What are the best and worst aspects of BL right now? Share your thoughts on the current state of game.

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NLCRich

Squire
Hi all, So I had an idea for a thread that I thought might be fun, and also highlight the best and worst of bannerlord and the current state of the game.

The idea is:

- Best: Post your favorite part of bannerlord in its current state. This can be anything, from a feature or mechanic to something as simple as a piece of gear.

- Worst: Post your least favorite part of bannerlord in its current state. So, what is the part that hurts the fun for you the most?

- Please Fix: Post the most glaring issue/bug in bannerlord that you feel should be resolved.

- Thoughts: Elaborate on your thoughts regarding the current state of game and/or make suggestions: Feel free to be as positive or negative as you feel is appropriate, but please avoid rude comments. Try to limit this to a couple paragraphs max so the thread doesn't get too difficult to follow.

So, I'll go first. Feel free once you have made the inittial post to reply to other posts and agree/disagree and have further discussion. If we find trends, I will tally them here.

P.S. For moderators: this is a discussion thread as much a feedback thread and I intend it to remain in general discussion.

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Best: SP combat, specifically I like how the weapons, shields, and blocking are working and handling in SP in the current state of the game. I was not as big a fan at time of E.A. release, but I have really enjoyed it in more recent versions. Ultimately, the combat in M&B is what keeps me coming back despite all the issues.

Worst: I hate grinding village quests to get relations for recruits. At a certain point, I often just forget about doing the quests all together. I feel like the quests in many cases should offer more reward to the player for what they have to go through. Although there are a few that are worth it, the vast majority of quests are not, and just feel like a pointless grind. Any time I make peace and then decide to go and run some quests and get recruits, I always regret it. I barely get into it before I find myself getting bored.

Please Fix: The bloody siege towers at lvl 2 and 3. Make it so the troops can get up them. It is time. This has waited too long.

Thoughts: I feel like the game is coming along, but it still needs a lot of work. A lot of people have talked about immersion, and leading back to my comments about quests, I feel like this area could be improved in a fashion that makes the quests more interesting and also adds some of this immersion. Culture specific dialogues for the quests, and then culture specific quests that only occur in a certain area. Also, cultural variances in the frequency of quests, and/or rewards from quests. More ways to increase relations with notables outside of quests would be another plus. The formations and battle commands need work. Many of them don't work right. I think this should be another high priority. If at least everything is working right in the battles, we can have enough fun there to get past campaign issues (to a degree). Obviously the perks also need a lot of work and the game needs more balancing.
 
I'll keep my answers simple as i am too tired for a well detailed explanation

- Best: Dynasty system

- Worst: The fact that armor is next to useless, snowballing, lack of kingdom diplomacy, sieges, lack of automation option (like sending recruiters to recruit for you like in the Diplomacy mod of warband)

- Please Fix: all of the above

- Thoughts: the good is making good progress and I am really looking forward to the end result
 
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-Best: The major stability improvements over other versions and new features compared to warband
-Worst:In general the game lacks a lot of depth mostly in battle tactics althought its gotten better general lack of things like alliances which i could understand because of balancing issues but an issue nonetheless and companions which they have stated is not complete
-Final Verdict:In general despite its problems i still have a lot of fun in it and is heading on the right direction
 
Best: how the game is improving version after version, but still a lot to improve

Worse: how quick battles finish, lack of tactica in a battle, etc. To me that is the worst. On top of that lack of “grand strategy” elements a la total war/crusader kings

Fix: sieges (although I haven't played them recently)

Thoughts: I am always looking forward to the next version of the beta, so it speaks for itself that I am really liking where this is heading, although I fear we end up getting something that doesnt end up feeling as finished...
 
Best: Freedom of decision and the battles that really come together in SP. Its fun making my ideal army and seeing it in action against a superior numbered foe.

Worse: Prisoners still instantly escape to return in a couple of days to try raiding your villages again, executing is the only way to progress against even odds. Diplomacy is still pretty crap, wars don't make sense, weak factions declaring wars while already in 2 wars its losing. Keep going to war against Aserai for about 5 days at a time, really obnoxious.

