The world map is claustrophobic

[Akka]

One of the thing I really dislike in Bannerlord compared to Warband is the world map. It's pretty, sure, but it's absolutely horrible when it comes to immersion, variety, how it plays and how it feels. There are several points to this :

1) First, as the title says, it's claustrophobic. EVERYWHERE you go, the path is blocked. If it's not a mountain, it's a cliff, or a sea, or a river, or rocks. And in case you can actually move a bit, then you spend half your time in a forest, or a bridge, that slows you down. If you look from the distance, it might give some illusion, but as soon as you zoom or you try to travel, then it feels like you're constantly walled in. It's really annoying, and give the feeling of being on-rail and always constrained.
EVERYTHING feels like a "chokepoint". There are no freedom of movement, it's like walking through a maze, and I'd say barely more than half the surface of the entire ground is actually usable, all the rest being some sort of unpassable terrain. That's not open world, that's disguised corridors.
This is easily the number one problem, and I get the feeling it's the direct cause of all the others.

2) Second, it's completely unnatural in the relief aspect. There are mountains sprouting everywhere without any sense nor logic. There are nearly no actual plains and no flat ground, it's always hilly or mountainous or filled with cliffs or rocks. Only a little room in the Aserai/Khuzait place (and even then, it's just a few splashes of somewhat clear terrain surrounded by lots of walls). It's painfully obvious it was designed and not "natural". Whatever the place you want to be, you have to take unbelievable detours and contrived roads that make you feel like you've covered three times the distance that was on the map.

3) Third, the direct consequence of the two other points : it's all enclaved and without contact. The entire Aserai kingdom is reachable only through a single rock on one side, and a single bridge plus two very narrow passes on the other. It's the most extreme example, but most other kingdoms are samely boxed in.
We've got a map with entire countries reachables only through one or two bridges and a road on the whole length of one of their border. That's just ludicrous.

4) Fourth, the effect of all this is that it feels extremely monotonous. The structure of the map doesn't change. Warband had the vast flat expanse of the desert, the rolling plains of Swabia, the mountain country of the Rhodok, the snowy forests of the north and the valleys of Kurgit lands. Whenever I was going to some different place of the map, it FELT different. Bannerlord ? It's the same everywhere. It's snaky paths all the time, with just the ground switching texture.

I really don't get what was the point of slaughtering the old map to get this abomination. It seems that the main drive was to choke every ability to move anywhere, to make a whole continent out of small corridors. Seas were vastly expanded, mountains were sprayed everywhere, rivers cut any amount of free space left and the little room left was littered by less-obvious but functionally identical path blockers.

Am I the only one feeling like ? I absolutely loathe this map, it's killing any feeling of sandbox world and considering how little it's spoken about and there already was a rework (of which I really don't get the point, considering the complete lack of feature it ended up giving), I've no hope to see this fixed.

 

[vonbalt]

I do like the map, it's kinda beautiful even if you can see from afar it was designed completely for choke points but between this one and the previous version they showed in screenshots and the older videos before early access that one felt so much better, it was more believable in terrain placement (even if it still had the odd mountains here and there for some choke points) and it was much closer to warband's map which i liked, continuity and all that.

 

[Apocal]

I really don't get what was the point of slaughtering the old map to get this abomination. It seems that the main drive was to choke every ability to move anywhere, to make a whole continent out of small corridors. Seas were vastly expanded, mountains were sprayed everywhere, rivers cut any amount of free space left and the little room left was littered by less-obvious but functionally identical path blockers.

Am I the only one feeling like ? I absolutely loathe this map, it's killing any feeling of sandbox world and considering how little it's spoken about and there already was a rework (of which I really don't get the point, considering the complete lack of feature it ended up giving), I've no hope to see this fixed.

My opinion is largely the same, along with a dose of it being flatly too small for everything they packed in there.

It feels like they built it to support some other method or mechanic (maybe ambushes?) or were focused more on making it more visually exciting to look at than Warband's flatlands and staid heights.

 

[Lord Grindelvald]

Im a huge fan of the world map. Its far more exciting then Warband.

You now actually have to plan your route carefully if you're in enemy territory. You have to evade enemy armies or you can now out strategize them if you want to trap them.

In Warband you'd be running forever with just +.01 map speed to capture them. Now it takes minutes, because you can run them up a hill, mountain, forest or allied party.

 

[Jarl Reamald]

Im a huge fan of the world map. Its far more exciting then Warband.

You now actually have to plan your route carefully if you're in enemy territory. You have to evade enemy armies or you can now out strategize them if you want to trap them.

In Warband you'd be running forever with just +.01 map speed to capture them. Now it takes minutes, because you can run them up a hill, mountain, forest or allied party.

