The problem with leveling and the generational approach of the game?

[mamastoast]

The slow progress rate is just something that needs to be tweaked, regardless of if the game had generation mechanics or not. I'm personally modding it at the moment.

Ditch the whole notion that each generation needs to be better. That's weird and only needed if you hold onto the games slow progression, which should be fixed regardless of generation mechanics or not.

I see where you are coming from, but then what is the benefit of the generations system? Having the game force you to restart your skills every so often? Doesn't sound very fun to me :/.

Perhaps if character's didnt die from old age but you could like... switch between characters in your family actively, that might be interesting.

 

[SmattlePattle]

The problem is there actually is no generational approach to the game. All the nations and lords in the world run around in an absurd total war where peace treaties are usually measured in weeks and nations disappear in months, and there is nothing time consuming to do. I could definitely conquer everything before my first character dies, I just can't max out my skills either because they have been arbitrarily capped (combat skills) or because no one considered how they should actually level in the first place (charm, medicine, scouting... basically all the old party skills). To have an engaging multigenerational experience the pace at which the whole world moves needs to be reworked, and that is still not going to make me enjoy a system that relies more on roadblocking my progress than rewarding me for it.

1) I don't think the "pace" of politic development is set in stone. Right now its acknowledged that factions/nations disappearing in months isn't intended. Compared to warband too, the lack of peace/feasts/downtime doesn't seem to be working as intended either. The state of the game being EA soups up some of these issues.

2) Yeah the pace of skill increase is stupid and broken at the moment.

3) I don't think the world needs a massive rework to make multigenerational experience enjoyable (unless you only play the game to conquer the entire map). What it needs are interesting dynamics/events and activities/projects the player can do that aren't easily exhausted in a single characters life span and/or or dynamic enough to be unique when repeated. By this I mean things like political intriuge, minor faction rebellions, internal struggles/political battles, events that occur at different levels of the game (from being a wandered to managing/ruling a city). I could write a laundry list of things you could add to the world without reworking it that would make (for me) a fun multi-gen playthrough without roadblocking the game.

 

[Neodymus]

I see where you are coming from, but then what is the benefit of the generations system? Having the game force you to restart your skills every so often? Doesn't sound very fun to me :/.

Perhaps if character's didnt die from old age but you could like... switch between characters in your family actively, that might be interesting.

I would welcome switch when the main character gets imprisoned by a lord. You take over someone else of your family with the goal to ransom/rescue.

 

[SmattlePattle]

I see where you are coming from, but then what is the benefit of the generations system? Having the game force you to restart your skills every so often? Doesn't sound very fun to me :/.

Perhaps if character's didnt die from old age but you could like... switch between characters in your family actively, that might be interesting.

Different perspectives on fun, so I don't think there's a right or wrong. Being able to lose something I've worked towards makes me play in a more careful way, and adds a sense of risk/thrill which is fun. I find setbacks occasionally fun. The generation systems benefit is basically:

1) Roleplay/story making fodder.
2) Can interact/make meaningful kingdom/clan politics (ie marriages, inheritances.) You can with a generational system scheme to land your children in positions of power, and then eventually play as them. It works well with the concepts in feudal politics, which put weight on blood-relation.
3) Allows you to do different playstyles/playthroughs in the same game world (My father was a lord, but I went bandit king, but still have claim on my brothers title as an example).

 

[Sithrain]

1) I don't think the "pace" of politic development is set in stone. Right now its acknowledged that factions/nations disappearing in months isn't intended. Compared to warband too, the lack of peace/feasts/downtime doesn't seem to be working as intended either. The state of the game being EA soups up some of these issues.

2) Yeah the pace of skill increase is stupid and broken at the moment.

3) I don't think the world needs a massive rework to make multigenerational experience enjoyable (unless you only play the game to conquer the entire map). What it needs are interesting dynamics/events and activities/projects the player can do that aren't easily exhausted in a single characters life span and/or or dynamic enough to be unique when repeated. By this I mean things like political intriuge, minor faction rebellions, internal struggles/political battles, events that occur at different levels of the game (from being a wandered to managing/ruling a city). I could write a laundry list of things you could add to the world without reworking it that would make (for me) a fun multi-gen playthrough without roadblocking the game.

