When is Bannerlord playable?

[ppc]

It reads like the objectives of the current Agile development methodology sprints.

I can't tell you your general speculation about the developer's vision, planning and organisation is wrong, because almost a decade spent getting to where the game is at qualifies as reasonable evidence for that speculation. But most of the time when people start getting more specific with their complaints about a developer it just reveals that person's lack of understanding about the realities of developing a game. A coherent vision is great, but it still has to be adaptable and communicating the balance of vision and adaptability is a challenge even within the development team, and almost impossible to communicate effectively to the general public.

If Taleworlds were simply botching up something that should be easy, someone else would have come and eaten their lunch by now. I've been on dev teams that were a bit sloppy, and still managed to produce successful games that nobody else was able to replicate a decade later. When you're creating something that is unique or rare, sometimes best practice is a burden and you have to be less efficient to create something special.

This is not a fanboi position. I think they can and should do better. But people's speculative complaints do frustrate me because I've seen the other side.

I program for a living (kernel mostly) so I know a thing or two about development.
My issue with this list is that it just seems hastily thrown together - similarly to how much of the game feels outside of the core engine. This list reminds of when an enthusiastic new developer posts their "plan" on r/gamedev or similar forums - it's a nice list but overly vague and often too ambitious. The devil is indeed in the details here.

Don't get me wrong, the engine itself is a *very* impressive piece of engineering - 1000s of soldiers in battles with minimal lag (on my system at least) is incredible. However, I am dismayed that after this long the gameplay features seem lackluster - especially after the many many dev blogs. What exactly were they developing outside of the engine and artwork? As it stands, we have many half-baked features and we are mostly getting "balancing" fixes. To me that reeks of no cohesive development plan outside of "we'd like features x,y, z at some point - let's try stuff until it works". That's not how experienced developers work. Hopefully I am wrong about TW because I'd like nothing more than see them succeed.

 

[Badcritter]

Roger that @ppc , I agree.

 

[WhiteEyedSh4rk]

My issue with this list is that it just seems hastily thrown together - similarly to how much of the game feels outside of the core engine. This list reminds of when an enthusiastic new developer posts their "plan" on r/gamedev or similar forums - it's a nice list but overly vague and often too ambitious. The devil is indeed in the details here.

Hastily thrown together? I don't know about your kinds of standards, but the list seems pretty decent to me. It is meant as a rough overview, to give us an idea about their plans and priorities, not as a list of what exactly they are doing right now in detail.

 

[durbal]

Hastily thrown together? I don't know about your kinds of standards, but the list seems pretty decent to me. It is meant as a rough overview, to give us an idea about their plans and priorities, not as a list of what exactly they are doing right now in detail.

There is nothing actionable about anything in that list. There's no discernible sense of priority. It's just vague stuff that they kinda think they might do or people complain about with some key ones missing that they forgot (kingdom/fief management etc). If it were whipped up in under two hours I wouldn't be surprised. They threw the dog a bone to stop it from barking.

 

[Urbanski]

Agreed. The posted "roadmap" also reads more like "my first r/gamedev draft of things I want".
It's very clear there is no coherent vision and plan, more like multiple "islands" of ideas and half-baked features (children, aging, main quest, etc).

Can someone please post a link to the roadmap you mention...can't seem to find it on the forums. Thanks

 

[mangalore]

Almost being on level with a game that came out 10 years ago is not what I would call a great success.

That is a) not true and b) a different goal post. Plenty of games do not actually change their core gameplay loop. What innovation has Assassin's Creed seen in how many games now?

But I do not disagree, just that the term playability is about the fundamental gameplay loop, not the scope of the features of the game. Yes, I want more features and added features need fixing, but I find the game entirely playable in its core gameplay.

So this thread muddles the levels of discussion. When we talk about feature scope expected of a sequel we are not talking about playability. We are talking about money's worth, expectations based on development time etc. and what features should be added, expanded, work differently. Nothing of that is about the fact that the base game is entirely playable.

 

[kappawt]

The game is already fully playable. The core gameplay loop of M&B is equip > fight > loot > equip > fight ...
Everything else is just made to give you an escalating amount of fights to win with some stages to increase size+difficulty. In its core M&B it is not really about winning the game, but infinitely fight.

What we are talking about here is what features to add to make the fights more meaningful.

This guy gets it. When you fully understand what he is saying, you will know he and I are only arguing for a better game experience for all of us on this forum. When TaleWorlds answers the question he is asking, they will have their masterpiece.

I have heard they may offer a larger map to conquer in the future. Do we need more lands to conquer? Isn't that just repetitive? A grind? Or do we need a beefier game? The Witcher 3 is a great game. CDPR wanted the world to be dense and populated to make the world feel more alive. The game was a success. Yet, despite its success, you know what CDPR did with their next game, Cyberpunk 2077 to "feel more alive"? They centered the game on one city, and gave more emphasis on characters, quests, events, environment. The world is more alive not through dense populations, but to more value AND a dense population centered on one city where everyone is more than a talking NPC with a few lines, therefore adding more meaning to your existence and actions.

