Why do you all hate this game?

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If you enjoy the game, go ahead and enjoy the game. Nobody wants you to stop doing so.

But if you really are interested why people hate the game you must understand its over ten year history:

-Warband set certain expectations on what the game is about, how it functions and what features to expect. (Warband released 2010)

-Developement for Bannerlord started about 2012 and was also announced then on the forum.

-A lot of big mod developement stopped around that time because people thought Bannerlord would release eventually (L-O-L)

-Taleworlds did a lot of developement blogs talking about what features they will implement. Before these devblogs I was quite suspicous wether BL will actually be better than WB but these hit exactly the right mark. I got the feeling Taleworlds knew exactly what their game was about and what players wanted.

-Release of the game was announced in 2016 and 2017 subsequently with videos showing the new siege gameplay on youtube.

-Everybody got hyped. -> no release in sight.

-TW got relatively silent -> players got anoyed by that a lot because nobody knew wether the game was around the corner or still years away.

-TW responded by making devlogs again. Most of which completely banine and useless. At that time early access was completely out of the question even though a lot of players demanded it. (I'm not taking sides here. TW tried to appease the audience and wether early access was a good idea is a completely different topic)

-Fast forward to late 2019: TW announces Bannerlord Early Acces. "The game will have bugs but will be mostly feature complete with all of the features present from Warband just some of the new features like the barter system missing"

-Hype

-April 2020: EA release of Bannerlord: A lot of basic Warband features missing. Balance of both combat and campaign completely out of whack. Most features promised before EA missing. Siege pathfinding straight up didn't work. Horrible performance and a lot of bugs. (The letter two are to be expected and I will not criticise TW over them)

-General reaction: It's just EA bro, they will fix / add X eventually! (It will take TW two more years to fix the siege pathfinding from this point lol)

-Summer 2020: TW announces end of EA within a year.

-Also around that time conversation between playerbase could be summarized by: "Can whe have X?", "No X is to complex.", "But X was in Warband!", "-". Anyways, it was around that time it became clear to me that the features missing from BL, which were either present in WB or were announced in pre-EA devlogs, weren't missing because TW was slow but because TW couldn't be bothered to implement them (more on that later).

-The f***ing meantime between 2020 - 2022: Not much of substance has been happening in terms of game mechanics and missing features. But we got new sheep models I guess. The modders on the other hand were already going buisy and proofed that the features TW deemed to be "tO cOMplEx" could be implemented by people in their free time within days.

-Spring 2022: Siege AI is actually fixed, some features have been added and a bit of balancing has been done to some aspects of the game.

-about a week ago: In an interview Armagan (the owner of the company and lead developer of previous M&B titles) said that currently there is not much work going into the PC-version of Bannerlord since the game is pretty much finished*, however porting Bannerlord to console proves to be a hard task. *He actually just stated that finishing the game and porting it to console is being done at the moment in parallel. That porting Bannerlord to console makes up most of the workload at the moment is an assumption on my side. However I think it is a sound one.

This proves what a lot of us were already thinking: TW doesn't care about what PC players want. They espacially don't care what Warband veterans want. They already got our money. What they care about is getting the next bunch of cash by releasing the game for console, on which the more nuanced and complex features either prominent in Warband or promised in earlier devlogs wouldn't work well anyways and thus are "too complex".

Adding insult to injury TW never cleared us up about how their vision of the game changed. They never told us which featues they promised we could expect and which not. They never gave us a specific roadmap of whats to come and what not. And they didn't tell us that in fact they are not working on improving the game but instead making a console port while still keeping everything under the veil of "Early Access" so criticism could just be done away with saying: "well, it is still not done yet. It is in Early Access afterall!".

People stuck loyally for over ten years with Taleworlds just to get stripped of money and then stabbed in the back.
 
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Some people just can't make reasonable comments.

Criticism certainly helps the game, and to some extent it might even help TW. Athough it's quite ridiculous when some random forum nobody wants to give advice on how to develop a game: Just do it yourself if you know it better.

