Harmast
Master Knight
Hello everyone! As you all know, the beta is nearing its end, and Taleworlds still need some kick-ass beta testing!
Here is a short compilation of comments about the current single player beta of Warband and all of the new features. Please comment if you have contradicting opinions! I'm sure Taleworlds need all the feedback they can get right now with the release nearing. I used nijis' list of new beta features as a template (can be found in the stickied topic titled "READ THIS FIRST: Single Player features to test"). I'll try to focus on the features that are currently implemented, and if I have suggestions on new features, they are mostly related to already existing features. I think features wholly new can be discussed after the release.
Sorry about the spelling errors, this was a lot of writing... Anyway, I will add more comments later. All in all though, I think single player is shaping up very nicely
### Feasts
- Getting into feasts is interesting, especially in the early game when you don't have enough renown to get into them automatically. Now winning a tournament in the early game is not just about money. It could be interesting if in some future update it would be possible to sneak/bribe your way into a feast?
- Feasts work as they are intended to, you can go around talking to lords and ladies. However, I would like some more options for diplomacy and intrigue at the feast. Also, I think feasts would be a great place to get information on lord-to-lord relations (who dislikes who, what kind of personality each lord has etc). The lords-to-ladies ratio in feasts seem to be skewed at times, once I had like 7-8 lords present with only 1 lady there. How is it determined by the way?
- The feasts don't feel very feast-y right now, especially with everyone just standing around. Some festive music would be nice. The feast-specific dialogue is good though.
- I think it would be a good addition that the faction specific minstrel or bard would attend that factions feasts. That way you could talk to him at the feast to ask about the ladies (or lords) present. I suppose he wouldn't be able to teach you any poems there though.
### Courtship
- Getting into the wooing stage can be quite a challenge, especially if there are many warring kingdoms in the early game. That way there won't be many feasts around. I think it would be nice if you there could be some more events, perhaps random, where you could meet eligible ladies. For example, there could be an event where a lady has run away from home. If you talk to her father, he will give you a quest to find her. And when you do find her (in a tavern or walking around a city?) you could start the courtship then.
- Finding a suitable lady at a feast can be quite a challenge too, sometimes. At one feast, I professed my admiration to all the ladies present, and they all turned me down! But then again, I guess you could call that realism as that happens to me in real life also Anyway, I think the chemistry between the player and a lady could be detailed better in the dialogue.
- Minstrels and asking minstrels about courtship works well. I like the poetry system, and it makes sense in the context of the game.
- Asking minstrels about eligible maidens in the realm seems strange, as currently there it feels like there is no way to use the information you get from a minstrel about a maiden. I think it should be made more obvious. Is the information actually useful?
- Once you are at the stage where you visit the lady every once in a while the courtship can get quite boring, especially if you haven't learned much poems. Going around in taverns to find minstrels to learn poetry from, then waiting for an invitation to visit the lady, and finding out that she doesn't quite appreciate the poem you just read to her can be frustrating at times. But then again, it isn't too bad when you are courting several ladies at once. (Kids, don't try this in real life!) I think an option to send gifts to the lady would be a welcome addition to raise relations with the lady.
- The dowry can be quite a large sum, especially in the early game. But I think it's good, noble daughters should have a hefty price. After all, you're marrying into nobility.
- Courtship for a woman can be interesting, although I haven't tested it as much as for male player characters. I like the additional challenges presented for women, but someone else who has more experience testing that can tell their opinions.
### Marriage
- About the marriage cut-scene, all I can say that it looked great in the trailer
- After the courtship you get married and your wife moves to your court if you have one. You get some new options like holding a feast. The feast mechanic is quite good and works as it is supposed to. I like the mechanic of going about and purchasing oil and spices and everything needed for the feast, that makes trade goods important (I usually don't buy or sell much trade goods in the game as the trading mechanics are not so interesting).
### Trade, economics and prosperity
- There are many new trade goods nad new information about town economics. I really don't have much of an opinion about these as I rarely trade or pay attention to town prosperities. However, I think that the game is balanced so that you will really want to keep your own fiefs and villages under your protection and not let enemies raid them, as a raided village's prosperity sinks fast, and will hit your tax revenues.
- All in all, I think that trading in the game, for me, can be quite a bit too boring, even though profits can be potentially very high. Maybe some new quests relating to trade or economics would change that, but that is for a future version.
### Diplomacy
- The casus belli system is great! It works and makes the wars in Calradia feel much less random. I love it how many triggers there are now to provoke wars.
