Statement Regarding Plans For MP Vol.3

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Warriors of Calradia,


We would like to take this opportunity to share with you some of the improvements we made and our future plans regarding Multiplayer.

The most important and the most anticipated of the changes are the updated Combat Parameters. We considered all the player feedback, took inspiration from the community suggested settings and play-tested many times to settle on the current parameters. These changes also required the readjustment of all weapons so we are eagerly expecting everyone’s feedback once the changes go live on our Beta servers.

Troops also had significant changes and these adjustments are just one step of an ongoing process. We are relatively happy with how the Heavy Classes play and we want to set a baseline with them while we do further adjustments in the future.

Two new Skirmish maps are joining the map rotation and they will be playable in the new Beta. More maps for other games are also in various stages of production. Solving the stability issues in Siege Mode turned out to be more challenging than anticipated, even though we addressed most of the issues few still remain and fixing them still holds top priority. Additionally, players who are helping their team by completing objectives in Siege Mode will now receive additional gold for their contributions.

The first iteration of the Clan System will go live with the next patch and will be available on the Beta branch. The Clan System will be a place to easily form a community and find friends to party with. It will also allow the organization of scheduled matches for more competitive players. We have many more exciting features planned for the Clan System for both social and competitive clans.

A basic version of the Spectator Mode is being worked on at the moment which will allow for competitive events to broadcasted as soon as possible. There is also a more robust Spectator Mode planned for the future. Finally, Ranked Matchmaking and New Game Modes are other features that are currently in the development pipeline.

Stay tuned!
 
[...] to settle on the current parameters. These changes also required the readjustment of all weapons so we are eagerly expecting everyone’s feedback once the changes go live on our Beta servers.

So we get beta servers with limited access again before we actually get to play with these changes on live? :S

Rest sounds promising, but I was hoping that after playtesting these changes would be on live directly (and I thought I'd read so somewhere as well).
 
Are the clan features already in beta?
If not, please consider moving the clan features to the live branch and skip beta for this one. Nobody of us will be able to play beta while tournaments are running and competitive play continues. It will greatly improve the atmosphere and the actual play of clans against each other.
 
Are the clan features already in beta?
If not, please consider moving the clan features to the live branch and skip beta for this one. Nobody of us will be able to play beta while tournaments are running and competitive play continues. It will greatly improve the atmosphere and the actual play of clans against each other.
The way I understood it, clan features will be on the next live patch, but combat changes will go through beta first.

Please correct me if I'm wrong
 
As @Klebari said the upcoming Parameter Changes were based on community feedback from threads such as this, but also many other remarks and actually from the people that tested it with us.

Making huge changes to the combat system like this is always risky, so for us testing it over multiple weeks with a small portion of the community and soon with everyone on the beta is really important as this is supposed to be a sort of baseline for future combat changes.

You’ll see a very long and detailed list of changes in the changelog, so I wont take away from that yet, but we worked really hard on the core melee fights, cavalry gameplay and overall abusive mechanics that lead to frustrating situations in MP matches.

The rhythm of melee fights will feel a lot different, while not completely overthrowing your playstyle. You’ll instantly feel a difference with blocks, but also swings, kicks, movement speed and such. One important thing about the changes we did, is that we didn't want to make things impossible, take kick throws for example, instead of just disabling kicks with throwing weapons we tried to find other solutions to keep them possible but make them a lot harder/riskier to pull off. (You’ll see how and if it worked with the patch ^^)

Other than that there were some new mechanics added to cavalry gameplay, making it more punishing if you make mistakes and also archery/skirmishing was adjusted in parts.

I hope you’ll enjoy these upcoming changes. Feel free to tag me for questions about them, but I won't go into too much detail as explained above. After their release I’ll also work on a parameter list, so modders can see which parameters have changed (similar to the community thread linked above)


Are the clan features already in beta?
If not, please consider moving the clan features to the live branch and skip beta for this one. Nobody of us will be able to play beta while tournaments are running and competitive play continues. It will greatly improve the atmosphere and the actual play of clans against each other.
We need to test the backend of this before pushing it to live, otherwise it might cause a huge mess.
 
