Bannerlord, it is mainly graphic and battlesize improvement, when you are talking about features, almost all newly-added features,compared to Warband, are incomplete.