Endgame is boring and really kills all the fun...

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

You do you

Enjoy your stay then! Don't let forumites' pessimistic view of the game (mine included) ruin it for you, Reddit is probably more relevant when it comes to actually enjoying Bannerlord

Well, now I'm in that boat I can't say it's something I was looking forward to, oh well!

I'm old enough where that doesn't happen anymore lol, it's a lot easier to try getting me to like something I dislike than the other way around!

But I'd rather hang out here since I prefer traditional-style forums and find Reddit rather intimidating. . Besides, I dared to toe the waters and I'm happy to see it's been going rather well for me around here so far, and I hope it only better from here. To be frank, it's probably a better hang out if people are free to disagree (even frequently and excessively) than if people are peer-pressured into a happy face; it means when folks are more enthusiastic they really mean it and it probably helps the developers figure out how to make the game better overall through frank honesty.

Still though, I won't admonish people who are less than pleased since I've been in your boat before and I know what it's like. I'm lucky to be in the fortunate side of things for once, so I can only wish you and others the best in finding fun however you can and wish you a better mood either with this game in the future, the next game down the line, or what-have-you.

 

[Calabanar]

Thank you, your reasoned enthusiasm is very much welcome!

You seem to be off to a good start so you've got this going for you, do be wary that because of the very negative vision most veterans hold of the game on this forum there tends to be a sort of peer pressure on those who do enjoy it. If that's fine with you, which seems to be the case, I can only wish you the best!

I for one probably wasted more time reading posts on this forum than playing the damn game

 

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

I appreciate your kind words!

Well, I suppose I'll have to see what happens lol, in any sufficiently crowded space you're bound to have unfortunate encounters but this is the internet so it's very easy to selectively engage with people if needed and pick who I feel like talking to lol.

I hope you had more fun reading forum posts at least!

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Welp, how would you know if there's generational gameplay or not if you haven't tried it?

I would say there's no second generation game play because there's nothing for you do but wait in a town after you finish the map, which will happen long long before children turn 18. You could renounce you kingdom and star a new one and fight you old kingdom though, so there's one way you could have multi generational gameplay.

 

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

I would say there's no second generation game play because there's nothing for you do but wait in a town after you finish the map, which will happen long long before children turn 18. You could renounce you kingdom and star a new one and fight you old kingdom though, so there's one way you could have multi generational gameplay.

It took me 48 years to unite Calradia from 1084 lol, there was no need for me to dawdle. I know you're very good though so I'm not surprised you could unite Calradia in less than 20 years, but a newbie like me ain't gonna replicate that level of effectiveness without putting in at least another few hundred hours lol. And, well, hopefully I'm never that good because the organic nature of my playthrough is a big reason why I enjoyed it so much.

It could be interesting to try conquering my own kingdom like that though, since it'd probably be extremely difficult for me to do given the state I left in as of 1132...

 

[five bucks]

I would say there's no second generation game play because there's nothing for you do but wait in a town after you finish the map, which will happen long long before children turn 18. You could renounce you kingdom and star a new one and fight you old kingdom though, so there's one way you could have multi generational gameplay.

Generational gameplay will always be pointless unless

A - TW makes the game even grindier for the player (please do not do this, TW)
B - TW adds actual serious threats to the player after they have conquered the whole map; e.g. foreign invasions, internal civil wars started by the AI

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

A and B are the same thing.

 

[five bucks]

A and B are the same thing.

The distinguishing factor in my eyes would be that in scenario A, players who just want to be told "you win" have even longer to reach that point.

In scenario B, players conquer the whole world, they get told "you win", and then they have an optional objective which they can pursue afterwards (seeing how long your clan can survive keeping control of Calradia) which does not in any way detriment the gameplay experience of people who just wanted to get to the "you win" screen.

For a similar concept in another game see Dark Souls' New Game Plus

I also consider grind to be any activity in a game which is time consuming but not challenging; so I wouldn't describe challenging, credible threats to the player as "grind". To me, killing 900 looter parties who are easily beaten but massively time consuming is grind, but having to face a large civil war which are difficult to beat every few years for as long as you can isn't grind but "survival mode". But considering it's a colloquialism with no hard definition, I'm happy to agree that someone else would consider it grind by their definition.

 

[JunKeteer]

The distinguishing factor in my eyes would be that in scenario A, players who just want to be told "you win" have even longer to reach that point.

The issue with the base game is where/when that 'you win' happens as it's completely different for everyone (assuming sandbox). I never considered owning the whole map as 'winning', for me, it's when I get bored or when the game has no more to offer in terms of challenges. Which happens to be right around owning just a few towns, stats/gear maxed out, kids coming of age (~20-25 years); putting the mundane hours of owning the rest of the map isn't that interesting/engaging for me.

