The 'Consolization' of Mount and Blade and Bannerlord

[stevepine]

OK, so this is a rant thread.

I admit it.

But I have been one of the most supportive members of this forum in terms of asking people to be patient and asking people to have faith in TaleWorlds and the game in general. Indeed, over the years 95 percent of my threads have been constructive full of ideas to try and help the devs. But my patience is now wearing paper thin.

So TW have played around with the UI, with various wheel options - in order to make the game accessible on consoles.

That's fine, I have no problem with that at all....

What I do have a very large problem with is that we are hearing that features which were present in Viking Conquest and Warband are now ' too complicated to implement'.
They weren't too complicated in 2014 .... but they are now.

The crucial question is WHY? The answer lies in two little words that sound reasonable... they sound just fine - but they lead to a comparatively inferior product. These words are: "Wider audience"

"Wider audience" means one thing. "We want more sales and more money" - We all know this.... and this doesn't actually have to be a bad thing.

Ok, fine... try and do that.... sure. But NOT at the cost of depth and quality. My problem is that the words 'wider audience' are being used as an excuse to leave things out the game that are needed and necessary. That is just corporate greed.

There is a quickly shrinking and closing window of opportunity to save this game.

But TaleWorlds need to wake up fast, do some quick self-reflection and re-prioritize their work.

Sorry if you've read through this and are now bored or think I am stating the freakin obvious. I do it because I care. Good PC games with actual depth are as rare as virgins in Soho.

Warband kind of reminds me of Morrowind ( unique, ground breaking and incredible in every way. - really ground breaking ) ..... but increasingly Bannerlord is starting to making me think more of a mix of Skyrim and Fallout 76 - made for the mass market and taking ages to fix. Don't depend on modders to fix all the lacking features that you KNOW very well should be in a game like this.

Right rant done.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

If they want a new audience on consoles they really need to revamp the character development system to something more rewarding and strait forward. "Congratulations you level's up you get..... DECREASED LEARNIG RATE FOR ALL SKILLS...good luck chump" isn't going to fly with the general audience, I mean it mostly is loathed by long time players anyways. It seems like at some point in development they really wanted to ape the skyrim and fallout systems, but then they added a bunch of restrictions and mechanics that completely undermine those types of systems. I really like the basic idea of "you do more of this, you get better at it" but adding a bunch of penalties and roadblocks to it is just garbage. If a person is playing the game doing things, that's enough to warrant rewarding progression.

And really you need a mascot for the perks! How about Mountain Blade boy?

Anyways there's hundreds of little things that need to be ironed out, but for starters in a console game, anything a tool tip or menu tells the player needs to be 100% accurate. No more "so and so in X castle" when you're standing at X castle and they're not there. That's ****. No more weird perk description using terms that don't appear anywhere else in the game. % and decimal stuff doesn't really come across well to most players either. It needs to be more simple like "your speed is 10, this gives you +1, now it's eleven(11)." I understand using whole numbers goes against the incredibly petty, miserly benefits of most perks, but really you don't need to nickle and dime us of that stuff anyways.

I kind of think console is a long way off and the UI changes are more for PC accessibility options.

 

[Mad Vader]

Are you sure that ' too complicated to implement' doesn't mean "we don't have enough experienced developers to do this and we are late anyway"? That's my reading of it, although it doesn't exclude your "keep it simple for the console peasants".

 

[bbaydogdu]

I couldn't care less about what TW gonna do about the game. I'd rather them to fix the bugs and complete this game asap. For additional content I would happily support the modding community by donations so they can make this game actually playable.

 

[Dreed89]

Are you sure that ' too complicated to implement' doesn't mean "we don't have enough experienced developers to do this and we are late anyway"? That's my reading of it, although it doesn't exclude your "keep it simple for the console peasants".

This is exactly the way it is.

Most people think developers avoid complexity to appeal wider audience.

While that might be true, it is more that the developers in fact struggle to implement new things to the system.

This makes them go after quick wins, small-scaled, out of depth features.

 

[kreamy]

OK, so this is a rant thread.

I admit it.

But I have been one of the most supportive members of this forum in terms of asking people to be patient and asking people to have faith in TaleWorlds and the game in general. Indeed, over the years 95 percent of my threads have been constructive full of ideas to try and help the devs. But my patience is now wearing paper thin.

So TW have played around with the UI, with various wheel options - in order to make the game accessible on consoles.

That's fine, I have no problem with that at all....

What I do have a very large problem with is that we are hearing that features which were present in Viking Conquest and Warband are now ' too complicated to implement'.
They weren't too complicated in 2014 .... but they are now.

The crucial question is WHY? The answer lies in two little words that sound reasonable... they sound just fine - but they lead to a comparatively inferior product. These words are: "Wider audience"

"Wider audience" means one thing. "We want more sales and more money" - We all know this.... and this doesn't actually have to be a bad thing.

