Player Frustration

[Flesson19]

Let me try to sum up what I think most players are unhappy about. While I do feel some devs are trying their best like Duh and mexxico, people feel that TW needs to do a bit more to really keep people informed on what's going on and what is being done. There seems to be a lack of communication for many things, the patches is a good point right now where it has been 3 weeks and we have no idea when the next one is. It's not that hard to give an eta.
From our perspective, TW has done something most companies around the world do NOT do. You are having us pay to test a product of yours that is not finished. Most companies give away a free product to people to help them test and report how to make it better, but think if apple I-phone said we want you to test our product just pay us full price and you have less than half the features the final product will have. Seems a bit weird doesn't it. I know it's early access and that was explained, but really you guys are counting on us to test and help report how to make it better and people just want a bit of communication in certain areas and while I think they do a pretty good job at it, I do think they could do a bit more as it is we are their testers and who better to report problems since devs can't accomplish what thousands of players can in a short time.
So many small things you do can make a huge difference to someone, just think what a simple thank you does to someone when you use it.
I paid $45 for something steam says I have 900 hours into, and am I happy with my purchase, hell yes. do I think they could do a little better with some things, yes. Everyone is different though and not everyone reacts the same, so i think what I am trying to say is, TW say thank you to your paying testers by saying what can I do to go the little extra mile to make things a bit better for our paying testers.
As always I hope this comes off good and not made anyone look bad, just an observation of mine.

 

[Theofilos]

They did a big mistake by exploiting their funs making them pay this price and delivering not even half of the content that they were teasing on their videos.They should insteed say we need fundraising and charge 20 bucks max so we can test their skeleton game and they get money to continue their project.Im surprised that ppl still hold and dont downvote the game on steam which i hope wont happen.On top of all that they dont even communicate on forum so yh this company really needs to consider their ways of doing things in the future if they want to have any success.Saying all this i hope the game gets on a good state and mods make it a gem.

 

[Söör Viljami]

What are people going to do with the information on whats to come? Unless you are making mods then it is going to be absolutely useless information besides satisfying your curiosity and what obligation do the devs have to satisfy peoples curious minds? You paid for an early access game, you got one, everything good that comes after that is extra. You are owed nothing.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

The more I play the more frustrated I get. I play a whole ****ing lot. The only thing in the game that doesn't need to change is what it looks like (except the maps, I hate them). There's no nice way of saying it, everything in the game is clunky, annoying, cumbersome and needs a teacher to highlight it and ask TW to re-do it turn it back in by next monday. It's not even mean, that is basically what EA is, a rough draft.

The AI is horrible! It's an endless facepalm-re-set-fest anytime anytime I do anything but perfect position my troops and ask them to just shoot in the general direction while I personally slaughter everything that tries to get close to them. If I ever fight with an AI Allie they suicide all their troops and there's nothing I can do about it. If would just stay still I could use them, but no!

The formation controls/UI is clunky and awful and I have to do it CONSTANTLY. If I could at least save formation and map placements and choose it at the start of battle it would be a great QOL improvement. It's unacceptable to have to manually drag around and place troops, face and format them over and over nad over. I wish I could teach my troops stuff like a real leader! If Cav is charging make a skien! If Inf gets this close CHARGE! If you're out of arrows FALLOW ME!
That'd be so cool!

Swinging weapons feels like ****. Even my favorite weapon the Glaive is a clunky mess. It's a constant wrestling match to just swing left and right.... I don't ever want to stab or over head swing but it thinks I do. I wish I could disable chain attacks for my char in the menu, that would help so much.

There's about 2 good maps. The rest I have come absolutely hate after so many battles. Sometimes I just retreat over and over until I get a map that doesn't give me an instant headache to look at.

They need the video game version of Phil Spector to come in and fix their game and make it a hit!

 

[Söör Viljami]

The more I play the more frustrated I get. I play a whole ****ing lot. The only thing in the game that doesn't need to change is what it looks like (except the maps, I hate them). There's no nice way of saying it, everything in the game is clunky, annoying, cumbersome and needs a teacher to highlight it and ask TW to re-do it turn it back in by next monday. It's not even mean, that is basically what EA is, a rough draft.

The AI is horrible! It's an endless facepalm-re-set-fest anytime anytime I do anything but perfect position my troops and ask them to just shoot in the general direction while I personally slaughter everything that tries to get close to them. If I ever fight with an AI Allie they suicide all their troops and there's nothing I can do about it. If would just stay still I could use them, but no!

