SomeWeirdSins
Veteran
Good evening, Calradia.
I'm really impressed with the progress Bannerlord has made since it entered Early Access. I binged banner lord on stream for the last few weeks, and I wanted to share my thoughts on the current state of Bannerlord. I understand that this game is early access, so please don't take what I'm saying as a criticism--I just wanted to pass along my experiences in the hopes that it will help the development process. Thanks for all of your hardwork on this game, and I'm looking forward to what this game will become!
I did notice some issues that made the game feel incomplete-
1. Unit Balance -
A. Battles are still won primarily through ranged dominance. The improved shield wall AI is a great step forward, but ultimately doesn't impact the way that fights are played. The player can auto-win reasonable battles simply by building an army with 40-60% archers/xbows.
B. Simulated fights (and AI party/army decision making) undervalue high-tiered units, causing AI parties to frequently suicide into a high-tier player army. Simulating 'free' battles against militia/bandits is too punishing to the player.
C. Elites are currently far too common. They lose their significance as 'elites' if they are 1/3 of all available recruits. The player also loses agency over his army composition. I know that the elite frequency is based on the number of archers that Battania needs, but something has to change. Elite frequency can be different by culture, or perhaps battania could get a non-noble archer. Khans guards and Fian Champions are still game-breakingly strong. That's fine, as long as they are 5% of army composition. Once they become more common than recruits, the fights get a bit silly.
D. Horse access among elites is too varied--Empire, Aserai, and Khuzait get a free warhorse at the (often recruitable) tier 4, whereas sturgia has to buy a horse at tier 5 and warhorse at tier 6. Does sturgia really need more handicaps?
2. Armor
Armor is too weak. On foot armor is a handicap for the bulk of the game. One of the best ways to make money early game is to strip naked and fight in the arena. Even at zero weapon skills and modest athletics (25-100) the player is able to get 90-95% winrate in the arena, simply by abusing the fact that his armored enemies are helpless sitting ducks. Armor needs to be less encumbering and offer better protection against ranged damage. The armor issue is probably a large part of why battles are still so ranged-dominant. Ranged attacks ignoring 70% of armor feels very unrealistic.
3. Army Behavior
A. Non-player led armies are very inefficient on the map. I attempted a Sturgian Vassal playthrough, joined an army, and the army spent a FULL year walking back and forth between Revyl and Varcheg. Three wars passed and this army that contained over 1/3 of Sturgia's strength never stopped the loop. This behavior is very common in both allied and enemy armies. Non player armies don't have access to the same tools the player uses. Stewardship 275, engineering, scouting, stacked movement speed perks, mounts, etc. They don't stockpile food before going on campaign.
The above means that the late game is far too easy. The player can simply march from enemy town to enemy town with a large army and siege 10 settlements for every 1 siege that the AI can attempt. Enemy armies need a better decision making process before the army is called in the first place. Enemy tier 5/6 clans should have 275 stewardship so that they don't burn through all their food in the first 10 days of the war and then walk in circles for 90 days. Perhaps there should be a leadership perk that causes parties to arrive at an army with X days of food.
4. Clans are too easy to recruit- Once the player has 25 clans, he can just AFK and watch his team win. Clans cost an average of 150k, that means that once the player has around 4 million denars the game is over and they are virtually guaranteed to finish a conquest in the next few years...after watching 20-30 hours of seiges. In my opinion a clan should cost gold AND a fief per party that the clan field.
The player can easily get 25 clans, and the player's clan is worth at least 5. Most enemy factions stay at 15-17 clans, meaning that the player will likely be double the strength of his nearest competitor. The AI needs to have access to more clans so that they can offer the player a challenge as the game progresses.