- Talking to guild masters to hear the reasons for wars and about diplomacy in general is a bit strange, I would've liked if there were some other specific person to ask about politics. I don't think the guild master is a very obvious choice to talk to about these topics, especially to new players. Maybe each faction could have a minister you could talk about politics with. That way guild masters would be for trade questions and quests only.
- The truce system is interesting, and works really well. I like it how they have a set time, and how there are consequences to breaking truces.
- The strategic AI has improved a lot. Compared to the original M&B it seems that armies now actually campaign under the marshall's command, and attack together. It seems that armies choose their targest much more realistically now, not attacking the enemy castle furthest away from their own lands.
- The mechanics for suing for peace are great, I like sending my companions as emissaries. But what is really great is that they come back with reasonable explanations on why the sue was accepted or rejected. I still hope there were more options for making peace though, as I often end up in an endless war spiral with my own kingdom (which is expected of course, but still...)
### NPC ages
- I still haven't found anything that an NPC's age affects. Does a lord's age have any effect on anything, courting perhaps? The lords apparently age with time, is that correct?
### Lord AI
- Having lords give explanations to their actions feel natural and is a very welcome feature. I think it gives the lords more personality. It works well now, and the explanations given really fit the circumstances.
- I think the separation of lords acting independently or working under the marshall's command works well. Marshall (when there is one) taking priority over the lords' independent acts is a nice touch, and makes sense in the overall scale.
### Lord relations
- Lords have now complex relations with other lords. I guess this is a complete feature, but the effects on the game are not always obvious. Finding out what some lord thinks about some other lord is not always that easy, as you have to ask in private.
- In some long-term tests I did notice that some lords co-operated a lot on the campaign map. That was nice to notice.
- Some of the noble relations can get very complex with dozens of uncles and brother-in-laws and so on. I think either streamlining the family trees of lords to smaller families or a graphical representation of family trees could make the relations clearer.
- I think it would be great if you could ask a lord about his family, and you would find out about his opinions/relations with them.
- It would be nice if there were more quests related to a lord's family relations and rivalries between family members.
- Maintaining your own relations with nords can be a challenge, but not too hard. Having good relations with lords is important (for courtship purposes also, if they have a daughter), so I think it would be nice if there would be some specific way of improving your relations with a lord, other than running errands for him.
### Lord rebellions/defections
- Nobles switching sides pretty much works as it's supposed to. It's a very interesting mechanic and I think it adds a lot to the political side of the game.
- Persuading lords to switch sides in terms of difficulty is about right I think. Lords reasoning the way they do is clear enough.
### Companion vassals
- Promoting your companions into vassals works as it is supposed to. My only gripe about this is that once they get promoted, they become the generic companion vassal with the same dialogues and options. I would like some additional dialogue to distinguish my companions from all those ordinary lords. And some unique, companion-specific dialogue would be nice.
### Right to rule and the player kingdom
- The right to rule system as it is is quite simple and easy to understand. I like how you can send your companions to promote your legitimacy, but I don't think there are enough options for raising your right to rule otherwise.
- The right to rule value gets raised quite slowly. But in an actual non-cheat or non-debug game it could be just right, as you aren't supposed to have high legitimacy until the late game anyway.
- It isn't very obvious what the right to rule does, i.e. what it is used for. Once you have a kingdom your minister just tells you to raise your legitimacy, but it should be made clearer WHY you should do that. It affects recruiting lords, but I don't remember that being reflected in the recruitment dialogue. I could be wrong though.
- The player can claim his own kingdom at some point. Once claimed, you can appoint a minister and vassalize your companions. The differences between appointing a minister from the local population and from one of your companions isn't very clear, even though I guess it is obviously a much better choice to appoint a companion as minister?
- Kingdom options are quite limited, but everything important is there, suing for peace and declaring wars. I would like more options, but maybe after the release. (A send/demand tribute system would be great, larger kingdoms could intimidate smaller ones into paying tribute to avoid wars. This could even lead to interesting quests).
- Asking your minister about the locations of your vassals/lords would be a nice option. Right now, I have no idea where half my men are. Also, asking someone or paying someone for information on where captured lords are kept prisoner would be a good addition.
### Taverns
- Bar brawls are a nice addition. I like how everybody flees the scene, and the dialogue is great. The drunk is usually easy to defeat, but I don't think that should neccessarily be changed, as I feel the event is there more for the color than the challenge.
