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SP - World Map My thoughts on the Faction Snowball effect. Campaigns should go on forever!
- Thread starter Koartz
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If the campaign were hypothetically only intended to last 20 in-game years, then what the hell is the point of the hereditary system? I mean, clearly there were many different features included this game which assume a generational playthrough of some kind, so that can't be right.
He is saying Bannerlord is a dynamic world so world conquests can/will happen, but they try to balance them so that when a faction snowballs it should only complete a world conquest after decades.
The generational playthrough was more about you having a clan, not just one character. The direction of that was more that you could have permadeath for your character and continue playing with other clan members. But that feature is not that far. There was never a plan for "generational playthroughs", Bannerlord is about the battles and character progression. Right now you have your character ready to pursue lordship and then kingship inside less than year so that would be kind of ridiculous expectation.
I am not sure if this dynamic approach will work without some toggles to limit the dynamism to pace with the player but we will see.
All right, fair enough I guess. I'm not sure I would currently classify the game as dynamic, the potential victor I suppose is variable, but the world is in constant war from the get-go and continues all the way to the end. There is rarely a peace that lasts more than a week for a faction, so the fact that there is endless war is a much more static reality. I've had 1 playthrough in 5, that had more than 2 factions survive after 1089. 3 playthroughs where 1 faction snowballed hard, and 1 where there were 2 global superpowers after 5 years, and 2 simulations where it was over by 1091-92 after 1.05. If they intended the game to be much faster then there's also the question of why the skill gain system is so slow? Why would they add resting to smithing? Clearly there are distinct time sinks put into the game, but if the game is only intended to last for a relatively short amount of time, then why create these time sinks/grinds?
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The Luminary
Sergeant
The poll title is worded weirdly. In the sandbox mode at least without any player intervention, there should not be any one faction dominating the map after 100+ hours of game play.
Campaigns are something else and generally shouldn't be longer than 50 hrs. The current "campaign" feels more like a sandbox without any victory goals, few quests that give terrible rewards, with very slow skill/level progression and ageing.
TheHuscarl
Recruit
Cool, would be cool if somebody did a "simulation" thread where people could post similar analysis for each patch.
Thanks for this one <3
Thanks for this one <3
Thanks for this! These are really quite neat to see
Interesting post, thank you. I am a firm believer that kingdoms shouldn't be able to effectively end the game without the player's participation, since what's even the point then? There's nothing fun about spending several hours building up an army, improving relations with nobles, and more, only to see that a kingdom has already conquered most of the world by the time you make it to the mid game, and you have to start all over. Kingdoms should instead remain relatively stable without player participation, as they previously seemed to be. They should still be able to wage war and conquer fiefs from each other, of course, but not to the extent of the game ending itself prematurely.
This was also the case in my first playthrough, as the Northern Empire wiped out the other two imperial kingdoms before taking the rest of the map. My current playthrough is developing in a similar fashion, except the Northern Empire is the first one to be wiped out.
Looks like the devs are getting there. Hopefully they can solve the early wipe and prolong the all out war phase so players can get going before anything too major happens.Firstly credit to woodi for his thorough analysis on this issue which was posted here:
LINK
That analysis was on patch 1.04 and showed clear faction snowballing issues.
In a similar fashion i have made 3 simulations on patch 1.05. I have posted the result in woodi's topic, but since we are no longer on patch 1.04, i will post these simulations as a single separate for anyone interested.
The conditions for the simulations are:
- The simulations ran for 10 ingame years (840 days)
- No player interaction with anything - just waiting at a town.
- Simulated at 50x speed
- For every ingame first day of Summer and Winter (42 ingame days), data was collected in correspondence with woodi's measure of faction power. This means number of towns for each faction was counted. The exception is simulation 1, where data was only collected every ingame year (84 days)
- A screenshot was also taken at the time of data was collected to give a visual overview of the map status.
--- Simulation 1 ---
Days of faction wipe:
Day 43 - Western Empire wiped
Day 551 - Southern Empire wiped
Area-chart
Map after 10 years
Screenshot album:
LINK
--- Simulation 2 ---
Days of faction wipe:
Day 124 - Southern Empire wiped
Day 241 - Western Empire wiped
Day 438 - Sturgia wiped
Area-chart
Map after 10 years
Screenshot album:
LINK
--- Simulation 3 ---
Days of faction wipe:
Day 256 - Southern Empire wiped
Day 455 - Battania wiped
Day 495 - Northern Empire wiped
Area-chart
Map after 10 years
Screenshot album:
LINK
Assuming these 3 simulations give a valid measurement of faction development, the snowballing issue seems to have improved with patch 1.05. Now there is no longer only one single faction owning the entire map at the end.
There are large factions by year 10, but no "winning" faction which was often the case on patch 1.04 and below.
Furthermore it seems to be quite random which factions growns into large powers, which looks like an improvement, as Battania and Khuzait seemingly used to be the worst steamrollers.
Its great to see that the developers have managed to improve upon this issue in only a few days.
However there are still a few concerning issues, which i hope will be looked into in later patches:
1. Several factions are getting wiped out very early on. The worst example on this is in simulation 1, with Western Empire wiping after only 43 days. RIP Garios.
