My concerns about the approach of TW to feature additions and their prioritisations

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In November, TW felt like it was reasonable to say they'd release 1.0 in March. With the caveat of delays of course, but come on.
I mean they also said they would release the game 'in some form' in 2016. I wouldn't worry about it :razz:
 
I mean I've mainly lost all faith in TW when it comes to project management (and development in general, honestly). A blind goat with one ear and two legs could tell you in November that Bannerlord would be nowhere near finished in March. Meanwhile, the developers use their forum signature to tell us that "the game hasn't actually released", as if they didn't sell several million copies, and that we shouldn't expect any more from them.

Yeah, sure, maybe in 2025 we'll have an actual good game, with proper modding tools, servers, and a robust singleplayer, though vanilla multiplayer will still be ****ty since they chose to die on that hill. I just think the way TW is going about it is just about the most mismanaged, ridiculously backwards way of developing, communicating, and structuring that I've ever encountered. And I'm a software developer.
 
though vanilla multiplayer will still be ****ty since they chose to die on that hill.

I don't even want to know what they were thinking with the class system. But I'm forced to agree on the last part. Overly pragmatic 'casual player' market orientation and a very large sense of reliance of modders is worrying to say the least, even though much harsher words have been said on these forums
 
There will always be a 'never mind' option - it's the back out. It stands out if it's the only option available, but it usually isn't unless you've exhausted other options (barter, 'what do you think of your ruler', marriage options, etc.).

Your list:
  • Clans and marriage (already exists)
  • Rebellions (already exists)
  • New terrain system (is being implemented)
  • Campaign map city and keep models resembling their scenes (new scenes in roadmap; possibly they intend to resemble campaign models)
  • Different scenes (in the roadmap)
  • Scene interactions, a reason to visit scenes (in the eye of the beholder? - anything that forces people to visit scenes - you can already choose to - will be opposed by players who don't want to, or whose hardware means a wait of several seconds to load the scene)
  • Better combat and siege AI (in roadmap, constant tweaks)
  • Different combat tactics for lords (this partly exists? agree could be extended with traits)
  • Better NPC dialogue with caravan leaders, villagers, village elders, town notables, gang leaders, etc. (better how? most people don't read it; legitimate area for mods to expand for those who want it)
  • Distinct lord dialogue based on their traits and characteristics, and also based on their history with the player (there is some already; could be extended)
  • Factions feeling different instead of being copy-paste of each other in terms of strategy (lots of threads with disagreements on what direction this should go in; partly troop roster/balance discussions; e.g. why do imperials have so few cavalry and Battanians so few archers)
  • Really different characteristics and dialogue for rulers (see better NPC dialogue; maybe some of the main quest dialogue could be repeated/extended/available outside of the main quest)
Thanks for spending time on them. "Never mind" will of course stay but lords (at least when I was playing) responded to "I have a quick question" with only that. This is the problem. What is TW's vision on these immersion related areas? Will they be improved? And TW is still silent on these parts. Some of your responses are only good wishes, not acknowledged by TW.

Unfortunately I don't have anything else to add to this other than my last post.
 
I think it is an improvement over the base-game of Warband. It's unfair to compare modded features since Warband has had so many years with its modding community while Bannerlord? Roughly a year?

Features/Ideas I find that are interesting and keep me around playing Bannerlord

. Life and death, dynasty system.
.Better sieges - anything is better than vanilla Warband sieges. You can build siege engines
. Rebellions
. Quality of life features, for example, seeing the number of troops an opposing kingdom has. An entire encyclopedia that is more intuitive than the tabs in warband. More information. There are many more I don't want to list here
. Larger battles and decent graphics for the number of troops on the screen
. More development options
. Smithing (even doe its broken)
. Army system - much better than just random lords running close together like in Warband.
. Worldmap is larger and more expansive it seems
. Better battle scenes. Warband had auto-generated terrain which was good and bad. Sometimes you would get very ****ty battlefields to fight in
. Better battle command is spilt between lords. So you can control the archer formations while another lord takes command of infantry
. New recruitment system
. Upcoming terrain system
. Upcoming keep battles
. Morale is actually more present. Routs are more common which is realistic
. The greater modding potential down the line
. And much more I don't want to sit here writing this out for an hour

I like Warband and Bannerlord. I think it's unfair to compare both games but yet people do it and just ignore all quality of life features that Bannerlord offers. The reason why everyone and myself likes Warband so much are because of the multiplayer/singeplayer mods which have been developed for years.

