New clans, scrimming, and the future of NA

[fengay]

Before I say anything I ask that this thread not be moved, even though it's about bannerlord it also pertains to current NA clans and multiplayer (I also don't want this to not be seen).
Also note that I am not complaining about the difficulty of the game.
Read this thread, it isn't may be important.

This might be too early to talk about, and it might not, I'd rather start earlier than not.
I don't talk to many of you either, so please excuse my ignorance if this subject is one that has already been brought up.

I know many of you already know what I'm about to say, but I'm a fan of recaps and intro paragraphs.
Many of us now have been playing warband for years, and many of us have gotten quite good at it too. The game takes a while to learn, and it's rewarding and great when you can actually survive combat without getting ***** slapped. We've built up tons of skill, and can easily defeat any newer player, and for most players their first couple hundred hours are just learning how to deal with that.

This learning curve drives many players away, some may argue whether that's good or not, but I'm not here to answer that. The majority of the current NA clans are filled with experienced players, and while some are better than others, every single one of them can beat new players with ease. This learning curve, and this difficulty is also what drives new clans away (clans mostly full of newer players). While you can try to use pon as an example, you need to realize most people will quit after getting 16-0'd for 3-6 months straight (no offense pon). Almost all of the time if a player has the patience to continually play this game and improve, they will eventually join an already established clan, and that established clan is full of experienced players. These experienced clans can easily take down one that is not, and do so quite often. The result is a stagnation in clans, with a small, seasoned competitive scene. Personally I do not believe this is an issue with Warband, but it will be with Bannerlord.

Assuming Bannerlord is not a failure gameplay-wise, many current Warband players will be playing it, that also means that many Warband players will be automatically good at it (with some adjustments). Those experienced clans from Warband? Now they're experienced clans in Bannerlord. This is an issue for a new game, and especially for one with a skill ceiling like mnb. Because it is a new game, there will be many new players, a lot more than we're used to. These many new players will try to make clans and try to get gud. Remember how I said people don't like getting 16-0'd for months straight? That won't change with Bannerlord.
I believe it is necessary that, if we as a community want to see Mount & Blade grow and stay alive, we do not put off and discourage these new clans. To allow these clans to develop and build themselves up is very important. We risk making many of them disintegrate and quit if we scrim them as soon as they start out, therefore hindering the growth of a new game. That is why I think we should start mulling over the idea of an agreement between current NA clans to not scrim new clans (ones with new players) for their first few months (In Bannerlord). We should let them scrim each other, and fight at their own skill level so as to not dampen and dismay them into quitting and causing stagnation like we have now.

My predictions may all be incorrect, and my ideas all inaccurate, but to me they seem solid and factual. If you have any arguments please offer them, but do not bully, otherwise I will make you read the TSB mission statement. This (to me) is a very serious concern when it comes to the future of the North American Mount and Blade competitive scene, and I believe it needs to be addressed early so we can deal with it and discuss it.

tl:dr

隐藏

We don't want to **** stomp every new clan in Bannerlord into quitting the first month

 

[Rhade]

At the same time, it's not our obligation to hold their hands.

Balion got absolutely destroyed the first time they played us.

They persevered and eventually came back to beat us in a tournament finals match on the big stage. Balion is an example of a clan that has the resilience to learn and grow because they're led well and have a lot of determined guys. How many clans do you see pop-up, even in this small ass community, writing out threads and talking about wanting to compete, but they fade away? It's not because success isn't being handed to them, it's because they want the glory without doing the work and it doesn't work that way.

I can support things that help new players learn, but I don't think I or anyone else -- or any clan, for that matter -- needs to "take it easy" on anyone. If anything, that's just going to make them not learn and grow.

You say experienced Warband clans will be experienced Bannerlord clans? That's interesting, as experienced Chivalry clans also will have an edge, experienced gamers of any FPS will also have an edge. I played Quake Live for the first time tonight and was destroying 3/4 the server, maybe I was assigned to the wrong group? It's just not feasible. I'm not about to write questionnaires for everyone to fill out so I can segregate the community into nice little boxes so they can play nice. A clan's success or failure isn't soley based on skill, but leadership, morale, tenacity, drive, dedication, perseverance and resilience. If you don't have the ability to see defeat as a learning experience and grow from it, I'm not sure how much hand-holding is going to help you; in fact, I believe it would exacerbate the problem, if only delaying it.