The formation controls/UI is clunky and awful and I have to do it CONSTANTLY. If I could at least save formation and map placements and choose it at the start of battle it would be a great QOL improvement. It's unacceptable to have to manually drag around and place troops, face and format them over and over nad over. I wish I could teach my troops stuff like a real leader! If Cav is charging make a skien! If Inf gets this close CHARGE! If you're out of arrows FALLOW ME!
That'd be so cool!

Swinging weapons feels like ****. Even my favorite weapon the Glaive is a clunky mess. It's a constant wrestling match to just swing left and right.... I don't ever want to stab or over head swing but it thinks I do. I wish I could disable chain attacks for my char in the menu, that would help so much.

There's about 2 good maps. The rest I have come absolutely hate after so many battles. Sometimes I just retreat over and over until I get a map that doesn't give me an instant headache to look at.

They need the video game version of Phil Spector to come in and fix their game and make it a hit!

If you hate it so much, why do you not quit playing and wait until it's finished but instead get on the forums to whine about it? This seems to happen with every games forums, why is it?

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

If you hate it so much, why do you not quit playing and wait until it's finished but instead get on the forums to whine about it? This seems to happen with every games forums, why is it?

Because I'm the ****ing best.

Edit: Because you have to go deep and hard into a game to find out how it ticks and what it can do and where it's weaknesses are. You can't have the same quality of opinions about the game's AI and systems if you haven't used them to their full potential. You don't know what it can and can't do if you don't make it do everything to the extreme. I break this game in half and grind it into pulp. I may complain about the game a lot, but if it could, the game would complain about me too.

 

[Söör Viljami]

Because I'm the ****ing best.

Your actions don't quite match with your perception of yourself.

 

[Drithyl]

If you hate it so much, why do you not quit playing and wait until it's finished but instead get on the forums to whine about it? This seems to happen with every games forums, why is it?

Because forums exist to "whine" about the game and let the developers know how a player feels about their game. In other words, feedback. You may agree or disagree with it, but why shame people for expressing their opinion on a game in the official forum? The guy even went ahead and gave a breakdown of what he considers bad in the game. He didn't just throw **** at the screen.

 

[WhiteEyedSh4rk]

We payed 40-50 euros for a really unfinished game, but it will be finished at some point. So you could say we payed for a finished game in advance. Being a long time fan of this series, I really enjoy beeing a part of the whole development process and that makes it worth the money even more for me. However, they lured a lot of new players into the game, with all the very promising blogs and videos etc. and for them its not worth it at all. Thats why we saw such a decrease of players after the release.

It just seems very unfavorable for TW, to be intransparent towards the players who really enjoy being a part of the dev process and helping the progress of it a lot. For example, there are like 3 "really" active devs communicating with us. They have their certain assigned areas, like AVRC is a multiplayer dev for example and thats the thing they can really talk about with us and help us. That is good but what about all the other areas? I can't imagine the problem beeing time, since they would have to look into one specific forum area once a day and answer only the most asked questions or tell us the latest work on their specific part of the game. The ~3 active devs do manage to do that. It would help us and them alike. One of the devs said it might be due to the lack of english knowledge, but in a team of 80-90 "rather young" developers, there surely are more than 3 people with decent english knowledge and its not like there isn't google translator or even people who would translate it for free. And even Armağan hasn't talked to us since month, that is just bad for the moral. So there is room for improvement and I don't even think it would take that much to satisfy us (the happy testers, not the newcomers).

 

[Skjuld]

I don't mind paying for an unfinished game and being part of development. I did so for several games. I understand fully than an EA game will lack a lot of features and content and be subject to rework of some components.
What I DO mind is that BL's existing mechanics are a mess, that instead of introducing systems in a layered fashion, we get a patchwork of buggy unfinished systems. That the roadmap is quite vague and seems mostly about bug-fixing, not reworking borked rules. That communication is sparse and quite opaque.
I don't feel BL is going to get better soon. I just uninstalled, play something else and keep an eye on the boards. So far, I'm not seeing anything that will make me reinstall. Maybe in a year or two, the way it's going. Pity, I love the M&B game. But this is a mess.

 

[KyDeezy]

If you hate it so much, why do you not quit playing and wait until it's finished but instead get on the forums to whine about it? This seems to happen with every games forums, why is it?

AnandaShanti offers a lot of constructive information in this forum.

The more I play the more frustrated I get. I play a whole ****ing lot. The only thing in the game that doesn't need to change is what it looks like (except the maps, I hate them). There's no nice way of saying it, everything in the game is clunky, annoying, cumbersome and needs a teacher to highlight it and ask TW to re-do it turn it back in by next monday. It's not even mean, that is basically what EA is, a rough draft.

