So I originally meant this post as a short reply to a thread but it kept expanding to the point where I believed it deemed itself plausible for its own thread, so here it is. I had the privilege of becoming an alpha player in early July and it has been a fun ride. I believe I've helped a lot with finding bugs, providing info of how to improve some features and giving suggestions for new features. Below is some of my thoughts in regard to the MP side of things, the release of EA and my experiences from the alpha/beta.
Honestly MP is lacking quite a lot. There is multiple key game modes from warband that are missing which aren't only more fun for players but yield a much better combat environment for testers - therefore helping players give more feedback and feedback that is more accurate. They are mainly duel & battle. And some features just don't make combat fun; yes people go on about 'muh warband has better combat', but in many ways it is true. The combat is subjective, it certainly has been improved in some areas but personally to say it is an overall improvement on warband's combat is untrue. Yes, shield bashes are nice in bannerlord, archery feels always pretty damn nice but... the combat itself on foot? It feels janky, sluggish and regularly unresponsive. Chambers are basically non-existent any more because they're that complicated and hard to do, kicking is just asking to die because the enemy isn't stunned long enough for you to be able to hit him and it the time you're stunned with the animation leaves you open to even being attacked yourself. Hit boxes are horrendous, on countless occasions I've had my shield raised in FRONT of the enemy, and they've just hit through my shield. And don't get me started on side swings. When you get hit, your weapon being drawn animation is cancelled, so when you're an archer and you're being attacked, you draw your weapon to defend yourself and more often than not your weapon doesn't draw and you don't realise in the heat of the moment so you are there frantically trying to defend yourself but your weapon won't draw/you are fighting thinking your weapon is out but in-fact your bow is out instead. Shield HP is insane, doesn't make it fun trying to break someone's shield when you have to hit the shield a couple dozen times to do so; there has been some nerfs to the shield HP a few patches ago in the beta where it is noticeable for first tier shields to actually break now but apart from that, there is little difference. Spears are really broken, they are so OP, not as bad as they used to be but still really unbalanced - and before some respond saying 'muh they are powerful IRL', it really isn't a valid argument because we need to find the balance between IRL and the fun of a game. The blocking delay - BTW there was one in warband for all those trying to say there wasn't, just not as drastic, but the delay is infuriating when you
KNOW you should have blocked an attack, and probably would have and the game instead decides to stop you. In part, I agree with the delay, it helps slow down spammers but again that has gone too far, and I can't even feint half the time and I end up in duels which are just boring because I find it hard to fool the enemy with my swings. Also, those saying cav is harder in bannerlord... they're so wrong lmao. Cavalry feels smooth, yes, but how easy it is to use just makes it boring for me to even play that class. Javelins are too numerous and their damage for some are too high and accuracy is insane, especially from afar. All things we've been pointing out from the very start of the alpha and it feels with a lot of things we've been either ignored or just a minor change has been pushed through to try to make us seem 'satisfied'. I've even reported a certain bugs which was rather feature-breaking which hasn't got any acknowledgement from dev or even seem to have had any look. The thread has been around for approximately 7 months and it is rather infuriating to not even see an option for this.
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https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/poll-changes-to-view-character.386893/]
Coming away from the combat itself, the lack of customisation in the game is shocking, at least for MP. The class system is concerning - it wouldn't be so bad if it was an option alongside gear customisation, but it isn't. I've sort of admitted and accepted that it isn't going to change, therefore waiting for modders to implement it themselves - which is a sad reality really when it is clear that the overall player base are not supportive of this feature that has been forced upon us and needing to await for the community to mod it for a fix. There is also no customisation for multiple profiles for several characters like in warband. You can't save your character, have multiple profiles, change your name or have your own banner. Even your steam profile picture is slapped onto the scoreboard. There is no sense of 'privacy' in regard to wanting to make a character without someone instantly goes "Oh look it is x person!" - having to change your steam profile is a really poor alternative as I don't like changing my name/profile picture generally and I shouldn't be forced to do it every time I want a different name or picture (even though I'd rather have no picture at all as an option!). This severely hinders the potential of mods and servers such as role-play servers.
I was lucky enough to become one of the first alpha testers, when the external game testing was a mere whisper. It was an exciting experience, overtime after reporting bugs and issues less attention had been taken to what we did. Sometimes optimisation for the game was so bad I didn't even want to play, but a lot of the time I understood because it was in alpha/beta. We're in EA now, where you have to pay like £35 (£40 after sale) for the game and personally I don't even feel the MP side of bannerlord is in a playable state. SP I think constitutes to being an EA game, as a lot of content is missing like scenes, quests etc, which would be seen as an EA worthy title but, MP side is a complete mess, and a lot of it is down to stubbornness from TW. If I'm blunt, as a massive mount & blade fanboy, I only brought the game for SP, in its current state I would not have even -
considered- buying the game from an MP perspective (aka, if the game was only MP I wouldn't have considered buying it) and I haven't touched the MP side since the game released in EA. Please can we see some changes which makes the game more fun, and responses from Devs feel less artificial and responses themselves become more frequent. Thanks for reading my rant, feel free to comment your thought below.