5. Sieges are still an issue--the AI is very finicky and controlling troops seems like a net-loss due to bugs. Attacker ranged units bunch up into clumps and are unable to shoot. Moving ranged units to have better line of sight seems to cause some odd chain reactions for the attacker. I have had the following results after trying to micromanage my ranged troops: Seige tower gets stuck and does not make it to wall, troops cannot climb up siege tower, friendly siege engines somehow target my troops and kill 100+ of them, my troops jump off the seige wall and take 100+ casualties, etc. Sieges are 90% of the playtime of the 'end game' but they are still cutscenes.
Additionally, sieges are far too attacker-favored. The root cause is the weaknesses of the militia combined with the layout of the siege scenes. The siege towers force fights in choke points, where my attacking t4/t5 units will be forced into 2v2 or 3v3 scenarios with tier 2/3 militia. Of course the high tier units will slaughter the low tier units--the siege scenes do not allow the defenders to 'outnumber' the attackers on the wall.
6. The Tribute system doesn't make much sense--The system is the start of a good mechanic, but it's really not hitting on the core points of what should be exchanged at peace. LAND. Get rid of the gold/day per peace, and make the exchange of border territories the core price of peace. It's way too easy to blitzkrieg 2-3 settlements and then peace-out before the enemy can even form an army. The tribute system is too fundamental to the way the game is played to avoid 'abusing' it.
A diplomacy system seems like it would make the late game a lot more challenging--it really only takes a few hours for the player to move from being the size of 1 kingdom to the size of 3, and then the game offers no more challenges. Conquest felt pretty moot from this point forward.
7. The respawn system--we all know what's going on here and the devs are working on a solution.
8. Levelling System- there are major issues with specific skills
--Riding is the skill used to power level a character. For some reason if I kill a looter with a ranged weapon on horseback I get 450% of the standard exp. Even for characters that will never fight on horseback and never shoot a crossbow, the 'best' way to get a run started is to spend 4 hours killing looters with a xbow to get level 15-20. It feels kind of gamey, but also feels like soloing looters on horseback is the 'only' way to start a run.
--Athletics levels way too slowly overall, but levels a bit too quickly for kills with thrusting weapon. There's no reason for some weird complex skill point formula here. Just give us flat XP for damaging enemies. Maybe melee weapons should have a small bonus when compared to ranged weapons.
-- Scouting- levelling speed <100 is very slow and there are no ways for the player to speed things up. Quests that require scouting skill (missing daughter, scout enemy garrisons) do not reward the player with scouting exp. There need to be a few ways for the player to invest his time to get scouting up to an acceptable level in the early game.
--Roguery - prison breaks level roguery way too fast, and no other reasonable sources give relevant amounts of roguery. Mass-ransoming prisoners after sieges gives good roguery exp, but in the current patch this stage is after the gameplay is already over.
--Charm - Charm levels far too quickly, especially being that it is the most powerful skill in the game. 300 Charm is probably more powerful than 300 in every other skill in banner lord combined.
--Trade - Trade lacks any late-game options. Clan tier 2 is the end of scaling for trade. Of course you can stay in the 1085 loop for a few years until you get 300 trade and then buy the game...but that's not very fun. The player needs to be able to participate in large deals--gather 2,000 units of wood, negotiate with a merchant for better prices on player-owned caravans, etc. Also, the caravan exploit is very fixable. Just don't let caravans trade near town, or only allow the player to trade with a caravan once every X days. The 125 trade perk is far too powerful.
--Medicine and Engineering- With 5 focus and 7 INT these skills will be between 150-175 by the time the player has effectively won the game (strong enough to AFK and watch his kingdom conquer the world) and 175-200 when the player has conquered everything.
Putting 5 focus in medicine still never feels like a waste. 150 medic is still a very powerful effect, but the levelling speed feels bad to the player. Engineering is a moderately powerful effect and there's no reason for it to level so slowly. Perhaps these skills will be tuned correctly if other elements of the game are fixed.
For the most part I'm happy with the progress the game has made. The optimization improvements are huge, most of the bugs are gone, there are more scenes, most of the perks work. Many of the above issues are the same problems the game had a year ago, but there is clear progress on all of them.