The AI is horrible! It's an endless facepalm-re-set-fest anytime anytime I do anything but perfect position my troops and ask them to just shoot in the general direction while I personally slaughter everything that tries to get close to them. If I ever fight with an AI Allie they suicide all their troops and there's nothing I can do about it. If would just stay still I could use them, but no!

The formation controls/UI is clunky and awful and I have to do it CONSTANTLY. If I could at least save formation and map placements and choose it at the start of battle it would be a great QOL improvement. It's unacceptable to have to manually drag around and place troops, face and format them over and over nad over. I wish I could teach my troops stuff like a real leader! If Cav is charging make a skien! If Inf gets this close CHARGE! If you're out of arrows FALLOW ME!
That'd be so cool!

Swinging weapons feels like ****. Even my favorite weapon the Glaive is a clunky mess. It's a constant wrestling match to just swing left and right.... I don't ever want to stab or over head swing but it thinks I do. I wish I could disable chain attacks for my char in the menu, that would help so much.

There's about 2 good maps. The rest I have come absolutely hate after so many battles. Sometimes I just retreat over and over until I get a map that doesn't give me an instant headache to look at.

They need the video game version of Phil Spector to come in and fix their game and make it a hit!

How could you leave out siege starting formations?! That grinds my gears the most.

 

[tandrej]

What are people going to do with the information on whats to come? Unless you are making mods then it is going to be absolutely useless information besides satisfying your curiosity and what obligation do the devs have to satisfy peoples curious minds? You paid for an early access game, you got one, everything good that comes after that is extra. You are owed nothing.

I love your mindset. You are dream come true servant to any tyrant who loves exploiting his people. You are a loyalist and loyalists are worse than tyrant itself.

People haven't bought early access. They have bought a game. The fact that the game was sold few years before than it should have been is simply immoral and should be punished severely - company closed down, management sent to jail, money returned, never to happen again. But hey, it's stupid to talk about moral today, when my 50 year old neighbour is capable of asking me what "moral" means. Moral is a forgotten thing. What we have today is Sodom and Gomorrah and we deserve it.

 

[Zorion_no]

The problem is that in all fairness for all I love Bannerlord, they didnt really sell us an Early Acess game, but a paid beta.

An early acess game isnt 1-2 years more until its finished, but its 1-3 months at most.
All the core functionality of the game is done in Early Acess, they are just doing bugfixes and optimization, not implementeing new changes to the game(radical changes even(ai with war/endless war/peace etc).

Think of it as you purchased an early acess car, you would expect the basic like Steering, breakes & throttle was in place.
You would be ok, with the car comeing without a paintjob, or windshields/windows, and maybe even doors.
Not that you come and test it and it have no breakes nor steering, it do however have some cool colors on the paintjob.

Again, I'm playing devils advocat, I love it for all its flaws, but tbh they oversold what they delivered so far.
Thus the lack of information/communication dont reassure customers either, cause thats what we are.

Some developers however have been great on the forums, with good insight and putting our minds at ease, but I dont feel its "the right persons" to do that job, there is someone else(tm) who's job should be just this, dealing with the customer-frustration.

 

[MostBlunted]

An early acess game isnt 1-2 years more until its finished, but its 1-3 months at most.

Not really, see Rimworld or Factorio for example. The difference is the price tag.

 

[Cochus1]

The problem is that in all fairness for all I love Bannerlord, they didnt really sell us an Early Acess game, but a paid beta.

An early acess game isnt 1-2 years more until its finished, but its 1-3 months at most.
All the core functionality of the game is done in Early Acess, they are just doing bugfixes and optimization, not implementeing new changes to the game(radical changes even(ai with war/endless war/peace etc).

Think of it as you purchased an early acess car, you would expect the basic like Steering, breakes & throttle was in place.
You would be ok, with the car comeing without a paintjob, or windshields/windows, and maybe even doors.
Not that you come and test it and it have no breakes nor steering, it do however have some cool colors on the paintjob.

Again, I'm playing devils advocat, I love it for all its flaws, but tbh they oversold what they delivered so far.
Thus the lack of information/communication dont reassure customers either, cause thats what we are.

Some developers however have been great on the forums, with good insight and putting our minds at ease, but I dont feel its "the right persons" to do that job, there is someone else(tm) who's job should be just this, dealing with the customer-frustration.

What games have had a 1-3 months early acces?? I dont know about none.

