Winning Back Multiplayer Players

[Mr. X]

Hey everyone!
I hope you guys doing well.

I want to share some thoughts about the multiplayer mode. Recently, it feels like multiplayer is losing players because there haven’t been many updates or new content. While the events you run are nice, they happen too rarely to keep players engaged.

Players need to see that the developer team is working on improving multiplayer. One idea is to share your progress more openly. For example, you could show what you’re working on through something like a public Jira board. Or maybe share regular videos about your work and plans for the multiplayer.

More than this, multiplayer needs new maps, features, and updates to keep it exciting. These changes would show the community that you care about multiplayer and are working to make it better.

I know game development is not easy, and I respect the hard work your team puts in. I hope you’ll consider these ideas to help make multiplayer great again.

Thank you for reading! @Dejan

Best regards,
Mr. X

 

[flashn00b]

A part of why multiplayer is hugely unpopular is becauzs the perception of it is that the core gameplay loop is "feed kills to the enemy team cuz their units are OP and yours are garbage". Whatever vision TaleWorlds has for Mount&Blade Multiplayer, they're gonna have to drop it if they want to win back the players that they bled since Chivalry 2's release.

The fact that people would rather install the Epic Games Launcher to play a better game instead of sticking with Steam should've been a red flag that Torn Banner should've addressed late 2021/early 2022, but since it's current year, Chiv2's been on Steam for 2 over years now and the multiplayer is still worse than installing the Epic Games Launcher.

I could regurgitate the same post I made on how the balance could be improved, but the idea of forcing the fragile egos who still play this game to actually work for their wins is largely unpopular, so people will continue to treat Chiv2 as the replacement of Mount&Blade multiplayer while the Bannerlord's few remaining PVP players only continue to play it because epic games bad

 

[AoC]

Multiplayer lose players because even TDM servers are not working, and siege sucks hard.

Even then, just 3 mops is too low amount.

 

[Younes]

A part of why multiplayer is hugely unpopular is becauzs the perception of it is that the core gameplay loop is "feed kills to the enemy team cuz their units are OP and yours are garbage". Whatever vision TaleWorlds has for Mount&Blade Multiplayer, they're gonna have to drop it if they want to win back the players that they bled since Chivalry 2's release.

The fact that people would rather install the Epic Games Launcher to play a better game instead of sticking with Steam should've been a red flag that Torn Banner should've addressed late 2021/early 2022, but since it's current year, Chiv2's been on Steam for 2 over years now and the multiplayer is still worse than installing the Epic Games Launcher.

I could regurgitate the same post I made on how the balance could be improved, but the idea of forcing the fragile egos who still play this game to actually work for their wins is largely unpopular, so people will continue to treat Chiv2 as the replacement of Mount&Blade multiplayer while the Bannerlord's few remaining PVP players only continue to play it because epic games bad

I seriously don't get your obsession with chivalry 2. Bannerlord didn't lose players because chivalry was better, it lost players because the multiplayer is just bad. There is nothing to "lose" when the game hasn't got anything to begin with

 

[flashn00b]

I seriously don't get your obsession with chivalry 2. Bannerlord didn't lose players because chivalry was better, it lost players because the multiplayer is just bad. There is nothing to "lose" when the game hasn't got anything to begin with

Bannerlord's multiplayer mode is the equivalent game on Steam to Chivalry 2 at the time of Epic Games Store exclusivity, and I was implying that the terribleness is such that between playing absolute garbage in the name of platform loyalty and installing a launcher that most people hate to play something better, more players picked the latter.

The only people left playing M&B multiplayer in most days really only care about flexing how loyal they are to Steam, rather than actually caring about what Mount&Blade offers as a multiplayer game.

 

[AoC]

Bannerlord's multiplayer mode is the equivalent game on Steam to Chivalry 2 at the time of Epic Games Store exclusivity, and I was implying that the terribleness is such that between playing absolute garbage in the name of platform loyalty and installing a launcher that most people hate to play something better, more players picked the latter.

The only people left playing M&B multiplayer in most days really only care about flexing how loyal they are to Steam, rather than actually caring about what Mount&Blade offers as a multiplayer game.

It's not steam loyalty, Epic sucks and are bunch of mother****ers. They are openly hostile towards me, so i'm against them.

 

[flashn00b]

It's not steam loyalty, Epic sucks and are bunch of mother****ers. They are openly hostile towards me, so i'm against them.

