The lore of this game is just useless flavor text unless you do something about it.

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The whole influence system
If this can be considered as a new rpg element, then I am Rolf who is son of Rolf.
Smithing and its commissions
Yeah, that mechanic which is completely disconnected from rest of the game also it is a money bug in my eyes.
Childbirth and death
The time I play as my child is the time I am killed by boredom of the late game.
Civilian gear restrictions and back alley fights
I am really enjoying it when I am the king. 🤡
 
I remember all those characters from Warband because even if a character is written thin, he /she can leave you with a memory on what theyre like -kinda like in RL. POp as well. BannerLord I maybe have 150+ hours actual playtime and I dont know who anyone is.
 
lol no it wouldn't

who the **** would read that **** more than three times?

Yes, it would. And the people who liked Warband for it would? The very same people who have been complaining about it not being in Bannerlord for years now. There's just no soul in Bannerlord, nothing to really remember. Warband had that.

I remember all those characters from Warband because even if a character is written thin, he /she can leave you with a memory on what theyre like -kinda like in RL. POp as well. BannerLord I maybe have 150+ hours actual playtime and I dont know who anyone is.

Exactly.

If Bannerlord added that kind of flavor, it would increase the game's quality by a lot. It wouldn't make it suddenly a superb game, but it would help a lot.
 
If this can be considered as a new rpg element, then I am Rolf who is son of Rolf.
You can role play with them, so yeah. They can.

Yeah, that mechanic which is completely disconnected from rest of the game also it is a money bug in my eyes.
The topic was RPG elements. Smithing allows you to role play as a smith. Whether the money gained is proportional to the rest of the economy or not is another matter entirely.

The time I play as my child is the time I am killed by boredom of the late game.
I wasn't just talking about the player playing as their child. The whole period between the birth of the child, them growing up, come of age and become a companion to you is included. There's also the fact that other lords can die and give birth too.

I am really enjoying it when I am the king. 🤡
Good.
 
The saddest thing to me is that once upon a time, they were actually thinking about all these immersive details. They wrote all that lore. They named all the rivers and mountains. They invented unique board games for every culture. They hired medieval musicologists to compose authentic music themes.

I suspect this was all done before they up and decided to throw out the old game engine and start over from scratch, and since then all that stuff fell by the wayside as their entire focus was on making the new engine work. I wouldn't be surprised if the people who wrote that lore are long gone and the new people barely know it exists.

I don't think we'll ever know exactly why they felt they needed a new engine midway through development, but I really wish we could play the game they were making back in 2015. That one sounds like more fun than the one we got.
 
Yes and no. I agree that Warband lore was mostly elevated by the fans, but I did like that the actual companions were unique and not just "Bobby the Robber because he has rogue skills". People remember their experiences with the Warband companions because they were able to create RP with them. Bannerlord could have really developed the "What was before Warband" experience, but it changed way too much stuff. They did add some city names that come from Warband but it makes no sense because they are not even at the correct place (Sargot).
Lore wasn't big in Warband, but at least there were gameplay elements that allowed you to roleplay, more than Bannerlord.
Some examples of things that just ruin RP in BL (I haven't played it for a while so maybe they finally added some of those):
-Having to scroll through notes to find location of lords
-Can't give tourney victories to ladies
-Can literally marry in a day
-Lords/characters don't seem to care about your actions, unless you go to them. In VC lords can hire people to kill you after you have wronged them, they will target your fiefs, they will chase you and hunt you, I haven't seen that in BL unless I am the one coming close to them.
-Companions are bland, they are just there for stats
-Camp build camps
Lmfao companion do really be named "Bobby the robber" in this game, the writing is utterly ridiculous
 
I don't think we'll ever know exactly why they felt they needed a new engine midway through development, but I really wish we could play the game they were making back in 2015. That one sounds like more fun than the one we got.

They didn't make a new engine. I've spoken to the devs about this, the version you see in the first screenshots from 2013 is the same codebase that exists currently. Anyway even if they did make a new engine, why would that force them to throw all the writing out?

