We Need to Talk About the Lords

[AlexanderTournier]

I have recently written some 3 dozen ideas in a post(s). After some time, I noticed that pretty much all of them were related to notables in the game, especially Lords. Than, all of a sudden it hit me, backbone of this game (and other M&B games) are the lords! Let me explain.

The main draw of Mount and Blade games has always been the big AI battles, no one can dispute that. Just like how the battle AI has a big impact on the relative fun one can gain from those battles, the lead up to those battles are equally important, if not more so. Context matters, the "stories" that people play through before the battles are crucial for the long lasting and extensive appeal of this game. I have watched many people play and discuss Bannerlord at it's launch to Early Access. They would make-up wild stories about their play throughs, their imaginations filling the blanks of the half working and shallow features. Sure, they enjoyed the big battles but the lead up to those battles were the real gem, and that's exactly where the lords come into play.

World of Bannerlord is populated and brought to life by these lords, they are the ones creating the intrigue. There is no Bannerlord without interesting lords, and there are no interesting lords without attention from the devs. That's why special attention should be given to bringing these lords to life, to make them complex and relatable. Making their decision making AIs as interesting and varied as possible, taking into account as many factors as a reasonable development time would allow. Making their personalities play of off each other and the players, that's where the "real" game is at.

Combat surely matters, the feel of it, the spectacle, but the tactics the AI employs are equally crucial. More varied the AI is, more interesting the big battles get. That's why each lords personalities should also effect their combat AI in subtle but impactful and noticeable ways. Complex AI is the solution for the mid to late games stagnated slugfest combat. Variety is the name of the game in sandbox games, Bannerlord is no exception. Fix your bugs, optimize your engine but a Bannerlord without complex lord personalities and combat AI is not a Bannerlord worth playing.

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Authored by Grumpy Barbie

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[AlexanderTournier]

The post(s) with "3 dozen ideas" I'm referring to can be found here: https://forums.taleworlds.com/index...ime-m-b-player-discussion-is-welcomed.440399/

 

[Mad Vader]

The large number of nobles is something that naturally prevents you from developing meaningful relationships with many of them. It would have been a better design if the number of nobles (and towns and the world map) was smaller so individuals would be more memorable and less interchangeable. But the school of design "more=better" prevents this from happening and it's easier to advertise "now with X more kingdoms and Y times larger map".
It's the difference between Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld (which is full of good design lessons) - do you have a more interesting game with 200 dwarves or 13 colonists?
This is all in addition to having more complex and meaningful interactions with the nobles that make them distinct in the first place.

 

[Arkyll]

The large number of nobles is something that naturally prevents you from developing meaningful relationships with many of them. It would have been a better design if the number of nobles (and towns and the world map) was smaller so individuals would be more memorable and less interchangeable. But the school of design "more=better" prevents this from happening and it's easier to advertise "now with X more kingdoms and Y times larger map".
It's the difference between Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld (which is full of good design lessons) - do you have a more interesting game with 200 dwarves or 13 colonists?
This is all in addition to having more complex and meaningful interactions with the nobles that make them distinct in the first place.

It could be done, the first thing would be personality templates in the same manner as Bannelord's predecessor, which for some reason is still more compelling in many aspects a year on.

These personality traits should actually make a difference in interactions, relations, perception, tactics, quests etc.
At the moment, the only time I have experienced that is Garios telling me he wants to cut my head off after having -80 relation with him.

I also want to see the sexism make a return. I dont really know why this is missing. Perhaps it will be included later on. This era of Calradia is supposed to be slightly more progressive though, and the the enormous amount of female nobles leading soldiers shows that.

On another note, I like the silly charm speech checks in Bannerlord, but there needs to be more of that. It is criminally underutilized.
That could be used to levy relationships with lords. Just some more words to read and say. This game doesn't even have voice acting, how hard could it be?

Also Bannerlord can give a good amount of the starting lords some unique personality I think. When you speak to a faction leader, they will tell you their angle, we need more opinions from more lords I reckon.

 

[AlexanderTournier]

The large number of nobles is something that naturally prevents you from developing meaningful relationships with many of them. It would have been a better design if the number of nobles (and towns and the world map) was smaller so individuals would be more memorable and less interchangeable. But the school of design "more=better" prevents this from happening and it's easier to advertise "now with X more kingdoms and Y times larger map".
It's the difference between Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld (which is full of good design lessons) - do you have a more interesting game with 200 dwarves or 13 colonists?
This is all in addition to having more complex and meaningful interactions with the nobles that make them distinct in the first place.

Only limitation is their will. They got the money, time, support of their community and the talent. If they want to go deeper nothing is there to stop them but their reluctance to do so. They knew what it meant to go from pre-defined characters to randomly generated ones, they knew what they would lose and they could have very well guess from all the Harlaus butter memes the reaction it would cause among the community. They can make this work, only thing they need at this point is the will to do so.

 

[Mad Vader]

Also Bannerlord can give a good amount of the starting lords some unique personality I think. When you speak to a faction leader, they will tell you their angle, we need more opinions from more lords I reckon.

Introductory speeches have meme potential when the lord then does the opposite of what he says he wants.
If I were Taleworlds, I would embrace the stupidity of the lord AI and reference it in lord dialogs to create ready meme material. Remember how poor game mechanics spawned the Harlaus memes, Taleworlds could use poor features this time intentionally. As a bonus, they would not have to fix those features, in order to keep the meme potential.

