How is everyone's morale these days?

[Akka]

My morale is rather positive, but in a twisted sort of way.

On one side, I'm still completely baffled at just WTF is happening in the development side. The game is nearing its two-years EA, and it has barely changed since then. There has been a lot of bugfixes and some evolutions, but considering entire games can be developed from scratch in three years, it's just incomprehensible to me how the progress can be so slow and what is taking so much time.
There has been nearly nothing of change on the "roleplay" side of things (tavernkeepers still throws "I don't know" at each and every question asked, the random NPC have nothing more to do than they did one year and a half before), while this is something that should be done by writers and not dev, and I don't see what writers have done at all since the beginning of EA.
Samely, the glacial pace means that fluffing up the game is becoming more and more like a lost hope, and that what we have seems to be the final version minus polishing, which is pretty depressing.

So I have a lot to be disappointed.

But on the plus side, the foundations of a great game (not just a good one) are here.
The engine is superb. I can have hundred of people all individually fighting and moving without any slowdown. I have basically Total War in first person, which is an incredible feat in my book. The AI is pretty bad and there is a definite lack of command depth, but the core ability to move simultaneously so many actors is here. I don't understand how people who could code such a powerful engine seem completely stuck on apparently-trivial problems or can't fix a host of superficial imbalance for months on end (except if the engine programmers all left before ?), but we DO have something very good on hand.
Fighting "feels" good, between the power of a charging horse, visceral sounds, the feel of strong or weak strikes, etc. Plainly said, it's pleasant to play. Numbers balance is completely whacky, but the system is here and is working.
And more than anything, the modding potential is just... glorious. I've just dabbed a bit in it, but you can basically replace whatever you want with home-made code. Anything, everything and their cousins is possible. Even without the modding tools, it's already possible to completely change the game in a rather robust fashion.

So I'm pretty sure TW is dropping hard the ball in making their game, but I feel they succeed in giving us the potential to make it in their stead.

 

[Akka]

I focus on getting information to you guys here on our forum and on making sure your feedback reaches the developers, if you have any questions, hit me up.

Hello, I'm going to take you on your offer and ask something that I really, really don't understand and would like to.
The core of the game is the fighting part, and yet since the very beginning of the EA, we have had armor/damage relation being pretty ineffective and seemingly completely unbalanced (armors being very weak, blunt somehow getting magically through nearly unimpeded, resulting in rocks and club easily felling iron-clad veterans). It's caused a lot of questions, but never gotten any answer.

So my question would be : is this a deliberate design decision, or is it just a placeholder before the designers make a pass at it ?
If the former, could we get the reasoning behind the design ? If the latter, why is it postponed so late considering it has huge impact on how the game feels and how it makes all other balancing rather pointless ?

That's something which has bugged me for nearly two years, and I'm still as lost as ever about it.

 

[Dejan]

For example, is armor being worked on at the moment?

Hello, I'm going to take you on your offer and ask something that I really, really don't understand and would like to.
The core of the game is the fighting part, and yet since the very beginning of the EA, we have had armor/damage relation being pretty ineffective and seemingly completely unbalanced (armors being very weak, blunt somehow getting magically through nearly unimpeded, resulting in rocks and club easily felling iron-clad veterans). It's caused a lot of questions, but never gotten any answer.

So my question would be : is this a deliberate design decision, or is it just a placeholder before the designers make a pass at it ?
If the former, could we get the reasoning behind the design ? If the latter, why is it postponed so late considering it has huge impact on how the game feels and how it makes all other balancing rather pointless ?

That's something which has bugged me for nearly two years, and I'm still as lost as ever about it.

In short, we are aware of your concerns but have not yet decided on a final solution for armour balance. Due to this, you are more likely to see other balancing efforts first, for example, the balancing of skill gains, economy/caravan/workshop gameplay,... or the introduction of features that we talked about in our "Future plans" post.

 

[five bucks]

In short, we are aware of your concerns but have not yet decided on a final solution for armour balance. Due to this, you are more likely to see other balancing efforts first, for example, the balancing of skill gains, economy/caravan/workshop gameplay,... or the introduction of features that we talked about in our "Future plans" post.

Thank you and I'm glad to hear it's still under deliberation. Armor is in desperate need of providing more protection against ranged attacks (and being slightly less weak against blunt damage too), as it affects so many systems in the game and is a key reason IMO why battles are anticlimactic and lack tactical depth.

Caravans receiving their much needed improvement to profits (or lack thereof) is good news too.
So which skills are being focused on, or is it just a general buff to all skill gains?

 

[Dejan]

So which skills are being focused on, or is it just a general buff to all skill gains?

Let's wait on the patch which will bring around the related changes for the details, wouldn't want to give a, excuse the language, half-arsed explanation which could then lead to a misinterpretation of the actual changes.

