Feasts: The most beloved feature of Warband, let's discuss them.

[drivegol]

For anyone that has opened more than one thread on this forum, you may have noticed a lot of users complaining about the lack of feasts in Bannerlord, and how they would be a great addition to the game.

If we can give enough reasons as to why the lack of feasts is such a tragedy in Bannerlord, perhaps the devs will consider implementing them. After all, there's nothing too time consuming about implementing a mechanic where lords gather in a single town to, stand in the hallway for a few days and then, continue to stand in the hallway for a few days longer if they have nothing else to do.

So let's discuss our fond memories of the feasts in Warband, and how much joy we had in participating in them, how much it made the world feel alive, and why Bannerlord not having feasts is such a grand disservice that someone has to bring it up at least once a week.

 

[D0c1]

we regard Mount&Blade as a lord simulator.
lords being war machines and thinking only about battle smashes our regard.
lords used to do other things in warband beside war such as courting ladies, looking after their lands and, of course, feasting.
feasting was the most memorable so you hear about it all the time.
bannerlord requires at the very least an economic overhaul before implementing feasts because lords get money from battle loot and attending feasts will mean not battling so their coffers will dwindle and weaker kingdoms will be doomed. this is another aspect of our regard to it as a lord simulator.
and did i mention not liking courting ladies being rng based?
now, instead of building on warband being a lord simulator and expanding its features like adding hunting to feasts like the great hunting mod by artem or other things for lords to do, we got a battle simulator.
being able to access the feast and keep after winning a tournament was great.
we are disappointed.

 

[drivegol]

feasting was the most memorable so you hear about it all the time.

Please stay on topic.

Why were feasts so great. Explain.

 

[Julio-Claudian]

I don't understand when people say things like "Feasts weren't all that in Warband so why add them to Bannerlord?"... Naturally you'd expect that in a sequel features would be improved, expanded, built upon.

If nothing else feasts give a reason to actually enter the scene, something which there is no reason to do in vanilla other than playing the boardgames. It's about immersion, fleshing out the world. We're people playing the game not computers running a simulation.





How could this not be better than nothing?

 

[drivegol]

I don't understand when people say things like "Feasts weren't all that in Warband so why add them to Bannerlord?"... Naturally you'd expect that in a sequel features would be improved, expanded, built upon.

If nothing else feasts give a reason to actually enter the scene, something which there is no reason to do in vanilla other than playing the boardgames. It's about immersion, fleshing out the world. We're people playing the game not computers running a simulation.





How could this not be better than nothing?

You're right, I think implementing a feature like interactive feasts would provide interesting content for the game, and I do see a point in requesting that.

On the other hand, I also see many users complain how the world of Bannerlord does not feel alive because it lacks features such as feasts. As in, relative to the feasts in Warband, which barely served any purpose at all?

So I'd like to hear what was so special about them that they have to be brought up again every week. Because frankly I'm beginning to receive the impression that most people complaining about the lack of feasts don't even know what a feast is.

 

[CaptainLee]

I think on the top 100 list of things I'd want to see in Bannerlord, Feasts come in around 99 and I'm surprised they keep getting brought up. I suspect it's simply the touchstone for the lack of features in BL as a whole though.

 

[JunKeteer]

Any one that's been here long enough and actual thinks about the context of it since early-access knows the mention of "feasts" is just a meme, no different from that sheep texture or elephant request that comes up every now and then.

At the surface level, no one cares if the exact same "feasts" feature (as we had in WB) was added to BL. What the crux of that complaint and call-back was about is that, besides all the other features BL has, its still missing it; and even if they add feasts to BL, won't fix it.

"It" being whatever element that made WB feel more alive (in addition to nostalgia), despite the "feast" feature being quite bare, less NPCs, smaller towns, smaller map, smaller battles, older graphics, fixed companions, etc..."Feasts" is just the catch-all for that missing thing.

EDIT: one can argue players are just being too greedy/ungrateful, but TW is the one who decided to introduce these features outside of feedbacks. They were clearly going for quantity over quality, and they haven't even hit the point where quantity is a quality in its own right; less is more.

They can try to keep adding (poorly implemented/half-baked) feature after feature, won't fix it. They tried with the smithing, marriage proposals, bandit hideouts, board games, more pop-up voting screens, won't fix it.

All we can really hope or expect from them now is to just stop developing this "finished" game. Get that final 1.3 patch over and done with and then we can hope to mod some semblance of that "feasts" back to the game.