Fixes: Its been how many years in development and 5 months or so since release and about half the perks still don't work or have any effect and every patch seems to break something else due to lack of testing. Last one was the teleport cheat and anything involving the cntrl key.

Overall: The game is great, I think I had higher expectations but it is still a super fun game but not without its issues. Hopefully as it continues to move onward through early access they can implement some more fixes and get the perks and such working and balanced.
 
Best: The combat (Specifically Field battles and Tournaments). While I have some issues with it, it’s still the best part of the game for me.

Worst: The lack of intrigue. Kingdoms, clans, notables and companions all feel the same just with a different coat of paint. I wish these game entities had more personality so that I, as the player, would have a preference when making a decision.
  • “Should I take this quest if the quest giver supports a clan I am competing with?”
  • “While this companion’s stats are great, will it really work out if their beliefs don’t align with my goals?”
  • “I’m role playing as a honorable knight so maybe I should align with Kingdom X instead of Y due to their current leaders.”
These are all questions I wish I had to work through during a playthrough from both a role play and mechanics perspective. Instead, I barely need to pay any attention to what npc I’m interacting with.

Please Fix: Sieges (performance and AI)

Thoughts: There’s certainly been good progress. I do hope that TW is designing from a holistic perspective so that all of these systems can be integrated into each other to create interesting gameplay situations.
 
Best: The basic game-play loop is solid. I love how (big) battles start organized and then slowly descent into chaos.

Worse: The lack of a postal service... No seriously. You should be able to send out letters or messages to people - or are pigeons not a thing in Calradia?

Fix: I would very much like to be able to save my game. This has been an issue for some from day one - for me it started with 1.42.
 
Best: Marriage and Children, I love the idea but it needs more depth and realism, instead of popping out baby's how about dialogue options to win your wife over. Or more depth in general, more simulation and realism? I don't know, I guess I want a dating sim for it tbh. Then raising your children teaching them to fight and more depth with that. I understand that, it will never end up like that but it would be super cool to have. Still my favorite feature of the game, besides sieges and large battles.

Worst:
Everything needs more depth, I think the worst thing is just the amount of depth the features have. Just everything feels barebones. It's there and on par with warband but there needs to be more, which will eventually happen but still. The perks need more oomph to them, there needs to be blood and gore, and so on. There needs to be life put into the companions and I need to be able to build relationships with the people in the world. Right now, there is no friendships, love, or respect to anyone in the world everyone has no soul. THAT NEEDS TO CHANGE.

Please Fix: The perk system, Personalities, and Just more depth with everything.
 
Best: the clan system

worst: the siege fighting itself (both defense and offense), I don't like that your troops are divided in small groups and that they don't listen well to your orders
 
Best: The game overall is something unique and full of good things like unique battles when you go army vs army, amazing siege scenarios when you have both sides with Onagers and such (seeing those fiery rocks is awesome during the assault) and the game is being balanced + new features are coming in every week. Oh yes, the modding community is awesome and tbh, it's the only thing that made me play for over 100 hours in a week.

Worst: I played Mount & Blade with the Diplomacy expansion some years ago. I don't understand why Bannerlord has such a bad replication of that and why some stuff that worked before so nicely, don't work now (or not even implemented). I guess my hype for Bannerlord was too high since the launch of each version of this game are years apart and I expected TW to be working for a longer time on Bannerlord, especially regarding the PERFORMANCE in the game. I don't understand why Bannerlord is so CPU and GPU demanding while on the very lowest configs (which look like M&B1) and has a ****ty performance like it has right now. This is by far my biggest complaint and something I do hope they work around to tweak.

Please Fix: For starters, performance. Then Sieges, add more useful and different quests inside of cities so we can actually spend some more time in the early game and actually get to know the game better, ADD GOOD DIPLOMACY STUFF.

Overall: I love the game and intend to play it for years to come. Yes I do expect a campaign map for the online version, but not sure if this will ever come by, but hope so. Last thing is: try to work alongside the modding community because these guys are holding the game which is bugged and lacking A LOT of good entertainment/immersion.
 