I would rather have freedom to go wherever I wish to go instead of not being able to walk over there at all. and also, "You now actually have to plan your route carefully" let's be honest, no one really does that and if you do, you can only get to a specific place through entries on the map.

 

[Apocal]

You now actually have to plan your route carefully if you're in enemy territory. You have to evade enemy armies or you can now out strategize them if you want to trap them.

Not really?

Most places there are only a few paths in and out, and trapping an enemy army is as easy as pressing them up against a mountain or river. Evading them in general is pretty easy for reasons unrelated to the map design.

 

[niekdegrijze]

I do like the map, but I agree with de feeling of being boxed in. every little stretch of open plain is indeed walled off. I had the feeling this is because of 2 reasons.
1) making chokepoints so that armies will meet
2) help the AI with pathfinding, I think it is a lot easier for the AI to map a route through a maze than through big open spaces. Might also help to decrease CPU use.

I agree with the sentiment that the map is a beautiful disguised maze, but it is a bit obvious at the moment. I hope there will be at least minor changes to the map. Like extra acces points to every kingdom( and ways to block them) and some more open spaces.

 

[Aerational]

I would love if they added boats. They could take up around 1000 inventory space each and let you embark into water from a beach, they would carry about 50-75 men a piece. Could be a good Sturgia specialty, with the viking style ships, but other factions might have their own ships as well.

Another thing I was thinking is allowing very slow travel through mountains, with snow shoes and ice picks speeding it up (you'd have to add those). Maybe there could be a chance of troop mortality if it's winter. This again would give Sturgia something to specialize in and boost their economy. I also think sled dogs could be their version of mules, carrying half as much but faster in snow.

Lastly I think looter parties should start to fight each other if there are too many in an area because they can be really annoying and even detrimental to economies if they build in chokepoints and prevent villagers from delivering goods.

 

[Lord Grindelvald]

I would rather have freedom to go wherever I wish to go instead of not being able to walk over there at all. and also, "You now actually have to plan your route carefully" let's be honest, no one really does that and if you do, you can only get to a specific place through entries on the map.

If I'm in enemy territory with just my own party I definitely have to plan my route. If I get chased from Epicrotea, for example, and my speed is barely faster or equal to the party chasing me, I have to pray I dont encounter another enemy party. They'd fck me left, right and center. I cant go left, I cant go right, I cant go back. I can only move forward. And if there's an enemy party coming up, rip me.

In Warband I'd just yeet myself anywhere and be gone with the wind.

Anyhow, anywho, I'm a fan of the map and its playstyle, different tastes and different opinions. This forum would be a boring place if we'd always agree with eachother.

 

[froggyluv]

Its like they chose to make a pac-man maze instead of designing an AI that thinks about strategical points such as terrain on the world map. Had they done the latter they wouldnt have had to resort to such labyrinth type thinking in terms of design. Also why are there zero points of interest on the map -even M&B 1 had them. Boggling..

 

[Lord Irontoe]

I've long thought that the map had way too much geography for its own good. It really is a giant labyrinth. Some areas, like Northern Empire, are downright unpleasant to travel through and moving through Sturgia feels like a great big roadblock, so I generally avoid those areas. I long for some wide-open spaces somewhere.

 

[Julio-Claudian]

I mean the real world especially places like Armenia, Anatolia, Greece, and Italy have a lot of 'chokepoints'.

I do think it would be better if everything on the map was shrunk, so there'd be more space, greater distances between cities, mountains wouldn't take up quite so much space but still act as barriers etc.

 

[Aerational]

I've long thought that the map had way too much geography for its own good. It really is a giant labyrinth. Some areas, like Northern Empire, are downright unpleasant to travel through and moving through Sturgia feels like a great big roadblock, so I generally avoid those areas. I long for some wide-open spaces somewhere.

I like the map, they just need some creative solutions like boats for water travel, more mountain passes or equipment that lets you climb mountains like having ice picks for all your troops, skis or snow shoes for faster snow travel, and sled dogs as a pack animal that lets you travel fast over snow.

 

[NPC99]

I do like the map, but I agree with de feeling of being boxed in. every little stretch of open plain is indeed walled off. I had the feeling this is because of 2 reasons.
1) making chokepoints so that armies will meet
2) help the AI with pathfinding, I think it is a lot easier for the AI to map a route through a maze than through big open spaces. Might also help to decrease CPU use.

I agree with the sentiment that the map is a beautiful disguised maze, but it is a bit obvious at the moment. I hope there will be at least minor changes to the map. Like extra acces points to every kingdom( and ways to block them) and some more open spaces.