It's not apples and oranges to expect more from MBBannerlord, comparing it to Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 when MBWarband was able to fulfill these smaller features that only added to your experience of conquering the map. MBWarband does not have the graphics, but at least the world was worth conquering. Cyberpunk 2077 is pushing the envelope to ensure you a world that is alive, moreso than its predecessor. Bannerlord already has npcs, quests, environment, but is the world as alive and worth conquering such as Warband was? Are there events, engaging content during your campaign to conquer the world? Look how they did romance/marriage/family in Bannerlord. is it half-assed? Do you remember how they approached the same concept in Warband?

But really, what we all need to unite here for is this: is it okay to ask these questions on this forum which would only enhance your experience of Bannerlord in EA? I think so because my argument here against those that disagree with me is this: they are saying here, we have this feature, and this and this, but look how these features are implemented? No, Warband is the more superior game even without mods. It's the game that brought many of us here. In the future, people may end up talking about Bannerlord the same way people talk about CS: Source when Counter-Strike is mentioned. Do we really want that to happen with Bannerlord?

 

[xdj1nn]

This guy gets it. When you fully understand what he is saying, you will know he and I are only arguing for a better game experience for all of us on this forum. When TaleWorlds answers the question he is asking, they will have their masterpiece.

I have heard they may offer a larger map to conquer in the future. Do we need more lands to conquer? Isn't that just repetitive? A grind? Or do we need a beefier game? The Witcher 3 is a great game. CDPR wanted the world to be dense and populated to make the world feel more alive. The game was a success. Yet, despite its success, you know what CDPR did with their next game, Cyberpunk 2077 to "feel more alive"? They centered the game on one city, and gave more emphasis on characters, quests, events, environment. The world is more alive not through dense populations, but to more value AND a dense population centered on one city where everyone is more than a talking NPC with a few lines, therefore adding more meaning to your existence and actions.

It's not apples and oranges to expect more from MBBannerlord, comparing it to Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 when MBWarband was able to fulfill these smaller features that only added to your experience of conquering the map. MBWarband does not have the graphics, but at least the world was worth conquering. Cyberpunk 2077 is pushing the envelope to ensure you a world that is alive, moreso than its predecessor. Bannerlord already has npcs, quests, environment, but is the world as alive and worth conquering such as Warband was? Are there events, engaging content during your campaign to conquer the world?

But really, what we all need to unite here for is this: is it okay to ask these questions on this forum which would only enhance your experience of Bannerlord in EA? I think so.

"MBWarband does not have the graphics, but at least the world was worth conquering." - That must be the most ridiculous statement I've ever heard about WB... Worth what? It was extremely generic, the sweet of it was that it was like "first of a kind" type of game, other than that it was bland and boring, just like this EA in the current state. And, in fact, characters here are much more interesting, take your time to read stuff... The issue is that we're still lacking too many basic features planned for the game. Until then, we cannot know what will happen, must feel the vision of the creator to understand it, if he doesn't give you a thorough explanation, a massive monologue, so to speak, even if he did you'd barely understand it, if you are knowledgeable enough, capable of understanding creatives (which is rare, normally only creatives can understand other creatives, but as I've said, there's a limit)
You'll never know what that vision is until the game is finished. Capisce?

PS: The most creative mod that really adds a different atmosphere to Warband was Prophecy of Pendor, there's no other like it. I suggest that if you feel burned by BL, download that mod and lose your **** with it, it's a masterpiece as mods go. (Vanilla WB compared is like a pre-alpha concept game)

 

[kappawt]

So this thread muddles the levels of discussion. When we talk about feature scope expected of a sequel we are not talking about playability. We are talking about money's worth, expectations based on development time etc. and what features should be added, expanded, work differently. Nothing of that is about the fact that the base game is entirely playable.

Again, I cannot agree with anyone else on this forum more than I do with this guy. I mean he just gets it for you, me - all of us. He is arguing for a better game experience that we came to expect because we played their past games.

When you tell us to stop posting this well constructive criticisms, you're only saying "I do not want my game to be any better than what it is now."

 

[kappawt]

"MBWarband does not have the graphics, but at least the world was worth conquering." - That must be the most ridiculous statement I've ever heard about WB... Worth what? It was extremely generic, the sweet of it was that it was like "first of a kind" type of game, other than that it was bland and boring, just like this EA in the current state. And, in fact, characters here are much more interesting, take your time to read stuff... The issue is that we're still lacking too many basic features planned for the game. Until then, we cannot know what will happen, must feel the vision of the creator to understand it, if he doesn't give you a thorough explanation, a massive monologue, so to speak, you'd barely understand it, if you are knowledgeable enough, capable of understanding creatives (which is rare, normally only creatives can understand other creatives, but as I've said, there's a limit)
You'll never know what that vision is until the game is finished. Capisce?

PS: The most creative mod that really adds a different atmosphere to Warband was Prophecy of Pendor, there's no other like it. I suggest that if you feel burned by BL, download that mod and lose your **** with it, it's a masterpiece as mods go. (Vanilla WB compared is like a pre-alpha concept game)

Yikes, we can agree to disagree. I am certainly not alone in my opinion, and I expected more from Bannerlord.