Thanks for the responses. At this point I think there are a few trends we can identify.

Best: SP Combat system, Dynasty System
Worst: Depth, Personality
Please fix: Siege Issues, Perks
Thoughts: General optimism about recent progress and future of game, People are having fun with the game in its current state.

I want to add the general thoughts and outlook of most posters I think has changed drastically from a couple months ago. I feel like at that time the general outlook of most was "game has no future, mods will fix it", and now it's more like "It still needs work but there is good progress and the game is fun". I think people are having more fun and hopes are back up. A good sign, I think.

Of course I will still look forward to mods, but I will also look forward to the future of the base game. Hopefully the progress continues at a good rate and we are able to see more fruits of the labor of folks at TW. I would really like to see the depth and personality that I agree the game is lacking, but I want to add I feel like this is the frosting on the cake, so people looking at the frosting is a good sign the cake is coming along. I do believe it is as important as ever for us to continue to provide feedback and constructive criticism, as the window for changes will get smaller and smaller from this point.
 
Best: Dynasty system
Worst: Dynasty system
Please Fix: Erm would answer this but it would be a long, long list :wink:
Thoughts: Dynasty system should be brilliant hence why I put it as the best, but...(you knew that one was coming :wink: ) the lack of marriages for companions makes it such a poor system at the moment (kids building up friendships and rivalries as they grow up would make it a lot more immersive) , so it makes it the worst also on my list :grin:
 
Best: The visuals, the feel of combat and the music everything is beautiful here
Worst: Lack of dynamic mechanics, lack of world building, lack of characters, lack of mechanics that give immersion
 
Good: Combat. Amazing animations -like top notch for functionality. Visceral feel.
Bad: Kingdom/Politics/Lack of Conveying World events in interesting way. Lack of world events and unique things.
 
Best: Mods. Upgrading your character and your army. Multiplayer. Battles.

Worst – SP:

Early game – The grinding and the repetitiveness of quests and hunting bandits are not enjoyable at the time; they do not present a challenge to the player and lack depth. This is the basic way to give the first steps in the game and there is nothing exciting about it...

Mid game – By now you already know how to exploit the game. You know how Ai reacts and you know how to exploit it; Ai doesn’t present a challenge in battles.

Late game – You are flooded with money and you have nothing to do with it; There is little proactive income (besides exploits). Armies fall and rise too fast. Op Factions. Diplomacy can get annoying (bugs, balancing issues). The strategy and behavior of Ai Lords (Small armies hunting bandits; Big armies consuming food, wandering around without determination, conquering land that they cannot defend.

Worst – MP:

Low survivability for top tier units; Little team cooperation; No sense of reward by helping the team or by getting better at the game; There is no sense of progression in the matches because you can get from a low tier troop to a high tier troop (and vice-versa) almost instantly. Exploits and Bugs;

Please fix: The AI in Campaign, Battles and Sieges. Exploits. Balancing issues; Bugs.

Final thoughts: I think there needs to be a progressive sensation to the game, with depth and simplicity. I like the roadmap and the work developers made to the game. Good thread, we need more of this – simple and direct to the point!
 
Best:

-Combat (which is steadily improving with each patch): For me, the main draw of the Mount&Blade franchise has been the combat system. It's so satisfying and fun to play, and the combat feels seamless, responsive, and unique. Bannerlord's core combat has been designed in the same spirit as the other M&B titles and each patch has brought it closer to operating at an ideal place.

-Faction Aesthetics: The visual appearance of each faction; their units, their equipment, their buildings, villages, cites, and castles all look very unique and awesome.

-The Map: It has nice variation and the general aspect looks really cool.

-The Music: Some of the jams are absolute bangers.


Worst:

-Issues with game design: Mainly problems with armor's effectiveness (a lack thereof), unit balancing, campaign AI (snowballing, inactivity, endless recruit armies, etc.), kingdom management (kingdom policy and the influence system), and the skill/leveling/perk system (which is convoluted and sometimes straight up backwards/broken).