Again, I support things like tutorials, guides, and I'm actually always helpful to newer players who ask honest, specific questions. I don't think it's fair to deny those kinds of things to new players, even if we're the ones who took so long to figure things out and refine them. But I don't think it's healthy to restrict yourself around them; I know I wouldn't have gotten to the point I did if everyone "took it easy" on me. A long time ago, back in beta, I was new at one point as well and I remember the first night I actually played Warband. Test and a lot of other beta veterans were tearing the server up, and they didn't take it easy on me. I liked that because I could watch what they were doing, I could test myself against what I saw and learn, grow and adapt. That's the natural way to grow in anything, not artificially where you don't get a chance to thrive. The only thing that can create diamonds is pressure, so I actually argue that in order to have a competitive scene, you need to have an open exchange of information, have the upper tiers answer questions, but always play hard and have the lower players utilize observer mode when they're dead instead of looking at tranny porn.

#bksswag
twitch.tv/bksrhade

 

[Cheng_Pu_The_Golden]

Pretty much wut Rhade said; playing against gud plyrz is how u git gud. If they r gunna ***** out and quit the game after loozing then they just dont gotz the stuff to compete.

 

[fengay]

At the same time, it's not our obligation to hold their hands.

隐藏

Balion got absolutely destroyed the first time they played us.

They persevered and eventually came back to beat us in a tournament finals match on the big stage. Balion is an example of a clan that has the resilience to learn and grow because they're led well and have a lot of determined guys. How many clans do you see pop-up, even in this small ass community, writing out threads and talking about wanting to compete, but they fade away? It's not because success isn't being handed to them, it's because they want the glory without doing the work and it doesn't work that way.

I can support things that help new players learn, but I don't think I or anyone else -- or any clan, for that matter -- needs to "take it easy" on anyone. If anything, that's just going to make them not learn and grow.

You say experienced Warband clans will be experienced Bannerlord clans? That's interesting, as experienced Chivalry clans also will have an edge, experienced gamers of any FPS will also have an edge. I played Quake Live for the first time tonight and was destroying 3/4 the server, maybe I was assigned to the wrong group? It's just not feasible. I'm not about to write questionnaires for everyone to fill out so I can segregate the community into nice little boxes so they can play nice. A clan's success or failure isn't soley based on skill, but leadership, morale, tenacity, drive, dedication, perseverance and resilience. If you don't have the ability to see defeat as a learning experience and grow from it, I'm not sure how much hand-holding is going to help you; in fact, I believe it would exacerbate the problem, if only delaying it.

Again, I support things like tutorials, guides, and I'm actually always helpful to newer players who ask honest, specific questions. I don't think it's fair to deny those kinds of things to new players, even if we're the ones who took so long to figure things out and refine them. But I don't think it's healthy to restrict yourself around them; I know I wouldn't have gotten to the point I did if everyone "took it easy" on me. A long time ago, back in beta, I was new at one point as well and I remember the first night I actually played Warband. Test and a lot of other beta veterans were tearing the server up, and they didn't take it easy on me. I liked that because I could watch what they were doing, I could test myself against what I saw and learn, grow and adapt. That's the natural way to grow in anything, not artificially where you don't get a chance to thrive. The only thing that can create diamonds is pressure, so I actually argue that in order to have a competitive scene, you need to have an open exchange of information, have the upper tiers answer questions, but always play hard and have the lower players utilize observer mode when they're dead instead of looking at tranny porn.

