Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord Old Discussion Thread

[RafaelCruz]

I know I'm a bit late for the party, but I would like to add my grain of salt on the gameplay demo.

First I would like to add a well deserved congratulations on the demo, even though it feels a bit scripted (and really, there's no reason why not to do so) there was a lot of stuff to go wrong and the game seemed very smooth. You can really see where those 4 years of development went and, as you guys don't plan on releasing it any time soon (maybe end of the year, but I would bet on first quarter of 2017) you will get a very ass kicking product by them.

Your engine feels very solid: collision seems great, the lighting effects are simply amazing and the way objects interact seem very well thought and done.

I can see some great improvements in AI also, as pointed by some of the other posters, as in the way they try to keep the correct distance to hit or how the cavalry doesn't stay still and actually tries to keep moving away from infantry, as it's how cavalry should act.

It's very understandable that you guys used the order to "charge", as people, media and general pop culture believes that medieval warfare was mosh-pit of swords, lances and arrows, but I would really like to see how 2 formations would face each other in this iteration of the series and how they would, or not, try to retain and fight in said formation. Also, if they are not there yet, it should be available to make units behave in certain well known formations (i.e. if you have 4 of leadership you can order your troops to form in horse shoe or while approaching a fortress, do so in tortoise), but that's speculation of my part.

The menus seem much more optimized, if not a bit crude, on how it present information for the player, I really like it, but I believe that if you guys aim for a more broad scope of players you maybe should try something a bit less total war-ish: warband did actually a excellent work on presenting menus in a very user-friendly way.

The last nitpicking is that, as a historical fencer myself, I felt the handling of the weapons a bit clunky, on my opinion they should be relatively faster than they are and feel more fluid. But you can still feel the hits and the movementation is quite good, feels more natural than warband and more accurate.

All in all you guys seem to have accomplished something great, which build on your past hits, but try to improve your misses. I'm really trilled to see and know more of this game

 

[Varrak]

It's very understandable that you guys used the order to "charge", as people, media and general pop culture believes that medieval warfare was mosh-pit of swords, lances and arrows, but I would really like to see how 2 formations would face each other in this iteration of the series and how they would, or not, try to retain and fight in said formation.

^^ This.

Also i wonder if will there be any "political map" thing, with solid borders when we open it (maybe in castle)

 

[Louis The Last Breton]

Everyone has apported, so I will!

I jizzed at wolf guy
I jizzed at Diesel
I jizzed at menu
I jizzed at gang
I laughed at archer bait
I cried cause its over, and i'm waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting and waitibg

 

[Polycount]

I laughed at archer bait

Yup. That was very, very painful to watch. 

I cried cause its over, and i'm waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting and waitibg

Double yup. 

Spoiler

I know I'm a bit late for the party, but I would like to add my grain of salt on the gameplay demo.

First I would like to add a well deserved congratulations on the demo, even though it feels a bit scripted (and really, there's no reason why not to do so) there was a lot of stuff to go wrong and the game seemed very smooth. You can really see where those 4 years of development went and, as you guys don't plan on releasing it any time soon (maybe end of the year, but I would bet on first quarter of 2017) you will get a very ass kicking product by them.

Your engine feels very solid: collision seems great, the lighting effects are simply amazing and the way objects interact seem very well thought and done.

I can see some great improvements in AI also, as pointed by some of the other posters, as in the way they try to keep the correct distance to hit or how the cavalry doesn't stay still and actually tries to keep moving away from infantry, as it's how cavalry should act.

It's very understandable that you guys used the order to "charge", as people, media and general pop culture believes that medieval warfare was mosh-pit of swords, lances and arrows, but I would really like to see how 2 formations would face each other in this iteration of the series and how they would, or not, try to retain and fight in said formation. Also, if they are not there yet, it should be available to make units behave in certain well known formations (i.e. if you have 4 of leadership you can order your troops to form in horse shoe or while approaching a fortress, do so in tortoise), but that's speculation of my part.

The menus seem much more optimized, if not a bit crude, on how it present information for the player, I really like it, but I believe that if you guys aim for a more broad scope of players you maybe should try something a bit less total war-ish: warband did actually a excellent work on presenting menus in a very user-friendly way.

The last nitpicking is that, as a historical fencer myself, I felt the handling of the weapons a bit clunky, on my opinion they should be relatively faster than they are and feel more fluid. But you can still feel the hits and the movementation is quite good, feels more natural than warband and more accurate.

All in all you guys seem to have accomplished something great, which build on your past hits, but try to improve your misses. I'm really trilled to see and know more of this game

100% Agree on all of this, but I felt I should point out that bit about the weapons being faster.

The reason they can't really speed up the weapons too much (Let me just say that, as a fellow student of historical fencing, I agree with you) is purely for mechanical reasons. If weapons are too fast (realistically fast, for example) It would be very hard for the average player to block them in time, I believe. I could be wrong about their reasoning behind this, but since you're a historical fencer, you no doubt know what I mean when I say the average person just isn't capable of moving as quickly as actual sword fighting demands. It demands agility and finesse, and that's kind of a difficult thing to emulate in a game. It's just easier to have a slightly slower, more choreographed combat system (As silly as it may look to us at times) from a player perspective.

I'll also say that while I can parry a real life sword attack quite effectively, I can't parry for **** in Warband. Not sure why.

 

[Lord Brutus]

Parrying in Warband requires nearly perfect timing and then you get more of a parry-riposte than just a parry.

 

[KoA John]

Parrying in Warband requires nearly perfect timing and then you get more of a parry-riposte than just a parry.

Don't forget about Perry & Perry

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[The Meddling Monk]

Q:Frank please, this is important. There's been an unhealthy amount of debate over whether Sturgians are Vikings, Slavs or something in between like Kievan Rus. Can you please settle the matter once and for all?

