How to give a "soul" to this game?

[Nawari]

What makes a game stand out is that it has a soul. We feel the paw of an author. The Witcher, for example, we find the spirit of a literary work. GTA, we find the narrative madness of some crazy film productions. In Elder Scroll, we see the invention of an original universe with very elaborate lore. What do we perceive in "Bannerlord"?
We feel like a soulless "gaming skeleton". We don't want to be mean to the developers but to give a recipe for a lastingly successful game. What makes us remember a game is sometimes an amusing character, or a cold and taciturn hero, it's a dark or fantastic general atmosphere, exceptional, surprising or even upsetting events...
Why does Bannerlord have such a big map if nothing of what I just described is up for grabs?
For this game to become unforgettable, it lacks:
- an unforgettable campaign,
or and
- unforgettable characters,
or and
- an unforgettable atmosphere,
or and
- an unforgettable plot,
or and
- a "soul" to this game, an "artistic touch" to give it the place it deserves in the world of video games.

You would have gained everything by giving us as a campaign a scripted game where we would have played the rebellion against the Lords with the people of Calradia. This game is truly made for a "Robin Hood" story, in the spirit.
We would have had a real scripted game for RPG lovers.
You would have saved the "skeleton" for sandbox enthusiasts.
There we have a long and boring "campaign" with no surprises, no souls, no unforgettable characters, nothing remarkable at all...
In short, two years later, still the same faults...
One day another studio will steal your game engine (for battles) and manage to make a more fun game and you will disappear if you don't react.

The cover is as important as the skeleton.

You rely too much on modders to do this job. For my part, I don't like mods: big mods are often full of flaws, badly adapted, bugs, often unbalanced... Moreover, I find the "addons" approach dishonest. The native game has to live up to expectations or you're going to get a ****ty reputation.

Best thinkings

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Ymira

 

[MostBlunted]

Change company to add a soul to the game.

 

[Nawari]

The strategy in this game, when we can only control one troop on the map, is a joke. Only one way to save this game is to build a RPG game...

 

[CaptainLee]

The game will likely release as a solid canvas. I don't particularly like staring at canvases, though. Given it's inspired by Sid Meier's Pirates! it falls desperately short of that game's breadth in terms of features.

 

[RozBritanicus]

You rely too much on modders to do this job. For my part, I don't like mods: big mods are often full of flaws, badly adapted, bugs, often unbalanced... Moreover, I find the "addons" approach dishonest. The native game has to live up to expectations or you're going to get a ****ty reputation.

Best thinkings

I feel the same modders shouldn't be needed to save the game and put in what's missing. Modders add a change a different world new troops armours . The basic's of story telling story making should be in the game. Interesting heroes and villains random events surprises and treachery . I do enjoy Bannerlord and and want it to be more than a trade and battle simulator. I didn't play all the 1.7 branch and only one campaign in 1.6 which i cut short as i got bored. I have played 1.8 and its good but i got to late game and had enough. I was making the story of my campaign up in my head to give it meaning and i don't to keep doing that.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

Sid Meier's Pirates!

I loved this game, out of all the games getting remasters I wish this one would get one.

 

[Spinozart1]

I never played M&B for the story. Never really had any interest in the lore tbh.
It is all about starting from nothing and choosing a path to become whatever you want to be.
When I was a child, I played a lot with Lego. There was no real lore or back story. Only a set up, a theme (space, medieval, city,...).
And I was the one who decided how to play, creating my own stories... was fun.
M&B gives me similar chills and I find it great.
And on top of that the modding part is accessible. Even with my basic skills I managed to create fun mechanics (at least for me).
Bannerlord is not failing in its unique genre and I'm happy with that.
Just the development pace that is really slow...

 

[froggyluv]

I loved this game, out of all the games getting remasters I wish this one would get one.

iT did https://store.steampowered.com/app/3920/Sid_Meiers_Pirates/
I like the original far better (1987 on on my C64) -spent a good amount of time exploring in it. See those games knew how to at least give screens of success that kept you motivated as well as medals and honors etc..Simple stuff that goes a long way

 

[Julio-Claudian]

Systems need to be more interactive. Diplomacy is the biggest example, it's all background code, player interaction does not go further than clicking a couple of buttons when a score determined by that background code is reached. It isn't immersive at all.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

iT did https://store.steampowered.com/app/3920/Sid_Meiers_Pirates/
I like the original far better (1987 on on my C64) -spent a good amount of time exploring in it. See those games knew how to at least give screens of success that kept you motivated as well as medals and honors etc..Simple stuff that goes a long way

WOW i had no idea, although 17 years later it might be due for another one . Did they change anything with the gameplay to make it worse than the original? Sorry for off topic.

On topic, yeah give the game a soul please

 

[stevepine]

If Taleworlds gave a rat's a*s about depth and soul, for one thing they would rip up the main quest and re-write it. Everyone knows it's awful. Even the staff at TW must be well aware of how terrible it actually is.

They don't care about depth or soul. They know that all they have to do is build a mediocre to average mod skeleton. Any soul needed for the longer term will come from modders. They know this.

 

[froggyluv]

WOW i had no idea, although 17 years later it might be due for another one . Did they change anything with the gameplay to make it worse than the original? Sorry for off topic.

