What is going on in TaleWorlds?

[SpartanBG]

But this is the thing you see most people complaining about; that the battles don't do anything. In Warband, even on the insanely cheaty "good campaign AI" setting, if you beat an enemy field army 2-3 times they usually had nothing left and wouldn't be able to threaten you for several weeks besides annoying raids. But in Bannerlord you can't kill armies faster than they replenish, so even the core game loop doesn't really do anything. You have to actively avoid field battles if you want to progress, and just go from siege to siege. Even people who didn't play Warband complain about this a lot in reviews and on the steam forums etc.

its just made differently in Bannerlord, what you are saying is entirely applicable in Bannerlord - Prisoners and chopping heads! Thats a different way to execute the same thing you describe.You got the tools to make the AI suffer, I'm not sure i fully understand what you said.

 

[drivegol]

But this is the thing you see most people complaining about; that the battles don't do anything. In Warband, even on the insanely cheaty "good campaign AI" setting, if you beat an enemy field army 2-3 times they usually had nothing left and wouldn't be able to threaten you for several weeks besides annoying raids. But in Bannerlord you can't kill armies faster than they replenish, so even the core game loop doesn't really do anything. You have to actively avoid field battles if you want to progress, and just go from siege to siege. Even people who didn't play Warband complain about this a lot in reviews and on the steam forums etc.

I did notice this as well and, tbh I didn't really mind all that much as I felt it might make sieging too easy if they didn't keep coming.

However I noticed that after depleting a kingdom's armies 2/3 times, I had an army march to a town I was sieging which consisted of 800 T1/T2 recruits, indicating that they had literally just depleted every nearby village/town of any recruits that were available. So it seems that part of the problem is just that npc lords are too efficient at hoarding recruits, who will under normal circumstances reach T3/T4 before they engage in a big battle.

I've similarly noted that in fiefs belonging to a kingdom that was losing a war, most villages and towns were almost completely emptied of recruits, probably because other lords were constantly visiting them to replenish their war party to the point where you'd see 4/5 lords travelling to the same village and moving on to the next one right after.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

I did notice this as well and, tbh I didn't really mind all that much as I felt it might make sieging too easy if they didn't keep coming.

Then the solution is to make sieges harder and/or rarer, not to just throw trash at the player to slow them down.

 

[drivegol]

Then the solution is to make sieges harder and/or rarer, not to just throw trash at the player to slow them down.

I'm not referring to the sieges themselves, I mean that it would just be too easy to go on a siege rampage like you could in Warband, where you defeated one or two armies and then basically took every fief 1 by 1 till the kingdom was gone, with one or two lords occasionally putting up a fight.

I don't think making sieges harder would solve this, it would just make conquering the map take even longer than it does right now (it's like what, at least 100 hours of sieging atm?). In my last playthrough I was able to take about 2/3 fiefs without rest or setback after defeating their currently formed armies, and could sometimes stretch that to 4/5 if I ignored them attempting to take a fief back.

I think a fair solution would be to just set a slider in the campaign settings about how much spending power lords are allowed to have, with the difficulty settings having appropriate values. This would allow players to choose how fast lords can recover lost units at their own discretion.

Of course, that's assuming TW would implement a feature that they found on these forums, which they probably won't.

 

[flashn00b]

I think TaleWorlds is content with where the game currently is and is likely under the mindset of "if you don't like it, then mod it

Multiplayer, I wouldn't be surprised if TaleWorlds is playing Chiv2 instead of their own game cuz a huge chunk of the PVP playerbase has already left on account of intentionally bad balance and a lack of class limits

 

[JunKeteer]

I think TaleWorlds is content with where the game currently is and is likely under the mindset of "if you don't like it, then mod it

Pretty much this, when they released the game at the state it was 2+ years ago now. They were done with it and that was an acceptable state for them.

Maybe they should stop this "grand" 1.3 patch or whatever mysterious content it contains of over 1+ years of work now (since last content news/update).

Many don't like the game's base, and modding is stuck between this and some shrodinger's 1.3 patch.

