The State of Immersion (or lack there-of)

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Thats the thing though -normally one might think this would sting the Devs pride abit as basically saying -Mod X is 10 times the finished product as the Base game. Problem is -they are totally fine if not pleased with themselves at this result.
Ehm...I'm a grown up, I don't think that way, I was just stating my own experience and feeling about the subject.
I am not concerned with the Devs' feelings, it was a business transaction, not a romantic engagement.
 
Ehm...I'm a grown up, I don't think that way, I was just stating my own experience and feeling about the subject.
I am not concerned with the Devs' feelings, it was a business transaction, not a romantic engagement.

Not sure why your putting it into that context (romantic) -what i m pertaining to is business -call it corporate one-upsmanship, competition, pride whatever -happens everyday in the business world yet TW is immune to this by simply ignoring the critics and (modding) competition
 
I feel that a faction should not be able to have feasts during wartime and should be held as soon as peace with the faction or factions is made but that's it I feel like this would make feasts less common and you would get a largish relationship boost with those who attends similar to warband
 
I feel that a faction should not be able to have feasts during wartime and should be held as soon as peace with the faction or factions is made but that's it I feel like this would make feasts less common and you would get a largish relationship boost with those who attends similar to warband
This + reasons for feasts to happen would be perfect, things like a marriage, sign of a treaty (peace/alliance or trade agreements if we ever get those), coming of age of an heir, or the lord simply having enough cash to spare and wanting to impress/raise relations with his fellow vassals, tie tournaments to those as swell to make them less prominent but with more meaning full rewards.

Things needs reasons to happen to have immersion, i hate RNG in those cases "oh there is a tournament happening everywhere for..reasons", we already have common arena battles for training, tournaments (and feasts) should be reserved for special occasions.
 
voting should only be during feasts. unattending lords won't have the right to vote. and when they add convincing lords of changing their vote like in warband, it'd be easier and make sense.
this remote voting is annoying. they didn't have microsoft teams back in the day.

as a bonus, fief distribution would occur after the war so factions would steamroll a little less because they won't take full advantage of newly captured fiefs (no tax money). the tax money would be used to pay the garrison. if it's not enough, they'd desert.
 
I agree with every single point on the list! How can they do so much wrong, what worked so well in Warband and what everyone liked?! I really hope a dev will take a closer look at your list and you can make some (if not a lot of) change with it! These are highly needed features!
 
This + reasons for feasts to happen would be perfect, things like a marriage, sign of a treaty (peace/alliance or trade agreements if we ever get those), coming of age of an heir, or the lord simply having enough cash to spare and wanting to impress/raise relations with his fellow vassals, tie tournaments to those as swell to make them less prominent but with more meaning full rewards.

Things needs reasons to happen to have immersion, i hate RNG in those cases "oh there is a tournament happening everywhere for..reasons", we already have common arena battles for training, tournaments (and feasts) should be reserved for special occasions.
giphy.gif

?
Nobles getting married... Feast!
Young Noble comes of age and can now lead armies... Feast!
Peace treaty... Feast!
Middle of a long and boring peace time... Feast!
You just captured an enemy castle or town... Triumphant feast in the vanquished's hall!
Your spouse dies... Somber funeral feast!
Finally destroyed those turquoise trouble makers to the east... Feast to end all feasts!!!

Feasts can be good. Feasts can be something that isn't deleterious to the kingdom.
Forget about Warband feasts... Feasts in Bannerlord can be great... With the will to make them so...
 
This + reasons for feasts to happen would be perfect, things like a marriage, sign of a treaty (peace/alliance or trade agreements if we ever get those), coming of age of an heir, or the lord simply having enough cash to spare and wanting to impress/raise relations with his fellow vassals, tie tournaments to those as swell to make them less prominent but with more meaning full rewards.

Things needs reasons to happen to have immersion, i hate RNG in those cases "oh there is a tournament happening everywhere for..reasons", we already have common arena battles for training, tournaments (and feasts) should be reserved for special occasions.

????
 
The State of Immersion: Bannerlord Edition

While playing through Bannerlord, I really feel like it's lacking a lot of the immersion and cohesion (features working in conjunction) that I find in Warband. That's not to say that I feel the game is bad, it's still good but it has so much more potential that I'm sure will come with time. Let me get straight in to it.
That's not to say that I feel the game is bad, it's still good but it has so much more potential that I'm sure will come with time. Let me get straight in to it.