 

[Honved]

Taleworlds did add several new features, but most of them are so poorly fleshed out that there's no real point in using them. They're not interesting. Feasts in Warband were a half-baked feature at best with insufficient dialog and options to be entertaining, but just one more missing detail in Bannerlord.

The original M&B broke new ground by making a combined Combat/RPG/Strategy open world game, although it functioned less well as an RPG (not a lot to do outside of combat), and even less well as a strategy game (not very strategic when an opponent can simply regenerate a fresh army, and resources and manpower constraints mean nothing). Warband added a few additional features to expand on the Strategic and RP aspects, but never put enough time and attention into them to make them even remotely comparable in quality to the Combat aspect. Bannerlord added more barebones "features" in that regard (crafting and children) and left out a couple of previous ones, but never fleshed out the RPG and Strategy aspects enough to do them justice. We ended up with just another hack&slash title with very little sense of purpose or attachment to anything in the game. The only saving grace is that it looks nice.

 

[D0c1]

Please stay on topic.

Why were feasts so great. Explain.

feasts gather the lords of the realm so the player can get to know them and take quests from them instead of hunting them down one by one.
they are a game-era appropriate way of raising relation with the lords of the realm instead of abstractly raising relations through voting or donating influence.
getting access to a feast through winning a tournament is milestone for a new playthrough as it marks your first step to be acknowledged by the big players.
they give the lords something to do instead of 24/7 wars and thus make the world feel more alive instead of the lords being war machines.

 

[drivegol]

feasts gather the lords of the realm so the player can get to know them and take quests from them instead of hunting them down one by one.
...
getting access to a feast through winning a tournament is milestone for a new playthrough as it marks your first step to be acknowledged by the big players.

I can agree with this.

 

[SpartanBG]

feasts gather the lords of the realm so the player can get to know them and take quests from them instead of hunting them down one by one.
they are a game-era appropriate way of raising relation with the lords of the realm instead of abstractly raising relations through voting or donating influence.
getting access to a feast through winning a tournament is milestone for a new playthrough as it marks your first step to be acknowledged by the big players.
they give the lords something to do instead of 24/7 wars and thus make the world feel more alive instead of the lords being war machines.

I gather the lords of the land just fine on my own, rotting in a prison cell, because all i got is enemies. You guys just want to eat and drink like pigs, stop acting differently

 

[Penn]

Feasts were useless. No point in adding them. They should think of something different to add

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

I think on the top 100 list of things I'd want to see in Bannerlord, Feasts come in around 99 and I'm surprised they keep getting brought up. I suspect it's simply the touchstone for the lack of features in BL as a whole though.

Exactly. The failures of Bannerlord are smeared all over the game in a million complex ways that nobody has a simplistic way of addressing. 'How can a game that has more ""content"" and better graphics be worse than its predecessor?'

I think it's also cope for people who want to defend bannerlord in the abstract by linking all their frustrations to a single set of mechanics the developers should add, rather than having to redesign the entire game.

I do think though that when someone says they want feasts in bannerlord, they want something that matches the graphics with a bunch of animated characters and details, and not just the awkward stimming circle we had in Warband.

 

[SpartanBG]

Exactly. The failures of Bannerlord are smeared all over the game in a million complex ways that nobody has a simplistic way of addressing. 'How can a game that has more ""content"" and better graphics be worse than its predecessor?'

I think it's also cope for people who want to defend bannerlord in the abstract by linking all their frustrations to a single set of mechanics the developers should add, rather than having to redesign the entire game.

I do think though that when someone says they want feasts in bannerlord, they want something that matches the graphics with a bunch of animated characters and details, and not just the awkward stimming circle we had in Warband.

Cope for people who want to defend bannerlord. Interesting I'm not defending bannerlord, but warband is not better then bannerlord in any way. Thus everything after that point is invalid.

Objectively Bannerlord is a big upgrade over warband, subjectively you can say whatever you want

 

[Aegon-Targaryen]

More diplomacy options, more quests, better relationship between lords consequences and benefits, civil wars, rebellions that are more meaningful than just 1 town rebellion.
Feasts is the last thing on the list to add.
I don’t want to see lords scram to a feast while there’s a war and towns are getting sieged.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Feasts were good because there was tourneys to grab a fast 3k in. Later, feast were a way to boost some relations with your lords. If male you could also court a lady and dedicate a win to her. None of these things matter for Bannerlord.
Tourneys: all the time anyways, easy to make plenty of money without them anyways, money is so easy to get in bannerlord.
Relations: don't matter if someone's already your vasal and relations are easy to get, only matters for cost or recruitment or other barters (peace, marriage) but even vassals don't matter as much because you just produce a new clan that start with high relations with you anyways.
Court a lady: in bannerlord we just save scum though the dialogue or just buy the spouse outright. There's so much wasted potential in making a good experience with courtship, but I doubt they're going to do any large change now.