The whole 'modders are great and TW sucks' mentality is just as ridiculous, without TW modders couldn't do anything and the few people who actually might be talented enough to be taken seriously still didn't manage to develop a game. If it's true that modders are competent while TW is incompetent, why don't they just develop their own branch of the game and their own tools and leave the beta cycle? Well they can't do that because developing games is actually not that easy.

Some people will tell you that you need to be a veteran to hate the game, only newcomers like it. Well that's just as ridiculous as anything else unless you assume that nobody who left a steam review for the game played Warband. Which is just completely stupid. Then some people will say that only people who played it for less than 5 hours left a positive review which is just as ridiculous because you can actually filter steam reviews for +100 hours and it's still very positive.

In the end, Bannerlord is quite awesome and everyone knows it even though some people don't want to admit it. It does have quite the potential to be even more awesome though and constrictive criticism is perfectly justified. All the random hating and ranting just hurts the game because the community appears like little pricks and no sane person is going to take us seriously.
 
If it's true that modders are competent while TW is incompetent, why don't they just develop their own branch of the game and their own tools and leave the beta cycle?
What do I know mate but if you thought for a single second before making that assertion you'd say it's something about not having the multi-million capital, capabilities of over a hundred employees and a full-time career around game development. But I guess those are the sorts of thoughts you have when you bother to think.
They do what they want with their product
Yeah? How does that make it any ****ing better?
I want to briefly touch on No Man's Sky.
**** me, it's this nonsense again. Do you need me to remind you the size of the dev studio behind NMS?
Taleworlds, heartily referred to as Failworlds from now on, consistently ignores community feedback and shows no intention of changing course - in fact whenever they "cOmMuNiCaTe" they pretend it's all fine and that they don't see the issue. And in the rare instances they respond to actual suggestions they either give "was considered but rejected and I won't tell you why" or "I'll forward this to the developers but don't expect to hear anything from us about it", if you're lucky they'll give a bull**** non-excuse of an issue with the suggestion that could literally be solved with a minute long contemplation. Custom troops, banners in battles, feasts and just recreating the Warband class system are relatively minor hassles relative to how popular and celebrated they would be. I mean, feasts aren't going to make the game all that much better, or the abolishment of the class system may not singlehandedly revive the Multiplayer, but they would at least show that they listen and it is telling they do not because again, in their most basic implementations (which is basically the way FW handles everything else) they're a week's worth of effort at most. All this and more as explained in other comments show they don't give a ****, and you won't get them to give any by doggedly taking the time to articulate your wishes to people you know couldn't give less of a rat's arse. Have I ever told you the definition of insanity? Because that is insanity. Either you are insane or you were born yesterday.

Or you've just successfully baited the forum.
Very subtle.

But back on point, the game isn't plain old ****, and if it were to stand on its own you'd call it an above average game. But it just ****ing doesn't. Everything you experience in Bannerlord and more you have experienced in Warband. After Warband displayed its astronomical potential that was just begging to be exploited by a developer with the means and manpower (which FW absolutely had), its sequel has no damn right being this inferior in so many ways least of all in ambition. The potential was right there! Right ****ing there!
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I very much doubt that that was said. Can you share the timestamp / quote?
I got the impression from this:
My impression on the interview is that the game will be released when port of consoles ready. This is my impression, not what he said.

"Bir süredir erken erişimdeyiz ama konsollara esas olarak tabi çıkarmayı hedefliyoruz."
I translated this part as "For some time we are in EA but we are also trying to release the game on consoles." but this could also be translated as "For some time we are in EA but our main objective is to port the game to consoles".
I don't speak turkish so thats what I went by.
Granted: you are right, he didn't specifically say that developement of the game itself is pretty much finished. However from the two translations Bjorn gave I feel like the last one would make the most sense, meaning most of the work that is currently being done is on the console port.

I will cross that part from my previous post. Even though I stand by what I said, I don't intend to spread misinformation.