Ok, fine... try and do that.... sure. But NOT at the cost of depth and quality. My problem is that the words 'wider audience' are being used as an excuse to leave things out the game that are needed and necessary. That is just corporate greed.

There is a quickly shrinking and closing window of opportunity to save this game.

But TaleWorlds need to wake up fast, do some quick self-reflection and re-prioritize their work.

Sorry if you've read through this and are now bored or think I am stating the freakin obvious. I do it because I care. Good PC games with actual depth are as rare as virgins in Soho.

Warband kind of reminds me of Morrowind ( unique, ground breaking and incredible in every way. - really ground breaking ) ..... but increasingly Bannerlord is starting to making me think more of a mix of Skyrim and Fallout 76 - made for the mass market and taking ages to fix. Don't depend on modders to fix all the lacking features that you KNOW very well should be in a game like this.

Right rant done.

They should just adapt the console version, not change the PC version.

 

[Helstrom]

They should just adapt the console version, not change the PC version.

This. Remove the features that are "too complicated for trash box" after we get the full game. This will also help promote the plebs to join the PC community instead of supporting the extra work load and bad development of cross "platform", platform is not the word I would use.

 

[D0c1]

What I do have a very large problem with is that we are hearing that features which were present in Viking Conquest and Warband are now ' too complicated to implement'.

this is a serious issue. can you link me the source, please?

 

[stevehoos]

OK, so this is a rant thread.

I admit it.

But I have been one of the most supportive members of this forum in terms of asking people to be patient and asking people to have faith in TaleWorlds and the game in general. Indeed, over the years 95 percent of my threads have been constructive full of ideas to try and help the devs. But my patience is now wearing paper thin.

So TW have played around with the UI, with various wheel options - in order to make the game accessible on consoles.

That's fine, I have no problem with that at all....

What I do have a very large problem with is that we are hearing that features which were present in Viking Conquest and Warband are now ' too complicated to implement'.
They weren't too complicated in 2014 .... but they are now.

The crucial question is WHY? The answer lies in two little words that sound reasonable... they sound just fine - but they lead to a comparatively inferior product. These words are: "Wider audience"

"Wider audience" means one thing. "We want more sales and more money" - We all know this.... and this doesn't actually have to be a bad thing.

Ok, fine... try and do that.... sure. But NOT at the cost of depth and quality. My problem is that the words 'wider audience' are being used as an excuse to leave things out the game that are needed and necessary. That is just corporate greed.

There is a quickly shrinking and closing window of opportunity to save this game.

But TaleWorlds need to wake up fast, do some quick self-reflection and re-prioritize their work.

Sorry if you've read through this and are now bored or think I am stating the freakin obvious. I do it because I care. Good PC games with actual depth are as rare as virgins in Soho.

Warband kind of reminds me of Morrowind ( unique, ground breaking and incredible in every way. - really ground breaking ) ..... but increasingly Bannerlord is starting to making me think more of a mix of Skyrim and Fallout 76 - made for the mass market and taking ages to fix. Don't depend on modders to fix all the lacking features that you KNOW very well should be in a game like this.

Right rant done.

Agreed 100%.

 

[Kristjan108]

What I do have a very large problem with is that we are hearing that features which were present in Viking Conquest and Warband are now ' too complicated to implement'.

Seconding a source for this

 

[Delinard]

You forgot to mention that MP is implemented PERFECTLY for consoles:
Matchmaking by choosing maps or faction? What's that?
Custom servers? Never heard of it?
Easy customization? Done.

 

[Helstrom]

You forgot to mention that MP is implemented PERFECTLY for consoles:
Matchmaking by choosing maps or faction? What's that?
Custom servers? Never heard of it?
Easy customization? Done.

I watched a couple videos of it today. Is it still alive and well? I have doubts.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

this is a serious issue. can you link me the source, please?

Can't be arsed to dig up the quotes right now, but the official response to the scrapped settlement feature was exactly that that it was "too complicated the program"

 

[Razeo]

Can't be arsed to dig up the quotes right now, but the official response to the scrapped settlement feature was exactly that that it was "too complicated the program"

^Now this is sad. Considering there are already modders out there who are planning on implementing features that should be TW's job to do so. IE: A more in depth marriage system, towns being economical hubs as opposed to castles being military hubs, crisis (famine, plague, foreign invasion), AI war tactics (border extension, attrition, defense), religion.

 

[nyarlathotep1975]

OK, so this is a rant thread.

I admit it.

But I have been one of the most supportive members of this forum in terms of asking people to be patient and asking people to have faith in TaleWorlds and the game in general. Indeed, over the years 95 percent of my threads have been constructive full of ideas to try and help the devs. But my patience is now wearing paper thin.

So TW have played around with the UI, with various wheel options - in order to make the game accessible on consoles.

That's fine, I have no problem with that at all....