And I'm saying that the state of Bannerlord is dismal enough that more people would rather install the Epic Launcher to play Chiv2 than to play Bannerlord's multiplayer in the name of staying on Steam

Except Chiv2 has been on Steam for two years and Bannerlord's multiplayer is still worse than installing the Epic Games Launcher. Oh, and the game was also free on Epic during the first week of the final update, so anyone who cared about Mount&Blade's PVP offerings would have either bought the game on Epic, got it on Steam during the Steam launch, or redeemed it for free on Epic

 

[Shiroin]

The worst thing, in my opinion, is that even after so many years, the multiplayer mode remains unstable.

 

[WilkoJohnson]

What if servers provided by EA, Activision or Ubisoft would be as stable as TW's offering...

 

[hoboistice]

Bannerlord's multiplayer mode is the equivalent game on Steam to Chivalry 2

So does chivalry 2 suck a$$ as well

 

[flashn00b]

So does chivalry 2 suck a$$ as well

Torn Banner actually cares about balancing the game, and they also know that people playing a medieval game have the expectation that melee is a viable option. The only real outlier in Chiv2's balancing is the anime-inspired Highland Sword, though that weapon exists from a misguided effort to get more people to play archer, rather than actually ruining the game's balance on purpose.

Even if people care about playing the melee game like a melee game in TaleWorlds' game, Bannerlord's imbalances have persisted for the past 3 years. We're way beyond the point where one can assume that the bad balancing is intentional.

 

[Meneldur]

yes flash the balancing of bah lance lord seems to be intentional. Like only fights betwen pure melee infantry only might happen to look any balanced. Or will not. Thats like 50/50. Any encounter including ranged or mounted combat is a doomed mess right from the start -and will end that way.
And as usual taleworld designed us 2 factions that dont refer on melee combat actions mainly....

Not to mention the sick gamestyles. Nvm TDM but even sieges: got a terrible point´n flag system that allows singles to turn matches by running.
Fully supported by directional door and gate ways instead of factional ones. You know what that means defender spawn "outside" the flag they shall defend.
Many maps are somewhat full of catapults and ballistas you could play the melee combat in "knights vs tanks" aswell.
Maps are a topic of its own we got like 5or 6 now ofically in siege. 2 are not ruining match by default.
And this aint about platform decisions its about bad game design.

 

[flashn00b]

The reason I brought up platform choice is because the state of Bannerlord's PVP mode is so horrendously terrible that even when Chivalry 2 was Epic Games Store exclusive, more people would rather install the Epic Games Launcher to play a better game than to play the medieval game on Steam.

Fast forward to now, Chivalry 2 released on Steam two and a half years ago, Bannerlord is still worse than installing the Epic Games Launcher, and Chiv2 was 100% off on the first week of its final update. I'm pretty sure that anyone who actually cares about Mount&Blade's PVP offerings has already acquired Chiv2 for one reason or another, and anyone remaining in Bannerlord's multiplayer mode is just trying to flex how loyal they are to Steam for not redeeming the freebie.

As for the "factions that don't refer on melee", they still have some fairly strong melee units. Don't know who the second faction is, but you generally don't want to estimate the Khuzait Rabble or Spear Infantry. Meanwhile, the Khuzait heavy archer is also the faction's heavy infantry and shock troop simultaneously.

Enforcing class limits wouldn't fix all of the balance problems, I am very much aware, though it'd definitely push the game in the right direction when people's impression of the game is that it's a worse version of the modern military shooters that had saturated the late 2000s and early 2010s.

 

[MP_Erik]

For me the main reason for frustration is that the core combat system in Bannerlord is simply not as crisp as it was in Warband (I spare you the long description). This is made worse by bad server performance and I had several times where I left the game for a longish period because the lag made it unenjoyable.
I had a really good time on a private duel server though, so there is hope. If official servers were not the only source of loot and getting skins they would probably be dead by now and replaced by private servers with fan made maps as it was in Warband. Also you only need to be on the server to get loot on TDM and Siege and not even in game, so why not just give loot for being online regardless of the server?
Siege probably needs an overhaul especially with regards to back capturing. I wonder if matchmaking would work if there was a healthy amount of players of different skill levels playing it.

There are other core issues (as others have pointed out or will point out) that should be solved before the game is able to hold players even if it brought them back and some of them go quite deep, making them difficult to fix.

One strength of Mount & Blade compared to Chivalry is that they have better established battlefield roles beside just melee infantry. We may have issues with the balancing but for me that adds to immersion as well as enabling deeper tactics.

On bringing players back i imagine something like a DLC or a new gamemode would renew some player interest and there are some promising mods that TW could build up to an official DLC. For getting new players the goto would be a free wekend and a discount.

