hansolo223
Regular
What are you concerned about the game so far, based on at least some evidence you saw from videos, images, interviews, etc? Do you have suggestions to improve it?
I have analysed some videos and identified a few potential things:
Party speed reduced from game difficulty?
It's fine to plus party speed for easier difficulties, but please do not make the AI cheat by reducing player party speed for higher difficulties. Nobody likes cheating AI with added bonuses. We've seen this kind of cheating AI to death for so many games for decades to give the illusion of "harder AI".
Looter/bandit item and behaviour variation
Why do all all looters throw stones and stand in formation? Looters loot things, so they should have more varied items. You imagine these looters plan and sneak into villages and towns at night to steal whatever weapons and clothes. Please give them sticks, clubs, work hammers, harvesting sycthes, butcher knives, etc. Change their clothes a bit. Maybe one looter got lucky and scored a metal bra (one needs to do anything to survive). Same with bandits. Most looters and bandits are probably not disciplined trained soldiers so it's weird to see a line of looters throwing stones like trained archers. However, some of them might be ex-soldiers so it's a chance they may have a good formation or no formation.
Boring merchant deliveries
Looks like a big part of merchant gameplay is using "trade rumours" to make profit by trading goods in different places. This means most of the merchant's time is spent delivering goods. This potentially can get very boring because it can be just an easy deliver/fetch quest grind especially if you have good spotting and pathfinding skills to avoid enemies. There needs to be some real danger of getting ambushed every time you deliver goods to another city. Raiders probably have plans. They watch and follow traders going in and out of cities and plan ambushes. Further, caravans can probably never outrun a small guerrilla raiding party when they have planned an ambush earlier. This means you may need to hire caravan guards or pay some other party to escort you. There should be well-traveled trade routes and riskier routes like routes with less patrols and heavy ambush spots. Riskier routes make more profit because less traders want to take the risk. So, at the end of the day, the merchant needs to balance security costs, goods value & weight, and risks to make a profit. Weather could add to the risk element such as heavy rain/snow slowing down caravan move speed, delaying goods so by the time you reach the city you may lose profit. Maybe you are forced to take a shorter, more risky route to avoid bad weather or a blocked path to make profit. Other merchants could get to the city faster than you, reducing values of the goods. So, you could also compete with other merchants. I also know the merchant skill only increases if you make a profit. This would make it more fun as a merchant than an easy fetch/delivery quest grind.
Better AI/control for companion tactics
It does not look like you can tell your companions how to fight. Just simple things like use up all throwing/ranged weapons then charge in, or prioritise horse archers first. In warband it was frustrating to see companions just charge in with melee and never use their ranged first or ignoring the cavalry circling behind them.
Bonus idea: We could go crazy with scripting AI companion here like telling one crossbow companion to follow a shield companion all the time, like a small squad. If companions like each other enough, they would probably do this naturally anyway like IRL. If you fought with a friend for 100+ battles, do you want to see him die?
Bad AI from gamescom (many people's concern)
The AI from gamescom 2018 were quite bad. They can't block or parry well from melee and arrows. You can throw a big rock from above and they don't look up and dodge the rock even after their allies died next to them from a previous rock. AI ignores someone attacking their back 10+ times. AI charging into horse archer in a straight line like the terminator...
AI not dodging rocks even seeing the last rock killed an ally next to them
AI lets someone hit their back 10+ times (Who takes hits like that? They would turn and try to shield both enemies at once, or time quick shield switches to block both enemies.)
Looters standing to get shot in the face (IRL people would run/dodge and throw rocks at the same time)
Tournaments still look boring - Become world champion arena fighter (May help BL esport)
To make tournaments more fun, could create a championship system where a character can become world champion arena fighter, starting with beating easier arena fighters to harder ones around Calradia. Any character can join the arena from a peasant to a companion or lord. Slowly increase the arena combat difficulty as the player beats each arena fighter. This will slowly increase player dueling skill, without being too easy or too frustrating. At the end, the player will feel very good, proud and accomplished after becoming Champion of Calradia (remember when you beat vega in street fighter 2 after 1000 tries?). This may also increase multiplayer population especially duels because people who avoid MP from bad skills become better from fighting increasingly-hard arena bots. I know hard 1v1 AI is possible because warband had bots that could beat 95% of the warband MP players. So, a championship system is both fun and serve as a duel tutorial without feeling like a tutorial that may increase bannerlord esport growth.