You are being unrealistic, the game is quite bad, QUITE, that doesn't make it a failure, but it still sucks compared to Warband in many regards, the only thing going for BL so far is the updated graphics, and that should be reason for community riots alone... I do think they'll eventually fix the game, but it'll take ages, and highly likely a DLC...

It's been 8 months since release (virtually 3/4ths of a year) and I still need to use multiple mods to gain access to simple basic features that were still not implemented....
 
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You are being unrealistic, the game is quite bad, QUITE, that doesn't make it a failure, but it still sucks compared to Warband in many regards, the only thing going for BL so far is the updated graphics, and that should be reason for community riots alone...

Combat AI in open battlefields, while not great, it is also infinitely better than in Warband. I would say that the combat experience in singleplayer is far superior than it is in Warband. I also love some new mechanics like be able to rule an existent kingdom without having to conquer it, clan system, death/aging/kids and upcoming rebellions.

Do not make me wrong, I also miss a lot some Warband features and I do not understand why devs have removed, but Bannerlord has more things than just improved graphics in my view.
 
Combat AI in open battlefields, while not great, it is also infinitely better than in Warband. I would say that the combat experience in singleplayer is far superior than it is in Warband. I also love some new mechanics like be able to rule an existent kingdom without having to conquer it, clan system, death/aging/kids and upcoming rebellions.

Do not make me wrong, I also miss a lot some Warband features and I do not understand why devs have removed, but Bannerlord has more things than just improved graphics in my view.
it has better graphics/animations, that's it.
 
The State of Immersion: Bannerlord Edition

While playing through Bannerlord, I really feel like it's lacking a lot of the immersion and cohesion (features working in conjunction) that I find in Warband. That's not to say that I feel the game is bad, it's still good but it has so much more potential that I'm sure will come with time. Let me get straight in to it.