I'm really impressed with the progress Bannerlord has made since it entered Early Access. I binged banner lord on stream for the last few weeks, and I wanted to share my thoughts on the current state of Bannerlord. I understand that this game is early access, so please don't take what I'm saying as a criticism--I just wanted to pass along my experiences in the hopes that it will help the development process. Thanks for all of your hardwork on this game, and I'm looking forward to what this game will become!
I did notice some issues that made the game feel incomplete-
1. Unit Balance -
A. Battles are still won primarily through ranged dominance. The improved shield wall AI is a great step forward, but ultimately doesn't impact the way that fights are played. The player can auto-win reasonable battles simply by building an army with 40-60% archers/xbows.
B. Simulated fights (and AI party/army decision making) undervalue high-tiered units, causing AI parties to frequently suicide into a high-tier player army. Simulating 'free' battles against militia/bandits is too punishing to the player.
C. Elites are currently far too common. They lose their significance as 'elites' if they are 1/3 of all available recruits. The player also loses agency over his army composition. I know that the elite frequency is based on the number of archers that Battania needs, but something has to change. Elite frequency can be different by culture, or perhaps battania could get a non-noble archer. Khans guards and Fian Champions are still game-breakingly strong. That's fine, as long as they are 5% of army composition. Once they become more common than recruits, the fights get a bit silly.
D. Horse access among elites is too varied--Empire, Aserai, and Khuzait get a free warhorse at the (often recruitable) tier 4, whereas sturgia has to buy a horse at tier 5 and warhorse at tier 6. Does sturgia really need more handicaps?
2. Armor
Armor is too weak. On foot armor is a handicap for the bulk of the game. One of the best ways to make money early game is to strip naked and fight in the arena. Even at zero weapon skills and modest athletics (25-100) the player is able to get 90-95% winrate in the arena, simply by abusing the fact that his armored enemies are helpless sitting ducks. Armor needs to be less encumbering and offer better protection against ranged damage. The armor issue is probably a large part of why battles are still so ranged-dominant. Ranged attacks ignoring 70% of armor feels very unrealistic.
3. Army Behavior
A. Non-player led armies are very inefficient on the map. I attempted a Sturgian Vassal playthrough, joined an army, and the army spent a FULL year walking back and forth between Revyl and Varcheg. Three wars passed and this army that contained over 1/3 of Sturgia's strength never stopped the loop. This behavior is very common in both allied and enemy armies. Non player armies don't have access to the same tools the player uses. Stewardship 275, engineering, scouting, stacked movement speed perks, mounts, etc. They don't stockpile food before going on campaign.
The above means that the late game is far too easy. The player can simply march from enemy town to enemy town with a large army and siege 10 settlements for every 1 siege that the AI can attempt. Enemy armies need a better decision making process before the army is called in the first place. Enemy tier 5/6 clans should have 275 stewardship so that they don't burn through all their food in the first 10 days of the war and then walk in circles for 90 days. Perhaps there should be a leadership perk that causes parties to arrive at an army with X days of food.
4. Clans are too easy to recruit- Once the player has 25 clans, he can just AFK and watch his team win. Clans cost an average of 150k, that means that once the player has around 4 million denars the game is over and they are virtually guaranteed to finish a conquest in the next few years...after watching 20-30 hours of seiges. In my opinion a clan should cost gold AND a fief per party that the clan field.
The player can easily get 25 clans, and the player's clan is worth at least 5. Most enemy factions stay at 15-17 clans, meaning that the player will likely be double the strength of his nearest competitor. The AI needs to have access to more clans so that they can offer the player a challenge as the game progresses.
