Probably the 100th post of its kind, but here goes anyway. The way I see it, Bannerlord has broadly two aspects to its gameplay. The first is the systemic sandbox portion that you mainly interact with via the overworld map, NPC dialogue, settlement capturing/village and caravan raiding, and trading. The second is battles and clan control.
In the patch notes I've read through, the updates seem to be concentrated on improving battles and balancing, with AI-AI system balancing coming in second. The latest news from TW also seem to imply that battle improvements is their focus, with features like the battle terrain system, banner bearers, companion peerage, order of battle, etc., in the works.
At the moment, it feels like Bannerlord already gives me a decent degree of freedom with respect to battles and the like, but the first aspect, which is player interaction with Bannerlord's systems, seems pretty neglected.
Now here comes my question.
1. Does TW plan to completely polish battles before moving on to the system interaction and simulation portion of the game? Or
2. Does it plan to just finish working on battles, and leave the systemic portion in the background?
If it's the second, and if battles are their focus, I guess I want better RP reasons for participating in those battles in the first place. One way this could be accomplished is by implementing a Middle-earth like Nemesis system for clans. I want lords to remember who I am, what I've done, and where I came from, and I want reasons to engage in battle with them besides that they happen to be guarding a settlement I want to capture, or attacking a settlement of mine.
If it's the first, that's great, but I imagine even small changes to how these complex systems work would have far reaching and unpredictable consequences in the game world, and would require a lot more time to test and fix. If that's the case, wouldn't it be better to switch tracks, introduce them sooner, and put battles on the back-burner?
I'm sorry if I seem vague when talking about systems. I don't know what needs done to fix them. All I know is at present I feel like I have very little impact on the game world, and that I have very little reason to engage with the battle system. Map painting in and of itself isn't that fun, and it seems like a waste to have NPCs that are nominally unique but who are effectively just another name on the map.
In the patch notes I've read through, the updates seem to be concentrated on improving battles and balancing, with AI-AI system balancing coming in second. The latest news from TW also seem to imply that battle improvements is their focus, with features like the battle terrain system, banner bearers, companion peerage, order of battle, etc., in the works.
At the moment, it feels like Bannerlord already gives me a decent degree of freedom with respect to battles and the like, but the first aspect, which is player interaction with Bannerlord's systems, seems pretty neglected.
Now here comes my question.
1. Does TW plan to completely polish battles before moving on to the system interaction and simulation portion of the game? Or
2. Does it plan to just finish working on battles, and leave the systemic portion in the background?
If it's the second, and if battles are their focus, I guess I want better RP reasons for participating in those battles in the first place. One way this could be accomplished is by implementing a Middle-earth like Nemesis system for clans. I want lords to remember who I am, what I've done, and where I came from, and I want reasons to engage in battle with them besides that they happen to be guarding a settlement I want to capture, or attacking a settlement of mine.
If it's the first, that's great, but I imagine even small changes to how these complex systems work would have far reaching and unpredictable consequences in the game world, and would require a lot more time to test and fix. If that's the case, wouldn't it be better to switch tracks, introduce them sooner, and put battles on the back-burner?
I'm sorry if I seem vague when talking about systems. I don't know what needs done to fix them. All I know is at present I feel like I have very little impact on the game world, and that I have very little reason to engage with the battle system. Map painting in and of itself isn't that fun, and it seems like a waste to have NPCs that are nominally unique but who are effectively just another name on the map.