What I do have a very large problem with is that we are hearing that features which were present in Viking Conquest and Warband are now ' too complicated to implement'.
They weren't too complicated in 2014 .... but they are now.

The crucial question is WHY? The answer lies in two little words that sound reasonable... they sound just fine - but they lead to a comparatively inferior product. These words are: "Wider audience"

"Wider audience" means one thing. "We want more sales and more money" - We all know this.... and this doesn't actually have to be a bad thing.

Ok, fine... try and do that.... sure. But NOT at the cost of depth and quality. My problem is that the words 'wider audience' are being used as an excuse to leave things out the game that are needed and necessary. That is just corporate greed.

There is a quickly shrinking and closing window of opportunity to save this game.

But TaleWorlds need to wake up fast, do some quick self-reflection and re-prioritize their work.

Sorry if you've read through this and are now bored or think I am stating the freakin obvious. I do it because I care. Good PC games with actual depth are as rare as virgins in Soho.

Warband kind of reminds me of Morrowind ( unique, ground breaking and incredible in every way. - really ground breaking ) ..... but increasingly Bannerlord is starting to making me think more of a mix of Skyrim and Fallout 76 - made for the mass market and taking ages to fix. Don't depend on modders to fix all the lacking features that you KNOW very well should be in a game like this.

Right rant done.

Have you played DragonAge? I can recommend the first part. RPG with great story and character design. Very much in depth. The second was meh. And with the 3rd it got DragonAge Arcade. No depth but should deliver to a boader audience. Soon there will be 4th one. And as they said it will be more like first one. Strange how many companies think more brainless button mashing equals more sales numbers in games that basicly live from their depth. Instead of getting Arcade gamer (no offence, to each their own) into a Medieval Action RPG, they piss off their current fans. Live and learn

 

[lamk10]

My guess is that as Bannerlord's codebase grows, so does the time it takes to add new features. The already existing code slows them by being rigid, unreadable, coupled, etc. In software engineering, this is called technical debt. It can be mitigated by following the best practices in software development and having good project management. It is the reason why they say it is too complicated to add new features. They are not lying when they say that. If the code is full of "smells", then every changes takes more time. Remember when they did a refactoring, it was probably to address this issue.

 

[black_bulldog]

Have you played DragonAge? I can recommend the first part. RPG with great story and character design. Very much in depth. The second was meh. And with the 3rd it got DragonAge Arcade. No depth but should deliver to a boader audience. Soon there will be 4th one. And as they said it will be more like first one. Strange how many companies think more brainless button mashing equals more sales numbers in games that basicly live from their depth. Instead of getting Arcade gamer (no offence, to each their own) into a Medieval Action RPG, they piss off their current fans. Live and learn

Never played the ES series? This is basically what they did with each successive game. They removed features to "streamline the game". For an example look at magic in Morrowind you literally could create your own spells but by the time you get to Skyrim the variety of spells was limited to 10-12 spells in each school of magic and all they did was just change the color of the animation. It made playing a mage about as much fun as washing the dishes.

 

[Mad Vader]

Never played the ES series? This is basically what they did with each successive game. They removed features to "streamline the game". For an example look at magic in Morrowind you literally could create your own spells but by the time you get to Skyrim the variety of spells was limited to 10-12 spells in each school of magic and all they did was just change the color of the animation. It made playing a mage about as much fun as washing the dishes.

I actually think that streamlining the magic system in Elder Scrolls was an excellent idea. Ideally you'll have any magic system reduced to 3 schools that roughly cover offensive, defensive and utility spells.
The worst offender was AD&D with NINE magic schools. There's absolutely no need for that except for nerds who think more obscure and rarely used stuff is better. Some magic skills in Oblivion and then Skyrim were removed for a very good reason - there wasn't much point in using them and they just cluttered the skill list.

 

[Shun]

When the discussion comes to complexity and console games, I always think of Monster Hunter World. Was released on PC& console, tons of systems, great customization, generally 100(!) save slots for every part/ system you can customize (equipment, looks, useable items). AFAIK it was considered dumbed down by the fans of the series, which may be true; it was my frist Monster Hunter game. I still found it plenty complex.

To the point that TW cannot implement complex features, I think we need to differentiate. At the core of BL lie very dynamic systems (eg the campagin system, economic system, the melee combat system), which can easily become very complex. Just that fact that TW has chosen this path makes me believe that they are on the one hand very dedicated to allow complexity.

However, some other design decisions continue to baffle me, like the class system in MP. These can easily be seen as avoiding complexity. So maybe there are two designs schools, or the individuals in charge of the respective parts of the game follow different paradigmas.

For me personally it's more the disconnect between these two approaches that makes me question how the game will be when it's done.

 

[Wulfric]

There is a quickly shrinking and closing window of opportunity to save this game.

That window was closed some time ago now. It's already been confirmed that there won't be any change in the already established design of the game. Having any hope for this game is unrealistically optimistic.