 

[Foxosaur]

I think the game is great, I play it in spats since its release of EA to now. It was pretty awful performance wise until 1.4 ish, the sandbox "functioned" but everything felt a little robotic, I didn't regret the purchase though, was happy to see it develop as a game.

In the beta of 1.7, I came back again and spent a good 20 hours or so in an existing campaign (that may have started in v1.6+ or something) and it feels so much better. Cohesion feels great for limiting the change of hands of settlements and towns as empires lords are forced to disband. They need to do work on calculating incentivised peace offers though as it can be OTT as well and other forms of diplomacy. Mercenaries change allegiances way too fast, in my opinion but to me a lot of it is quite minor but all contribute to immersion. How the AI army flipflops between going to a settlement and sieging is a problem and can be frustrating but once you realise its probably related to wounded numbers and if the player is in the army, you can get around it - again, its minor.

Overall though, it now feels pretty polished, good performance, good controls and every battle feels fluent and dynamic, just need more content in the sandbox - by all sorts of ways and keep evolving the game. It's definitely come a long way and definitely is a game I can just regularly sink time into now, quite happily.

 

[justchilin]

Morale is great, love the new patch.

I don't mind unbalanced parts during EA because balancing some things now might be a waste of time due to imbalances introduced through new mechanics later. Hence, I'd leave any detailed tweaking of constants for the last patch before the release.

What I'm happy to see now is nice bug squashing and polish.

Also, M&B gets high replayability from interesting battles. Any new battle mechanic such as the OOB, diversity of the maps, and better AI gives the game unreasonably more hours of play time. Looking forward to better AI.

 

[Shaxx]

It is day 1,988, the butter ran out some time ago and there is just this shadow in a top hat with a cane staring at me now.

 

[Horked]

Heh okay, we'll keep it in mind but don't hold your breath.

Im not! Was just a suggestion when/if the need arise for some forum content other than patches, changes and salt
A 'behind the scenes' kind of thing.

 

[Benjamin Bones]

When I first jumped into 1.7 I thought wow... They've done it. They stopped the whack-a-mole! They stopped the constant wars and endless 1,000 men armies that repeatedly beat themselves upon you and your fiefs... They stopped the random diplomacy decisions that instigate wars, then end them immediately just to declare war again a few seconds later... They sopped the enemy lords from repeatedly escaping captivity... THEY STOPPED THE KHUZAIT FROM RUNNING ROUGHSHOD OVER EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING...

With the exception of the Khuzait problem none of the aforementioned have actually been fixed - they've just been delayed 'till mid/late game...

Nonetheless, it's definitely better than it was but it really looks like balancing this game is a monumental task that may never be adequately addressed.

My morale is still as high as Snoop Dogg in Amsterdam though for the simple fact that this is THE ONE AND ONLY Mount and Blade, and no matter what state this game is in on release the future will only be brighter - illuminated by the splendor of mods.

 

[froggyluv]

With the exception of the Khuzait problem none of the aforementioned have actually been fixed - they've just been delayed 'till mid/late game...

Why is this bad? Cant one faction be dominant in theoretical game? For instance -if playing a WW2 era strategy sandbox game -Germany and Russia should still dominate as compared to small European countries, would people really want every European country to be equal and have exact same chances of winning?

To me, a fun sandbox strategy game sets up a overlaying world theatre, with certain dominate players BUT and this is a huge BUTT, the politics, interests, and intrigue should allow for smaller nations to topple a major regime thru interesting strategy -thats the difference and whats missing in this and many other games. Rather than create interesting gameplay AI political mechanics and/or campaign warmap strategies (using terrain or specific counter troops) -they just basically homogenize all the factions.

So for instance- what if 3 factions knew of Khuzaits plans to dominate the region they used counter horse Archer troops and lured them to unfavorable terrain -thats a lot more interesting than what we have now

 

[Benjamin Bones]

Why is this bad? Cant one faction be dominant in theoretical game? For instance -if playing a WW2 era strategy sandbox game -Germany and Russia should still dominate as compared to small European countries, would people really want every European country to be equal and have exact same chances of winning?

To me, a fun sandbox strategy game sets up a overlaying world theatre, with certain dominate players BUT and this is a huge BUTT, the politics, interests, and intrigue should allow for smaller nations to topple a major regime thru interesting strategy -thats the difference and whats missing in this and many other games. Rather than create interesting gameplay AI political mechanics and/or campaign warmap strategies (using terrain or specific counter troops) -they just basically homogenize all the factions.

So for instance- what if 3 factions knew of Khuzaits plans to dominate the region they used counter horse Archer troops and lured them to unfavorable terrain -thats a lot more interesting than what we have now

You're not wrong - it was just the particular nature of the Khuzait's dominance that was the problem. I remember when this game first came out in EA... The Khuzait could be at war with 4 other nations at once and still gain fiefs - You defeat Abagai's 1,200 man army and she's at your door step in 5 mins with another 1,000 man army while other Khuzait horse lords have taken 3 other towns somewhere else... It was beyond insanity.