Warriors of Calradia,


A basic version of the Spectator Mode is being worked on at the moment which will allow for competitive events to broadcasted as soon as possible. There is also a more robust Spectator Mode planned for the future. Finally, Ranked Matchmaking and New Game Modes are other features that are currently in the development pipeline.

Stay tuned!
First thanks for the hard work !
I just wanted to ask how things are standing concerning a replay feature. It would elevate the quality of multiplayer videos by at least an order of magnitude, which is free advertising ;D

Also i agree with Bard that the betabranch isnt really used for multiplayer because of the lack of playerbase. NIN3 just answered
Looking forward to patchday
 
As @NIN3 said, we are planning to keep the Beta process as short as possible, mostly to make sure nothing is breaking.
Meanwhile you can test the changes and provide feedback if you like.
 
As @NIN3 said, we are planning to keep the Beta process as short as possible, mostly to make sure nothing is breaking.
Meanwhile you can test the changes and provide feedback if you like.
In that case I'll follow what Bard said and agree that it's probably the best way. Looking forward to it.

Thanks, once again, for keeping us updated - and for taking community feedback into consideration and acting upon it.

patch when
 
I'm really looking forward to seeing how and how many percent of Gab's work in his parameter tweaking you've included.

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@AVRC Idk who the right person to ask this would be, but it seems clear you guys are making the right game modes for a competitive multiplayer setting.

Do you have plans for casual play? Friends of mine who are casual players are often dissapointed that Bannerlord doesn't do what other medieval games do for multiplayer, meaning just a gamemode in a custom lobby with just friends fighting a battle against each other. Just straight up custom battle tool but for multiplayer.
Our current casual mode is Siege Mode. It couldn't really take off due to the technical issues we had, but they are getting fixed now. It should be more populated with the upcoming changes and maps. We have other casual modes planned as well that are being discussed at the moment.

For now, you can form a clan with your friends to set up games among each other.
 
Our current casual mode is Siege Mode. It couldn't really take off due to the technical issues we had, but they are getting fixed now. It should be more populated with the upcoming changes and maps. We have other casual modes planned as well that are being discussed at the moment.
Glad to hear Siege is getting some work. I would be playing daily if Siege was stable.
 
As @NIN3 said, we are planning to keep the Beta process as short as possible, mostly to make sure nothing is breaking.
Meanwhile you can test the changes and provide feedback if you like.
When will it be available on beta branch? It sounded like right now so I downloaded it.
 
I'm glad to hear about these changes. Fixes for combat have been long-awaited and more stability and improvements to siege mode are awesome to hear about. Also, the clan system will bring good changes and I look forward to having control of which faction I play as (never have to play as Khuzaits again :smile: )

HOWEVER, I want to make one thing clear. Solely working on the competitive modes will NOT create new "clans" and grow the community in the way you guys are hoping. I lead one of the largest North American Bannerlord clans, and I've found the 6v6 modes extremely limiting. It is really hard to grow past a hundred members or so because you have to start turning players away due to not having enough space on our skirmish teams. The only time we can all play together is during the Sunday Night Siege event that I host, but even then we get split up between the teams because the maximum party size in matchmaking is 6. What makes mount & blade clans special is that they facilitate large scale competitive play on modes that support large amounts of players, and is why I made a clan for Bannerlord rather than a game like CS:GO or Overwatch.

I understand that the development of larger modes and the eventual release of custom servers that are necessary for this to be possible will take time, but I have two suggestions that could possibly be implemented to help make it easier for larger groups of players to play together with the coming changes in mind:

1) Utilize the clan system to prioritize placing clan members on the same team during matchmaking.
This would work for large modes like a siege and would ensure clan members were placed on the same team. This way, larger groups aren't split up and are able to play together. I think you would see a spike in activity for siege mode if something like this was implemented as clans will be able to ensure they can play together and able to work together to have coordinated operations on the battlefield.

2) Create a "large scale" skirmish mode on the captain mode maps. This could also be a way to test a battle mode and essentially will be the same systems as captain mode except without bots. As these maps are fairly large, I think a lot of players could be supported here (probably 50v50 at first but ideally support for 100v100 will be added like in warband) and with the new clan system being proposed, some early forms of shield battle events may be possible. Just some food for thought.
 
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