State of the main quest

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Haven't really played the campaign and the main quest for a long, long time now.

Just tested 1.7.0 sandbox with 20 or so hours, saw that gameplay is more robust and not as empty (but still empty if not for the mods :smile: ), but the question was raised .. is the story campaign worth it now? Should I even try it out after a year of pause?
 
The story campaign is fine. Just don't do the main quest. Rescue your siblings, but ignore Neretze's Folly.

The cool kids know this.

Be a cool kid.

Mount and Blade has never been about stories anyway.
 
The story ends when you rescue your brothers n sister. I would ignore the rest of talking about Neretze's folly and collecting the banner and MAYBE in the future when they make the dragon banner do something then give it a try. But I hear so many complaints about the "after make kingdom" quests that arise when you make a kingdom and use the NPC and banner to continue the quest, that I would avoid it and hope TW revamp it at some point.

Also I think we should have options for other clan mates in sandbox too. Also, I think at a certain point in conquest, or maybe ever at the end of the game when your faction owns every fief, an adventurer should give you the dragon banner! Or, maybe in sandbox, there's an NPC clan that gets the banner pieces and eventually tries to make a new faction, like your rival! It could even have the same siblings form campaign, like it's that same family.
 
I was honestly expecting some sort of story , maybe the rise of swadia? Some epic historic battles just like Isola of suno claims that made swadia what it was , or maybe the arrival of the nords? There is so much potential but sadly not much is there.
 
The story campaign is fine. Just don't do the main quest. Rescue your siblings, but ignore Neretze's Folly.

The cool kids know this.

Be a cool kid.

Mount and Blade has never been about stories anyway.

I know, I've been around since beta launched and have played that nonsense main quest till its end quite a few times. The question was if there are any updates and changes to it. I guess not.
 
I know, I've been around since beta launched and have played that nonsense main quest till its end quite a few times. The question was if there are any updates and changes to it. I guess not.

Well, here I leave you fresh material. I've been lucky so far but because of the AI and other details it's the same as playing the game on "Randy Random: Losing is Fun"

@clovis_sangrail couldn't be more right. Your 3 brothers, the eldest mainly, can become powerful party leaders. the little brothers soon become level 1 adults with a bunch of attribute points to choose from. A while crafting and melting weapons and you can leave them level 10 to lead their parties and raise their skills with great speed. Also, it's you and 2 men, so you can still add 3 members to the group. A big family with 7 nobles, 3 happy couples and a spinster sister xD
 
Id rather the World itself have its story and the factions and leaders playing out that story rather than being all random. Let the player intervene or ignore at their own leisure. The best sandbox ive played just give you a fun and interesting world already at play -where in you can decide how you want to alter and effect that.
 
Id rather the World itself have its story and the factions and leaders playing out that story rather than being all random. Let the player intervene or ignore at their own leisure. The best sandbox ive played just give you a fun and interesting world already at play -where in you can decide how you want to alter and effect that.
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This!
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Kenshi, Fallout NV? I mean, you're not describing m&b right?

At least Lords in M&B had predispositions but no it never had much in that dept. Im saying thats the direction they should have headed in rather than this "Somebody kidnapped your siblings... theres a torn banner named Betzees Jollies....." blather with random lords and NPCS that have no solid foundation in the story at all

Look at PoP mod -you had all that lore and certain factions didnt like each other as well as an escalating storyline which later brought in Elves and Evil hellHordes. An interesting story in which the player could join or just play for themselves.
 
I wouldn't describe Fallout NV as a sandbox, like Kenshi..
But I guess the term is more or less wide..
no doubt, but mention both for their definition of sandbox. They were the two games that came to my mind. When it comes to sandboxing, kenshi is definitely the pinnacle, not necessarily a better game, but in its purity of the genre. There is a world with its conflicts, factions with their ideals, and you are in it, do what you want. Bannerlord could be there too, if the AI wasn't the player's enemy.
 