2. It seems that no matter what 2 out of 3 Empire factions are more or less destined to wipe every time. This could be a coincidence having only 3 simulations, but it seems to be the case.
3. Sturgia is a constant underdog. I am aware that this has been reported already in serveral topics, and i hope this will improve.
4. Sometimes factions will conquer 2-4 towns in 42 ingame days (half a year) and almost wipe out a faction in very short time. This seems a bit more like blitzkrieg than medieval warfare.
Hope this information will help both forum users and developers.
Sorry for any confusion, how would you word it?
The point I'm trying to make with the poll is that a single player campaign should be able to last forever, with multiple nations to fight.
I disagree, there shouldn't be any arbitrary limit to how long a campaign should be. If a player wants to play with the same clan for 200 hours, they should have the option to do so. And should have a game world that makes it rewarding, a game world filled with enemies to fight and nations to battle. Yes, there should be multiple nations alive even after 200 hours, in my opinion.
Perhaps at the start of the campaign, we could tick a "Continuous" box that resurrects nations from time to time. So those who want limited campaigns that can end with one nation conquering all can still have them.
In my opininion, the main problem regarding snowballing issue is the way AI lords behave on global map. They have nothing to do besides conquering. No feasts, no participating in tournaments, no solo patrolling their fiefs, no solo raiding, no nothing. A lot of this comes from deleting role of marshal and introducing create an army feature.
So my take on that. First of all, cost of gathering an army should be much more higher. Secondly, cost of containing lords in army should be a lot higher as well. Ideally army should disband after capturing 1 holding to give a breath for loser side. And at the same time higher cost of creating army gives time to lords to do their personal stuff (hiring new soldiers, patrolling, solo raiding etc) while they replenish influence to gather new army
So my take on that. First of all, cost of gathering an army should be much more higher. Secondly, cost of containing lords in army should be a lot higher as well. Ideally army should disband after capturing 1 holding to give a breath for loser side. And at the same time higher cost of creating army gives time to lords to do their personal stuff (hiring new soldiers, patrolling, solo raiding etc) while they replenish influence to gather new army
Exactly. While prolonging from 2 in-game years to 6 or 10 is definitely a step in the right direction, if after 6-10 years, you are left with 2 factions this isn't necessarily progress as let's say you start your character with the intention of wanting to support Sturgia. Oops, Sturgia was wiped in the first 90 days, pick someone else. Oh, you want to start a trading/smithing empire and transition into a fief? Set up all your businesses and are ready to participate? Sorry, the Western Empire already won the game. Want to go through all the steps to forge your own path? Whoops, the Khuzaits already have the entire map or nearly, by the time you have your first fief, and they just declared war on you, because...well? Just because! And now you get to face the full force of the horde with their 20 settlements, have fun!
This game needs to decide whether it wants to be a sandbox or have a campaign, where the latter is 1) you get on your feet, 2) you merc for someone, 3) you form the banner and forge your path or vassal up, 4) you win the map, 5) game over. If it's the latter, they should have advertised it as such and should obviously get rid of children and marriage, since that's pointless in a 20 hour campaign, get rid of smithing fatigue, get rid of slow skill gain, as none of these make sense in this context. If its the former, then it should be, as you say, in essentially a holding pattern allowing the player to play his/her way.
I've had about 5 playthroughs thus far, 3 ended pre-maturely due to snowballing, and the other 2 a single faction still conquered, but I played through to the end regardless. I'm now burned out and have little desire to create another playthrough because when I go in with an idea of who I want to be and what I want to do, it gets upended in the endless warfare and my plans get ended far earlier than I want them to and it's taking the fun out of the game.
It's important to mention that while the last two patches still prolong things a bit which shows progress, the underlying issue and the consequences of having essentially nothing but 2 factions 6 years into the game is not a legitimate fix at all.
+1 but i think ideally army should disband after capturing 2 holding since its alway get reconquered by the losing side really fast
You do realize there’s two single player modes planned: sandbox and campaign. The early access is the campaign game mode which should have an end date and will probably have more fleshed our quests/storylines as time goes on. I’m assuming the sandbox game mode won’t and will have factions lasting forever like you want.
I think he simply meant that in a campaign, there are fixed goals...as in, 1) you get on your feet and earn renown/make money, 2) you merc for someone, 3) you vassal/forge your own path, 4) you dominate the map or lose, 5) game over. In contrast, a sandbox should have a relative stalemate on the main map until player intervention as this allows the player to decide what they want to do without their game ending prematurely, want to be a trader for 20 years and your son wants to be a warrior? This is possible, and your son may go on to own lands and so on so forth. In contrast, a campaign has fixed goals and a beginning, a middle, and an end based on somewhat preordained objectives.
To follow up on this, I had my first big battle while it was snowing and that brought my performance down a bit, I just turned particle effects to low and that made a big difference.
ehm im not sure but i think they are planning it so you can just ignore the campaign and play "sandbox" that way, in essence they would be the same gamemode, one with the campaign quests, one without