Worldbuilding for worldbuilding's sake is extremely easy, there are probably a million 12 year olds on deviantart who have created some fantasy world in their spare time. But in a video game (or film) you have a limited interface with the audience to convey all that information, so any details expounded on have to be related to the gameplay otherwise you're wasting "bandwidth".

For instance there are concept art sheets from back in 2016 that show the distribution of different dogs in calradia, hundreds of different helmets, some with written backstories, and a load of architecture and animal stuff that was probably never used.
17BeMaJ.jpg

Sure they could have used this, but what would be the point? Who gives a crap? Would anyone even have noticed without this map straight up telling you? Sure it's kind of interesting to look at in isolation, but I'd rather look at a real map of the real world than a video game that barely uses this information.

My point is that even with all this worldbuilding fluff the game would still have problems that make it difficult to roleplay. I don't want Bannerlord to be an infodump wikia simulator given how much the campaign situation can and should change.
 
Yes, it would. And the people who liked Warband for it would? The very same people who have been complaining about it not being in Bannerlord for years now. There's just no soul in Bannerlord, nothing to really remember. Warband had that.
I wouldn't trust those people on what they claim to want.

They were the same ones asking for "something, ANYTHING" to do in the town scenes, then got mad as **** when TW released the barber feature. Or complaining about the widely requested (and included in many WB mods) notable bar feature because it meant you could avoid spending 3-5 minutes tracking down people just to turn in a quest.

Making me walk around town scenes or popping up a brief line of text about something I've heard a half dozen times before is just going to annoy the living hell out of me.
I don't think we'll ever know exactly why they felt they needed a new engine midway through development, but I really wish we could play the game they were making back in 2015. That one sounds like more fun than the one we got.
You are almost certainly playing that game right now. It is just much easier to make a feature or gameplay sound cool in a brief statement because people's imaginations will start to fill in details.
 
I wouldn't trust those people on what they claim to want.

They were the same ones asking for "something, ANYTHING" to do in the town scenes, then got mad as **** when TW released the barber feature. Or complaining about the widely requested (and included in many WB mods) notable bar feature because it meant you could avoid spending 3-5 minutes tracking down people just to turn in a quest.

Making me walk around town scenes or popping up a brief line of text about something I've heard a half dozen times before is just going to annoy the living hell out of me.

Why not? Do you know what they want more than they do? And I think you're conflating why they were angry. They wanted something of value to do, and didn't get it. If you should think that means they don't know what they want, I have no idea what to tell you.

That's you, though? A lot of people want reason to go through towns, to not have to use the "skip to x" mechanic. That's the only reason its being used, because towns/etc are boring as hell and no one in them are enjoyable to speak to or remember. If they were, and they were of quality, you probably wouldn't be so annoyed having to walk through them to talk to people. And that's part of the problem. TW's inability to put soul in any aspect into Bannerlord.
 
People only remember characters like Jeremus because of memes.
No, when I played Warband originally it was before "memes" has even began to gain traction in the wider Internet let alone normalisation of video game memes, and I found Jeremus/Artimenner's nerd squabbling, Rolf's constant insistence of his noble status, Nizar's grandstanding, etc. all memorable and fun within their own right.
Now Harlaus you have a point, as all Warband monarchs were unmemorable other than what they said about their claimants.
Players created the "lore"; it was essentially like a narrative community mod fuelled by love of the game.
Aside from Grunwalder Castle, I'm not sure where you're getting this from. Vanilla Warband's lore was developer made (Steve Negus wrote a lot of it iirc after being hired from his modding).
Obviously these are fundamentally different games, but my point is that more dialogue isn't going to make Bannerlord feel less sterile.
I would agree, what we need is more gameplay:story/setting integration now. We need the lore and dialogue that's already in the game to actually match the gameplay mechanics.