 

[Kenzo-0-]

I feel like they needed money, like really needed that money. After the release, they are making progress, but really tw why didn't you at least optimise the game. I think they have to add more content interactions, im in my city walking around but that's all really. Diplomacy AI is rubbish rn. my kingdom wants to wage war againts every last kingdom that there is even tho we are at war with 3 kingdoms already. There is a mod that allows us to control the actions of our clan party, surely devs could've included that at the game. Im not even gonna bother talking about the bugs & crashes. All this tells me (it's my personal take on this) they had some economical crisis within tw, and devs had to release somethin. Can't say i'm satisfied with the game but hey, within 14 days i've played 160 hours.

 

[Söör Viljami]

I love your mindset. You are dream come true servant to any tyrant who loves exploiting his people. You are a loyalist and loyalists are worse than tyrant itself.

People haven't bought early access. They have bought a game. The fact that the game was sold few years before than it should have been is simply immoral and should be punished severely - company closed down, management sent to jail, money returned, never to happen again. But hey, it's stupid to talk about moral today, when my 50 year old neighbour is capable of asking me what "moral" means. Moral is a forgotten thing. What we have today is Sodom and Gomorrah and we deserve it.

Nah, i'm just a hardcore realist. I paid money for an early access title fully knowing what it might be, i expect nothing. Buying an early access title means you are pissing in the wind by default, if it works out then good but you are owed nothing. Devs could stop working on it right now and there's **** all i could do about it because i'm the one who whipped my **** out during the storm.

 

[Zorion_no]

Not really, see Rimworld or Factorio for example. The difference is the price tag.

The problem is that there isnt a true established standard in the industry (on what Early acess)is my point though, on what devs call early acess and what players expecatition is.

I think if they had just called it "beta" most of the frustration would be much less(and or that the price tag is kind of target, you expect a "full product" but its even on the stable ones in Beta quality(not talking about stability/optimization etc, but core-game mechanics not there yet etc)

 

[MinhTien]

I'm concerned and frustrated that Taleworlds seems to miss a lot of lessons from Warband, Viking Conquest and its mods. There are improvement from the old games, sure, but lots of stagnation and even downright regression in term of Quality of Life features, UIs, combat, etc..

For example, the party UI is atrocious. Why are the number of troops and prisoners in you party free-scrolling? If I just scroll that list a little bit then I lose track of those numbers. Moreover, the number of prisoners you can have is based on the number of troops, so for example, if I shift some of my troops to my garrison then my prisoner capacity might become too small for what I currently have. Sure the game gives you warning if you are over-capacity when you exit, but then you still need to scroll back and check the number again!!

Isn't making the numbers of troops and prisoners stay fixed in place and always accessible a much easier solution??? You know, like in Warband, AND Viking Conquest, which have dynamic party-size-based prisoner capacity.

Also, why are your own troops and prisoners both on a long continuous list? It is really easy to scroll part your troops and reach your prisoners. Those 2 things are separated, display them separately, again like in Warband.

The direction of the game is pretty concerning too, at least for me. They add clan and heir mechanic and proudly advertise that, and many of their changes/fixes point to them wanting a long lasting game, but also want to keep the game simple and less strategical/tactical? The whole balancing current systems while there are more on the way which will guarantee more balancing changes is also concerning. I understand balancing when the game is too broken, but some of the changes are really... petty, like tournament reward, which should help speed up the boring early game, got nerfed. That number can be changed anytime, let the early access players have their fun and rich quickly so that they can test more stuff seems better for me.

Also WHERE ARE THE HIGH LEVEL GEARS THAT ARE ALREADY INGAME? They could be hideously bugged on my system and my character, but I wouldn't know because I never got to see them and use them. You know, for testing......

 

[froggyluv]

Good points on both sides really. Im old school, and back when you had to actually drive to a PC gaming store at the Mall, you'd buy a high quality game like Electronic Arts Seven Cities of Gold or Janes F-15 -the game would come with shiny box and an 80+ page well produced instruction manual. These games were expected to work fully from that one purchase and sometimes rarely they would release a patch or addon that you could buy from the sample disk CD of one of the various Computer Gaming magazines.

Nowadays these Early Access is the fisherman's lure and we all seem to be willing participants in it. The devs get to cash out early and surely it is built in to their overall business frame plan from the get go. Does it effect their motivation to continue to reach a bug free, fully fleshed out game? I dont know -but i do know that some more unscrupulous developers who i shant name put alot of production value into game trailers and when the EA is bought (under strict nda) you are very unpleasantly surprised on how much less a product you received than what was promised.