Lots of other games tried some form of this (e.g. kingdom come deliverance, oblivion, divinity original sin 2, dragonage origins, witcher 3 fistfights, even old school gems like Quest for Glory V: Dragonfire 20 years ago. I remember fighting interesting characters like a calm minotaur and a german-like amazonian woman). Remember the colosseum and The Gladiator movie? Gladiatorial combat was huge back in ancient Rome, let's make a sport out of it in Calradia.
**UPDATED 10/2/2019**
So, to distract myself from the BL wait, I got into a small, niche and weird medieval combat game called Exanima.
I noticed it has a decent Arena mode. Even for a small, early access game made by 1 programmer + 5 other artists, this game has a fun and varied arena mode that lasts hundreds of hours. I'm hoping by the time I finish Exanima BL is out
This is the kind of thing I wanted to emphasis for Bannerlord's arena and tournament. With little effort, the arena and tournament could be a lot more interesting with lots of replayability.
You can recruit people to fight in the arena, customise them as they progress through the arena wins. They can perma-die if they lose a fight. There is a deeper arena progression here, like a game in itself.
This sense of progression was why I suggested a championship arena mode. There is a goal to winning arena tournaments across Calradia instead of just "hey, there is a tournament let's fight and then it's over".
It is best to demo with a video.
Boring loots, little variation
Warband loot was uninspiring. BL now has weapon customiser, so could randomise the loot with auto-generated customised weapons. Does not have to be all weapons in the loot pile, just 1-2 is enough. It makes sense in a land of war and trade where artifacts get looted/traded from party to party across the world. Some weird trinket would inevitably end up somewhere far away. Games like path of exile and diablo does this well where the player gets excited each time they find loot. It seems like an easy-ish thing to do that adds a lot of fun.
Weird gravity
People falling off like a feather. This makes sense if calradia has moon-like gravity, but it is not consistent with the rest of the world. If calradia had moon-like gravity, then arrows would also fall slowly and other stuff too. Seems like a simple thing, but just makes the world unbelievable, unless you say some weird black magic did it. Thanks Terco_Viejo for the gif.
Glitchy immersion-breaking armour
Steel armor that stretches like the whole thing is painted on a t-shirt.
I have analysed some videos and identified a few potential things:
Party speed reduced from game difficulty?
It's fine to plus party speed for easier difficulties, but please do not make the AI cheat by reducing player party speed for higher difficulties. Nobody likes cheating AI with added bonuses. We've seen this kind of cheating AI to death for so many games for decades to give the illusion of "harder AI".
Looter/bandit item and behaviour variation
Why do all all looters throw stones and stand in formation? Looters loot things, so they should have more varied items. You imagine these looters plan and sneak into villages and towns at night to steal whatever weapons and clothes. Please give them sticks, clubs, work hammers, harvesting sycthes, butcher knives, etc. Change their clothes a bit. Maybe one looter got lucky and scored a metal bra (one needs to do anything to survive). Same with bandits. Most looters and bandits are probably not disciplined trained soldiers so it's weird to see a line of looters throwing stones like trained archers. However, some of them might be ex-soldiers so it's a chance they may have a good formation or no formation.
Boring merchant deliveries
Looks like a big part of merchant gameplay is using "trade rumours" to make profit by trading goods in different places. This means most of the merchant's time is spent delivering goods. This potentially can get very boring because it can be just an easy deliver/fetch quest grind especially if you have good spotting and pathfinding skills to avoid enemies. There needs to be some real danger of getting ambushed every time you deliver goods to another city. Raiders probably have plans. They watch and follow traders going in and out of cities and plan ambushes. Further, caravans can probably never outrun a small guerrilla raiding party when they have planned an ambush earlier. This means you may need to hire caravan guards or pay some other party to escort you. There should be well-traveled trade routes and riskier routes like routes with less patrols and heavy ambush spots. Riskier routes make more profit because less traders want to take the risk. So, at the end of the day, the merchant needs to balance security costs, goods value & weight, and risks to make a profit. Weather could add to the risk element such as heavy rain/snow slowing down caravan move speed, delaying goods so by the time you reach the city you may lose profit. Maybe you are forced to take a shorter, more risky route to avoid bad weather or a blocked path to make profit. Other merchants could get to the city faster than you, reducing values of the goods. So, you could also compete with other merchants. I also know the merchant skill only increases if you make a profit. This would make it more fun as a merchant than an easy fetch/delivery quest grind.
