The petty things TaleWorlds does to get us to "explore."

[Gessius Groggus]

I haven't played this game in some time, I'll admit. Now they're nerfing the encyclopedia so the only people you can see are those you've already met. It's a small thing, but I think this details a much bigger problem TaleWorlds: They suck at world-building. That's why they have to play petty games like a tedious questlines and redact their encyclopedia in order to get anyone looking to explore.

How hard would it have been to have a few lords and ladies have their very own expansive side quests to earn their favor where in the end you'll either support or betray them? You did it in the first game with the follower's questlines! You could have made it formulaic. How hard would it have been to make a major story plot twist where whether you choose to rebuild the empire or destroy it, results in your brother going to the opposing side where you may or may not reconcile depending on your choices? I think that would have been interesting!

If you have something interesting, then you don't have to play these dumb games to get people to go to these places. What are they going to see and experience in Brittainia that's different than the Western Empire? Nothing.
I play this game for the mods. Because the modders are the ones that make this game great. Not Taleworlds.

 

[Aeliana Magnum]

It is frustrating the lack of NPC dialogs, the great scenes without nothing to do in it, the lack of new quest types when you become a lord, a king, etc.

 

[Tanka Foxswift]

You did it in the first game with the follower's questlines!

I don't remember this one, was it in mount & blade, or warband?
What was it?

 

[Aeliana Ridiculus]

How hard would it have been to have a few lords and ladies have their very own expansive side quests to earn their favor where in the end you'll either support or betray them? You did it in the first game with the follower's questlines!

Pretty sure that was not a thing in either M&B or Warband. Maybe you're thinking of Viking Conquest? Or some mod?

On the topic itself, the way I see it, it's not that they made this change to make you explore. They just stopped to think "does it make sense that the encyclopedia gives you all this info from the get go?", and reached the conclusion that no, it doesnt. So they changed it. And it makes perfect sense.
Should there be more depth in the game? yea, obviously. It's barebones and shallow. But those are two completely separate issues.

 

[Gessius Groggus]

Pretty sure that was not a thing in either M&B or Warband. Maybe you're thinking of Viking Conquest? Or some mod?

On the topic itself, the way I see it, it's not that they made this change to make you explore. They just stopped to think "does it make sense that the encyclopedia gives you all this info from the get go?", and reached the conclusion that no, it doesnt. So they changed it. And it makes perfect sense.
Should there be more depth in the game? yea, obviously. It's barebones and shallow. But those are two completely separate issues.

Redacting the encyclopedia makes absolutely no sense. I agree that how they have it is more realistic, but does it make it good or better? You don't even care about meeting any of these people, because they're all the same with a different funny hat. The only reason you'd care is to find yourself a spouse. That's literally it. Realism =/= Good.

Nor are these completely separate issues.

What's going on is that Taleworlds is trying to force you to "explore" their map, but offering nothing worthwhile to bother. It's a symptom of the bigger problem that their world is stupid and boring. They put themselves into Catch 22. No one wants to explore their world because it's boring and unrewarding, but they have to explore their world now. If it wasn't boring, then they could have a fog of war because people are going to explore it. Because it's boring, this now becomes one more drop in a very big bucket of annoying.

This is the difference between Ubisoft and FromSoftware. Ubisoft compels you to explore the world with checklists while FromSoftware with a worthwhile experience. As a result, Ubisoft has to put in long expositions and cut scenes, where FromSoftware can just have minimalist storytelling hidden in items.

 

[Gessius Groggus]

I don't remember this one, was it in mount & blade, or warband?
What was it?

It was warband. You could meet a dude claiming to be the bastard son and rightful heir to one of the kingdoms and then join him to try and take the throne. It wasn't perfectly executed, but it was something.

 

[Iasidius Whackus]

My theory is that theyre trying to introduce the "ask for gossip" mechanic to your tavern keeper as it was in warband, in order to reveal more details in the encyclopedia, but theyve somehow got the wrong ends of it, removing information all together instead of adding the feature of asking for it.