 

[Apocal]

Also Bannerlord can give a good amount of the starting lords some unique personality I think. When you speak to a faction leader, they will tell you their angle, we need more opinions from more lords I reckon.

You can already ask them for their opinion on politics and get a little speech about what they think.

 

[AlexanderTournier]

I wanted to bring this back up from the depths of forums pages long ****-posts and "I want game now" threads, into the active forum scene. With the recent announcement of the first public deadline for full release, I have gained an immense amount of worry about the future of the AI. AI needs so much more work to be done on it, there needs to more diplomatic options and combat tactics from which the AI can choose. If the game continues on it's current trajectory the AI will continue to be a hot pile of steaming mediocrity that detracts from the experience, which it's suppose to enrich and bring meaning, depth and uniqueness to. Notable AI needs so much more work, if you don't work on AI this games vanilla will be unforgivably unenjoyable. Please TW, don't even think about releasing this game before you make the "Sandbox Story Engine" that you promised, don't let this games AI to suffer in mediocrity too.

 

[Count_Morfetico]

don't even think about releasing this game before you make the "Sandbox Story Engine" that you promised, don't let this games AI to suffer in mediocrity too.

+1
I can't agree more with this

 

[Arkyll]

You can already ask them for their opinion on politics and get a little speech about what they think.

I just said that.

 

[a_ver_est]

The large number of nobles is something that naturally prevents you from developing meaningful relationships with many of them. It would have been a better design if the number of nobles (and towns and the world map) was smaller so individuals would be more memorable and less interchangeable. But the school of design "more=better" prevents this from happening and it's easier to advertise "now with X more kingdoms and Y times larger map".
It's the difference between Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld (which is full of good design lessons) - do you have a more interesting game with 200 dwarves or 13 colonists?
This is all in addition to having more complex and meaningful interactions with the nobles that make them distinct in the first place.

Partially agree... but to be honest you don't create interactions with all lords of the game, if you are for example Sturgian you will be always fighting/supporting a limited set of lords.

For me there are a few design decisions that can improve this, one is the need of relationship level per NPC which triggers some special dialogs aside that the current one at clan level and the second one is a big library of dialogs to avoid being repetitive, even some lords should have unique dialogs to make them singular.

 

[Apocal]

I just said that.

I mean, it works for other (non-ruler) lords as well.

 

[Mad Vader]

Partially agree... but to be honest you don't create interactions with all lords of the game, if you are for example Sturgian you will be always fighting/supporting a limited set of lords.

Right, but also count a set of enemies you'll learn to hate. Still too many to remember, I think.
I would like to see a mod trying to get the number of lords right, specifically so you would be able to get to know them and care. So not for every Sir Rambo out there, but for the RPGish crowd. I really think simple downsizing of the game would improve gameplay by itself.
Of course, a mod can't just remove half of the locations and nobles and nothing else. It has to expand on NPC interaction, their traits, and even their party AI behavior.

 

[AlexanderTournier]

Right, but also count a set of enemies you'll learn to hate. Still too many to remember, I think.
I would like to see a mod trying to get the number of lords right, specifically so you would be able to get to know them and care. So not for every Sir Rambo out there, but for the RPGish crowd. I really think simple downsizing of the game would improve gameplay by itself.
Of course, a mod can't just remove half of the locations and nobles and nothing else. It has to expand on NPC interaction, their traits, and even their party AI behavior.

Yep, I agree. There are way too many lords and locations for the overall quality and depth to be high and suitable for a deep RP experience. On the other hand, TW choose this path for Bannerlord and realistically this will not be changed. So, I think focusing on what can be reasonably changed, expanded and *improved* is a better idea.

On that note, I think memorable enough lords and settlement notables can be achieved with the "more=better" approach. This will obviously increase the development time a bit, but it will be worth the effort in the end.

There are 6 main cultures in the game, each of these cultures live in different climates and have distinct ways of life. Assigning cultural characteristics to each and shaping their fundamental decision making AI by those parameters would go a long way to make them more unique, interesting and realistic. For example, Sturgians choosing to embark on campaign in late fall and trying to engage in battle in snowy terrains, where their troops are better equipped to handle; Khuzaits actively avoiding fights in rough and forested terrains, and trying to kite their enemies to open fields even when they outnumber them; Empire trying to avoid open field battles when they don't outnumber their enemy by huge margins, and rather choosing to seige their cities with their superior seige equipment to stifle their enemies economy etc. All the cultures battle tactics are pretty much the same right now, only real difference are the troop compositions available to them. This simple culture based approach would increase the depth of battle AI by a lot, and you can compliment them by each lords own personality traits to further increase variety. On top of the combat related effects of a culture, these fundamental traits can also effect a cultures approach to diplomacy and the means of engaging in war in the first place.

Beyond the cultural traits many, many different character traits for each individual lord can be created. For each trait and combinations of traits many, many, many lines of unique dialogue can be written to increase variety. This is the way to make Role Playing more interesting in a "more=better" approach to game design, increasing the variety.

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Imma just drop this here instead of making a separate thread.

Since Sarranids Aserai represent the Arabic, Egyptian, North African and Persian cultures, more architectural inspiration from Persians might be taken, more specifically from this (once i saw this i had to post it):