In scenario B, players conquer the whole world, they get told "you win", and then they have an optional objective which they can pursue afterwards (seeing how long your clan can survive keeping control of Calradia) which does not in any way detriment the gameplay experience of people who just wanted to get to the "you win" screen.

For a similar concept in another game see Dark Souls' New Game Plus

I also consider grind to be any activity in a game which is time consuming but not challenging; so I wouldn't describe challenging, credible threats to the player as "grind". To me, killing 900 looter parties who are easily beaten but massively time consuming is grind, but having to face a large civil war which are difficult to beat every few years for as long as you can isn't grind but "survival mode". But considering it's a colloquialism with no hard definition, I'm happy to agree that someone else would consider it grind by their definition.

Exactly, owning the whole map is what I consider 'grindy'; that should be what is the NG+ (or '100% achievement hunting'); but at the same time, in BL, there's no challenge to it as a NG+. AI/kingdoms react (or don't) the same whether you defeat one of the kingdoms or own half the map or anything else.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

To add to that, I've never seen civil wars done well in a strategy game. Like lategame invasions they basically amount to spawning or flipping a bunch of armies in your territory that are armed the exact same way as your own. They don't change the way you play, it's just more of the same. These mechanics don't make the lategame better, they just extend it. It's no different to having your save corrupted and having to roll back several hours.

When the game has no more tricks up it sleeve it should end. Continuing beyond that in service of the generational feature is going to harm the rest of the game.

 

[froggyluv]

To add to that, I've never seen civil wars done well in a strategy game. Like lategame invasions they basically amount to spawning or flipping a bunch of armies in your territory that are armed the exact same way as your own. They don't change the way you play, it's just more of the same. These mechanics don't make the lategame better, they just extend it. It's no different to having your save corrupted and having to roll back several hours.

When the game has no more tricks up it sleeve it should end. Continuing beyond that in service of the generational feature is going to harm the rest of the game.

Id have to agree on this -its generally pretty annoying to see half your hard worked perk elevayted troops just turn on you in a way thats hard to control. Always bugged me in Total War, havent experienced it in CK3 yet as i havent played deep enough into it but I do like the many way you can win back favor with Lords prone to treachery.

End game is always gonnabe hard to satisfy - id say the more invested you are into some aspect of the game -gaining some type of hard to achieve Glory (not a steam achievement), somehow being recognized in a unique way within the game maybe some sort of historical record or infamy I guess would be an attribute. Again ive never played even Mid game Bannerlord as i just cant make myself do it if nothing interesting awaits there and gauging by players with similar outlooks as me -that seems to be the case. Although the added cutscenes for events was a nice change.

 

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

The issue with the base game is where/when that 'you win' happens as it's completely different for everyone (assuming sandbox). I never considered owning the whole map as 'winning', for me, it's when I get bored or when the game has no more to offer in terms of challenges. Which happens to be right around owning just a few towns, stats/gear maxed out, kids coming of age (~20-25 years); putting the mundane hours of owning the rest of the map isn't that interesting/engaging for me.

Exactly, owning the whole map is what I consider 'grindy'; that should be what is the NG+ (or '100% achievement hunting'); but at the same time, in BL, there's no challenge to it as a NG+. AI/kingdoms react (or don't) the same whether you defeat one of the kingdoms or own half the map or anything else.

Having done a unification playthrough as my first and concluded it a few weeks ago, I can confirm that the A.I. factions absolutely change how they treat you after you've expanded to a certain degree. I don't know if it's a hard number or a range (or a relative disparity) but once I owned roughly a quarter of the map (or about 3 default-sized factions in size) and was the strongest faction, every neighboring kingdom declared war on me if they weren't already and peaces from then on only lasted like a week or two before a new war declaration by them. They still did fight amongst each other (well...) but only one far-away pair of tiny factions did; otherwise they basically formed a coalition against me until the very end. It was extremely difficult to make any kind of lasting gains until I decided to ignore defending my far eastern territories (Danustica, Husn Fulq, etc.) in favor of unifying the west (Vlandia), and that was essentially a race against a ticking clock because taking too long meant losing more territories I wasn't defending. It was still challenging once I secured the corner, but it certain did get easier from roughly the halfway point onwards since it was just a matter of pushing easy along a few directions and my A.I. vassals could take care of the center and reliably push eastward (though at a slow rate because they seldom care to staff soldiers in fiefs they take over when the player's the monarch lol).

Owning a few cities or ruling a kingdom equal in size to roughly any of the 8 factions' default positions was when I had a peaceful lull and only a war lasting 1-2 seasons maybe every 2 years and that's when I wasn't declaring wars on my end. Note: my country was based in the Nahasa Desert so it's probably very different if you're in the center of the continent, but some corner or another is likely much safer and easier.