-Immersion! Where do I begin? The settings and scenes are completely hollow. Cities/castles/villages are boring and devoid of life -the settlements may look nice, but there's nothing interesting going on inside of them. The lords, companions, and NPCs in general are as generic as it comes. The companions are particularly sad, especially compared the Warband companions -who over the years have developed a cult following (hello Jeremus). Player interactions with any NPC is short, tedious, bland, and the opposite of fascinating.

-Quests:There needs to be more quests, with a greater variety of ways to carry them out and subsequent outcomes for them. Also, greater rewards for taking on and completing quests would give the player more incentive to do them. Plus: More chain quests!

-Roguery/Outlawry/Criminality is very underdeveloped: A couple years back, the criminality features that were supposed to be in Bannerlord were pitched to us as a sort of "alternative gameplay" to the traditional Mount&Blade experience. Well, here we are, and where are the custom (player) hideouts? The fences? Black markets? Cartels? Rival gangs? Gang wars? Ambushes? Thievery? Extortion? Illegal goods? More bribing options? Feels extremely underdeveloped. Unfortunate because with the roguery features there is huge potential for a full, unique, and interesting Mount&Blade experience that deviates from the usual mercenary>lord>king progression.

-The Tutorial/Character Start: Please make the tutorial skippable. Also, let me choose my character's age and whether or not I have a family member/clan at the start.


Please Fix:

-Armor: Make it work correctly. High end armor should protect more


Thoughts:

Bannerlord has limitless potential and could be Warband's equal or maybe even surpass it, but it will take a lot of time, creativity, and hard work to get it to that point.

Note: The above pertains only to SP


For MP:

Best:


-Combat: As mentioned above, the combat is enjoyable and improving with each and every patch.

-Siege Mode: While sometimes prone to crashes and not always balanced (some maps in particular *Baravenos Encirclement* cough cough), Siege is a very exciting and satisfying game mode, and provides hours of great gameplay.


Worst:

-No class customization (I don't hate the class system per se, but I wish there was a mode where we could use custom classes)

-No Battle Mode

-No Private Servers

-Menav Cav/Glaive Cav: Such an exploit, abusing the unbalanced weapon design (far too powerful, weapons like menavlion can be swung instead of only thrusted while still enjoying insane reach). Total gamebreaker in unlimited respawn, non-friendly-fire modes like Siege and TDM.


Please Fix:

-Spawns in TDM!


Thoughts:

-(see above thoughts)
 
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Best:

-Combat (which is steadily improving with each patch): For me, the main draw of the Mount&Blade franchise has been the combat system. It's so satisfying and fun to play, and the combat feels seamless, responsive, and unique. Bannerlord's core combat has been designed in the same spirit as the other M&B titles and each patch has brought it closer operating at an ideal place.

-Faction Aesthetics: The visual appearance of each faction; their units, their equipment, their buildings, villages, cites, and castles all look very unique and awesome.

-The Map: It has nice variation and the general aspect looks really cool.

-The Music: Some of the jams are absolute bangers.


Worst:

-Issues with game design: Mainly problems with armor's effectiveness (a lack thereof), unit balancing, campaign AI (snowballing, inactivity, endless recruit armies, etc.), kingdom management (kingdom policy and the influence system), and the skill/leveling/perk system (which is convoluted and sometimes straight up backwards/broken).

-Immersion! Where do I begin? The settings and scenes are completely hollow. Cities/castles/villages are boring and devoid of life -the settlements may look nice, but there's nothing interesting going on inside of them. The lords, companions, and NPCs in general are as generic as it comes. The companions are particularly sad, especially compared the Warband companions -who over the years have developed a cult following (hello Jeremus). Player interactions with any NPC is short, tedious, bland, and the opposite of fascinating.

-Quests:There needs to be more quests, with a greater variety of ways to carry them out and subsequent outcomes for them. Also, greater rewards for taking on and completing quests would give the player more incentive to do them. Plus: More chain quests!