If any of the things I mentioned down below are already in the game, and I haven't noticed already let me know. Also reply with your own opinions or thoughts. I apologize in advance if these points have already been mentioned before or are in someway incorrect.
  • Offer of vassalage
    • In Warband, if you earned a decent amount of renown and didn't belong to a Kingdom already, there was a chance you would receive a letter offering you a place as a vassal in x Kingdom. While I doubt it was a route many players took, it was there and it added a decision for you to make, one that could completely change the direction of your playthrough. As far as I know, this doesn't exist in Bannerlord.
  • Lords defecting to your Kingdom
    • I could be wrong on this one, but it feels like Clans don't defect to your own Kingdom? In Warband it felt pretty good to see a Lord leave their Kingdom and sit in your capital, for them to ASK YOU to join your Kingdom, once again adding choices to your playthrough and allowing you to grow your Kingdom without passing a bunch of skill checks and always having to make the first move.
  • Companions, companions, companions!
    • In Warband, each companion felt, looked and behaved uniquely. Companions had their backstories, base skills and personality types that would lead them to quarrel with each other. Yet again, adding choices to which companions you choose as you don't want them all hating each other, leading them to hate being apart of your party and ultimately ditching you. Doing certain actions such as raiding or failing quests would upset some companions but not others. Right now, they just feel like named soldiers that'll go along with anything, I barely care about who I pickup as long as they can fulfill a clan role that isn't occupied already.
  • Feasts/Tournaments
    • It was a meme, but now that they're gone, I miss them. They were an easy way to introduce yourself to all of the Lords in your (or another) Kingdom, get quests and meet ladies (Dedicating a Tournament victory to them also). Tournaments would be held when feasts were on-going, and thus allowed you to fight against Lords and not just a random pool of soldiers. Tournaments were a slightly more rare occurrence than what they are in Bannerlord, I feel like there is an abundance of Tournaments going on at any given time, allowing players to quickly rack up gold and items that you couldn't otherwise get so quickly. A Tournament in Warband felt like a great opportunity to get that extra income and renown, now it just feels like what I should be doing all the time making the gameplay loop quite repetitive, especially early-game. It just feels cheap. Feasts would also be good distraction for Lords, and allows for some tactics to be had, you could strike when the enemy was most vulnerable.
  • Armour Effectiveness/Feel
    • For context, I play with all realistic settings. I couldn't help but feel like as I acquired better and better armor, that it really didn't make much of a difference. Looters were throwing pebbles at me, taking a sizable chunk of my health with some of the most top-tier pieces of armor in the game. The game feels like it caters more towards quantity rather than quality when it comes to armies. In Warband, if I had a small band of elite tier troops, you bet your ass I could take on more enemies than usual. You could feel the difference so much more in Warband as you acquired better gear or upgraded your troops to the higher tiers. Armor also feels quite same-y, when you strike someone in full plate, it feels exactly the same as when I hit someone in leather. In Warband, when you try to swing a sword at full plate, they feel tanky and clanky.
  • Personality Types / Traits
    • In Bannerlord, there is suppose to be different traits people can have, though it doesn't feel like it's integrated into anything. All of the NPCs feel exactly the same and I don't feel as though I'm treated any differently based on how much Valor/Honor/Dishonesty/any other trait I may or may not have. The trait system doesn't feel cohesive with the rest of the game at all. I never get told when I receive a trait, and there's no indicators of how making a certain choice or choosing a certain dialog option will effect my traits. I feel the system could be great once it's implemented properly. Warband had a much simpler system of an Honor Rating for the player, and the NPCs had certain personality types that would react differently based on the players honor, relation and previous actions. I feel as though the Bannerlord system has much more potential than Warbands, but right now it seems useless.
  • Marshals and Marshalship
    • I can only describe having Marshals in Warband as being cool. It added another layer to the hierarchy in the factions, giving one Lord that extra bit of power and respect over the others, allowing them to call upon all the other Lords of the realm to go on a campaign. This feels so much more immersive than "Lord x has made an army, join it if you want, if not no worries, decisions don't matter". In Warband, you were SUMMONED by your Marshal, and if you didn't follow through then there were consequences. Furthermore, being offered Marshalship felt rewarding, it also felt risky as you now had a lot of responsibility. Now it just feels like: "okay let me spend this arbitrary number (influence) to force some NPCs to follow me".
  • Tavern NPCs
    • Ransom Brokers
      • Right now, you can sell prisoners to any city, some might consider this an improvement, but personally I liked that you weren't guaranteed to be able to sell your prisoners. It made storing prisoners in dungeons an actual useful thing, so you could sell them later when a ransom broker was closer to your fief. Not always being able to sell prisoners also encourages you to venture out to the world to find them, getting you in all kinds of trouble.
    • Wandering Minstrels
      • In Warband, these fine men could teach you poems, which you could later use to help woo a certain lady. This would help alot in Bannerlord because there is literally nothing you can do to boost relations lol.
    • Book Merchants
      • Book Merchants added another layer of depth to Warband, allowing you to read books to gain permanent or passive bonuses to your attributes. These would become very useful late game.
    • Travelers
      • These NPCs helped you find all of the above NPCs, plus your companions if they were captured or lost somehow. Right now everything is readily available in your encyclopedia, as if you have telepathic knowledge of everyone's location, nothing is less immersion breaking than that. I'm sure people don't mind it, but it would be cool to at-least have a realism option for this kind of stuff.
    • Quest NPCs
      • Occasionally in Warband you would find a farmer in a city tavern looking for someone to help his village that is infested with bandits. Adding more hidden away Quest NPCs in Taverns could add a lot to immersion and encourage exploration.


I'm sure there's plenty of more things that seem missing in Bannerlord that Warband had, and maybe not all of them are good and maybe even some of the points I mentioned above aren't good for Bannerlord, but the absence of all of them combined leaves me with an experience that is nowhere near as immersive as Warband. I look forward to the improvements that will come in the upcoming patches.

Great post and I agree with all. You realize how much those small things mattered when you lose them I suppose.
 
Sometimes I feel like the decision makers at TW knew excatly they had a gem on their hands with WB and possibly BL, but did not know which elements made it a gem. Which understandably makes people nervous. It's a franchise that millions of players buy and enjoy, thats a lot of money and responsibilty.

So they were scared to **** up this money prinitng machine and took the most conservative approach to design.

And here we are.
 
Everything feels so loose-fitting and insubstantial, like nothing is screwed down or fitted together properly. Yes it's Early Access, but how late in the day are we along now? I actually think there's some great stuff in the EA, but I really think they have added features the game could easily go without and have neglected the basics like there being any threat or tension in the game. Someone comes after me? Pfft I have enough horses and party speed I'll just ride away. I can't? No issues, at most I'll lose a handful of men and can sacrifice some to escape anyway... WHERE'S THE TENSION? (it seems to be purely in my neck when I think about this). Hey, why don't we have skilled bandit groups very rarely ambush us! A challenging fight, no way to escape! NOPE. It isn't fun for the player, apparently.