#bksswag
twitch.tv/bksrhade

隐藏

My good friend Rhade, I fully agree that persistence and determination are required to become an accomplished clan, however I am not talking about accomplished clans here. As I said before, Mount & Blade has a high skill curve, which in turn disheartens many new players and eventually turns them off from playing. The issue is that of clans though. That skill curve coupled with the crushing ability of experienced clans is what kills almost all opportunities of new clans being made by newer players, in which there will be a lot of in Bannerlord. Those who persist, endure and strive will become the best, but what about the rest? What about the rest of the players who don't have as much of a drive? By skull-****ing every new clan, you would cause many to quit, ruining any chance for the growth of mid-tier and lower-tier clans, and effectively stagnating the NA scene into what it is today. I can't speak for any person but myself when I say this, but I for one would love to see this community grow and have more options and availability for competitive play.

"Experienced gamers will have an edge" That's almost completely untrue for most people though, someone who's great at a different game is not going to be immediately great at this game. "Assuming Bannerlord is not a failure gameplay-wise" means that I assume Bannerlord will have very similar combat to Warband, and if that is so "experienced gamers" will have almost no edge on mnb veterans, and especially clans made thereof. These new clans will still learn from defeat, they will have each other to scrim after all. You also say that if we take it easy on them, they won't learn, which I do agree with, that pressure and difficulty will come from fighting accomplished and skillful players on pub servers. These Clans won't fall apart from losing in pub though, they will fall apart from never winning for months straight against clans that are already substantially better than them.

I understand that even if we did not scrim any of these new clans for a few months after the release of Bannerlord, many would still be easy to beat and would still lose consistently after this "grace" period to veteran clans, which as a result may cause a lot of quitting. I believe that even though they may quit, there will be many more who actually stay because there are still those fellow new clans to scrim, and also because they actually had time to get into the competitive scene without immediately being repulsed by older clans, leaving them with the will and dedication to "get gud". If we deny this mass of new players this exception of our experience, we would surely be stunting the growth of the North American community.

 

[Snoop]

I don't like to see top tier clans challenging new clans knowing they're going to crush them. The top tier clan gains nothing other than a few laughs and the new clan gains very little if anything because they don't even know how they were beaten so easily. The new clan usually disbands after a couple of similar scrims. Oddly enough, it's usually the new clan that challenges the far superior clan.

While I agree that you have to face opponents that are tougher than you to improve, newbie clan vs wK is a little much. The new clan might benefit if the scrim was recorded and one of the wK guys jumped in their TS and went over the scrim with the new clan. In other words, if someone explained to the new clan how and why they were defeated it might enlighten and encourage them.

In my personal fencing experience, fighting superior opponents made me improve, fighting far superior opponents usually left me baffled until it was explained to me.

隐藏

I got beat 15-0 and I never made blade contact :/

That is why I think we should start mulling over the idea of an agreement between current NA clans to not scrim new clans (ones with new players) for their first few months (In Bannerlord). We should let them scrim each other, and fight at their own skill level so as to not dampen and dismay them into quitting and causing stagnation like we have now.

I'm all for encouraging new clans but I can't see this type of agreement ever happening nor do I want it to happen. Each veteran clan should decide for themselves if they want to scrim the new guys on the block. Likewise, if the new clan wants to fight a very tough opponent more power to them. I do think it would be nice to have a ladder system where the new clans could work their way up. That might give them a better idea of which clans they should challenge. With each victory their next opponent would be a little more difficult.

I see what you're saying Fengay but I don't really see a good solution. For the new clan, it's like being a little fish in a pool of small,medium and large fish. They should stay away from the big fish until they grow big enough to take them on. Swim little fishy swim!

 

[Courtney]

I used to think that to prevent the NA scene from declining any further, veteran players shouldn't be too pr0 against newer players. But then I quickly realize why should they? Life doesn't hold your hands...neither should a game. Plus, this game isn't for everyone, especially for those who don't like to challenge themselves and take the time to learn it.

 

[WinniedaPooh]

That is why I think we should start mulling over the idea of an agreement between current NA clans to not scrim new clans (ones with new players) for their first few months (In Bannerlord). We should let them scrim each other, and fight at their own skill level so as to not dampen and dismay them into quitting and causing stagnation like we have now.

I'm all for encouraging new clans but I can't see this type of agreement ever happening nor do I want it to happen. Each veteran clan should decide for themselves if they want to scrim the new guys on the block. Likewise, if the new clan wants to fight a very tough opponent more power to them. I do think it would be nice to have a ladder system where the new clans could work their way up. That might give them a better idea of which clans they should challenge. With each victory their next opponent would be a little more difficult.