-Roguery/Outlawry/Criminality is very underdeveloped: A couple years back, the criminality features that were supposed to be in Bannerlord were pitched to us as a sort of "alternative gameplay" to the traditional Mount&Blade experience. Well, here we are, and where are the custom (player) hideouts? The fences? Black markets? Cartels? Rival gangs? Gang wars? Ambushes? Thievery? Extortion? Illegal goods? More bribing options? Feels extremely underdeveloped. Unfortunate because with the roguery features there is huge potential for a full, unique, and interesting Mount&Blade experience that deviates from the usual mercenary>lord>king progression.

-The Tutorial/Character Start: Please make the tutorial skippable. Also, let me choose my character's age and whether or not I have a family member/clan at the start.


Please Fix:

-Armor: Make it work correctly. High end armor should protect more


Thoughts:

Bannerlord has limitless potential and could be Warband's equal or maybe even surpass it, but it will take a lot of time, creativity, and hard work to get it to that point.
Yeah this one is on point, definitely a +1
 
Best:

-Combat (which is steadily improving with each patch): For me, the main draw of the Mount&Blade franchise has been the combat system. It's so satisfying and fun to play, and the combat feels seamless, responsive, and unique. Bannerlord's core combat has been designed in the same spirit as the other M&B titles and each patch has brought it closer operating at an ideal place.

-Faction Aesthetics: The visual appearance of each faction; their units, their equipment, their buildings, villages, cites, and castles all look very unique and awesome.

-The Map: It has nice variation and the general aspect looks really cool.

-The Music: Some of the jams are absolute bangers.


Worst:

-Issues with game design: Mainly problems with armor's effectiveness (a lack thereof), unit balancing, campaign AI (snowballing, inactivity, endless recruit armies, etc.), kingdom management (kingdom policy and the influence system), and the skill/leveling/perk system (which is convoluted and sometimes straight up backwards/broken).

-Immersion! Where do I begin? The settings and scenes are completely hollow. Cities/castles/villages are boring and devoid of life -the settlements may look nice, but there's nothing interesting going on inside of them. The lords, companions, and NPCs in general are as generic as it comes. The companions are particularly sad, especially compared the Warband companions -who over the years have developed a cult following (hello Jeremus). Player interactions with any NPC is short, tedious, bland, and the opposite of fascinating.

-Quests:There needs to be more quests, with a greater variety of ways to carry them out and subsequent outcomes for them. Also, greater rewards for taking on and completing quests would give the player more incentive to do them. Plus: More chain quests!

-Roguery/Outlawry/Criminality is very underdeveloped: A couple years back, the criminality features that were supposed to be in Bannerlord were pitched to us as a sort of "alternative gameplay" to the traditional Mount&Blade experience. Well, here we are, and where are the custom (player) hideouts? The fences? Black markets? Cartels? Rival gangs? Gang wars? Ambushes? Thievery? Extortion? Illegal goods? More bribing options? Feels extremely underdeveloped. Unfortunate because with the roguery features there is huge potential for a full, unique, and interesting Mount&Blade experience that deviates from the usual mercenary>lord>king progression.

-The Tutorial/Character Start: Please make the tutorial skippable. Also, let me choose my character's age and whether or not I have a family member/clan at the start.


Please Fix:

-Armor: Make it work correctly. High end armor should protect more


Thoughts:

Bannerlord has limitless potential and could be Warband's equal or maybe even surpass it, but it will take a lot of time, creativity, and hard work to get it to that point.
This is how you KNOW taleworlds is clueless. This guy hit the nail on the head. Good parts are aesthetic, bad parts are core gameplay mechanics.

Please fix: 1- Not learning from previous releases, patches or game titles.
2 - negligible comms with community on WTF is going on
 
Best : Love the way you can control your char in batlles, the freedom of choice. and the size of the battles close to real not all battles where with big armies.

Worst : Empty world. (Only bandids caravans lords and pesents)

Thoughts : we could implemet the sistem of a corte, old nobles just rule their lands or villages, they dont fight but can play a role in the kingdom.

The upgrade of a castle or city should be connected to the villages, like creating roads, patrols, and in the world the village and the city should grow or appear destroid or abandoned as the prosperaty and grown change.

Nobles familys could have convoys when traveling the world.
All npcs and you should be able to have a life out of the battlefield.
 
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