Now that doesn't happen but I think the only reason snowballing is not what it once was is because of the way wars are started and halted... It's so bad - it actually feels like the game is trying to balance itself as you play. Once you get deep enough into a play through its obvious that it is as unsophisticated as the old numbers game the enemy AI would use when deciding what fief to besiege.

 

[five bucks]

Why is this bad? Cant one faction be dominant in theoretical game?

Yes, but it becomes a problem when one faction is so good that it destroys other factions before the player has a chance to join them or makes them so weak that the player would find it way too difficult to use them at all, which is what Khuzait was doing, especially to Sturgia.

With that said I do agree it's actually good for some factions to be slightly stronger than others. I would like to see Battania intentionally balanced to be slightly weaker - fitting their lore role as underdogs.

 

[froggyluv]

Yes, but it becomes a problem when one faction is so good that it destroys other factions before the player has a chance to join them or makes them so weak that the player would find it way too difficult to use them at all, which is what Khuzait was doing, especially to Sturgia.

With that said I do agree it's actually good for some factions to be slightly stronger than others. I would like to see Battania intentionally balanced to be slightly weaker - fitting their lore role as underdogs.

Did you read the rest of my post? I think you missed the gist of it -if a game has good political/WarMap mechanics, it would create situations in which a smaller faction could undermine a dominant one through organic means such as alliances, clever counter troop and strategic battle terrain choices. It shouldnt always take "player getting involved". An thriving sandbox should allow for this in which you could sit back and enjoy all sorts of various turnouts -a weak sandbox depends on player for absolutely any change in world dynamics

 

[Benjamin Bones]

Yes, but it becomes a problem when one faction is so good that it destroys other factions before the player has a chance to join them or makes them so weak that the player would find it way too difficult to use them at all, which is what Khuzait was doing, especially to Sturgia.

With that said I do agree it's actually good for some factions to be slightly stronger than others. I would like to see Battania intentionally balanced to be slightly weaker - fitting their lore role as underdogs.

Did you read the rest of my post? I think you missed the gist of it -if a game has good political/WarMap mechanics, it would create situations in which a smaller faction could undermine a dominant one through organic means such as alliances, clever counter troop and strategic battle terrain choices. It shouldnt always take "player getting involved". An thriving sandbox should allow for this in which you could sit back and enjoy all sorts of various turnouts -a weak sandbox depends on player for absolutely any change in world dynamics

You're both kind of saying the same thing. The Khuzait problem was such a problem because there WAS NO VARIATION. Khuzait always dominated without any player intervention (and sometimes even with player intervention if the player did not side with a Khuzait adversary fast enough). There was nothing in the game that prevented the Khuzait from doing what they always did in ways that were just mind numbingly ridiculous.

At the end of the day it's about balance...

This game struggles with it.

 

[Honved]

There are two issues here which combine to create a bigger problem:

First is the strength of a single faction, which means that UNLESS several other factions gang up against it, it will dominate the game.

Second is the randomness of war and peace declarations. which ignore political necessities such as one faction becoming too powerful, or catastrophic losses making it insane to declare yet another war. There are no "alliances", which should be a thing if/when one faction starts taking over a significant portion of the map.

 

[Akka]

In short, we are aware of your concerns but have not yet decided on a final solution for armour balance. Due to this, you are more likely to see other balancing efforts first, for example, the balancing of skill gains, economy/caravan/workshop gameplay,... or the introduction of features that we talked about in our "Future plans" post.

Thanks for the answer, it's good to finally know ^^

As an aside, I'd like to ask another question it brings is : how come it took basically one year and a half just to get this answer ? I honestly think a major part of the bad feeling from the community comes from such lapse of communication, where a simple and important question is left to linger when a short answer could, if not resolve the matter, at least let people know where the game stands.
I'm really not being snide or ungrateful, just wish to highlight/understand.

 

[Mad Vader]

Thanks for the answer, it's good to finally know ^^

I can't see how is this less generic than the usual stonewalling: "we have read your unwelcome rants, but we won't say anything specific and if you are smart, you won't wait for something to happen, because this is not a commitment to do anything". It's just a nice way of saying nothing.
They also inserted anti-Semitic subliminal messaging for ****s and giggles, which definitely shows they are trolling.

 

[Benjamin Bones]

They also inserted anti-Semitic subliminal messaging for ****s and giggles, which definitely shows they are trolling.

 

[MostBlunted]

"we have read your unwelcome rants, but we won't say anything specific and if you are smart, you won't wait for something to happen, because this is not a commitment to do anything".