- Wandering minstrels are not always easy to find, in some game it took me many in-game months before I found the first one. But that was probably just bad luck. Maybe the tavernkeep, in exchange for a small fee, could tell you where to find a minstrel?
### New quests
- The situation-triggered quests are great, but without the debug information it will not neccessarily be very obvious to the player that they are triggered by the circumstances on the map. Some kind of rumor system on newly available quests would be nice.
- You can now sneak into castles (to rescue prisoners? Or some related quest). It feels strange, sneaking into a heavily fortified castle.
- Some of the new political quests haven't been working so no comment on them yet.
### New map
- I think the new map looks and feels great, much more authentic-feeling than the previous one.
- There are a few empty areas around the map, for example the Wercheg peninsula and the snow plateau between Fisdnar and Khudan. It feels a bit frustrating and boring to travel these places, especially if you are pursuing an enemy patrol. I was hoping Warband would add some more places to visit in addition to the villages, towns and castles. Maybe for a future version?
- All in all, I think the city and castle placement is now, after a few adjustments, very good. Cities seem to be situated naturally to places that are good in terms of transportation and trade, and castles seem to be mostly located in places that are easy to defend. So no complaints about the map. And by the way, I love the little oasises (oasii?) near the Sarranid cities.
### Battles
- The new morale system seems to work, even though I haven't paid much attention to it. Enemies seem to rout appropriately when facing a larger number of troops or higher levels of troops. This is one feature that I definitely need to test more.
### Visuals
Even though the main priority of the single player beta testing is the new features, I'll comment shortly on some of the visual aspects too, as there are tons of new things added. These are mostly just my own personal opinions, so feel free to skip them.
- Now that there are many new items, some of the old ones seem dated and very out of place (for example the armor that Borcha is wearing when you first meet him, or Katrin's apron). In contrast, some of the new items look a little plastic-y, like some the new Vaegir helmets.
- The new Nord and Sarranid towns look amazing and the ambiance in them is spot on. Same with the new Sarranid villages. And Nord halls and taverns, even though they could use some variation.
- The new skyboxes look fantastic.
- I love it when it snows. Looks great.
- I don't know if it's intentional, but everytime I view the map around the Vaegir lands (the snow plateau), the colors of the map fade into a bleak gray. I think it would look better if it would be in the same crisp and colorful style of the rest of the map.
Here is a short compilation of comments about the current single player beta of Warband and all of the new features. Please comment if you have contradicting opinions! I'm sure Taleworlds need all the feedback they can get right now with the release nearing. I used nijis' list of new beta features as a template (can be found in the stickied topic titled "READ THIS FIRST: Single Player features to test"). I'll try to focus on the features that are currently implemented, and if I have suggestions on new features, they are mostly related to already existing features. I think features wholly new can be discussed after the release.
Sorry about the spelling errors, this was a lot of writing... Anyway, I will add more comments later. All in all though, I think single player is shaping up very nicely
### Feasts
- Getting into feasts is interesting, especially in the early game when you don't have enough renown to get into them automatically. Now winning a tournament in the early game is not just about money. It could be interesting if in some future update it would be possible to sneak/bribe your way into a feast?
- Feasts work as they are intended to, you can go around talking to lords and ladies. However, I would like some more options for diplomacy and intrigue at the feast. Also, I think feasts would be a great place to get information on lord-to-lord relations (who dislikes who, what kind of personality each lord has etc). The lords-to-ladies ratio in feasts seem to be skewed at times, once I had like 7-8 lords present with only 1 lady there. How is it determined by the way?
- The feasts don't feel very feast-y right now, especially with everyone just standing around. Some festive music would be nice. The feast-specific dialogue is good though.
- I think it would be a good addition that the faction specific minstrel or bard would attend that factions feasts. That way you could talk to him at the feast to ask about the ladies (or lords) present. I suppose he wouldn't be able to teach you any poems there though.
### Courtship
- Getting into the wooing stage can be quite a challenge, especially if there are many warring kingdoms in the early game. That way there won't be many feasts around. I think it would be nice if you there could be some more events, perhaps random, where you could meet eligible ladies. For example, there could be an event where a lady has run away from home. If you talk to her father, he will give you a quest to find her. And when you do find her (in a tavern or walking around a city?) you could start the courtship then.
- Finding a suitable lady at a feast can be quite a challenge too, sometimes. At one feast, I professed my admiration to all the ladies present, and they all turned me down! But then again, I guess you could call that realism as that happens to me in real life also
Anyway, I think the chemistry between the player and a lady could be detailed better in the dialogue.- Minstrels and asking minstrels about courtship works well. I like the poetry system, and it makes sense in the context of the game.