This is what is going on though isn't it? Proper mechanical changes to the game are not to come. All what we can expect from the developement of the game until release is what we already got the last two years. Meaning: nothing to majorly change the gameplay experience in its feel. I suppose we won't get less war and more diplomacy? I suppose we won't get feasts? I suppose the developement will not swing back around towards the feudal roleplay sandbox game which Warband was and which was vividly painted in the pre-EA devlogs? I suppose instead it will tread further on the road to console friendly "fast paced action"?
 
I am quite baffled by the number of threads here where people are just saying the game is trash and Taleworlds should either give up and move on or fix everything instantly by just snapping their fingers very hard.
Well the game has probably been in development for close to a decade.

Many things were talked about or promised during that time and come start of EA they were just unceremoniously not there. Case in point the demos for Bannerlord from 2016/2017 look better then the current game in a lot of ways too (actual banners, no bee swarms of jittering soldiers).




The problem is while Bannerlord is running in a superior engine to the original Mount & Blade, it's severely lacking in actual content. Granted Warband is very stiff, but the world is actually fleshed out. NPCs in Warband react somewhat like you'd expect them to. In Bannerlord it's basically you get + relations for assisting, and - relations for attacking. About the only "roleplaying" in Bannerlord is what you imagine.

You can hire any Companion and they'll just go along with whatever you do whether it's in their "alignment" or not. See executions as an example, you literally kill one Noble and the entire world turns against you. Makes no sense. Obviously you'd expect the clan/kingdom to not like you, but why should other rival Lords care? Aren't you doing them a favor?


Most people are just frustrated at this point and it's not helped by TW's lethargic development and long periods of silence. Where the game is now, is probably where it should have been a year ago. Bugs and glitches are one thing, but it's just been a snails pace to get any kind of content in this game. And it's not like most are expecting radical features like naval battles. People just want basic stuff like better Armor or Diplomacy i.e. in Warband when Kingdoms made Peace there would be a specified number of days they wouldn't attack each other; a detail sorely missing in Bannerlord.


Honestly you sound like myself at 100 hours in back in 2020. I couldn't understand how everyone was so upset since the game seemed playable for a game in a beta. But as you delve deeper into the game you'll start to see it's many problems. Sieges seem really cool, but then you'll discover how they are all basically identical and how poor the path-finding is (granted it's much better then before).


You reap what you sow. Also doesn't help at this point the game is more or less being worked on solely for consoles, PC crowd is an after thought at this point. I mean I get it consoles are going to be where the next big influx of $$$ comes from, but I don't see this game doing well on consoles. PS4/Xbone are too weak, and not enough PS5s/Series X have been sold. Nevermind this game is basically going to be seen as a poor man's Dynasty Warriors.
 
Most people are just frustrated at this point and it's not helped by TW's lethargic development and long periods of silence. Where the game is now, is probably where it should have been a year ago. Bugs and glitches are one thing, but it's just been a snails pace to get any kind of content in this game. And it's not like most are expecting radical features like naval battles. People just want basic stuff like better Armor or Diplomacy i.e. in Warband when Kingdoms made Peace there would be a specified number of days they wouldn't attack each other; a detail sorely missing in Bannerlord.

Best summary of the game I have heard in ages. Couldn't agree more.
 
If you're lucky they'll give a bull**** non-excuse of an issue with the suggestion that could literally be solved with a minute long contemplation.
Yep. Callum said we can't have feasts because it could potentially cause balance issues, but did not respond to questions on what those are supposed to be.

The only issue I can think of is drawing lords away from the war but that's extremely easy to fix by simply not making feasts holdable during war time. So what's stopping feasts from coming back?

It reminds me of the controversy over Call of Duty ages ago where they took out leaning, said the game was "not balanced for lean" and then did not follow up on that statement.
banners in battles, feasts and just recreating the Warband class system are relatively minor hassles relative to how popular and celebrated they would be. I mean, feasts aren't going to make the game all that much better
I think they would make the game significantly better with multiple benefits.