 

[Papius Nefandus]

On the topic itself, the way I see it, it's not that they made this change to make you explore. They just stopped to think "does it make sense that the encyclopedia gives you all this info from the get go?", and reached the conclusion that no, it doesnt. So they changed it. And it makes perfect sense.

It doesn't make sense, since it doesn't actually add anything to the gameplay. It is the sort of feature that sounds good until you actually have to experience playing it.

I suppose that's the reason it is largely the people who've vocally announced they quit playing Bannerlord months or years ago who like it the most.

It was warband. You could meet a dude claiming to be the bastard son and rightful heir to one of the kingdoms and then join him to try and take the throne. It wasn't perfectly executed, but it was something.

That wasn't a companion, that was one of the claimant questlines. There was one for every faction.

 

[Tanka Foxswift]

It was warband. You could meet a dude claiming to be the bastard son and rightful heir to one of the kingdoms and then join him to try and take the throne. It wasn't perfectly executed, but it was something.

Those were not fun at all.

To me, bannerlord when compared to other titles in a genre is similar to how imperator rome was when it launched - it added a bunch of numbers that meant nothing to me at all, and the only joy I had in the game was the combat. In bannerlord, however, there's been a lot of work done on those minor quests you do for people in power in settlements. These are far better than the classic rotation of warband quests (villanious outlaw with a bounty -> collecting taxes -> send a message -> mercenary -> capture/release lord). I never felt like the people of any world (Warband or Bannerlord) were actual people (it is a game, but you know what I mean), there's hardly anything to them, no quirks, no interesting interactions, no bonuses from them, nothing.

And the whole roleplaying elements of asking for gossip, or stopping any villager in a village to ask them what they're doing, and how their life is only to find one guy that's dirt poor, and give alms to him is not very immersive.
Warband mods have shown already that you can tell a story with the sandbox elements still in place (PoP, TLD for example), and have a world that is genuinely fun to explore (different scenes, cool sieges, unlockable troop trees). It's just that it isn't very fun, but then again...we do complain about it after more than a hudred hours of gameplay, which no normal story-driven game would have.
It's still a fun little game to whirl for a few hours a week, just to sate your genocidal needs.
My math is usually around the 1 Euro = 1 hour of fun, so that's on what I'd base my steam reviews on.

 

[Canius Grappleus]

It is quite frustrating. It is like they've thought "let's make the player not know everything at the start" - which makes somewhat sense. But revoking every piece of info of all lords etc is just frustrating.

Imo I liked how warband did it, where you speak to a lord to ask where x person was.

 

[Tanka Foxswift]

It is quite frustrating. It is like they've thought "let's make the player not know everything at the start" - which makes somewhat sense. But revoking every piece of info of all lords etc is just frustrating.

Imo I liked how warband did it, where you speak to a lord to ask where x person was.

"King Harlaus is currently at Praven".

*Meanwhile Dhirim*

 

[Flexor Verax]

Imo I liked how warband did it, where you speak to a lord to ask where x person was.

Honestly still trying to figure out why they removed this

 

[Haterius Bangus]

I'm going to try and be "optimistic" here with a truckload of wishful thinking:
I think this whole change is part of a bigger one. By removing all the info, they will probably add more interactions with NPC's, such as asking Lods/Ladies about their aquaintances, family members and such. This will populate the encyclopedia with more info as the game goes along.
They will probably add interactions with town/village NPC's where you ask "do you know where Lord so and so might be?" and with a small fee the NPC will divulge some valuable info.

But if this is too complicated to implement, then TW is going to improve the current system by making the family members and friends of the Lord we meet in person become available in the encyclopedia.

And if nothing is done about this subpar feature, then use the recent Mod that someone created in a record time that makes the encyclopedia show everyone like it used to.

 

[Boio Snakecharmer]

Post in thread 'What makes Bannerlord dull' https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/what-makes-bannerlord-dull.453637/post-9823926 talking about this subject, I remember when one of the Devs talked about this. They certainly wanted the player to get more immersed in the world but it backfire completely because of the way they implemented it. At this point it would seem we don't get happy with anything, but the problem is always the same, it's the way they implement all these features.