Criminal minor factions should engage in less mercenary work and more crime.
Mercenary minor factions should have T5 troops.
Your spouse and clan members and companions should look happy to see you when they're saying they are.
Stuff like that.
The only fundamental difference between the dynamic bannerlord companions and the static warband ones is that you get to talk about static ones with other players. But besides that, most warband companions were just as forgettable as the random ones. Besides Jeremus, Borcha and maybe Rolf, i personally couldn't tell you anything about the others if i had a gun to my head, mainly because their backstories didn't tie in to gameplay much.
Wrong. Their backstories tied into:
* Knowing their stat focus before even hiring them
* What they would like and dislike you doing, eg. Raiding villages, not paying them, going hungry, raiding caravans, fleeing battles, etc. These were usually obvious - Marnid, with his merchant background, would hate raiding caravans.
* Who they disliked you using as an emissary.
* Whether other lords would take offense at you raising them to lordhood/ladyship (eg: Alayen, as a former noble, was kosher; Borcha would not be).
* Who they liked or disliked you having in the party.
 
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Why not? Do you know what they want more than they do?
Distrusting someone's claim about what they want doesn't mean it's because you know more about what they want than they do. You can distrust it by observing their behavior. Some people here are very irrational when it comes to criticizing the game. Apocal's example is one. Those same people will say nonsense like saying Bannerlord has fewer features than Warband, despite it being completely and blatantly wrong. Bannerlord has many improvements like much better module system, the siege weapons, the real armies, etc, but they ignore these. They mostly talk about petty features like feasts. While it's true that Bannerlord has many shortcomings, the obvious bias and nitpicking of these people lower their credibility. I wouldn't trust their claims, especially their claim about the value of the game, because they always ignore the positives and only weight the negatives.
 
I wouldn't trust those people on what they claim to want.

They were the same ones asking for "something, ANYTHING" to do in the town scenes, then got mad as **** when TW released the barber feature
This is about a misleading statement as one could offer up -do you honestly think this way or just like shoveling it out there.

"People said give us ANYTHING and then when that ANYTHING happens to be a totally mindless, completely trivial addition such as a HairStylists to a Medieval War Game is given to them? - then these people cant be trusted at all as they obviously just lied !!"

Time to sharpen up that legalese
 
Why not? Do you know what they want more than they do?
No, I assume I am equally as clueless as they are.

It wouldn't be the first time TW added an "immersion" feature that eventually people on this forum criticized because it doesn't actually add anything to the game but spectacle. Even the the cinematics have started to get that treatment, lol.
This is about a misleading statement as one could offer up -do you honestly think this way or just like shoveling it out there.
How is it misleading?

People have kept asking for immersion features but when pure immersion features do get added, players get bored of them because -- get this -- they don't add anything to the game.
 
How is it misleading?

People have kept asking for immersion features but when pure immersion features do get added, players get bored of them because -- get this -- they don't add anything to the game.
Stop playing dumb. "Hey waiter I ordered a meal -i wont be happy until i get something." "I gave you a fork and a Menu -are you NEVER happy!?"

People asked for real reasons to enter cities -that is obviously implied that they be a worthwhile game mechanic not a trivial piece of fluff. It is a false example to say people asked for ANYTHING -no, if you insist on speaking in general terms then at least be honest with these implications. Surely your bright enough to know this.
 
- More fief notables who compete with each other
(at least only when you interfene)
Then they don't compete with each other, and them competing with each other only favours the player on getting better troops and nothing else. It's an a okey system, but again, this is an anti-lore feature. Recruiting in Bannerlord is closer to buyer slaves than raising armies, and recruiting it's the same in all factions, so again, that "notables variety" truly means nothing to me, it's a very shallow feature.

- Civilian gear restrictions and back alley fights
This was invented by the Viking Conquest DLC, so technically we did have it in Warband. And here is worse, because is limited to what the game wants you to wear instead of just letting you wear what you want lol. In an RPG of choose your own place, you can't even choose your own clothes. But yeah, it is a small improvement, capes are cool and everyone agrees with that. (...they could be better though, but we're getting there, the only thing that is receiving all the money here is the art departament)
Back alley fights are a joke that serve no purpose, and they only exist because they featured it in a promo video. They were supposed to make you a gangster of some sort but the feature was either cut or "still working on it"

- Making caravans
- Delegating quests to companions
- Making clan parties
- Childbirth and death
- Smithing and its commissions
These are fine. Clan in general it's an alright addition, but it's too bad you can't start as a nobody without a clan like in Warband. You're a noble with a banner, want it or not.
Smithing is alright, but it's too bad you can't order something being made for you if you have the money to do so. What actual noble lords/kings were smiths and made their own swords??? History buffs refrain, if it happened twice of thrice i don't care.