 

[drivegol]

Pretty much this, when they released the game at the state it was 2+ years ago now. They were done with it and that was an acceptable state for them.

Maybe they should stop this "grand" 1.3 patch or whatever mysterious content it contains of over 1+ years of work now (since last content news/update).

Many don't like the game's base, and modding is stuck between this and some shrodinger's 1.3 patch.

I disagree. Even if patch 1.3 is nothing but bug fixes I'm tired of seeing people say they should stop patching the game. The best mods will probably not even see the light of day for 2 years after 1.3 is out, a few projects I'm following are saying they don't expect to finish their mod until at least 2026.

I want them to keep updating the game and frankly at this point I can't respect the sentiment anymore about people wishing TW stops releasing patches because it breaks mods. It has degraded into childish ranting.

 

[JunKeteer]

I disagree. Even if patch 1.3 is nothing but bug fixes I'm tired of seeing people say they should stop patching the game. The best mods will probably not even see the light of day for 2 years after 1.3 is out, a few projects I'm following are saying they don't expect to finish their mod until at least 2026.

I want them to keep updating the game and frankly at this point I can't respect the sentiment anymore about people wishing TW stops releasing patches because it breaks mods. It has degraded into childish ranting.

At least you got a date/communication from modders, 1.3 patch could come in 2026 for all we know.
If 1.3 is nothing but bug fixes, that players had to contend with for over 2+ years as they existed in-game, I really can't care for it's importance or impact to the game; nor does it seem TW does if it takes this long to fix too. We've had mods long and stable enough that dealt with those for years now.

I want games to be updated too but there's a point where we are all done with that (for good or bad). We are not getting updates from TW, we're not getting communication, we're not even getting any clue what they have been doing for 1+ year. Just the rare single sentence once every few weeks that even a bot can be set up and do a better job at communicating.

Why is this 1.3 patch being kept so tight-lipped, even comparatively to all other previous patch/EA cycle; and it wasn't like their communication back then was anything stellar.

 

[drivegol]

Why is this 1.3 patch being kept so tight-lipped, even comparatively to all other previous patch/EA cycle; and it wasn't like their communication back then was anything stellar.

I can only assume the reason for that is because Armagan made a few comments on what he would like to see happen in the game as far back as 2020 and then kept being bothered about it when none of it was present in the final version. And it's more than just a few users politely asking for an update by now.

I don't approve, I think even the forum moderators have long been tired of it which is probably why a few of them have left, but I don't blame them either.

 

[flashn00b]

Has 1.3 actually been confirmed? I think it was only a rumor ignited by private depot updates that don't seem to mean much these days.

For all we know, the only thing 1.3 will change is that they add a line of text that says "we're shutting down the multiplayer mode by the end of 2025"

 

[SpartanBG]

Has 1.3 actually been confirmed? I think it was only a rumor ignited by private depot updates that don't seem to mean much these days.

For all we know, the only thing 1.3 will change is that they add a line of text that says "we're shutting down the multiplayer mode by the end of 2025"

1.3 has been confirmed.
When - We do not know.
What will it include - We do not know.
Will it make the community happy - No, that's definitely what we know

 

[AoC]

I think TaleWorlds is content with where the game currently is and is likely under the mindset of "if you don't like it, then mod it

Multiplayer, I wouldn't be surprised if TaleWorlds is playing Chiv2 instead of their own game cuz a huge chunk of the PVP playerbase has already left on account of intentionally bad balance and a lack of class limits

I think you NA people just don't know how to play TDM.

 

[flashn00b]

I think you NA people just don't know how to play TDM.

Spam archers, click heads, what else is there to M&B's multiplayer?

The only reason why Warband's multiplayer worked is because people at the time had enough honor to play the melee game like a melee game, and none of the factions weren't egregiously better or worse than others when taking that honor into account.

Even if people do play the melee game like a melee game, it's often Vlandia >> Battania > Khuzait ≈ Aserai >> Sturgia >>>> Empire, and I'd argue that if you don't count mirror matches, the only balanced matchup is Aserai vs Khuzait.

