Statement regarding Plans for Singleplayer and Engine

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Warriors of Calradia,

Today we will be sharing some of our current singleplayer and engine related priorities with you.

Since the release of the game, we have been hard at work to improve stability and performance for our players. This will continue to be a top priority for us. Naturally, we are also working on other parts of the game. Below you will find a list of some of these:

Campaign

  • Kingdom & Politics
    • A sandbox option that will allow players to create their own kingdom independent of the main storyline.
    • Kingdom Decisions for Declaring War and Making Peace.
    • Adjustments to Kingdom Policies.
  • Character System
    • New perks that will likely be added on a per skill basis. You can see the beginning of this in our latest beta version (e1.4.0).
    • Skill Progression & Effects Balancing
  • Issues and Quests
    • Adding New Quests
    • Improving the issue creation algorithm so that players are more likely to experience a broad scope of possible issue quests without sacrificing their ties to our ingame world.
  • Main Storyline Content
  • Execution Consequences
  • Map Conversation Improvements
  • Hideout Improvements
  • Simulation Health
    • Kingdom strengths
    • Clan resources (Money, Influence, Members)
    • Economy
  • Scene Notifications (f.e. executions)
  • Bug Fixes

Combat Missions

  • Performance
    • AI performance optimizations
    • Formation system performance optimizations
    • Memory management improvements
  • AI
    • Battle formation AI and tactics overhaul
    • Siege tower and ladder usage fixes for AI
    • Additional fixes on siege battles
    • Agent AI combat enhancements
  • Improvements to the Order of Battle System
  • Improvements to the Order User Interface
  • Cheering
  • Ranged and mounted training NPCs for the tutorial scene.
  • Better support for modders in the sound system.
  • Bug Fixes

Art
  • Updating existing and creating new scenes
  • Updating existing and creating new equipment and other models
  • Adding new weapon parts for crafting
  • Creating new armor design concepts
  • Improving Animations
  • Facegen Polish / Improvements
  • Conversation Animations Polish
  • Improving Game Menu Art
  • World Map Improvements

Engine

  • Performance
    • Overall FPS improvements for big field & siege battles
    • GPU optimizations for low end configs
    • Fixing spikes throughout the game
    • Preparing a new telemetry beta branch that should allow players with complex issues to provide us with additional data that will help us to track down and resolve the underlying problems.
  • Replay Editor
  • Modding Tools & Documentation

Other
  • Refactoring some campaign related classes.
  • Savegame cleanup and improvements
  • Localization support for dynamic text usage in some languages

Please keep in mind that these priorities are neither all-encompassing nor set in stone. We will adjust them if the need arises.

Thank you for the list!

I know you state at the end that this list is not all-encompassing, but there is one thing that is missing that really should be worked on, and that is the inheritance system. Right now, all children are born without the ability to level or gain any skills once they reach adulthood (all skills at hard cap because attributes are all at zero), and no notables in the game marry, so once the current generation dies out, the game is over because no one has any more children. In the pre-EA development diaries, you touted that progeny and inheritance would be a major factor, but it is completely broken right now. Seeing it missing from the list is honestly a tad depressing as I was very excited for this. I and many others on the forums have given ideas of how this might look, but at least doing the bare minimum of allowing children to be able to level and having other clans intermarry and produce children will do a TON for those who play long games. If anything, that should be one of the top priorities on this list, IMHO, because my bet is that 90% of players will be marrying and having children in their games only to be disappointed that their children will forever be weaker than a looter.
 
having children in their games only to be disappointed that their children will forever be weaker than a looter.
Why not tell them to give the player's children an X (x 0.25) amount of attribute points/skillpoints the player character had by the time they grow old enough to fight, you also get to choose where those free points go instead of having it predetermined by RNG. Not only that; the children can have those points while still being level 1 which means they can have extra room to grow further.
 
Comments in favour of generational features.
I'm interested in these features, but for me it is an easy decision to delay them so that focus can be put on more pressing issues.

Until the generational gameplay is functional, they should probably return years to being 365 days long again so that typical long games aren't ended by a character dying of old age.
 
No mention of diplomacy, the broken economy (besides 'simulation health - economy' and whatever that means), the braindead AI, kingdom management, or most of the other critical issues that plague the game. It honestly reads like this was whipped up in 2 hours due to a management directive spawned from all the bad feedback.

At this point if you froze development and let modders do the rest of the work the game would likely be better overall.

Sorry to sound harsh, but you guys have wasted more time than I have in the past 6 weeks and that's saying something. I'm not confident that you guys have much of a clue about core issues with the game, how to handle them, or even why they're a problem.

Either you didn't read the post or your reading comprehension really needs work. All that stuff you listed was mentioned.
 
"New perks that will likely be added on a per skill basis. You can see the beginning of this in our latest beta version (e1.4.0)."

So more nerfing in the future? :cry:
 
Thank you, sounds great! Best of luck! A few very specific questions that hasn't been covered:
- Feasts? Yes/no?
- Manhunters? Yes/no?
- Bandit spawn algorithm changes? Yes/no?
- Bandit groups merging together? Yes/no?
- Sexism? Yes/no?
 