 

[Gessius Groggus]

Post in thread 'What makes Bannerlord dull' https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/what-makes-bannerlord-dull.453637/post-9823926 talking about this subject, I remember when one of the Devs talked about this. They certainly wanted the player to get more immersed in the world but it backfire completely because of the way they implemented it. At this point it would seem we don't get happy with anything, but the problem is always the same, it's the way they implement all these features.

These are devs who have their heads so far up their own ass---, they can't see their own sh---. They really can't. Throughout development, a lot of their rationale for their questionable decisions boiled down to "this is what we think is best".

What could be seen as a metaphor for the entire studio was how they approached their dev diaries. These were suggested by the community to maintain interest in the game, but they crashed and burned because of the way TaleWorlds doesn't know how to implement them. They were dull as hell and they said next to nothing about the game. Worse, it was also around the same time when Ninja Theory, Warhorse Studios, and Asobo Studios all ran very successful campaigns using dev dairies.

So, not only could we see TaleWorlds didn't take them seriously, we had other successful independent studio campaigns to compare them to! One of these things, is not like the others. The excuse we got was "We want the features to be a surprise." Well, now we know it's because they didn't have a whole lot to show off. I got banned several times from their boards for saying, "I bet it's because you have nothing to show." And I was right. And TaleWorlds still hasn't unbanned me for being right. (Okay, to be fair, they probably more banned me because when they mentioned they didnt' have a release date, replied, "Okay, can you at least tell me the day that you'll run out of capital and assets and become totally bankrupt during your eternal development?" Only then I found out they were receiving at least some funds from the Turkish government, which they didn't like me revealing.) This game feels more like a remake than a genuine sequel.

Personally, I think much of what is going on is that they decided to build their own engine after a significant portion of the game was already developed, which basically burned out their creative minds. And not to say that wasn't a good idea in the long run. I actually think it was a brilliant idea on TaleWorld's part to build something that will work for the type of games they want to develop, but again, news of that wasn't handled the best way.

They are very much a "check a tick mark" off their list versus serious discussion on implementing the mechanics well. There's not a reason there can't be each lord having their own unique storylines and quests that are a political mess and can lead to you starting your own kingdom.

 

[Itila Grimreaper]

I'm going to try and be "optimistic" here with a truckload of wishful thinking:
I think this whole change is part of a bigger one. By removing all the info, they will probably add more interactions with NPC's, such as asking Lods/Ladies about their aquaintances, family members and such. This will populate the encyclopedia with more info as the game goes along.
They will probably add interactions with town/village NPC's where you ask "do you know where Lord so and so might be?" and with a small fee the NPC will divulge some valuable info.

But if this is too complicated to implement, then TW is going to improve the current system by making the family members and friends of the Lord we meet in person become available in the encyclopedia.

And if nothing is done about this subpar feature, then use the recent Mod that someone created in a record time that makes the encyclopedia show everyone like it used to.

That's the wishful thinking, applicable to nearly every single feature in the game or was added since EA started; I've become jaded at this point half a year into official release with one 'notable' patch only.
The fact it still gives you an up to date GPS location of every single noble/companion in the world doesn't really make sense; obscuring their character stats while still knowing those characters exist does nothing for improving gameplay or immersion.

I'm on the more extreme side of FoW - I'd rather not know any companions exist at the outset (or their specialties), needing to tavern/converse/tournament to 'discover' them. For nobles, the only way I should be able to find one is by asking around (as they won't add a messenger system). I also prefer not knowing that massive (non-collapsible) specific list of unit troops for an enemy garrison just by being near it; just a 'roundabout' number, improving dependent on my scout skills or 'action' as part of a siege setup.

If they don't improve upon whatever current implementation they just added as 'FoW', yes - it deserves to be scrapped and just put the encyclopedia back in. Then, let's also remove the 'useless' portrait conversations, nearly 75% of all the dialogue paths/options since they lead to nothing, remove having to travel to hire a teleporting companion, or travelling to turn-in a quest, etc...