Better AI/control for companion tactics
It does not look like you can tell your companions how to fight. Just simple things like use up all throwing/ranged weapons then charge in, or prioritise horse archers first. In warband it was frustrating to see companions just charge in with melee and never use their ranged first or ignoring the cavalry circling behind them.
Bonus idea: We could go crazy with scripting AI companion here like telling one crossbow companion to follow a shield companion all the time, like a small squad. If companions like each other enough, they would probably do this naturally anyway like IRL. If you fought with a friend for 100+ battles, do you want to see him die?
Bad AI from gamescom (many people's concern)
The AI from gamescom 2018 were quite bad. They can't block or parry well from melee and arrows. You can throw a big rock from above and they don't look up and dodge the rock even after their allies died next to them from a previous rock. AI ignores someone attacking their back 10+ times. AI charging into horse archer in a straight line like the terminator...
AI not dodging rocks even seeing the last rock killed an ally next to them
Tournaments still look boring - Become world champion arena fighter (May help BL esport)
To make tournaments more fun, could create a championship system where a character can become world champion arena fighter, starting with beating easier arena fighters to harder ones around Calradia. Any character can join the arena from a peasant to a companion or lord. Slowly increase the arena combat difficulty as the player beats each arena fighter. This will slowly increase player dueling skill, without being too easy or too frustrating. At the end, the player will feel very good, proud and accomplished after becoming Champion of Calradia (remember when you beat vega in street fighter 2 after 1000 tries?). This may also increase multiplayer population especially duels because people who avoid MP from bad skills become better from fighting increasingly-hard arena bots. I know hard 1v1 AI is possible because warband had bots that could beat 95% of the warband MP players. So, a championship system is both fun and serve as a duel tutorial without feeling like a tutorial that may increase bannerlord esport growth.
Lots of other games tried some form of this (e.g. kingdom come deliverance, oblivion, divinity original sin 2, dragonage origins, witcher 3 fistfights, even old school gems like Quest for Glory V: Dragonfire 20 years ago. I remember fighting interesting characters like a calm minotaur and a german-like amazonian woman). Remember the colosseum and The Gladiator movie? Gladiatorial combat was huge back in ancient Rome, let's make a sport out of it in Calradia.
**UPDATED 10/2/2019**
So, to distract myself from the BL wait, I got into a small, niche and weird medieval combat game called Exanima.
I noticed it has a decent Arena mode. Even for a small, early access game made by 1 programmer + 5 other artists, this game has a fun and varied arena mode that lasts hundreds of hours. I'm hoping by the time I finish Exanima BL is out
This is the kind of thing I wanted to emphasis for Bannerlord's arena and tournament. With little effort, the arena and tournament could be a lot more interesting with lots of replayability.
You can recruit people to fight in the arena, customise them as they progress through the arena wins. They can perma-die if they lose a fight. There is a deeper arena progression here, like a game in itself.
This sense of progression was why I suggested a championship arena mode. There is a goal to winning arena tournaments across Calradia instead of just "hey, there is a tournament let's fight and then it's over".
It is best to demo with a video.
Boring loots, little variation
Warband loot was uninspiring. BL now has weapon customiser, so could randomise the loot with auto-generated customised weapons. Does not have to be all weapons in the loot pile, just 1-2 is enough. It makes sense in a land of war and trade where artifacts get looted/traded from party to party across the world. Some weird trinket would inevitably end up somewhere far away. Games like path of exile and diablo does this well where the player gets excited each time they find loot. It seems like an easy-ish thing to do that adds a lot of fun.
Weird gravity
People falling off like a feather. This makes sense if calradia has moon-like gravity, but it is not consistent with the rest of the world. If calradia had moon-like gravity, then arrows would also fall slowly and other stuff too. Seems like a simple thing, but just makes the world unbelievable, unless you say some weird black magic did it. Thanks Terco_Viejo for the gif.
Glitchy immersion-breaking armour
Steel armor that stretches like the whole thing is painted on a t-shirt.