Great to see the post, and overall the direction looks good. Thumbs up.

I'm a little leery, however, not to see any mention of working on the courtship/marriage dialogues (unless it's somehow covered under "map conversation improvement"?). The persuasion-check system is quite irritating; this is the only gameplay (as opposed to technical things like bugs/glitches, crashes, etc) event that I have learned to plan in advance to save-scum.

Various persuasion-check dialogues in quests, etc, are annoying in general, but usually a quest has another avenue to complete, and if not, well, an occasional failed quest isn't a big deal. Minor relations hit recoverable by doing other quests for that NPC in future.

But this isn't the case with marriage: gotta succeed three times in a row...twice...or that marriage candidate is permanently eliminated from eligibility. Any mechanic which heavily incentivizes save-scumming by players who otherwise rarely or never do so is probably a mechanic which needs some review. (lol, posting this just after Sora turned me down for the 12th time a row).
 
Please let us become King of existent factions and rebelion system. These things would add a lot to the game. Thanks!
 
This topic was very awaited.
Thanks TW.

However, I'm sad about diplomacy improvement. I really wait an option in the native game to avoid running after everyone to ask peace.
 
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@Duh_TaleWorlds I appreciate this public informative gesture; I hope these " disclosures " are periodic and that you keep us informed of what, how and when in relation to your tasks. I think it's perfect that within your short term priorities is the search for the best possible optimization, an AI at the appropriate quality and provide the mod tools. I also consider all this a high-priority.

On the other hand, I'd like you to be explicit about which features are still to be implemented and share them via an agile roadmap (no dates, only priority blocks; complete-current-near term- late stage of EA). For example, as far as "advanced" diplomacy is concerned, little has been reported on what it will become and what features it will contain. You speak of war and peace; however, in Bannerlord there will be Alliances, Defensive Pacts, Demands, Defensive Leagues?, etc.

I take a list of the diplomatic features of the Diplomacy mod:

As vassal
  • Persuasion attempts to convince your king to start a war
  • Appoint a chamberlain, who will decrease tax inefficiency by 10% and gives you the ability to set tax rates. Taxes also have an effect on center relation and prosperity. In addition he will take care of paying wages and collecting income as well as giving you the possibility to secure your money
  • Let your companions pick items from the chamberlain item pool (autoloot)
  • Appoint a constable who recruits and trains troops and provides information about garrisons and troops of lords
  • Send patrols to important locations
  • Appoint a chancellor who sends gifts and messengers to other lords
  • Village and town riots may occure if the people hate you and have to pay high tax rates. Counter them or negotiate with the leader.
  • Let your spouse buy some food
  • Pay staff salary
  • Troops will start running away if you go into debts (this also applies to garrisons)
  • Return fiefs to your king, he won't like this, though
  • Move your residence (via spouse)
  • Negotiate Mid-siege surrender/walk-out terms if defending your own keeps and towns
  • Affiliate to families
  • Send scouts to settlements
  • Pay to avoid defeat

As king

  • Threaten other kingdoms with war and try to squeeze money out of them
  • If a faction sues for peace you will have the option to set terms
  • Possiblity to send a gift to another faction (fief or money)
  • Send a spy to another kingdom
  • Form an alliance, conclude a defensive pact, sign a trade agreement or conclude a non-aggression treaty with another faction.
  • Change the domnestic policy of your kingdom. Choose between Centralization/Decentralization, Aristocracy/Plutocracy, Serfdom/Free subjects, Quality/Quantity which affects trade income, vassals armies size, AI army strength, relation between king and vassals as well as tax inefficiency
  • When asking for a truce you will get the option to pay and/or give fiefs to conclude a truce.
  • If another faction recognizes you as king you will have the option to ask for help against your enemy and in certain circumstances support the decision by paying money
  • Choose your faction culture so all your lords will recruit the same type of troops
  • Exchange or release your (own) prisoners
  • Distribute spoils of war after you conquered a town or castle
  • Send emissaries to persuade lords to join your kingdom

Will Bannerlord contain all these features which are an essential and indispensable part of the player's playable experience as an addition to Warband native?
 
Will there be further optimizations and data compression? The game requiring 35GB of Space is not exactly what others call 'efficient'. The game's disk space requirement should at least be less than half of that amount to give people with storage problems some breathing room. I don't like the idea of a future where 100+GB sized (or worse, 1+TB) games breaking computers just by double-clicking the launcher icon.
 
I have to say, this is a totally different game from Warband; it expands so much, on so many levels; I hope executions are something that is in the game more prominent; And that other lords/nobles also do it now and again (and that the entire world knows about it).

I also hope you have the time to "deepen" the characters; cause now they seem plenty-full but lack of depth a bit;

Also the feasts of Warband I miss, just to see all those nobles in one place; Also I'm not sure what, but castle & city & town maintenance or building would really be nice to have; or some day-to-day politics; Now it seems governmental, which in the time frame of the game was not 100% accurate I would assume; Some levels of city government was to be had...

anyways, one can dream right, keep up the good work !
 
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