Bannerlord is definitively is flawed like vanilla Warband and obviously needs criticism. But bashing it nonsensically seems kinda unfair in my eyes.
I agree that Bannerlord is an improvement over Native Warband but it fall far short of modded Warband and I do believe that it is absolutely fair to compare Bannerlord to Modded Warband.

To start with, when Taleworlds started developing Bannerlord, they had dozens of proof of concepts on many ideas all laid out in front of them. They just had to look at the mods created for Warband to see what was possible to add to Bannerlord. I have mentioned this a couple times in other threads but my favorite Warband Mod, Nova Aetas has a huge depth of features that Bannerlord only dreams of having and this is a mod that the modder claims only took him a year and half to do and he was stuck with all the limitation of the Warband Engine. With such examples right before their eyes, access to millions of dollars, access to a team of professional developers and access to the source code, how can Bannerlord fall so short of MOD like Nova Aetas? Honestly it doesn't even have to be Nova Aetas, I just chose that one because it has the greatest depth of features of any of the Total Conversion mods for Warband in my opinion. It could be Prophecy of Pendor, Persino or a combination of all the good features from all the good and popular mods that they had pulled from but most of what made those mods great seems to be absent from Bannerlord.

So in my opinion, since they had all this to draw from at the beginning of development, how can we not draw comparison from modded Warband? Better than Warband is good but what we should be seeing is better than Modded Warband because the ideal Bannerlord experience was right there, plain for them to see actually not just at the start of development of Bannerlord but years prior to the start of development.
 
I agree that Bannerlord is an improvement over Native Warband but it fall far short of modded Warband and I do believe that it is absolutely fair to compare Bannerlord to Modded Warband.

To start with, when Taleworlds started developing Bannerlord, they had dozens of proof of concepts on many ideas all laid out in front of them. They just had to look at the mods created for Warband to see what was possible to add to Bannerlord. I have mentioned this a couple times in other threads but my favorite Warband Mod, Nova Aetas has a huge depth of features that Bannerlord only dreams of having and this is a mod that the modder claims only took him a year and half to do and he was stuck with all the limitation of the Warband Engine. With such examples right before their eyes, access to millions of dollars, access to a team of professional developers and access to the source code, how can Bannerlord fall so short of MOD like Nova Aetas? Honestly it doesn't even have to be Nova Aetas, I just chose that one because it has the greatest depth of features of any of the Total Conversion mods for Warband in my opinion. It could be Prophecy of Pendor, Persino or a combination of all the good features from all the good and popular mods that they had pulled from but most of what made those mods great seems to be absent from Bannerlord.

So in my opinion, since they had all this to draw from at the beginning of development, how can we not draw comparison from modded Warband? Better than Warband is good but what we should be seeing is better than Modded Warband because the ideal Bannerlord experience was right there, plain for them to see actually not just at the start of development of Bannerlord but years prior to the start of development.
There's a balance to be struck though, because the mods we can compare to took base warband in different directions. Kingdom management and diplomacy; stories and quests; economy and city management; troop and faction balancing versus diversity; scenes, graphics, UI and immersion. Just checking the threads on here shows the different goals players have, conflicting priorities and disagreement on the most fundamental mechanics and tweaks.

Any two players may want very different directions to be taken - as they chose different mods in warband. Tying new systems into the base game may detract for some players, interfering with a certain playstyle or potential overhaul mod.