I see what you're saying Fengay but I don't really see a good solution. For the new clan, it's like being a little fish in a pool of small,medium and large fish. They should stay away from the big fish until they grow big enough to take them on. Swim little fishy swim!

For the ladder system we could just do the clan ranking like we do for UNAC

 

[WilySly]

I think the (false) assumption here is that if you lay off the newb teams, they're going to improve enough after a few months to be able to compete, even within their own brackets.  However, if you look at the composition of clans scrimming now, most of the clans are made of "veterans."  So why the massive gap between the best clans and the mid-tier or lower clans?  Because a clan's success has a lot less to do with their ability to manual block and a lot more to do with the intangibles that Rhade mentioned: leadership, morale, tenacity, drive, dedication, perseverance and resilience.

Are there better ways we could structure our competitive model, to ensure that new teams play other teams of similar skill?  Sure, and I think we should definitely look at it.  However, I think the best way to help these newer players overcome the skill curve is to provide them with lots of opportunities for competition and learning.  Guides, tutorials, mentorships, streams and recordings

 

[Rhade]

Another point to note: No one is forcing "new" clans to scrim against established clans. I know BkS pretty much never went around looking for scrims and when we did, it's either because someone ****ed up and talked **** and now is going to be on the receiving end of some #BkSJustice(tm), or we feel like it's going to benefit us to practice for some upcoming tournament / match. I've never known us, wK or Balion to go around and chokeslam kittens of our own free will. If they sign up for a tournament, knowing they are signing up with teams better than them, then good for them.

But the only real dickstomping I think you'll see is on pubs. I can't think of a single "veteran" clan that would willingly go out of their way to rape a new clan just for ****s and giggles. We're about as bad as it gets and even we don't do that, not even close.

However, I think what would really benefit the NA competitive community, moving into Bannerlord (would be to release it sometime in the next five years rofl. no but srsly y u no let me play game), is establishing that there's one here worth a damn. Almost no one has heard of Warband and those who have, half of them have no idea there is/was a "competitive" community in the first place. It has always been extremely small and introverted, and I feel like despite a few very good attempts, our visibility was very low. Half of that is on TaleWorlds to advertise well and get their product out there in the public light with the message that this game is more than just a roleplaying singleplayer game. The rest of the burden lies on us to produce good tournament structure and a high level of coverage and visibility in the competitive arena (twitch, youtube, tournament administration). Ensuring the playground is full of sand and well maintained in a highly visible area is more important than holding the hands of the kids that come to play in it.

 

[Úlfheðinn]

I don't really see how experienced or good clans not scrimming newer ones is going to help anything. If I was a new player or clan, I'd be more offended if the "old guard" straight up refused to play against us for several months because they felt we "weren't ready".

If the NA community is open and welcoming, if the NA community tries hard to get tournaments up and running quickly, if the NA community gets a good number of public servers (with reasonable admins) up quickly and if both the entire community/developers manage to get some more attention for the game then I think Bannerlord will be all that it can be.

My best real life example is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, no one where I trains refuses to spar against new people, instead we simply give them a good fight and politely offer them pointers afterwards (and sometimes during). Honestly, some of the most fun I've had was when I've sparred and been destroyed by someone with 15+ years of experience on the mat.

 

[Rhade]

I don't really see how experienced or good clans not scrimming newer ones is going to help anything. If I was a new player or clan, I'd be more offended if the "old guard" straight up refused to play against us for several months because they felt we "weren't ready".

If the NA community is open and welcoming, if the NA community tries hard to get tournaments up and running quickly, if the NA community gets a good number of public servers (with reasonable admins) up quickly and if both the entire community/developers manage to get some more attention for the game then I think Bannerlord will be all that it can be.

My best real life example is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, no one where I trains refuses to spar against new people, instead we simply give them a good fight and politely offer them pointers afterwards (and sometimes during). Honestly, some of the most fun I've had was when I've sparred and been destroyed by someone with 15+ years of experience on the mat.