A.Something in between is about right but the way I see it, it's not only between but also a bit of both. So there are really strong influences from both cultures and you still have very Nordic, Viking style huscarls etc.
They're a very cool faction and it'll be great to show them off more, perhaps when we reveal siege .

source

So finally we have an answer for that discussion that was going on a little while ago.

 

[Vraelomon]

Alright, I went through and took a good look and a screenshot of all the faces made by shown by Frank and Sten, starting at 3:51 of this video, since I hadn't seen the faces all in one place yet. I also made a rough estimate of who the faces were based on, as some others have done.

Spoiler: 1: Peter Cushing

Spoiler: 2: Harrison Ford

Spoiler: 3: Albert Einstein

Spoiler: 4: Vladamir Putin

Spoiler: 5: Arnold Schwarzenegger

Spoiler: 6: Adam Driver

Spoiler: 7: Steve Harvey

Spoiler: 8: Vin Diesel

They even got the iconic stupid look on Vin Diesels face. Astounding work, perhaps the Taleworlds team may have just been watching Star Wars for 4 years 
This editor looks really flippin great. I'll probably spend at least 3 hours ingame building my first character. It would be cool if we see threads like this one pinned in the future.

 

[Pilum]

I hope that this is not the Assassins. 

You don't want assassins in the game? Why not? I'd love to have some covert options like that in the  game.

I would like to see missions where you could infiltrate an enemies castle and open the gates for your troops, or render defense systems, such as that boiling oil thingy (if they have that in BL), ineffective.
Or you could poison the enemies' well during a siege. So you would have to evade guards and stuff, since if they would detect you, the mission would be lost or you could try to escape.

 

[Tyrni]

Didnt the speed of the swing depend on the weapon proficiency in warband? I would think its the same in Bannerlord. The video we saw was probably mid tier proficiency as its mid game also.

 

[aekilju]

Didnt the speed of the swing depend on the weapon proficiency in warband? I would think its the same in Bannerlord. The video we saw was probably mid tier proficiency as its mid game also.

Yes, proficiency and weapon speed. Though I'm not sure if we can rely on the video much for accurate information about that sort of thing since it was made specifically for that demo, and so most definitely wasn't a natural character progression. I'm also 99% sure the character's stats are edited (or they're playing on 1/4 player damage) because the player character takes a ton of hits without dying.

 

[Reiksmarshal]

One thing about the campaign map I would like to see is each faction has a capital settlement that is unique to the other settlements of the prospective faction on both the map and in battle. On the map most of the walled settlements looked the same. Anybody remember Shogun 2, when you fought a battle at Kyoto it was one of the best defended settlements and was very hard to take without a large and prepared army. The settlement of the King should be well defended with a royal guard/garrison that only the faction leader has access to, for example the Calradian Empire could have a strong garrison of Varangian or Praetorian guard "type" of troops as the royal garrison for the capital city. Make capital cities sort of like a boss battle that is very hard to capture and epic at the same time. Attacking a faction capital should be a defining moment and not just another siege where your uber elites just smash a peasant garrison. 

Old walls of Constantinople

Spoiler

Emperor with Varangian guard

Spoiler

 

[htlaets]

I have to ask again since a red marked user is online: will we have slingshots and staff-slings in bannerlord, like in viking conquest ?

 

[Satanica]

Zaszx is here! I saw him in blog 8!
ZASZX

 

[578]

Zaszx is here! I saw him in blog 8!
ZASZX

Congratulations on stalking people dude, someone call 911.

 

[Satanica]

Zaszx is here! I saw him in blog 8!
ZASZX

Congratulations on stalking people dude, someone call 911.

HANDS OFF SECURITY, I KNOW THE TRUTH

ALIENS, ALIENS I TELL YOU

 

[SenorZorros]

clearly you need a full 13th age plate harness wrapped in tinfoil.

 

[wildyracing]

Dear Taleworlds,

There is one big flaw in Warband that I see persistent in Bannerlord: the lack of friendly melee damage!

In Warband there was no way to enable this for hardcore experience and more control over your swings in crowded situations. Multiplayer allows friendly melee damage, but singleplayer doesn't. I hoped that Bannerlord will improve this matter and will introduce an optional friendly melee damage. Why the game should deny me the opportunity to hit one of my own troops with my sword, but gives me that opportunity (or disadvantage) to do it with my bow? I don't see any sense. In many medieval brawls and battles, combatants often injured or killed their own allies in the heat of the battle. This was even used as a way to "clear bills" with your own faction enemies. This is the historical reason to enable the friendly melee damage.

When I play Warband there are a lot of situations where my own troops prevent me from striking the enemy, because my swing stops in mid-air if there is a friendly troop near the enemy. I really don't like that, because the AI does the same thing all time and its swings aren't stopping like the player's. This is the gameplay reason to enable the friendly melee damage and the lack of it really bothers me. It will be best to pick your swings and avoid hitting your troops manually, as it is when you shoot a bow, rather than leave the game do this for you. And in a crowded situation I'll be able to just swing my axe berserker style and survive the battle.

The solution will be to add an option to enable friendly melee damage and if you swing a weapon, your hit lands where it is aimed, no matter if there is an ally or a foe there. So much better IMO. And if someone prefers to play with no friendly melee damage, like before, he just disable that option and enjoy the game his way too. I'm sure the engine allows this!

Thanks for your time!

 

[Bloodbeag]

Friendly melee damage I believe is and will be in Bannerlord an option in the menu

 

[DanAngleland]

Since Saturday we've added over 60* pages to this thread. I think it might be a record.

*Depends on your look & layout options; for me we are on page 1863.