 

[kappawt]

I program for a living (kernel mostly) so I know a thing or two about development.
My issue with this list is that it just seems hastily thrown together - similarly to how much of the game feels outside of the core engine. This list reminds of when an enthusiastic new developer posts their "plan" on r/gamedev or similar forums - it's a nice list but overly vague and often too ambitious. The devil is indeed in the details here.

Don't get me wrong, the engine itself is a *very* impressive piece of engineering - 1000s of soldiers in battles with minimal lag (on my system at least) is incredible. However, I am dismayed that after this long the gameplay features seem lackluster - especially after the many many dev blogs. What exactly were they developing outside of the engine and artwork? As it stands, we have many half-baked features and we are mostly getting "balancing" fixes. To me that reeks of no cohesive development plan outside of "we'd like features x,y, z at some point - let's try stuff until it works". That's not how experienced developers work. Hopefully I am wrong about TW because I'd like nothing more than see them succeed.

Big true. I swear we're not all the same people and if you read carefully what they're saying, it'll make your game better too. Oh no!

 

[xdj1nn]

Yikes, we can agree to disagree. I am certainly not alone in my opinion, and I expected more from Bannerlord.

Numbers do not mean intelligence, remember that...
You could form a political party though, if you get 9,998 more

One idiot is one idiot. Two idiots are two idiots. Ten thousand idiots are a political party.

 

[kappawt]

Numbers do not mean intelligence, remember that...
You could form a political party though, if you get 9,998 more

Yikes. Again, having a shared opinion is not matter of intelligence. You're a real winner, aren't you?

By the way, there are some hot mods trending on the nexus right now, two of which seek to reduce the monotony I've been asking for - Duel Lords / Muloch's Duels (there are two different mods that do this feature and both have great downloads and endorsements for the length of their creation) and Random Events (look how many views this mod has received despite being shortlived, not exactly what I was looking for, but the idea is there). My complaint, which some seem to share here, is Warband already had these features to some degree while campaigning. Feasts for example were a cool and a much needed event for Bannerlord that let's you take a break from all the fighting you do to socialize with other lords and nobles. Marriage in Bannerlord is what, three/four unique conversations and high renown, that's it? Have you played Warband? Dog on our opinions and Warband's campaign features Bannerlord lacks all you want, the proof in the demand and endorsements of these mods should rest my case.

I'd like to see more events like feasts from Warband in Bannerlord. It's a breath of fresh air from sieging all the time. Rescuing allies from enemy dungeon cells by infiltrating an enemy settlement - not in Bannerlord. Someone mentioned hunting would be a fun experience to supplement your inventory for trading, but I am not requesting or expecting it because it was not in Warband (be nice to have though wouldn't it!). What is your argument with us here when I am giving you hard facts this new game lacks. EA is now the time to ask for these things... and hey, they would add these features to your game too, not just ours!

 

[NordicWill]

As i sit here bored of Multiplayer's lack of players in the one game setting i like (siege), and having the itch to play M&B because i want to have a kingdom and rule. I am reminded of the let down that this game is missing so much still. I haven't even played single player in like a month. I was curious of the new patch finally adding content but the forums have pretty much shown the lack of anything major added. The game is playable but that's really it at this point and it sucks... I understand its EA but i think what eats at me is that I just see this game not surpassing mods on warband and i find that crazy. AD 1257, PoP, AWOIAF, Clash of Kings, The Last days all have more involved and its surprising that even at "EA" it was released with less content than these mods. I can't blame that on fans *****ing for years for the game to come out. 8 years of development for this just doesn't assure me that another 1-2 yrs will bring much deeper diplomacy, more advanced tactics, deeper kingdom management, more everything. Its a little my expectations were higher than TW can currently deliver and TW releasing a empty bugged game that im not sure was tested before released as EA.

 

[Badcritter]

Can someone please post a link to the roadmap you mention...can't seem to find it on the forums. Thanks

Statement regarding Plans for Singleplayer and Engine

Warriors of Calradia, Today we will be sharing some of our current singleplayer and engine related priorities with you. Since the release of the game, we have been hard at work to improve stability and performance for our players. This will continue to be a top priority for us. Naturally, we...

forums.taleworlds.com

It isn't a roadmap, it's a sprint goals list. ie. it says what things they are aiming to deliver in the next month or two.

 

[WhiteEyedSh4rk]

There is nothing actionable about anything in that list. There's no discernible sense of priority. It's just vague stuff that they kinda think they might do or people complain about with some key ones missing that they forgot (kingdom/fief management etc). If it were whipped up in under two hours I wouldn't be surprised. They threw the dog a bone to stop it from barking.

The community asked for more insight in their plans and thats what we got. Knowing TaleWorlds, they probably don't want to later get nailed onto these plans and restrict themselfes, thus they purposefully want to keep it more vague. That way they are able to keep a certain scope for new ideas and changes, that come up during the developing process. That just seems to be the way TW works and is probably the best we're going to get from them.