I don't say this often, but the mod appears to be correct.













































Although you guys don't spar, you roll. Leave "sparring" to the guys who actually hit each other. Heyoooooooooo
#shotsfired

 

[Úlfheðinn]

I still think old school Judo wins for saying they were "playing" when referring to matches or practice.

"What were you doing?" - "I was playing Judo."

 

[Lagstro]

隐藏: Mexican Judo

 

[KoA John]

Clans are nice because they are established groups of players that aren't going to rage quit as easy as a solo player. In the past week I've literally seen around 20 people get headshotted, couchlanced or tkd several times on POM end up 0-10 and ragequit and never to come back to the server again.

Lawd only knows how many hundreds of players I've seen quit and never return over the years.

Point is, we need to be a little more friendly to noobs in pub servers and Bannerlord really needs a tutorial that is clearly visible to new players before they go into multiplayer servers and get 360 no scope buttsmashed.

 

[Rhade]

rofl, that picture gets me every time even though I've seen it before.

And yeah, I've heard people say "bjj player" or "bjj practitioner" and I always think how gay it sounds. I definitely sympathize, it's quite the conundrum to turn it into a verb.

Anyway, that's enough derailment. Back onto the concern for the NA community.

I seriously do hope Bannerlord can help, but I feel like it's at least 2 years away, minimum.

 

[fengay]

"My predictions may all be incorrect, and my ideas all inaccurate" Thank god allah I said this, otherwise I'd sound even dumber than I do now.
The general consensus I'm feeling here revolves around training, tutoring and teaching these many new players. I agree that mentoring this mass and helping them understand the game (essentially making a more open and inviting community) will certainly help draw new players into the game, and help maintain a constant interest and determination to get better at it too. Another thing that was brought up was our noob-friendliness, which I also see as very important to bringing in players and sustaining interest in competitive play.

So basically what you're all saying is that we, as a community, need to be open, helpful, and friendly towards the wave of new players and new clans that (we expect) will be coming when MnB Next eventually pops out of production? I see it, and I understand it, if we can offer good advice and criticism to these expected new clans when we scrim them instead of just "lolurbad gobck2PWfggt" then they might just want to come back and play some more.

Last thing, I'd like to apologize for the lack of freedom that my agreement proposed, it was awfully european communist of me, and as a Free American Gaymer™ myself the last thing I would like to do is restrict freedom. I think it's just NATO getting to my head again, they can be wickedly convincing sometimes, quite unlike the U.N. though.

 

[Rhade]

Lesson #1: Don't apologize for ****.

Lesson #2: I'm not saying I won't say lolurbad gobck2PWfggt.

Lesson #3: It's up to everyone else to console the crying noobs in the corner. We just do the rapetime and then leave, the blood and bodily fluids everywhere is up to you guys.

 

[Envious_Elazul]

New clans actually needs to play against better clans. It is a good way to see how it's all done. In warband you will improve faster if you play against stronger individuals than when you play against people on your level or below. Same works in real life, let's say something like boxing. They make novices to fight with more experienced guys and give them some good beating. It gives good experience and you actually see how things are done.

Anyways this is a interesting topic. I have also been thinking how does our changeover from warband into bannerlord works. Does strong, old and solid clans stick together and put up their old clan again with same nicknames, same clan tags and banners. Also, how much does warband skill levels make a difference. In warband we can see some minor examples when you try to play native and then something like napoleonic wars. It needs some time to get used into it and time to get some experience, to know weapon reach, weapon speed, animations, hilt slash-like moments when you know you will make this swing first to the target. But of course block system and reaction times for those will for sure give some huge advantage.

 

[Lagstro]

隐藏: Very Long Post For Those Who Care To Read It, and A Question For Rhade Near The End

instead of just "lolurbad gobck2PWfggt" then they might just want to come back and play some more.

IDK about that. If that doesn't give enough incentive for the VICTIM OF SUCH BULLYING to try harder, become batter, and ultimately make the MEAN BULLY eat his own words, I'm not sure what will. Anyone with any real competitive nature would see that as a challenge and work hard to beat the MEAN BULLY.