- Asking minstrels about eligible maidens in the realm seems strange, as currently there it feels like there is no way to use the information you get from a minstrel about a maiden. I think it should be made more obvious. Is the information actually useful?
- Once you are at the stage where you visit the lady every once in a while the courtship can get quite boring, especially if you haven't learned much poems. Going around in taverns to find minstrels to learn poetry from, then waiting for an invitation to visit the lady, and finding out that she doesn't quite appreciate the poem you just read to her can be frustrating at times. But then again, it isn't too bad when you are courting several ladies at once. (Kids, don't try this in real life!) I think an option to send gifts to the lady would be a welcome addition to raise relations with the lady.
- The dowry can be quite a large sum, especially in the early game. But I think it's good, noble daughters should have a hefty price. After all, you're marrying into nobility.
- Courtship for a woman can be interesting, although I haven't tested it as much as for male player characters. I like the additional challenges presented for women, but someone else who has more experience testing that can tell their opinions.
### Marriage
- About the marriage cut-scene, all I can say that it looked great in the trailer
- After the courtship you get married and your wife moves to your court if you have one. You get some new options like holding a feast. The feast mechanic is quite good and works as it is supposed to. I like the mechanic of going about and purchasing oil and spices and everything needed for the feast, that makes trade goods important (I usually don't buy or sell much trade goods in the game as the trading mechanics are not so interesting).
### Trade, economics and prosperity
- There are many new trade goods nad new information about town economics. I really don't have much of an opinion about these as I rarely trade or pay attention to town prosperities. However, I think that the game is balanced so that you will really want to keep your own fiefs and villages under your protection and not let enemies raid them, as a raided village's prosperity sinks fast, and will hit your tax revenues.
- All in all, I think that trading in the game, for me, can be quite a bit too boring, even though profits can be potentially very high. Maybe some new quests relating to trade or economics would change that, but that is for a future version.
### Diplomacy
- The casus belli system is great! It works and makes the wars in Calradia feel much less random. I love it how many triggers there are now to provoke wars.
- Talking to guild masters to hear the reasons for wars and about diplomacy in general is a bit strange, I would've liked if there were some other specific person to ask about politics. I don't think the guild master is a very obvious choice to talk to about these topics, especially to new players. Maybe each faction could have a minister you could talk about politics with. That way guild masters would be for trade questions and quests only.
- The truce system is interesting, and works really well. I like it how they have a set time, and how there are consequences to breaking truces.
- The strategic AI has improved a lot. Compared to the original M&B it seems that armies now actually campaign under the marshall's command, and attack together. It seems that armies choose their targest much more realistically now, not attacking the enemy castle furthest away from their own lands.
- The mechanics for suing for peace are great, I like sending my companions as emissaries. But what is really great is that they come back with reasonable explanations on why the sue was accepted or rejected. I still hope there were more options for making peace though, as I often end up in an endless war spiral with my own kingdom (which is expected of course, but still...)
### NPC ages
- I still haven't found anything that an NPC's age affects. Does a lord's age have any effect on anything, courting perhaps? The lords apparently age with time, is that correct?
### Lord AI
- Having lords give explanations to their actions feel natural and is a very welcome feature. I think it gives the lords more personality. It works well now, and the explanations given really fit the circumstances.
- I think the separation of lords acting independently or working under the marshall's command works well. Marshall (when there is one) taking priority over the lords' independent acts is a nice touch, and makes sense in the overall scale.
### Lord relations
- Lords have now complex relations with other lords. I guess this is a complete feature, but the effects on the game are not always obvious. Finding out what some lord thinks about some other lord is not always that easy, as you have to ask in private.
- In some long-term tests I did notice that some lords co-operated a lot on the campaign map. That was nice to notice.
- Some of the noble relations can get very complex with dozens of uncles and brother-in-laws and so on. I think either streamlining the family trees of lords to smaller families or a graphical representation of family trees could make the relations clearer.
- I think it would be great if you could ask a lord about his family, and you would find out about his opinions/relations with them.
- It would be nice if there were more quests related to a lord's family relations and rivalries between family members.
- Maintaining your own relations with nords can be a challenge, but not too hard. Having good relations with lords is important (for courtship purposes also, if they have a daughter), so I think it would be nice if there would be some specific way of improving your relations with a lord, other than running errands for him.