If it continues along these lines TW have nobody to blame but themselves for their woolley-headed mechanics.
 
Great post and I agree with all. You realize how much those small things mattered when you lose them I suppose.

Indeed! It's beginning to feel like all of the "big features" that the game offers are more "under the hood-like" systems. For example, the way the economy works, the way workshops work, how to manage fiefs, how quests/issues are generated and effect the world, character traits, kingdom decisions -- all these things are meant to be a massive part of what is meant to make Bannerlord stand out, but infact the player barely notices these mechanics as they all feel so behind the scenes and out of the player's control, making them feel shallow, boring and inconsequential. (When they really shouldn't be)

It really is the small things that make the game stand-out as these are normally the things that the player has to interact with.

Sometimes I feel like the decision makers at TW knew excatly they had a gem on their hands with WB and possibly BL, but did not know which elements made it a gem

I agree, I'm hopeful things will change with time in this regard based on feedback.

Everything feels so loose-fitting and insubstantial, like nothing is screwed down or fitted together properly.

This is exactly how I feel.
 
Indeed! It's beginning to feel like all of the "big features" that the game offers are more "under the hood-like" systems. For example, the way the economy works, the way workshops work, how to manage fiefs, how quests/issues are generated and effect the world, character traits, kingdom decisions -- all these things are meant to be a massive part of what is meant to make Bannerlord stand out, but infact the player barely notices these mechanics as they all feel so behind the scenes and out of the player's control, making them feel shallow, boring and inconsequential. (When they really shouldn't be)

This is important to note. There obviously has been put much thought and effort into making consistent, dynamic and possible "true-to-life" implementations for the games' systems, for example in the combat model which IIRC is much more based on RL physics than it was in WB.
Also, these kinds of systems, even more when interacting with another, can be very hard to balance. We just witnessed in the faction snowballing thread how much tinkering over quite some time it took to get that one locked in (fingers crossed the fixes work out).

Also I agree very much on your second point, that much of the depth these systems provide has trouble to reach the player.
 
The State of Immersion: Bannerlord Edition

While playing through Bannerlord, I really feel like it's lacking a lot of the immersion and cohesion (features working in conjunction) that I find in Warband. That's not to say that I feel the game is bad, it's still good but it has so much more potential that I'm sure will come with time. Let me get straight in to it.