The only people that I (personally) see as being a REAL contribution to any competitive scene are people with the desire to become the best. Anyone else is someone I don’t want to see in any kind of competitive scene. For me competition is only fun if everyone is giving it their all to come out on top. Sadly, it's something I haven't seen in this community for a while. All I have seen lately is a bunch of casuals trying to call themselves competitive. The last big surge of competitiveness in this scene I can remember was during UNAC S1. BkS coming back to prove they could still stomp even after a long leave, TMW to prove they have become a force to be reckoned with and win the tournament, GA coming to NA and try to prove their 'superiority' over NA by winning or at least placing high, wK finally seeing a surge of real competition and potential fun to reap, and prove that we can be on top if we put the effort into it, etc.

To this day, both matches against BkS in UNAC S1 stand as the matches I had the most fun in because there was real competition between both teams with a real desire to come out on top. The first ended up with a close BkS victory over wK during the round robin (which was actually my favorite match even though we lost because it was the first time in a long time we had actually lost due to being outskilled and not just gayed by boring camp tactics which we pushed into out of boredom), and then the second match being the Finals which ultimately lead to a close, hard fought battle with wK coming on top. The competition was so pure, even BkS was able to respect the wK victory in the end.

But now, that fire to be the best has died down so much in the NA scene. Many of the top-tier competitive players have left, and those that remain can’t seem to find a whole lot of competitions thus don’t have any good reason to continue putting in effort to become better since there is no longer anyone above them to beat (in fact, I think they are getting worse and worse each day as this goes on). In addition, teams nowadays are completely satisfied with being 'mid-tier' and do little to nothing to improve from that point on, and just stay at that level for the next several years, which is downright appalling to me. Teams begged for divisions to be done away with so that the low-tier teams could challenge top-tier teams, yet I was told many times by several members from opposing teams that they pretty much just gave up entirely on trying against the higher tier teams because it was completely out of their reach, so whenever the time came to fight them, they didn’t give it their all, kind of IRONIC no? To me, such a team is just a waste of time to fight against. If you have no desire to beat me, then why even bother fighting me?

Though don't get me wrong, the 'desire to beat me' and “being able to beat me now' are two completely different things. You can’t just buy the game, play for a week, and expect to beat everyone since you have the desire, especially people with several years of competitive experience. However… the desire to beat me is what will push you to practice hard until you can beat me, however long it takes, and the speed at which you progress is entirely up to you. You can choose to find your own way, ask for other more experienced people to help you, etc… but know that this game isn’t the matrix, just because you are being taught by an expert doesn’t mean you’re are going to automatically be an expert the next day, you need to listen to your mentors advice, take it in, try to understand it, and then try to apply it to your fighting style, though perhaps your mentor’s methods may not be right for you, so you still need to find your very own way, or at the very least add your own touch to a certain style.

If you have ever read Siddhartha, think about all the things he did on his journey… he studied all kinds of scriptures (warband guides), travelled with the Samana’s and learned from them (getting a bit of guidance from other more experienced players),  tried to learn from Gotama, someone who had already reached enlightenment  himself, but his methods did not seem to work or satisfy Siddhartha (this could be you having a top-tier mentor, but no matter how good his methods may be for him, they may not work for you or you are not satisfied with them). Every player needs to find his very own method for this game, because believe it or not, you are not the same person your mentor is. No two people play exactly the same, perhaps very similarly, but not the same.  Though what seems to be very effective in many cases is creating your very own unique style of fighting, one that is very unusual, and other players will have great difficulty fighting you since the only way to practice against it… is to play against you and only you.

What I think the NA competitive scene needs more than anything is a change in attitude towards competition. Ideally, if you are entering a tournament, your main goal should be to win it (cleanly), however difficult it may be, none of this giving up after a few rounds BS. If you lose… look back and identify the reasons why you lost, don’t beat yourself up over them, instead… target them, and try to fix them to improve on them by the next tournament, and just keep going at it until you reach your maximum potential.