The base game needs to be as good as it can be in vanilla, while allowing for as wide a variety of playstyles and mods as possible. In some cases that will mean the base game exposes some core capabilities which modders can expand on, without cramming in every conceivable detail to get in the way of those who don't want it.
 
There's a balance to be struck though, because the mods we can compare to took base warband in different directions. Kingdom management and diplomacy; stories and quests; economy and city management; troop and faction balancing versus diversity; scenes, graphics, UI and immersion. Just checking the threads on here shows the different goals players have, conflicting priorities and disagreement on the most fundamental mechanics and tweaks.
It may look as if mods create niche experiences, but there were plenty of mod features that could be conceptualized to something many players want. I'll give a couple of examples (from PoP, because I'm familiar with it) so I don't have to use long words.
- Knighthood Orders -> special elite troops that you could get if you establish their building in your castle or town; cost rare Qualis Gems (=Unobtainum); also allow a range of quests, membership/roleplaying and whatnot but that's not crucial, what's important is that you can get rare elite troops, and the other lords in the game could employ them too, which makes the battles more interesting.
- Minor factions - while Warband had some uninteresting bandit factions, PoP made more of them, gave them distinct lore, equipment, troop trees; You could see this attempted in Bannerlord with some success. The broader concept employed here is to have interesting and varied enemies, because battles against kingdom lords grow old pretty quick. Another VERY important detail is to have a wide range of challenges, from small patrols to humongous powerful invasion/war parties (the last one giving Unobtainium as a reward), so you could pick your challenge level and increase it as you grow more powerful.

These are very general concepts that could be put into any mod or Native and are proven to make the game more fun and interesting. The basic design principle in PoP was to take the interesting parts of Native and expand on them.
Why couldn't TW do this with Bannerlord? It seems they don't quite know what works in their game and they didn't bother to find out.
 
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  • Different combat tactics for lords
  • Distinct lord dialogue based on their traits and characteristics, and also based on their history with the player
  • Factions feeling different instead of being copy-paste of each other in terms of strategy
Yes please. This is something I feel is definitely lacking in Bannerlord and would contribute so much to immersion, and just overall enjoyment of the gameplay process. Who wants to battle against the same tactician every single battle? Shouldn't the different commanders have different personalities and tactics that are reflected on the battlefield with the strategies they use? Or even the cultures they are from? (empire legionaries using roman legionary tactics) Traits could be used to influence different tactical decisions.
 
It may look as if mods create niche experiences, but there were plenty of mod features that could be conceptualized to something many players want. I'll give a couple of examples (from PoP, because I'm familiar with it) so I don't have to use long words.
- Knighthood Orders -> special elite troops that you could get if you establish their building in your castle or town; cost rare Qualis Gems (=Unobtainum); also allow a range of quests, membership/roleplaying and whatnot but that's not crucial, what's important is that you can get rare elite troops, and the other lords in the game could employ them too, which makes the battles more interesting.
- Minor factions - while Warband had some uninteresting bandit factions, PoP made more of them, gave them distinct lore, equipment, troop trees; You could see this attempted in Bannerlord with some success. The broader concept employed here is to have interesting and varied enemies, because battles against kingdom lords grow old pretty quick. Another VERY important detail is to have a wide range of challenges, from small patrols to humongous powerful invasion/war parties (the last one giving Unobtainium as a reward), so you could pick your challenge level and increase it as you grow more powerful.

These are very general concepts that could be put into any mod or Native and are proven to make the game more fun and interesting. The basic design principle in PoP was to take the interesting parts of Native and expand on them.
Why couldn't TW do this with Bannerlord? It seems they don't quite know what works in their game and they didn't bother to find out.
You can take this one step further actually. There are many thing that are more generic that would appeal to the wide range of players. For example things to do while your at peace.

While we might disagree on what exactly those things are, there is an overwhelming amount of people who would just love something, anything to be added. I mean I doubt anyone would complain if they added say farming as an option of something you could do during times of peace.