Haven't really played the campaign and the main quest for a long, long time now.

Just tested 1.7.0 sandbox with 20 or so hours, saw that gameplay is more robust and not as empty (but still empty if not for the mods :smile: ), but the question was raised .. is the story campaign worth it now? Should I even try it out after a year of pause?

How about now? Are main campaign quests done and somewhat enjoyable?
 
I am playing sandbox with the arrange marriages mod and i think it's better than the campaign. The way the game dose marriage is bad compared to warband, so i got a mod that cut out the RNG. I got my character married and over time each of the companion's married peasants all have their own little families and i can use their wives for Governers or caravans.
 
I am playing sandbox with the arrange marriages mod and i think it's better than the campaign. The way the game dose marriage is bad compared to warband, so i got a mod that cut out the RNG. I got my character married and over time each of the companion's married peasants all have their own little families and i can use their wives for Governers or caravans.
Good to hear that you are enjoying your marriage roleplay, but I still want an answer about the story questline. :smile:
 
Good to hear that you are enjoying your marriage roleplay, but I still want an answer about the story questline. :smile:
There's basically no story to speak of. You rescue your siblings after you reach clan tier 1, then there's the Neretzes' folly, which tells the story of the battle of Pendraic castle from the perspective of (I think) 16 or 17 people, of which you "only" need to talk to 10 of. Then you talk to Istiana and Arzagos, hear about their perspectives on the empire, collect the 2 other parts of the dragon banner and choose to give the banner to a faction (empire or barbarian, you can also choose to create your own faction which can also be imperial or barbarian depending on the culture you choose for the kingdom). After you give the banner, there's no story except some campaign only unique cutscenes (by cutscenes I mean the animations that play when you get married, have a child, become a vassal, etc.) and 2 different endings depending on whether you chose to support the empire or barbarians that look like the intro (just look at them on youtube).

After giving the banner, the campaign devolves into a ****fest of you trying to get as much territory as possible while a conspiracy caravan or party spawning anywhere on the map and you having to stop them. When you fail to stop them, because you will fail, you're pretty much set up to fail unless you want to go insane (or unless the faction you're part of already pretty much controlled the world before giving the banner to a faction) all factions declare war on you and the late game becomes an even worse grindfest.

The campaign just falls flat, you can't even face off against Istiana or Arzagos, I don't think you can recruit Galter (or whatever the name of the bandit at the start was) or Istiana/Arzagos (the one you signed up with) as a companion. The game doesn't give you a badass conspiracy army consisting of a large number of elite units consisting of different cultures to defeat as a one time endgame boss. It could've given you a quest to conquer the settlement where Istiana/Arzagos (the enemy) resided in before you gave the banner and then pulled a switcheroo on you by making you defend the settlement against the conspiracy giga-army led by your arch enemy, but no. The campaign after a point just stops giving a **** and tells you to straight up conquer 1/3 of the map. The conspiracy quest could've been a timed quest that increased or decreased the strength of the conspiracy army based on your actions regarding the conspiracy caravans and whatnot (a score of 1000 being +1k men, a complete quest failure would be a score of 2000, meaning that the giga army would have +2k men, a successful quest would decrease the number of men to the base number of 500 to 1000, etc.).
 
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There's basically no story to speak of. You rescue your siblings after you reach clan tier 1, then there's the Neretzes' folly, which tells the story of the battle of Pendraic castle from the perspective of (I think) 16 or 17 people, of which you "only" need to talk to 10 of. Then you talk to Istiana and Arzagos, hear about their perspectives on the empire, collect the 2 other parts of the dragon banner and choose to give the banner to a faction (empire or barbarian, you can also choose to create your own faction which can also be imperial or barbarian depending on the culture you choose for the kingdom). After you give the banner, there's no story except some campaign only unique cutscenes (by cutscenes I mean the animations that play when you get married, have a child, become a vassal, etc.) and 2 different endings depending on whether you chose to support the empire or barbarians that look like the intro (just look at them on youtube).