If any of the things I mentioned down below are already in the game, and I haven't noticed already let me know. Also reply with your own opinions or thoughts. I apologize in advance if these points have already been mentioned before or are in someway incorrect.
  • Offer of vassalage
    • In Warband, if you earned a decent amount of renown and didn't belong to a Kingdom already, there was a chance you would receive a letter offering you a place as a vassal in x Kingdom. While I doubt it was a route many players took, it was there and it added a decision for you to make, one that could completely change the direction of your playthrough. As far as I know, this doesn't exist in Bannerlord.
  • Lords defecting to your Kingdom
    • I could be wrong on this one, but it feels like Clans don't defect to your own Kingdom? In Warband it felt pretty good to see a Lord leave their Kingdom and sit in your capital, for them to ASK YOU to join your Kingdom, once again adding choices to your playthrough and allowing you to grow your Kingdom without passing a bunch of skill checks and always having to make the first move.
  • Companions, companions, companions!
    • In Warband, each companion felt, looked and behaved uniquely. Companions had their backstories, base skills and personality types that would lead them to quarrel with each other. Yet again, adding choices to which companions you choose as you don't want them all hating each other, leading them to hate being apart of your party and ultimately ditching you. Doing certain actions such as raiding or failing quests would upset some companions but not others. Right now, they just feel like named soldiers that'll go along with anything, I barely care about who I pickup as long as they can fulfill a clan role that isn't occupied already.
  • Feasts/Tournaments
    • It was a meme, but now that they're gone, I miss them. They were an easy way to introduce yourself to all of the Lords in your (or another) Kingdom, get quests and meet ladies (Dedicating a Tournament victory to them also). Tournaments would be held when feasts were on-going, and thus allowed you to fight against Lords and not just a random pool of soldiers. Tournaments were a slightly more rare occurrence than what they are in Bannerlord, I feel like there is an abundance of Tournaments going on at any given time, allowing players to quickly rack up gold and items that you couldn't otherwise get so quickly. A Tournament in Warband felt like a great opportunity to get that extra income and renown, now it just feels like what I should be doing all the time making the gameplay loop quite repetitive, especially early-game. It just feels cheap. Feasts would also be good distraction for Lords, and allows for some tactics to be had, you could strike when the enemy was most vulnerable.
  • Armour Effectiveness/Feel
    • For context, I play with all realistic settings. I couldn't help but feel like as I acquired better and better armor, that it really didn't make much of a difference. Looters were throwing pebbles at me, taking a sizable chunk of my health with some of the most top-tier pieces of armor in the game. The game feels like it caters more towards quantity rather than quality when it comes to armies. In Warband, if I had a small band of elite tier troops, you bet your ass I could take on more enemies than usual. You could feel the difference so much more in Warband as you acquired better gear or upgraded your troops to the higher tiers. Armor also feels quite same-y, when you strike someone in full plate, it feels exactly the same as when I hit someone in leather. In Warband, when you try to swing a sword at full plate, they feel tanky and clanky.
  • Personality Types / Traits
    • In Bannerlord, there is suppose to be different traits people can have, though it doesn't feel like it's integrated into anything. All of the NPCs feel exactly the same and I don't feel as though I'm treated any differently based on how much Valor/Honor/Dishonesty/any other trait I may or may not have. The trait system doesn't feel cohesive with the rest of the game at all. I never get told when I receive a trait, and there's no indicators of how making a certain choice or choosing a certain dialog option will effect my traits. I feel the system could be great once it's implemented properly. Warband had a much simpler system of an Honor Rating for the player, and the NPCs had certain personality types that would react differently based on the players honor, relation and previous actions. I feel as though the Bannerlord system has much more potential than Warbands, but right now it seems useless.
  • Marshals and Marshalship
    • I can only describe having Marshals in Warband as being cool. It added another layer to the hierarchy in the factions, giving one Lord that extra bit of power and respect over the others, allowing them to call upon all the other Lords of the realm to go on a campaign. This feels so much more immersive than "Lord x has made an army, join it if you want, if not no worries, decisions don't matter". In Warband, you were SUMMONED by your Marshal, and if you didn't follow through then there were consequences. Furthermore, being offered Marshalship felt rewarding, it also felt risky as you now had a lot of responsibility. Now it just feels like: "okay let me spend this arbitrary number (influence) to force some NPCs to follow me".
  • Tavern NPCs
    • Ransom Brokers
      • Right now, you can sell prisoners to any city, some might consider this an improvement, but personally I liked that you weren't guaranteed to be able to sell your prisoners. It made storing prisoners in dungeons an actual useful thing, so you could sell them later when a ransom broker was closer to your fief. Not always being able to sell prisoners also encourages you to venture out to the world to find them, getting you in all kinds of trouble.
    • Wandering Minstrels
      • In Warband, these fine men could teach you poems, which you could later use to help woo a certain lady. This would help alot in Bannerlord because there is literally nothing you can do to boost relations lol.
    • Book Merchants
      • Book Merchants added another layer of depth to Warband, allowing you to read books to gain permanent or passive bonuses to your attributes. These would become very useful late game.
    • Travelers
      • These NPCs helped you find all of the above NPCs, plus your companions if they were captured or lost somehow. Right now everything is readily available in your encyclopedia, as if you have telepathic knowledge of everyone's location, nothing is less immersion breaking than that. I'm sure people don't mind it, but it would be cool to at-least have a realism option for this kind of stuff.
    • Quest NPCs
      • Occasionally in Warband you would find a farmer in a city tavern looking for someone to help his village that is infested with bandits. Adding more hidden away Quest NPCs in Taverns could add a lot to immersion and encourage exploration.


I'm sure there's plenty of more things that seem missing in Bannerlord that Warband had, and maybe not all of them are good and maybe even some of the points I mentioned above aren't good for Bannerlord, but the absence of all of them combined leaves me with an experience that is nowhere near as immersive as Warband. I look forward to the improvements that will come in the upcoming patches.
Very well put. Thank you. As a RPG player there is only so much head-storytelling I can do to keep my immersion with this game.
 
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