Also I wholehearted agree on your last statement and even posted pretty much the same thing myself in another thread a little while ago. Taleworlds had so many great mods come from Warband to use an example of what could be done and hell what people really enjoyed, it just boggles the mind that so many of these features didn't make it into the game. I mean if I look at the list of features in my favorite mod, Nova Aetas and compare it to Bannerlord's features, Bannerlord looks like a skeleton by comparison. It is like no one at Taleworlds in a decision making position, had any idea about these mods and/or never even thought to look at just how far modders took Warband and think about just what kind of expectations those mods would give us to have for Bannerlord. It just truly boggles my mind.
 
Perhaps TW's are only focusing on fixing the many bugs, crashes, glitches, balancing etc, for the game first, then once they have done most of them, then they'll start adding more newer features, such as (hopefully) the above comments and more. Maybe they do have plans for more features, but everytime they implemented in the game, the game would crash, because of other bugs, but idk, that is just my conspiracy. Lol. But they have implemented or about to implement new features, such as rebellions, sooo idk, gotta wait and see.


Like these.
 
There's a balance to be struck though, because the mods we can compare to took base warband in different directions. Kingdom management and diplomacy; stories and quests; economy and city management; troop and faction balancing versus diversity; scenes, graphics, UI and immersion. Just checking the threads on here shows the different goals players have, conflicting priorities and disagreement on the most fundamental mechanics and tweaks.

Any two players may want very different directions to be taken - as they chose different mods in warband. Tying new systems into the base game may detract for some players, interfering with a certain playstyle or potential overhaul mod.

The base game needs to be as good as it can be in vanilla, while allowing for as wide a variety of playstyles and mods as possible. In some cases that will mean the base game exposes some core capabilities which modders can expand on, without cramming in every conceivable detail to get in the way of those who don't want it.
Yeah the whole diversity of what people want argument is just a lazy excuse in my opinion. I mean just a little bit of research into those warband mods would have told them what the majority of people liked about those mods and should have given them a clear direction on what to try to add. You have the collective experience and feedback available to you of every modder and player who ever took the time to enter into discussion with the modder to draw from. It is just such a huge resource of information that doesn't appear to have ever been tapped.

I do agree with you on your last statement though. The game does need to be as good as it can be in vanilla and I think as good as it can be should have included many of those things the Warband mods brought to the table and from there the modders could have expanded.
 
Any two players may want very different directions to be taken - as they chose different mods in warband. Tying new systems into the base game may detract for some players, interfering with a certain playstyle or potential overhaul mod.
I totally agree with this. Features of mods are sometimes too specific. Integrating everything from mods may not be a wise idea as the game can become polluted quickly. I felt this even in VC at some points with all those text-based features.

There needs to be a balance on what to add and what to leave for mods. The base game needs to have all core features, though.
 
The problem with SP is that it’s a fake sandbox. The only decisions you can really make is where to go on the map. Other stuff is locked by random statistics, clan system and lack of diversity. For the first hours you have to kill bandits over and over, you can’t even chose to start as a lord or even as king or mercenary. Then you are forced to have a brother and a poorly written main story. Instead of doing a story for the player to hide behind you could have done a story for the characters in the world that they can tell the players. This world has less depth than Warband. Yes the graphics are better, yes the combats in SP feel better, but holy **** I have less immersion. It goes from actually taking the time to find a wife and receiving letters to having real, decently written companions like Rolf or Artimenner. Now we have stat based marriage where you just hope to be lucky, randomly generated NPCs with a stat associated to their nickname.
So many stuff that was described in the devblogs is either missing or was a lie ( I’m talking about improved AI and gangs being interesting)
 
Individual feature examples that will not fix the game only by themselves:
  • Smithing (already exists)
This has to get fixed though. It completely breaks the economy since you can create 100K value Javelins. It's been slightly balanced due to some high tier gear in the game which tends to cost 100K+. Obviously this is being addressed to an extent in one of the upcoming patches that changes equipment values. Though something tells me Smithing will be nigh impossible to level up past 100 afterwards.