In general, in the strategy games I've played, it's usually the beginning or the first third or so that's most interesting because as you become more powerful, less can threaten you and the level of danger diminishes considerably over time. I don't think this problem can be avoided without basically dropping random nuclear bombs to prolong the back half of the game since it's really a numbers game as to why it gets easier when you get bigger and stronger while everybody else gets smaller and weaker.

 

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

Id have to agree on this -its generally pretty annoying to see half your hard worked perk elevayted troops just turn on you in a way thats hard to control. Always bugged me in Total War, havent experienced it in CK3 yet as i havent played deep enough into it but I do like the many way you can win back favor with Lords prone to treachery.

End game is always gonnabe hard to satisfy - id say the more invested you are into some aspect of the game -gaining some type of hard to achieve Glory (not a steam achievement), somehow being recognized in a unique way within the game maybe some sort of historical record or infamy I guess would be an attribute. Again ive never played even Mid game Bannerlord as i just cant make myself do it if nothing interesting awaits there and gauging by players with similar outlooks as me -that seems to be the case. Although the added cutscenes for events was a nice change.

The game does ramp up in difficulty once you own roughly a quarter of the map; everybody who neighbors you fears your expansionism and clear intents to unify the world so they declare war on you and mostly stop fighting each other to concentrate on you. It certainly gets easier again once you secure a defensible half of the world though, but at that point the thing that was really dragging out my playthrough were the horrible crashes that happened 25% of the time during sieges and the 5 minutes it takes to reload the game and continue...

Unfortunately, there's no unification cutscene to honor the war dead and solemnly celebrate the newfound peace or anything like that, so I just made my own fun with that by perusing the Encyclopedia and looking over all the familiar and important names to some appropriate music lol.

I think some toggle-able difficulty ramps (like, once you own half the world, the second largest faction has an event where they absorb everybody else to counteract you) might extend the difficulty of the game and may be worth considering, but I also think it's inevitable you reach the point where it gradually ceases to be challenging because victory is inevitable just because that's how strategy games are from the ones I've played all my life. It's always a matter of a when, not if. Bannerlord's a long game so the clean up phase is/can be annoyingly long rather than just an hour or two, but if all the crashes were cleaned up then I probably could have ended that phase in a few hours instead of several days...

 

[five bucks]

They don't change the way you play, it's just more of the same.

NG+ in Dark Souls is also more of the same, just with higher stats. Should it not have existed? Should any "endless" optional mode in any video game ever not exist?

If the challenge is high enough to keep the player engaged - fighting half of your realm or more is a pretty solid challenge -, then "more of the same" as post game content is fine.

It's no different to having your save corrupted and having to roll back several hours.

The difference is you're using your heirs and extended clan members geared up and leveled up, roleplaying as an enduring dynasty, while you're waiting for the civil war or invasion to occur you're strategically building all of Calradia to resist where the threat might originate, and you're fighting increasingly more difficult challenges originating in different parts of the map.

Rather than losing everything the player has worked to gain since then in a save rollback, you're still keeping your clan members and their stats you've built up, your armour and banners and weapons and inventory, your fief upgrades, your policies, and probably half of your nobility and their owned fiefs.

Also it doesn't break immersion like a save rollback would. Instead, it fits nicely with the story. Your clan has conquered Calradia, now how long can you hold it together?

When the game has no more tricks up it sleeve it should end. Continuing beyond that in service of the generational feature is going to harm the rest of the game.

As already said:

"In scenario B, players conquer the whole world, they get told "you win", and then they have an optional objective which they can pursue afterwards which does not in any way detriment the gameplay experience of people who just wanted to get to the "you win" screen."

If you think the game should end at the you win screen - a perspective I totally get - that's fine. You are totally capable of stopping playing when you win. Doesn't mean other people shouldn't have an option because you personally don't like the concept.

 

[oświecony]

Link

As I wrote here. It should be possible to start your own faction from beginning. By choosing the original scenario (as in cyberpunk) we are a slave and we rebel with the rest of the slaves and then establish our own settlements. Be tides on starks to claradi and a great storm destroys most of the ships and instead of invading they have to settle next to another faction. The place where the settlement would be established would involve taking over some of the traditions and armament of military units. Building could look like our main character grows up (here we create our family and even future wife) Who wouldn't want to be able to create their story in a more tangible way besides modders? Of course, some limiter in points so as not to create who knows what

It may not be a late game, but it would certainly give more options at the end.

 

[Cullam]

I would say there's no second generation game play because there's nothing for you do but wait in a town after you finish the map, which will happen long long before children turn 18. You could renounce you kingdom and star a new one and fight you old kingdom though, so there's one way you could have multi generational gameplay.