Combatants and noncombatants occasionally congregating in the same area would let me easily access quests and make marriage offers without a lot of boring, pointless time spent running around. Organising feasts would give the player something to do during peacetime, and a way of gaining relation with lots of lords at once that is roleplay-friendly. And it would add immersion that Bannerlord needs; we have highly detailed lord's hall scenes set up with food on the tables but nobody there, it feels so soulless. The nobles we spend so much of the game focusing on live solely for warfare and nothing else. Human-like interactions would go a long way.

Either way, you're right that they would be so little effort for TW - modders have shown that feasts can be coded in less than a day's work! - that even if feasts didn't have multiple benefits to quality of life, RP, variety and immersion, they would still be worth adding.
 
From my steam review:



I should amend the part in the review about Taleworlds being obstructionist with the code to modding. TW have been pretty good about it since I wrote that review. I guess I will update my review when they update their Early Access write-up on Steam to acknowledge that it won't only be in early access for: "around a year".

P.S. / TL;DR - I don't hate the game, I hate what Taleworlds has failed to achieve with it.


You've not only played 400 hours before deciding you wouldn't recommend it, you've actually played another 200 hours after that.
 
Wel
If you enjoy the game, go ahead and enjoy the game. Nobody wants you to stop doing so.

But if you really are interested why people hate the game you must understand its over ten year history:

-Warband set certain expectations on what the game is about, how it functions and what features to expect. (Warband released 2010)

-Developement for Bannerlord started about 2012 and was also announced then on the forum.

-A lot of big mod developement stopped around that time because people thought Bannerlord would release eventually (L-O-L)

-Taleworlds did a lot of developement blogs talking about what features they will implement. Before these devblogs I was quite suspicous wether BL will actually be better than WB but these hit exactly the right mark. I got the feeling Taleworlds knew exactly what their game was about and what players wanted.

-Release of the game was announced in 2016 and 2017 subsequently with videos showing the new siege gameplay on youtube.

-Everybody got hyped. -> no release in sight.

-TW got relatively silent -> players got anoyed by that a lot because nobody knew wether the game was around the corner or still years away.

-TW responded by making devlogs again. Most of which completely banine and useless. At that time early access was completely out of the question even though a lot of players demanded it. (I'm not taking sides here. TW tried to appease the audience and wether early access was a good idea is a completely different topic)

-Fast forward to late 2019: TW announces Bannerlord Early Acces. "The game will have bugs but will be mostly feature complete with all of the features present from Warband just some of the new features like the barter system missing"

-Hype

-April 2020: EA release of Bannerlord: A lot of basic Warband features missing. Balance of both combat and campaign completely out of whack. Most features promised before EA missing. Siege pathfinding straight up didn't work. Horrible performance and a lot of bugs. (The letter two are to be expected and I will not criticise TW over them)

-General reaction: It's just EA bro, they will fix / add X eventually! (It will take TW two more years to fix the siege pathfinding from this point lol)

-Summer 2020: TW announces end of EA within a year.

-Also around that time conversation between playerbase could be summarized by: "Can whe have X?", "No X is to complex.", "But X was in Warband!", "-". Anyways, it was around that time it became clear to me that the features missing from BL, which were either present in WB or were announced in pre-EA devlogs, weren't missing because TW was slow but because TW couldn't be bothered to implement them (more on that later).

-The f***ing meantime between 2020 - 2022: Not much of substance has been happening in terms of game mechanics and missing features. But we got new sheep models I guess. The modders on the other hand were already going buisy and proofed that the features TW deemed to be "tO cOMplEx" could be implemented by people in their free time within days.

-Spring 2022: Siege AI is actually fixed, some features have been added and a bit of balancing has been done to some aspects of the game.

-about a week ago: In an interview Armagan (the owner of the company and lead developer of previous M&B titles) said that currently there is not much work going into the PC-version of Bannerlord since the game is pretty much finished*, however porting Bannerlord to console proves to be a hard task. *He actually just stated that finishing the game and porting it to console is being done at the moment in parallel. That porting Bannerlord to console makes up most of the workload at the moment is an assumption on my side. However I think it is a sound one.