This is one of the core game skills. It should work. The sad thing is it really doesn't need that much reworking. Just need a better system of unlocking parts (How about letting the player choose? Or you know you could learn designs from smelting...) And what essentially determines the "value" of said weapons. And if they were to ever add armor crafting with what we have currently they'll have something truly golden.
  • Feasts
  • Grand tournaments
  • Ships
  • ... so on
I agree here. These would be nice, but they really aren't going to do much for the game. Ships would be best saved for an expansion.
Core feature examples that when added will fix the game gradually by increasing its depth:
  • Clans and marriage (already exists)
Needs to be fleshed out a bit more. Family members are just planks of wood (as are companions). Marriage in this game is just totally silly. Go through the same RNG dialogue checks with everyone. Then buy your spouse from their Dad/Mom. Not even a cutscene or popup. If anything Marriages are where you should have Feasts.
  • Rebellions (already exists)
  • New terrain system (is being implemented)
  • Campaign map city and keep models resembling their scenes
  • Different scenes
  • Scene interactions, a reason to visit scenes
Rebellions are good edition, new terrain probably will be. More scenes will be good, but it would be nice to have a legit reason to visit them besides Quests. This would be helped with some side activities and more interesting NPC interactions.
  • Better combat and siege AI
  • Different combat tactics for lords
  • Better NPC dialogue with caravan leaders, villagers, village elders, town notables, gang leaders, etc.
  • Distinct lord dialogue based on their traits and characteristics, and also based on their history with the player
  • Factions feeling different instead of being copy-paste of each other in terms of strategy
  • Really different characteristics and dialogue for rulers
  • ... so on
Yeah Siege A.I. really needs to be a high priority at this point. It's very off-putting and tedious (due mostly to poor A.I.), when it should be one of the highlights of the game.

Lords seem to have gotten "dumber" in battle. See a lot Circle formations being formed when they shouldn't.

And yeah dialogue needs a lot of work. Granted I'd say half the player base doesn't care, but there are quite a few players who like to roleplay and this is a big buzzkill for them. Companions need to be more then soldiers you just dress up too. Actually some of the Lords are distinct, but it wouldn't hurt for them to have more responses.

Your one of the few people I've seen advocating for unique armies. Or do you mean their playstyle, not their unit rosters?

Frankly I'm concerned about all the people who will probably come back to play this game in March/April only for them to probably completely give up on the game when so many things that were problems back at start of EA are still problems currently. Without good numbers of people playing and giving feedback there isn't much point to the EA.
 
Your one of the few people I've seen advocating for unique armies. Or do you mean their playstyle, not their unit rosters?
Yes, playstyles. Rosters are not that bad.

Would be good to see different percentage combinations for lords instead of all of them being let's say %50 infantry, %20 archer, etc. Even it may disturb the balance a bit, having some lords prefering different combinations in each faction would add flavor, to my taste. It would also give reasons to follow and befriend specific lords thus giving soulless copy-paste lords a bit more personality.

Some lords would play defensively while others prefer more raiding.

Factions and rulers might have some variety in playstyle as well, some being greedy in terms of land, other focusing on trade etc. This might not be for everyone, I understand. Designers should know better. Just need to have them a bit different in a way that suits the current game design. Currently, factions, and rulers are copy paste of each other as well in terms of behavior.

I agree with all your points.
 
It is like no one at Taleworlds in a decision making position, had any idea about these mods and/or never even thought to look at just how far modders took Warband and think about just what kind of expectations those mods would give us to have for Bannerlord. It just truly boggles my mind.
We complain about the same things, so we are probably identical twins or something. Here's my theory why TW ignored Warband mods in Bannerlord design.
 
Do you guys also think that if they wouldn't have attempted to create a dynamic world they would've been much further into development? It seems so over complicated having so many different variables and calculations all behind the scene whom majority of players won't notice. Not to mention, the development of the game would of followed a more known and tested path if it were static. (ie easier to make)
 
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