You mean playing those awful minigames??? I don't know who actually takes the time to learn and play them, but I wouldn't spend a second in a system that doesn't take me anywhere than to get a small amount of denars in my pocket. Playing with lords is completely useless too.

More doable hideouts and their boss duels
As doable you mean, going as an archer and hitting a headshot on a sitting target, until you fight a big guy. Hideouts and bandits in general could have been great, instead hideouts are just very, very easy tasks, and repetitive too. To the point they're even boring to do.

- The ability to make real armies
Hmm, Warband had this. I would even say that in Warband you didn't have the "ability" you had to earn it in your faction, be good enough and become the marshall. Here, it's affected not by how well you perform in battle in general but by:

- The whole influence system (while still barebone, it's still a thing)

The influence system is the worst thing to ever happen to Bannerlord. The influence system is a complete piece of garbage, and I'm being nice here, and calm too. But the influence system is the worst piece of trash design to ever be thought for an RPG. Influence in no way, no place can be a currency. It's a dumb idea, and it shouldn't have had replaced reputation and right to rule. It's the example of the whole Bannelord issue: you have an okay feature that could have been expanded into, that could have been worked on and made better, and instead was replaced by a totally disruptive one in favour of being "simple" and "easy". I hope a mod destroys influence and we can play an actual game for once.

While they're dynamic, Bannerlord companions also have backstories. What's jarring is that they're drawn from a fixed set of backstories. Still, it's pretty much the same level of writing as companions in Warband.
Hmm, no, no it's not the same, and again, this is just like the reputation system: Warband has an okay system, Bannerlord decides to destroy it, put it in the trash and do something easy and simple. Companions sucks here, not only because they are called idk, "bobby the robber" and he robs!!! So the dumb player can understand that Bobby robs people get it! Intelligent writing right here fellas! 10/10 design--- but because they don't influence your game at all, in Warband they had complains, they didn't get along with other companions, they had something to say if you didn't act according to their ideology, and if the morale was low some would be eager to leave. Again, a system that could have been improved upon, by thousands, instead they gave us randoms that are just there to be clothed and sent to fight like a monkey, they're not companions, they're more like pets, and they live even less than you too! Literal pets. Hmm more like those tamagoochies, you even forget about them.

Edit: Don't we also get more writing on the lords? Many of the lords have written dialogues in the banner campaign and backstories in the encyclopedia.
Remember the flavor text post I've made, talking about how backstories and text is just flavor, unless they affect the gameplay? Yeah, that is what the post is about. Consider reading it's points.


Idk what your whole post was about, but it was fun responding to. Because truly, every addition in Bannerlord is either a complete ruin like influence, or it's "okay" to the point of elevating the game to Average. It's an average game, yes.
 
Distrusting someone's claim about what they want doesn't mean it's because you know more about what they want than they do. You can distrust it by observing their behavior. Some people here are very irrational when it comes to criticizing the game. Apocal's example is one. Those same people will say nonsense like saying Bannerlord has fewer features than Warband, despite it being completely and blatantly wrong. Bannerlord has many improvements like much better module system, the siege weapons, the real armies, etc, but they ignore these. They mostly talk about petty features like feasts. While it's true that Bannerlord has many shortcomings, the obvious bias and nitpicking of these people lower their credibility. I wouldn't trust their claims, especially their claim about the value of the game, because they always ignore the positives and only weight the negatives.

I've never seen anyone ignore positives outside of absolutely obvious trolls, and both sides always pick at them when they sprout up, or the few who just absolutely hate the game and admit to that (but that's even "rarer"). This sort of sort of thing is nothing more than the attempt at dismissing of an overwhelming outrage over the game by deflecting their complaints as nothing more than bias or "irrational", because people don't like the brutal honesty in which they convey Bannerlord's problems.