5. Sieges are still an issue--the AI is very finicky and controlling troops seems like a net-loss due to bugs. Attacker ranged units bunch up into clumps and are unable to shoot. Moving ranged units to have better line of sight seems to cause some odd chain reactions for the attacker. I have had the following results after trying to micromanage my ranged troops: Seige tower gets stuck and does not make it to wall, troops cannot climb up siege tower, friendly siege engines somehow target my troops and kill 100+ of them, my troops jump off the seige wall and take 100+ casualties, etc. Sieges are 90% of the playtime of the 'end game' but they are still cutscenes.
Additionally, sieges are far too attacker-favored. The root cause is the weaknesses of the militia combined with the layout of the siege scenes. The siege towers force fights in choke points, where my attacking t4/t5 units will be forced into 2v2 or 3v3 scenarios with tier 2/3 militia. Of course the high tier units will slaughter the low tier units--the siege scenes do not allow the defenders to 'outnumber' the attackers on the wall.
6. The Tribute system doesn't make much sense--The system is the start of a good mechanic, but it's really not hitting on the core points of what should be exchanged at peace. LAND. Get rid of the gold/day per peace, and make the exchange of border territories the core price of peace. It's way too easy to blitzkrieg 2-3 settlements and then peace-out before the enemy can even form an army. The tribute system is too fundamental to the way the game is played to avoid 'abusing' it.
A diplomacy system seems like it would make the late game a lot more challenging--it really only takes a few hours for the player to move from being the size of 1 kingdom to the size of 3, and then the game offers no more challenges. Conquest felt pretty moot from this point forward.
7. The respawn system--we all know what's going on here and the devs are working on a solution.
8. Levelling System- there are major issues with specific skills
--Riding is the skill used to power level a character. For some reason if I kill a looter with a ranged weapon on horseback I get 450% of the standard exp. Even for characters that will never fight on horseback and never shoot a crossbow, the 'best' way to get a run started is to spend 4 hours killing looters with a xbow to get level 15-20. It feels kind of gamey, but also feels like soloing looters on horseback is the 'only' way to start a run.
--Athletics levels way too slowly overall, but levels a bit too quickly for kills with thrusting weapon. There's no reason for some weird complex skill point formula here. Just give us flat XP for damaging enemies. Maybe melee weapons should have a small bonus when compared to ranged weapons.
-- Scouting- levelling speed <100 is very slow and there are no ways for the player to speed things up. Quests that require scouting skill (missing daughter, scout enemy garrisons) do not reward the player with scouting exp. There need to be a few ways for the player to invest his time to get scouting up to an acceptable level in the early game.
--Roguery - prison breaks level roguery way too fast, and no other reasonable sources give relevant amounts of roguery. Mass-ransoming prisoners after sieges gives good roguery exp, but in the current patch this stage is after the gameplay is already over.
--Charm - Charm levels far too quickly, especially being that it is the most powerful skill in the game. 300 Charm is probably more powerful than 300 in every other skill in banner lord combined.
--Trade - Trade lacks any late-game options. Clan tier 2 is the end of scaling for trade. Of course you can stay in the 1085 loop for a few years until you get 300 trade and then buy the game...but that's not very fun. The player needs to be able to participate in large deals--gather 2,000 units of wood, negotiate with a merchant for better prices on player-owned caravans, etc. Also, the caravan exploit is very fixable. Just don't let caravans trade near town, or only allow the player to trade with a caravan once every X days. The 125 trade perk is far too powerful.
--Medicine and Engineering- With 5 focus and 7 INT these skills will be between 150-175 by the time the player has effectively won the game (strong enough to AFK and watch his kingdom conquer the world) and 175-200 when the player has conquered everything.
Putting 5 focus in medicine still never feels like a waste. 150 medic is still a very powerful effect, but the levelling speed feels bad to the player. Engineering is a moderately powerful effect and there's no reason for it to level so slowly. Perhaps these skills will be tuned correctly if other elements of the game are fixed.
For the most part I'm happy with the progress the game has made. The optimization improvements are huge, most of the bugs are gone, there are more scenes, most of the perks work. Many of the above issues are the same problems the game had a year ago, but there is clear progress on all of them.