I say maximum potential because let’s be real for a second… there is only one #1. Desire alone won’t get you anywhere. You need to act upon that desire and turn it into action, but let’s not forget that your opposition does the same. This isn’t man vs computer where there is a set level that needs to be achieved to win… no this is the amazing world of man vs man, an ever evolving system where if done correctly… competition should be getting tougher and tougher as time goes on. Though because its man vs man, everything is relative. You can only become better than the 2nd best. You can have a tournament with only low-tier teams and the champion will be the best of the low-tier competition. You can have a tournament with only top-tier teams and the champion will be the best of top-tier competition.  You can only become better than your competition. It’s very difficult to assess whether you are improving from that point on because there is no real way to test it. This may account for why so many top-tier clans, especially past tournament champions end up leaving the game. It’s not because they won and get a ticket to leave. It’s because they reach a level above all others, and the progress of everyone else, including 2nd best is far too slow and don’t provide enough challenge for #1, making the game less challenging (at the same time less fun) for them, and reasons to continue to play become few.

To be honest this has already happened to me. The only thing that has kept me playing is my love for warband itself and wK.  My interest in the competitive scene however, started dying down a lot after UNAC S1. After it, BkS left completely again, leaving a big gap between us (at the time #1) and everyone else.  In addition, no one wanted to scrim us because they weren’t up for the challenge. Not many clans admitted to this being the reason (though some did)… but how else could you explain us asking someone for a scrim… them saying they don’t have enough payers on… and then 15 minutes later… they are scrimming someone else… pretty lame. This lead to a wave of inactivity throughout wK, and even then… without 0 improvement (actually… I would even go as far as saying that we were in far worse shape compared to how we were in S1) we still managed to win UNAC S2… the same thing happened… everyone kept rejecting our scrim offers and our inactivity continued… until UNAC S3 where the growth in inactivity and disinterest in matches finally bit us in the B-hind.  Though this brings us back to the competition factor… now that on paper we are only 3rd best, we are putting in some effort again to win the next tournament and reclaim the spot of #1. Part of me doesn’t like the fact that my team lost… but at the same time, I am kind of grateful for it. It revitalized our interest in the game and caused us to put some work back into it.

^I wasn’t really in the game yet during BkS’ prime time… but... is this pretty much what happened with you too?

Anyway, all we can really do at this point is make the competitive scene more visible and attractive for potential new competitive players… but to make it ‘easier’ for the mere ‘chance’ of them staying afterwards is the wrong way to go about it. Competition should only go upwards, never downwards (which is what is has been doing).

Guides on how to play certain classes and other things have already been made… but there is one thing I would like to see which has not been turned into a guide yet (or at least I haven’t see it) and that’s a guide to making and maintaining a successful clan. Rhade and Wily have both already brought up the importance of “leadership, morale, tenacity, drive, dedication, perseverance and resilience” as key components of a successful clan… perhaps it could be very helpful if they could elaborate more on this and make a little guide for future clan leaders to use as a reference or get some good pointers from.  I am certain even clan leaders of already existing new clans would very much appreciate this as well.

 

[Rhade]

Lagstro, I have absolutely nothing to say besides you're right. Well written and I agree completely.
Envious was accurate as well.

Yeah, you pretty much hit the nail on the head. Interest really started to wane and the only reason we logged on was to play together, justify **** talk and maintain our place at the top. We played the best when we had something to prove, but we arrived at a point where we knew we had nothing left to prove so at that point it was seriously a chore. Even when we came back, not everybody was thrilled about it; I'd say half of the clan was just doing it because everyone else was. By the time the competition had truly caught up, we were forcing ourselves to play. That, combined with the way that Warband's balance is relatively lacking and without meaningful choices in the metagame to provide alternate gameplay styles, we just were done with it. Every time I sent out a PM to ask if people wanted to enter this or that tournament, the sentiment was always the same: "Not really, but if everyone else wants to, I'll be there." We were done with Warband, but everyone here is committed to upholding the name and each other, so it literally become just a chain reaction of reluctant people taking their place on the line. Eventually, I just couldn't ask it anymore of them.

With regard to Bannerlord and Warband similarities, I feel like they won't be identical. Similar, sure, but if  they're taking this long to design it, there's going to be a shake-up.