I think the map's awesome, but too small. A price we've paid for Bannerlord's minimum pc spec, which IMO is too low.

 

[Akka]

I cant go left, I cant go right, I cant go back. I can only move forward.

Yeah, that's pretty much how this map feel : no open world, just follow the enclosed corridors. I just don't get how it is engaging in any way.

I do like the map, but I agree with de feeling of being boxed in. every little stretch of open plain is indeed walled off. I had the feeling this is because of 2 reasons.
1) making chokepoints so that armies will meet

Having strategic chokepoints is interesting, but to have any value they need to be rare and placed at interesting points. Here the game is NEARLY ENTIRELY MADE of chokepoints. In fact it's reaching such extreme that I barely see any actual "chokepoint" because it's all just narrow paths, so there isn't the actual needed space that can be compressed to reach the definition of "chokepoint". A large room reachable only through a door means that the door is a chokepoint, but does this concept still hold when the door is just placed in the middle of a narrow corridor ?

2) help the AI with pathfinding, I think it is a lot easier for the AI to map a route through a maze than through big open spaces. Might also help to decrease CPU use.

Not sure it has any effect here.
And anyway, Warband could run on a computer that would be considered a potatoe today, and it didn't had any serious problem with overworld pathfinding slowdown AFAIR.

I agree with the sentiment that the map is a beautiful disguised maze, but it is a bit obvious at the moment. I hope there will be at least minor changes to the map. Like extra acces points to every kingdom( and ways to block them) and some more open spaces.

Honestly, I feel the map needs a complete overhaul and a fundamental change in design philosophy to be completely redone. Just adding a few additional bridges won't change the suffocating feeling and the absurd geography :-/

I mean the real world especially places like Armenia, Anatolia, Greece, and Italy have a lot of 'chokepoints'.

Yes, there are places in the world with rugged ground. Nobody has a problem with that. The problem is when the ENTIRE MAP is only rugged ground, flying in the face of logic, lore, natural geography, geopolitics and is literally made of impassable walls surrounding small paths.

I've long thought that the map had way too much geography for its own good. It really is a giant labyrinth. Some areas, like Northern Empire, are downright unpleasant to travel through and moving through Sturgia feels like a great big roadblock, so I generally avoid those areas. I long for some wide-open spaces somewhere.

Exactly.
To be honest, I feel the ENTIRETY of the map to be unpleasant to move through. There is never the experience of being released in the open world, I always have this feeling of being in the tutorial with invisible walls all around to guide me along the path until the game finally starts. Except it never starts, and I'm stuck in the tutorial forever.

 

[froggyluv]

Exactly.
To be honest, I feel the ENTIRETY of the map to be unpleasant to move through. There is never the experience of being released in the open world, I always have this feeling of being in the tutorial with invisible walls all around to guide me along the path until the game finally starts. Except it never starts, and I'm stuck in the tutorial forever.

This is well said -i guess i felt this too but never articulated it to myself. Set us free TW - give us The Shire!!

 

[Nalgasucia507]

Its like they chose to make a pac-man maze instead of designing an AI that thinks about strategical points such as terrain on the world map. Had they done the latter they wouldnt have had to resort to such labyrinth type thinking in terms of design. Also why are there zero points of interest on the map -even M&B 1 had them. Boggling..

What is the point of interest you mention on M&B? Zendar?

 

[Lord Irontoe]

I think another thing that makes the map feel claustrophobic to me is the way that the location labels don't scale at all with the zoom level. The labels look pretty nice when you're zoomed in, but when you zoom way out, they're still the same size but now they're all jammed together and overlapping each other. So rather than giving you this impression of a vast vista, the map looks even smaller and more cramped.

I really think they should add a variable zoom on the labels. I wouldn't want the labels to zoom out at the same rate as the map since they'd be impossible to read, but maybe they zoom out to half- or third-size when the map's zoomed all the way out, so they're smaller but still readable and you get more of an impression of distance than you do now.

 

[froggyluv]

What is the point of interest you mention on M&B? Zendar?

As well as Four Ways Inn, Dhorak's Keep and Salt Mines

 

[Blood Gryphon]

I think another thing that makes the map feel claustrophobic to me is the way that the location labels don't scale at all with the zoom level. The labels look pretty nice when you're zoomed in, but when you zoom way out, they're still the same size but now they're all jammed together and overlapping each other. So rather than giving you this impression of a vast vista, the map looks even smaller and more cramped.

I really think they should add a variable zoom on the labels. I wouldn't want the labels to zoom out at the same rate as the map since they'd be impossible to read, but maybe they zoom out to half- or third-size when the map's zoomed all the way out, so they're smaller but still readable and you get more of an impression of distance than you do now.

This is a very good point.