This proves what a lot of us were already thinking: TW doesn't care about what PC players want. They espacially don't care what Warband veterans want. They already got our money. What they care about is getting the next bunch of cash by releasing the game for console, on which the more nuanced and complex features either prominent in Warband or promised in earlier devlogs wouldn't work well anyways and thus are "too complex".

Adding insult to injury TW never cleared us up about how their vision of the game changed. They never told us which featues they promised we could expect and which not. They never gave us a specific roadmap of whats to come and what not. And they didn't tell us that in fact they are not working on improving the game but instead making a console port while still keeping everything under the veil of "Early Access" so criticism could just be done away with saying: "well, it is still not done yet. It is in Early Access afterall!".

People stuck loyally for over ten years with Taleworlds just to get stripped of money and then stabbed in the back.
Well writen, 100% ack...
 
The whole 'modders are great and TW sucks' mentality is just as ridiculous, without TW modders couldn't do anything and the few people who actually might be talented enough to be taken seriously still didn't manage to develop a game. If it's true that modders are competent while TW is incompetent, why don't they just develop their own branch of the game and their own tools and leave the beta cycle? Well they can't do that because developing games is actually not that easy.
You completely forget that Warband was so successful BECAUSE of the mod community. It is thanks to the mod community that Warband has lasted so long at all - and thus paved the way and interest for Bannerlord in the first place. And not the other way around...
 
You've not only played 400 hours before deciding you wouldn't recommend it, you've actually played another 200 hours after that.
Bannerlord is the sort of game which takes a long time to complete a playthrough if you aren't using exploits. And it's the sort of game where there are little brief moments of fun, interspersed by long hours of walking around, grinding looters, hauling 5 horses to some guy, and doing the same hideout for the hundredth time. Mixed in with a lot of frustrating things.

I have racked up hundreds of hours simply from coming back each update and doing a playthrough to see if the game is an enjoyable experience yet, so I can give feedback to improve it. There is a much better fun:frustration ratio as of 1.8, but it still has a lot of serious problems that hurt enjoyment.

It is valid to play 400 cumulative hours and say "yeah, I hope this is going to be fun one day, which is why I keep playing, but in its current state I would not recommend it."
 
Bannerlord is the sort of game which takes a long time to complete a playthrough if you aren't using exploits. And it's the sort of game where there are little brief moments of fun, interspersed by long hours of walking around, grinding looters, hauling 5 horses to some guy, and doing the same hideout for the hundredth time. Mixed in with a lot of frustrating things.

I have racked up hundreds of hours simply from coming back each update and doing a playthrough to see if the game is an enjoyable experience yet, so I can give feedback to improve it. There is a much better fun:frustration ratio as of 1.8, but it still has a lot of serious problems that hurt enjoyment.

It is valid to play 400 cumulative hours and say "yeah, I hope this is going to be fun one day, which is why I keep playing, but in its current state I would not recommend it."

Come on, we're not masochists. We obviously like the game even though it could be better. We wouldn't torture ourselves for 400 hours or come back each update if we thought the game was absolute horse****.
 
400 hours or come back each update if we thought the game was absolute horse****.
It is like watching Game of Thrones for the first time. 1-5 season, you enjoy so much but after that final, would you recommend watching the show, obviously not. But after some time you find yourself watching ealier seasons great scenes and spend so much time while doing it.

At least this is how i feel about Bannerlord.
 
It is like watching Game of Thrones for the first time. 1-5 season, you enjoy so much but after that final, would you recommend watching the show, obviously not. But after some time you find yourself watching ealier seasons great scenes and spend so much time while doing it.

At least this is how i feel about Bannerlord.
Wow that's a valid comparison. It's not that the game is bad overall, but some parts of it leave such a bad taste in my mouth that it ruins the experience and causes me to not recommend the game in it's current state.
 
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