Feast should be added as part of a "Make the NPCS DO Things" overhaul, which realistically TW won't do this late. But it should be part of dozens of changes and additions to make the NPC lords have to do things other then raid and join armies. I think they are adding some type of feast though.

 

[Dabos37]

More diplomacy options, more quests, better relationship between lords consequences and benefits, civil wars, rebellions that are more meaningful than just 1 town rebellion.
Feasts is the last thing on the list to add.
I don’t want to see lords scram to a feast while there’s a war and towns are getting sieged.

I do agree with this.

Plus, there is a mod which already add feasts in Bannerlord:

Warlord Pack

Warlord mod brings the old features from Warband, but with Bannerlord flavor added to them. These features include; Feasts, Manhunters & Deserters, Nobility, Books(Scrolls), Reactive Companions, A

www.nexusmods.com

It is a great mod, but to be fair, after using it I didn’t feel that feasts and other Warband missing features are too relevant.

Anyway, my biggest issue with Bannerlord is the game difficulty. At hardest settings, every is too easy as @Ananda_The_Destroyer mentions.

Just go to custom battle, pick 200 Banner Knights against 200 Legionaries. Spread out a bit your Banner Knights and charge. After that, pick 200 legionaries against 200 Banner Knights and just order your Legionaries to charge. Compare both results…. Everything is made in this game to bee too easy.

Same happens if you test Fian Champions against Banner Knights. The player is going to win both battles. 100 Fian Champions vs 100 Banner Knights, the player wins. 100 Banner Knights vs 100 Fian Champions, the player wins again. Even when the player is just doing F1 + F3. This does not make sense at all, but somehow the AI is programmed to lose.

 

[drivegol]

Anyway, my biggest issue with Bannerlord is the game difficulty. At hardest settings, every is too easy as @Ananda_The_Destroyer mentions.

Just go to custom battle, pick 200 Banner Knights against 200 Legionaries. Spread out a bit your Banner Knights and charge. After that, pick 200 legionaries against 200 Banner Knights and just order your Legionaries to charge. Compare both results…. Everything is made in this game to bee too easy.

Same happens if you test Fian Champions against Banner Knights. The player is going to win both battles. 100 Fian Champions vs 100 Banner Knights, the player wins. 100 Banner Knights vs 100 Fian Champions, the player wins again. Even when the player is just doing F1 + F3. This does not make sense at all, but somehow the AI is programmed to lose.

Weird, that isn't how my simulations go. I recently tested fian champions vs khan's guard in simulations because I wanted to see if KG would still win against them, and I got consistent results of fians winning against KG by 3 to 1, wether they were on my side or the enemy's.

I did test 1000 vs 1000 instead of 100 though.

 

[Dabos37]

Weird, that isn't how my simulations go. I recently tested fian champions vs khan's guard in simulations because I wanted to see if KG would still win against them, and I got consistent results of fians winning against KG by 3 to 1, wether they were on my side or the enemy's.

I did test 1000 vs 1000 instead of 100 though.

I think the issue is related to melee cavalry AI. For some reason, the melee cavalry AI behavior under AI’s command is considerable worse, because cav tend to stay more time engaged in melee and die.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

I think the issue is related to melee cavalry AI. For some reason, the melee cavalry AI behavior under AI’s command is considerable worse, because cav tend to stay more time engaged in melee and die.

Pretty much. If you let the AI do what it wants, the mounted units always take too many losses and kill too slowly. It's funny how powerful elite cataphract becomes when it's dismounted.

Weird, that isn't how my simulations go. I recently tested fian champions vs khan's guard in simulations because I wanted to see if KG would still win against them, and I got consistent results of fians winning against KG by 3 to 1, wether they were on my side or the enemy's.

I did test 1000 vs 1000 instead of 100 though.

If you're not micro managing them, Fians will crush Khans guards, for the reason above. Plus, the KG has less power and accuracy when it rides around and doesn't enter melee range in a smart way, it even takes boosted speed damage from it's own speed. Under player control KG becomes powerful because you can put them still in good positions to shoot and move them around easily. You can even hold-fire charge them in groups to make use of the glaives. The AI does none of this. Of course in the game you will probably never have to fight 200+ fian champions or KG anyways.