I think we're sort of talking at cross purposes here. This is exactly the sort of thing we need, just to me those things seem like a major overhaul because they weren't present in Warband and I haven't seen much evidence of their planning.

 

[Nikomakkos]

I see a lot of people complain about leveling taking too long, but I'm having a hard time understanding why. Let's just assume that the snowballing issues will get fixed and the campaign remains alive for at least a double-digit number of years, but hopefully more. The entire point of having children in Bannerlord is, as far as I can understand, to play them once your character dies off, something that requires the campaign to last a long longer than it currently does. If that's really the case, and the campaign was supposed to last for generations, wouldn't boosting the leveling process make the game too easy? I mean, just imagine your character dying as your son comes of age.

It took me about seven in-game years to reach level 18, and I have between 170 and 210 in the weapon skills I actually use in addition to having 60 to 95 in my supportive skills. My main character is just as powerful as most nobles after seven years, meaning that my son would be equally powerful at the age of 23 (given that he starts with a few skills at least). Just imagine how powerful your heir will be once he turns 30, or 40. He'll be an absolute beast.

It seems to me like leveling actually has to be slowed down in order to maintain the "generational" approach of Bannerlord unless we'll see second-generation characters with crazy stats after a couple of years. Another issue regarding the generational approach is that the campaign map has to change rather slowly in order for it to actually survive long enough for at least a second generation of characters, meaning that they either have to reduce the amount of AI aggression (sieges have to be a lot rarer and defections should almost never happen) as the map would have to remain rather stable in order to remain interesting.

What do you think about this problem?

I have been thinking similarly, even though I've also been a little concerned about how long it takes to gain levels. Maybe I should be less concerned by that, but some skills do take awfully long to rise. You do begin to wonder what the point of the last perks is.

But that whole generational thing is a very interesting thing and I have been wondering how your heir gets their skills and if you can customize him. And if he can become more powerful than your initial character.

I think certain things could be done to increase the longevity of the campaign and the balance of the map. For example it could be made more difficult to take settlements with sieges. The AI could be made less aggressive and less prone to the excellent strategy of just besieging enemy settlements as much as possible.

 

[SmattlePattle]

I think we're sort of talking at cross purposes here. This is exactly the sort of thing we need, just to me those things seem like a major overhaul because they weren't present in Warband and I haven't seen much evidence of their planning.

I suppose I got hung up on the word "overhaul" and took it to mean having to greatly change existing/core mechanics.

I would say that generational play is the sort of thing that's likely to take the full & complete release of features (and perhaps some mod additions) to realize its potential.

 

[mamastoast]

Different perspectives on fun, so I don't think there's a right or wrong. Being able to lose something I've worked towards makes me play in a more careful way, and adds a sense of risk/thrill which is fun. I find setbacks occasionally fun. The generation systems benefit is basically:

1) Roleplay/story making fodder.
2) Can interact/make meaningful kingdom/clan politics (ie marriages, inheritances.) You can with a generational system scheme to land your children in positions of power, and then eventually play as them. It works well with the concepts in feudal politics, which put weight on blood-relation.
3) Allows you to do different playstyles/playthroughs in the same game world (My father was a lord, but I went bandit king, but still have claim on my brothers title as an example).

True... people have different ideas of fun... I mean I feel like we already have plenty of risky elements in mount and blade, army, money gear ect... Character progression should be somewhat permanent in my mind. Besides, dying of old age ins't exactly a risk factor ^^ It's pretty much a certainty

I do see the value ni a family tree... I just would like a mechanic that doesn't reset my hard work in skill progression on my main guy.

 

[Nikomakkos]

True... people have different ideas of fun... I mean I feel like we already have plenty of risky elements in mount and blade, army, money gear ect... Character progression should be somewhat permanent in my mind. Besides, dying of old age ins't exactly a risk factor ^^ It's pretty much a certainty

I do see the value ni a family tree... I just would like a mechanic that doesn't reset my hard work in skill progression on my main guy.

But it would be so cool if you could prepare your heir for eventual take over. Pick which skills to train and so forth. It would add a totally new dimension to the game. You could start your playthrough off with a certain type of character with skills you think will help you most setting up your dynasty initially but then tailor your heir to a more pure end-game build. That would be so cool.

"I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy."

- John Adams.