On topic, yeah give the game a soul please

I honestly cant say for sure -very Disney-esque graphics which some may like, me not so much. The game seemed pretty much the same -although i was still probably blinded by nostalgia and craved the feeling of the old one. I really didnt give this one much of a chance to be honest

 

[Aurex]

What makes a game stand out is that it has a soul. We feel the paw of an author. The Witcher, for example, we find the spirit of a literary work. GTA, we find the narrative madness of some crazy film productions. In Elder Scroll, we see the invention of an original universe with very elaborate lore. What do we perceive in "Bannerlord"?
We feel like a soulless "gaming skeleton". We don't want to be mean to the developers but to give a recipe for a lastingly successful game. What makes us remember a game is sometimes an amusing character, or a cold and taciturn hero, it's a dark or fantastic general atmosphere, exceptional, surprising or even upsetting events...
Why does Bannerlord have such a big map if nothing of what I just described is up for grabs?

I believe what Bannerlord lacks is a cohesive, organical bond between gameplay, characters and lore (of which it has little to none.)
When you build a game around a specific era in a specific country that is defined by certain events, you have to play with that setting's strength.
Even as the simple battle simulator it this, it still wouldn't take much to improve the replayability by an order of magnitude.
Strong presentation. Interesting lore with historic (in-universe) characters you can interact with, or even recruit... maybe just learn something from. Unique quests, being sent to do errands for a Lord who betrays you and forces you to clear your name. Unique companions with backstories that genuinely matter in regard to your character's future, and which can have game changing events linked to them. More activities (many more) that influence the world around you and alter the perception even lowly villagers would have of you. Defeat a huge army in the field to defend a city? You get an honorary title of City's Protector, discounts at the merchants and new, unique quests. Unique weapons, armors and mounts to discover through exploration/questing. Political intrigue. Crime Lord playstyle (a la Fourberie.) Better strategic AI that actively hunts you down when relations with a specific Lord are down by a considerable margin. Better writing (again, of which we have none. What's the point in asking the townfolk what's up when they have NOTHING to say?) Dynamic and interesting in-clan friendships, courtships and rivalries.

Truth be told, the "heart" and "flesh" this gaming skeleton needs is the RPG element. Without it, it will always, inevitably be just a battle simulator. And not even a great one, at that...

 

[stevepine]

Truth be told, the "heart" and "flesh" this gaming skeleton needs is the RPG element. Without it, it will always, inevitably be just a battle simulator. And not even a great one, at that...

Couldn't agree more. There are some people who only really want a battle simulator. I am definitely not one of them though.

I think you're spot on with your post.

 

[ElCrisp]

Systems need to be more interactive. Diplomacy is the biggest example, it's all background code, player interaction does not go further than clicking a couple of buttons when a score determined by that background code is reached. It isn't immersive at all.

This is a big thing with a lot of games. Developers hide how things actually work in fear of complexities scaring away casual players but it just leaves thing incomprehensible, and gives the impression they arent interactive.

Another lesser example of this is the recent armour changes, where a dev revealed that many weapons such as swords and axes have a portion of their damage as blunt. And that this might explain certain damage numbers and the interactions with the new armour formula. Question is why isnt the weapon damage info communicated to the player so they can make choices in accordance to that information. If the swing of my axe does cut and blunt damage why can't I be told that as a player, simple 40-cut 23-blunt or whatever it may be. Make info available in game.

As far as adding a soul to this game, the funny thing is the hard technical challenges are all overcome, the engine works well. If the right design choices were made I dont think it would take much development time to make huge progress. I just think time is being spent on other things which is interesting.
Modders on their free time unpaid have created enormous amounts of highly requested features and tweaks while reworking it after every patch cycle. Obviously this is a dependant relationship - the modders heavily dependent on TW devs for the whole engine and back end, work the modders couldnt do.

But simply where is the TW in house 'modder' doing all of these comparitively lower effort or skill changes that players feel the most impact from? Like simply balance passes? Why does it take 6 months to do minor balance to equipment or reign in smithed gear prices. Loot prices in general. Armour changes 2 years in, and archers are still clearly over tuned.
Giving soul to the game, they wont even give game to the game, its just not where dev time is being spent. But that means they easily could so I guess there is hope

 

[Zerosaiko]

If I remember right, it's less that a cut/pierce weapon has a visible X cut/pierce stat that you can see and a hidden Y blunt stat that you can't, but more when you hit, your damage is calculated and a percent of the damage becomes armor bypassing blunt while the rest contends against armor. RBM has a nice config option in the XML that tells you how much of your damage became blunt trauma and how much of it had to go against armor, though I don't use it now (the armor was a bit much for me and with the troop mod I was using that required it, Battanian AI got curbstomped by Empire AI, but that's a digression).

 

[Mad Vader]

WOW i had no idea, although 17 years later it might be due for another one . Did they change anything with the gameplay to make it worse than the original? Sorry for off topic.

On topic, yeah give the game a soul please

I played it a few years ago (as an original DOS Pirates fan and also VESA remake fan) and while it was simplified and cartoon-like, it was fun and accessible - it definitely wasn't rough at the edges like its predecessors. Solid casual fun.

 

[Poddicus]

How to give this game a soul?

 

[Danny5]

How to give this game a soul?

+1