The fact that more people would rather install the Epic Games Launcher than play the medieval slasher on Steam should've been a red flag that TaleWorlds should've addressed months after Chiv2's release. Instead, TaleWorlds kept things horribly unbalanced and thought people would just play the game because Bannerlord's on Steam and Chiv2 ate an EGS deal.

But i digress. We know basically nothing about the 1.3 update, other than that it will definitely break mods when it releases, and will likely do next to nothing for the vanilla experience.

 

[AoC]

Spam archers, click heads, what else is there to M&B's multiplayer?

That's the problem, Cavalry is the absolute TOP class in TDM. It's potential is nearly unlimited on harbor map. Even me, very bad cavalry player, can top the board with it.

You overestimate Archers power.

Battania - Sturgia is also balanced matchup. Vlandia isn't that far ahead. Sturgia just have bad Khazuit matchup, and it's bit behind in Vlandia's one. Empire isn't that bad, i mean it's bad but not this bad.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

I'm not referring to the sieges themselves, I mean that it would just be too easy to go on a siege rampage like you could in Warband, where you defeated one or two armies and then basically took every fief 1 by 1 till the kingdom was gone, with one or two lords occasionally putting up a fight.

Thats how it should be though, in my opinion. A better solution to throwing stuff at the player would be to have the AI be more cautious and not commit its entire force all the time, and for the player this should also be encouraged. If a faction gets its entire field army slaughtered in a single battle it should pretty much be out of the game.

 

[flashn00b]

Empire isn't that bad, i mean it's bad but not this bad.

The whole point of their starting unit is to feed kills to the enemy team and if you fail to maintain your ability to spawn as a Legionary, Archer Militia, or Palatine Guard, you're effectively removed from the game. In the times that I do play MP, I often make it a moral obligation to fight against Empire.

Regardless of how you feel about the game's balance though, something definitely is wrong with it since players have been driven away from playing it even during the competitor's Epic Games Store exclusivity period. The only people really left playing it as of currently are often just the folks who only care about flexing how loyal they are to Steam that they'd rather play a bad game on Steam than to give any amount of money to Epic Games.

Hence why I predict that the supposed 1.3 update's key takeaway (if not the only change) is a termination of service.

 

[drivegol]

Thats how it should be though, in my opinion. A better solution to throwing stuff at the player would be to have the AI be more cautious and not commit its entire force all the time, and for the player this should also be encouraged. If a faction gets its entire field army slaughtered in a single battle it should pretty much be out of the game.

I don't know, I quite like the way it is right now. In Warband I often felt something of a siege fatigue as the majority of my battles lategame would be siege - siege - siege - siege - siege and then 3/4 field battles one after the other because I was fighting a 300-700 man army, and then sieging the remaining 10 or so fiefs. In Bannerlord the game seems to force a bit more variation in this sense.

I think the solution I proposed is still something that would solve both our issues, but if it's specifically discouragement you want then there could be some sort of a passive influence penalty for losing too many units while hosting an army, preventing powerful lords from simply spamming army formations. I'm not sure if that would solve the issue though.

 

[AoC]

The whole point of their starting unit is to feed kills to the enemy team and if you fail to maintain your ability to spawn as a Legionary, Archer Militia, or Palatine Guard, you're effectively removed from the game. In the times that I do play MP, I often make it a moral obligation to fight against Empire.

Regardless of how you feel about the game's balance though, something definitely is wrong with it since players have been driven away from playing it even during the competitor's Epic Games Store exclusivity period. The only people really left playing it as of currently are often just the folks who only care about flexing how loyal they are to Steam that they'd rather play a bad game on Steam than to give any amount of money to Epic Games.

Hence why I predict that the supposed 1.3 update's key takeaway (if not the only change) is a termination of service.

In general throwing feels bad in the game, and it's the reason why empire feels bad. Problem is also that you can go looter as vlandia and khazuits do. Which is odd, as throwing felt awesome during one period of playtest.

I also don't use epic, as it don't work on linux and is openly hostile so screw them.