 

[mamastoast]

But it would be so cool if you could prepare your heir for eventual take over. Pick which skills to train and so forth. It would add a totally new dimension to the game. You could start your playthrough off with a certain type of character with skills you think will help you most setting up your dynasty initially but then tailor your heir to a more pure end-game build. That would be so cool.

"I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy."

- John Adams.

I can certainly see the appeal of that kind of thinking. I can't however see the appeal of having worked my way up from a beginner character through tens if not hundreds of play hours to finally be the archery demi-god I want to be only to have it taken away due to a time limit... That's just not fun.. That's undermining me enjoying a fairly popular playstyle.

 

[Uruk34]

My level 1 character wasn't hitting for 120 damage w/ a sword. My level 18 character commonly does. Also runs extremely fast, & swings much faster.

How did you level your athletics? Genuinely curious as someone still earlier on in a play through.

You don't start all over with your kids. You can bring them into your party, or give them their own party, when they're still young, so they have skills long before you ever take them over.

Having heirs in the game and levelling them before you start playing them is not the fundamental issue though. The issue is that, as it stands, for your character to die of old age and you to take your kid over takes hundreds of real life hours. If you take a slightly more casual gamer like me as an example, I recently played through the Witcher 3 in 85 hours of playtime and it took me 2 real months. For me, playing this game as frequently as I did that one (before all the quarantine craziness) it would take at least 5 months for my first character to die of old age.

If the generational mechanic is important (and regardless of it tbh) I’d hope a game/world pace slider would be implemented to accommodate those of us that play the game a little bit less but still want to enjoy it and feel meaningful progress when we do sit down to play. In the same way they’re implementing the autoblock option for those who don’t want to learn to block manually.

 

[White Ahroun]

Re-leveling characters seems like a chore, no matter how you dress it up.

To you. Isn't this exactly what starting a new save is?

 

[ZydrateTheSmoothCriminal]

There is so much content missing for any of these ideas to work properly that we just have to create whole damn list of features that need to be added, and even a major overhaul if neccessary, but for now there hasn't been much besides patches and optimization fixes etc, makes me wonder when will they actually start adding some content or build onto ones they've tried to implement already.

 

[mamastoast]

To you. Isn't this exactly what starting a new save is?

It pretty much is, and I wouldnt want the game to force me to start a new save every so often

 

[White Ahroun]

It pretty much is, and I wouldnt want the game to force me to start a new save every so often

Guess you've got a point there, but that just adds to the excitement for me. The idea that you've gotta get **** done before it's time to start a new character. Eventually. Right now it's moot, obviously.

 

[Sithrain]

The very last thing I want in a sandbox is to feel like I have to get things done on someones time limit. The thing is people can decide on time-based goals for themselves whether the game encourages it or not. If that timetable is baked in people who prefer it the other way have no options.

 

[White Ahroun]

That's fine. Can't really invalidate that, it's a difference in play style.

 

[Negative]

I suppose I got hung up on the word "overhaul" and took it to mean having to greatly change existing/core mechanics.

I would say that generational play is the sort of thing that's likely to take the full & complete release of features (and perhaps some mod additions) to realize its potential.

Well because maybe they're actually changes of core systems...
You need to design your game around the idea of the ability to be able to put a heir (or even better some kid who won't be heir) into a place of power. For one that place of power needs to exist. So what positions of power are there currently? As far as i can tell i see like 3 steps in the hierachy. Mercenary Captn, Lord, King - not much more.
Now we could argue about Alliances and Marriage system - but even CK II failed in doing that well. I mean just read up on the stories 50% of the time it's not about gaining much by marriage, but killing the bad heir to get a better one to take over your place and then keep on fabricating claims.
Also you'd need a character system that actually greates different roles. I'm saying like 2,5 currently. Fighter and Trader (the second with tactics and a 250 skillpoint perk) - though to be honest, as figher you'll always concentrate on foot/horse, 1 of 3 melee weapons, 1 of 3 ranged weapons.

And that's again not looking at the split between fast aging to be able to play out handfuls of generations and slow aging to experience huge character growth. Or better said experience many generations and feeling accomplishment with leveling any given character.

 

[Kangamangus]

To you. Isn't this exactly what starting a new save is?

...and that's what the Import/Export character feature was there for in the previous M&B titles.

I did start new saves for new characters. Some characters I've kept around for multiple playthroughs.