After giving the banner, the campaign devolves into a ****fest of you trying to get as much territory as possible while a conspiracy caravan or party spawning anywhere on the map and you having to stop them. When you fail to stop them, because you will fail, you're pretty much set up to fail unless you want to go insane (or unless the faction you're part of already pretty much controlled the world before giving the banner to a faction) all factions declare war on you and the late game becomes an even worse grindfest.

The campaign just falls flat, you can't even face off against Istiana or Arzagos, I don't think you can recruit Galter (or whatever the name of the bandit at the start was) or Istiana/Arzagos (the one you signed up with) as a companion. The game doesn't give you a badass conspiracy army consisting of a large number of elite units consisting of different cultures to defeat as a one time endgame boss. It could've given you a quest to conquer the settlement where Istiana/Arzagos (the enemy) resided in before you gave the banner and then pulled a switcheroo on you by making you defend the settlement against the conspiracy giga-army led by your arch enemy, but no. The campaign after a point just stops giving a **** and tells you to straight up conquer 1/3 of the map. The conspiracy quest could've been a timed quest that increased or decreased the strength of the conspiracy army based on your actions regarding the conspiracy caravans and whatnot (a score of 1000 being +1k men, a complete quest failure would be a score of 2000, meaning that the giga army would have +2k men, a successful quest would decrease the number of men to the base number of 500 to 1000, etc.).
Thanks, I cant believe they went live with this mockery of a main quest.
 
The campaign after a point just stops giving a **** and tells you to straight up conquer 1/3 of the map.
Snip quote for conciseness.

Pretty much what they wrote @Warlord123123. I usually stop playing it after I met Istiana or Arzagos, the background story is cool and it's nice to have the three free family members when not in Sandbox but the quest turns into a massive grind and just accelerates an all-out slogfest with the AI. If you wanted to do it it's probably best to coincide it with a world conquest you're on and you have one Kingdom left - either Sturgia or Aserai so you can box them into their natural terrain.

TW is slowly adding voice acting to make it feel more alive but the campaign storylines are not voiced so it kind of falls flat on its face from immersion. @Dejan think we can get a thread on VA roadmap if at all possible? The greetings are cool but the lack of voice is even more jarring now that we have more VA outside of Istiana.

The campaign definitely needs a refresh - maybe it'll make more sense to do so with Claimants and if we ever get some civil war or faction additions. Within the official Lore there is obvious cultural and political tensions in each Kingdom that I wish we could expose more. On paper, at least, many of the Lords hate each other but that does not affect anything other than some flavor text and your own "head canon".

Added that extra bit since the main story really lacks soul and outside of the family members it's wise to ignore it.
 
The campaign seems absurdly difficult and grindy unless you've already established yourself in preparation for it.

What's weird is it seems like the story mode was supposed to be for relatively casual players, but it is definitely the exact opposite and only a niche subset of players will enjoy it. It also just kind of disregards the variety of playstyles people have, and shoehorns people into a single way to play the game, giving their characters a pretty singular grand motive.

Granted, you can ignore or fail it and play like its sandbox with the benefit of companions. The campaign is mostly doing things you can already do more at your own pace(take over most of the map) and in your own way, just with a bunch of annoying obstacles and chores.

It suffers from what many sandbox game's "main quest" storylines suffer from, which is that they make the sandbox less sandboxy and less fun rather than more interesting, and they feel sort of tacked on rather than integrated into the game. But of course it's hard to just ignore it(you can, but ... it lingers as a stain in your quest log, and nobody likes having an uncompleted or failed quest in their quest log indefinitely...), since it hurls you into at the start of the game.

Also it has a timer, putting an annoying but vague sense of urgency on it that just doesn't need to be there at all. It should not have a timer. No main quest in a sandbox game should ever have a timer, really. This should be like a law of game making.
 
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