### Lord rebellions/defections
- Nobles switching sides pretty much works as it's supposed to. It's a very interesting mechanic and I think it adds a lot to the political side of the game.
- Persuading lords to switch sides in terms of difficulty is about right I think. Lords reasoning the way they do is clear enough.
### Companion vassals
- Promoting your companions into vassals works as it is supposed to. My only gripe about this is that once they get promoted, they become the generic companion vassal with the same dialogues and options. I would like some additional dialogue to distinguish my companions from all those ordinary lords. And some unique, companion-specific dialogue would be nice.
### Right to rule and the player kingdom
- The right to rule system as it is is quite simple and easy to understand. I like how you can send your companions to promote your legitimacy, but I don't think there are enough options for raising your right to rule otherwise.
- The right to rule value gets raised quite slowly. But in an actual non-cheat or non-debug game it could be just right, as you aren't supposed to have high legitimacy until the late game anyway.
- It isn't very obvious what the right to rule does, i.e. what it is used for. Once you have a kingdom your minister just tells you to raise your legitimacy, but it should be made clearer WHY you should do that. It affects recruiting lords, but I don't remember that being reflected in the recruitment dialogue. I could be wrong though.
- The player can claim his own kingdom at some point. Once claimed, you can appoint a minister and vassalize your companions. The differences between appointing a minister from the local population and from one of your companions isn't very clear, even though I guess it is obviously a much better choice to appoint a companion as minister?
- Kingdom options are quite limited, but everything important is there, suing for peace and declaring wars. I would like more options, but maybe after the release. (A send/demand tribute system would be great, larger kingdoms could intimidate smaller ones into paying tribute to avoid wars. This could even lead to interesting quests).
- Asking your minister about the locations of your vassals/lords would be a nice option. Right now, I have no idea where half my men are. Also, asking someone or paying someone for information on where captured lords are kept prisoner would be a good addition.
### Taverns
- Bar brawls are a nice addition. I like how everybody flees the scene, and the dialogue is great. The drunk is usually easy to defeat, but I don't think that should neccessarily be changed, as I feel the event is there more for the color than the challenge.
- Wandering minstrels are not always easy to find, in some game it took me many in-game months before I found the first one. But that was probably just bad luck. Maybe the tavernkeep, in exchange for a small fee, could tell you where to find a minstrel?
### New quests
- The situation-triggered quests are great, but without the debug information it will not neccessarily be very obvious to the player that they are triggered by the circumstances on the map. Some kind of rumor system on newly available quests would be nice.
- You can now sneak into castles (to rescue prisoners? Or some related quest). It feels strange, sneaking into a heavily fortified castle.
- Some of the new political quests haven't been working so no comment on them yet.
### New map
- I think the new map looks and feels great, much more authentic-feeling than the previous one.
- There are a few empty areas around the map, for example the Wercheg peninsula and the snow plateau between Fisdnar and Khudan. It feels a bit frustrating and boring to travel these places, especially if you are pursuing an enemy patrol. I was hoping Warband would add some more places to visit in addition to the villages, towns and castles. Maybe for a future version?
- All in all, I think the city and castle placement is now, after a few adjustments, very good. Cities seem to be situated naturally to places that are good in terms of transportation and trade, and castles seem to be mostly located in places that are easy to defend. So no complaints about the map. And by the way, I love the little oasises (oasii?) near the Sarranid cities.
### Battles
- The new morale system seems to work, even though I haven't paid much attention to it. Enemies seem to rout appropriately when facing a larger number of troops or higher levels of troops. This is one feature that I definitely need to test more.
### Visuals
Even though the main priority of the single player beta testing is the new features, I'll comment shortly on some of the visual aspects too, as there are tons of new things added. These are mostly just my own personal opinions, so feel free to skip them.
- Now that there are many new items, some of the old ones seem dated and very out of place (for example the armor that Borcha is wearing when you first meet him, or Katrin's apron). In contrast, some of the new items look a little plastic-y, like some the new Vaegir helmets.
- The new Nord and Sarranid towns look amazing and the ambiance in them is spot on. Same with the new Sarranid villages. And Nord halls and taverns, even though they could use some variation.
- The new skyboxes look fantastic.
- I love it when it snows. Looks great.
- I don't know if it's intentional, but everytime I view the map around the Vaegir lands (the snow plateau), the colors of the map fade into a bleak gray. I think it would look better if it would be in the same crisp and colorful style of the rest of the map.