Yes though, in part I agree. When we see people like MostBlunted freaking out over the game constantly, trolling even, it's very obvious they're not a legitimate source to consider in almost everything they say. But it's such an insignificant amount of people it's really bizarre people latch on to it the way that they do.

And nitpicking? Bias? I disagree, for many reasons, one being that we have no idea how these people feel or their intention. To say this or that about them is to make enormous leaps off these "mean" posts and complaints because, at the end of it all, they just don't like what the others are saying or how they are saying it. But that doesn't make it any less true, or somehow "biased", for saying it. People just misconstrue legitimate complaints as "nitpicking" or "bias" because they want to be babied about the game, reminded there's some good. But the reality is, the lack of coddling a game's few strong points is not indicative of bias or nitpicking. And you (plural here) can't say what is or isn't a nitpick, because to that person, that feature or problem they are discussing, is probably really significant to them.

Though that leads to another fork in the discussion. Everyone having different ideas of what is or isn't important enough to be changed, removed or even added. Which is probably what helps create this narrative that others in the opposing side are just being "biased" or "nitpicking", because they just don't consider said problems and or good things important enough to point out. And if they think that way, it's only natural they'll think pointing it out is nothing more than nitpicking.

And people are acting like this behavior is reflective of the majority of people that are upset. It isn't.

No, I assume I am equally as clueless as they are.

It wouldn't be the first time TW added an "immersion" feature that eventually people on this forum criticized because it doesn't actually add anything to the game but spectacle. Even the the cinematics have started to get that treatment, lol.

There you go. You assume.

God forbid people criticize a feature, even one they asked for, must mean everything they say can't be trusted. It doesn't matter what state we got said content in, so long as they shoved it in our faces, right? They got their feature, now they should shut up about it or otherwise, they're just being biased and just plain mean.
 
They didn't make a new engine. I've spoken to the devs about this, the version you see in the first screenshots from 2013 is the same codebase that exists currently. Anyway even if they did make a new engine, why would that force them to throw all the writing out?

Worldbuilding for worldbuilding's sake is extremely easy, there are probably a million 12 year olds on deviantart who have created some fantasy world in their spare time. But in a video game (or film) you have a limited interface with the audience to convey all that information, so any details expounded on have to be related to the gameplay otherwise you're wasting "bandwidth".

For instance there are concept art sheets from back in 2016 that show the distribution of different dogs in calradia, hundreds of different helmets, some with written backstories, and a load of architecture and animal stuff that was probably never used.
17BeMaJ.jpg

Sure they could have used this, but what would be the point? Who gives a crap? Would anyone even have noticed without this map straight up telling you? Sure it's kind of interesting to look at in isolation, but I'd rather look at a real map of the real world than a video game that barely uses this information.

My point is that even with all this worldbuilding fluff the game would still have problems that make it difficult to roleplay. I don't want Bannerlord to be an infodump wikia simulator given how much the campaign situation can and should change.
I want my battanian shepard dog and I want it now. Who's gonna watch over my nonexistent cattle herds of all those nonexistent battanian cattle raising villages? ☝️
 
The saddest thing to me is that once upon a time, they were actually thinking about all these immersive details. They wrote all that lore. They named all the rivers and mountains. They invented unique board games for every culture. They hired medieval musicologists to compose authentic music themes.

I suspect this was all done before they up and decided to throw out the old game engine and start over from scratch, and since then all that stuff fell by the wayside as their entire focus was on making the new engine work. I wouldn't be surprised if the people who wrote that lore are long gone and the new people barely know it exists.

I don't think we'll ever know exactly why they felt they needed a new engine midway through development, but I really wish we could play the game they were making back in 2015. That one sounds like more fun than the one we got.

That sounds like the start of a great game.

I wonder if a developer could answer a few of the questions you posed. Maybe there was an unavoidable issue they ran into in which prevented them (being difficult not being one of them).
 
Companions sucks here, not only because they are called idk, "bobby the robber" and he robs!!! So the dumb player can understand that Bobby robs people get it!
And the worst part - they don't even rob! Roguery-focused companions don't really do anything, there is no role for them to fulfill in a party like "spymaster" or "assassin" or "thief" or whatever.
 
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