This!

 

[vito397]

The thing about Mount and Blade is that Ive never looked a it as a map-painting game such as the ones youve been mentioning. It was never like Total War or in a way CK. For me the best aspect of Mount and Blade is creating and "living" your character and maneuvering through the war torn lands. Thats why I think civil wars and seccessions, aka emergent factions, would be good, like in the diplomacy mod. If you fail to make a kingdom, and you survive, you wait for opportune moments of strife and disorder to begin anew without starting a new playthrough. Maybe swear yourself as a mercenary to a lord in a war of independence or become a vassal of a new usurper. Now that would make generational playing possible. If you wait long enough in vanilla one faction will become so dominant that it is impossible to create your own kingdom anytime later than 1110. But maybe I should stay playing Diplomacy, if this style isnt for everyones taste.

 

[Reiksmarshal]

I agree there comes a certain tipping point that nothing is challenging, your kingdom just steamrolls the other factions to the point it is laughable. There needs to be a late game challenge, kind of like what Medieval 2 had with the Mongol invasion (epic gaming times). I would love to see a powerful Nord invasion like what happened in and is supported in lore with Gundig's invasion. This is something that could really change the dynamics of the player being comfy and having to worry about large Nord invasions and fleets wrecking havoc with port cities. There is not a more terrifying enemy that can be added to the game.

This would be a good time to being on the very requested feature of naval combat and travel with lots of great features like the following:

-Ship travel around the map
-Ship ownership (Warships, merchant ships, etc)
-Naval combat
-Port amphibious attacks from warships
-Merchant fleets and ship trading via ports
-Piracy and ship raiding
-New factions like the Merchants guild, Nords, and various pirate rebels like Cilician pirates and Corsairs

Also there needs to be an Imperial capital that is fortified like Constantinople and it would be the mother of all siege battle challenges. It would be the hardest settlement to capture and would be requisite to gain the tile of Emperor or something. You would have to bring your very best as the muderholes and choke points would be brutal. Where you have to cross a bridge under very well placed defenses kind of like in the image below.

 

[JunKeteer]

The thing about Mount and Blade is that Ive never looked a it as a map-painting game such as the ones youve been mentioning. It was never like Total War or in a way CK. For me the best aspect of Mount and Blade is creating and "living" your character and maneuvering through the war torn lands. Thats why I think civil wars and seccessions, aka emergent factions, would be good, like in the diplomacy mod. If you fail to make a kingdom, and you survive, you wait for opportune moments of strife and disorder to begin anew without starting a new playthrough. Maybe swear yourself as a mercenary to a lord in a war of independence or become a vassal of a new usurper. Now that would make generational playing possible. If you wait long enough in vanilla one faction will become so dominant that it is impossible to create your own kingdom anytime later than 1110. But maybe I should stay playing Diplomacy, if this style isnt for everyones taste.

It never was nor could be the same as TW or CK series with 'world domination'; those games had that specifically in their mind and the systems/features designed around it and the particularly challenges that come from overexpanding/extending and any politics involved (crucial).

BL doesn't really have that, it's just take X town, get it above 25 loyalty (not too hard once you know the mechanics/'balance' scaling of it), then rinse&repeat. There's barely any consequences, no real chance of losing, no 'civil' wars/politics/strife, non-player kingdoms set in this perpetual 'sitting-on-fence' balance with the AI until the player intervenes (which is why it's so easy to tip the delicate 'balance'/be OP), etc...

Until the game gets any further depth/challenging encounters from ClanTier 1 to the permanent CT6, you'll play the fun first couple hours, get to the same 'boring/mundane' late game a majority here get to, join us here to complain/theorize, until new 'hopium' patch changes that or mods stabilize for better game complexity, rinse&repeat.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

There needs to be a late game challenge, kind of like what Medieval 2 had with the Mongol invasion

The Mongol invasions in medieval 2 were just annoying, it was cool the first time but they were just tedious to deal with in successive playthroughs because you couldn't go into asia to kill them off earlier, you had to sit and wait in Baghdad with a dozen stacks, fight a few grindy battles and they were gone. It was a very static way of handling something that could be a lot more interesting.

The previous game did them a lot better. In Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasion the nomads all started as playable factions on turn 1, and you could even go into Siberia to kill them on turn 5, but every faction strong enough to challenge them had more things to deal with at home. This meant that more interesting stuff could happen, like the Huns appearing in your enemy's land, or the goths wiping the Sarmatians out before either of them reach your borders, and the player could do a lot to affect that.

I definitely think the lategame challenge should be stuff that's already on the map from turn 1. Spawning more stuff in after the player's already wiped out the main challenge is just boring.