 

[Gingy]

Unless you're a warband vet or you've sunk some time into bannerlord multi and have got to a decent place with ur mechanical skill, you're not gonna realise the quirks that comes with the stance system and the other combat systems. However, since the combat is relatively simple compared to chiv/mordhau, it makes it perfect for groupfights/battles, where the skill gap between players doesn't make that big of a difference.

We see this with the clan battle events, many players in the BRE, CI and KoH/ENG groups (as well as NA and Asia events) don't play native multiplayer to the level that some die hards do. But come Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday these people can be seen kicking ass and taking names on these 500+ player battles.

TaleWorlds should be supporting these events, either monetarily or through promotions. This would then kick up some support for modders to want to expand on game modes and other things, with the hope that TW can funnel players to their mods/servers. And with different modes/servers comes more options for players that might not like battles or want to join a clan etc.

The focus on skirmish seems misplaced but if they want to have some life put back into it, bringing back the active players searching stats and a possible global rank reset, couldn't hurt? As well as reducing round timers, removing kick button, make it so the afk timer kills players instead of kicking them, and buffing/removing khuzait and aserai, since those 2 factions never work with randoms.

It would also be better to bring the custom servers to the forefront and have skirmish/captain be on the 2nd tab. You should still be able to have the play button available, whilst looking through custom servers.

 

[MP_Erik]

Unless you're a warband vet or you've sunk some time into bannerlord multi and have got to a decent place with ur mechanical skill, you're not gonna realise the quirks that comes with the stance system and the other combat systems. However, since the combat is relatively simple compared to chiv/mordhau, it makes it perfect for groupfights/battles, where the skill gap between players doesn't make that big of a difference.

Inconsistencies make it harder for new players to get into the game. The really new players might not notice it, but a multiplayer game needs to hold players for a long time and it will soon be felt when it lacks consistency and responsiveness. When you missblock, missswing or have the wrong attack direction without reason, you will notice.
I might be a bit biased with regards to responsiveness because of frequent server lag and not playing on high end hardware but some of the things just can't be ignored. When trying to break a door in warband I would just move my mouse up for the first swing and then keep the mouse still for the rest, keeping the attack direction. In BL it sometimes just switches attack direction to the opposite without any mouse movement, meaning i need to pull the mouse up for every swing and even then it sometimes does. On overhead swings with twohanders I have often missed completely because it does not swing straight down but diagonally to the side according to your stance. I miss the block direction in ways I would never miss in Warband (When the game was new I tested it by blocking in circles for a minute each both in WB and in BL, missing several times in BL and not once in Warband) Against opponents of a competence as you often see them even in TDM I am basically no longer able to defend without shield (which might also be due to lag).

We see this with the clan battle events, many players in the BRE, CI and KoH/ENG groups (as well as NA and Asia events) don't play native multiplayer to the level that some die hards do. But come Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday these people can be seen kicking ass and taking names on these 500+ player battles.

I like watching those big clan battles though I never joined one (have played some Persistent Kingdoms Clan battles though in Warband). I wonder what a gamemode might look like that enhances this huge scale organized play. I imagine something between Persistent World an Hell Let Loose might foster some interesting gameplay for organized groups.
I personally would really like something that involves the logistics of war including foraging and supply lines, forcing commanders to decide on how best to split up their forces to control area, leading to assymetric encounters, tactical retreats etc.. That's my personal opinion though; from what I've seen BRE&Co seem to be quite content having just one decisive meeting of forces.

The focus on skirmish seems misplaced but if they want to have some life put back into it, bringing back the active players searching stats and a possible global rank reset, couldn't hurt? As well as reducing round timers, removing kick button, make it so the afk timer kills players instead of kicking them, and buffing/removing khuzait and aserai, since those 2 factions never work with randoms.

It would also be better to bring the custom servers to the forefront and have skirmish/captain be on the 2nd tab. You should still be able to have the play button available, whilst looking through custom servers.

Yes, put the custom server list to the forefront; also let private servers give loot to enable them to compete for players. There is no better way at the moment to get rid of new players than to send them to ranked skirmish where either the game will be cancelled due to a player leaving warmup or even worse, they will have to experience an entire game completely getting stomped by the greatest sweats the gaming world has ever seen (I have like 4k hours in Warband and 1.5k hours in Bannerlord and even I sometimes get kicked for being too bad).

 

[Gingy]

The really new players might not notice it, but a multiplayer game needs to hold players for a long time and it will soon be felt when it lacks consistency and responsiveness.

If a player can get over that hurdle and find some enjoyment out of the multiplayer and if they want more, there is a healthy competitive playerbase in this game aside from the large events, that get ran through community discords.

As an example, for the most recent EU skirmish tournament, there were 57 teams of 6-15 players, spread across 8 divisions. I have seen competitions in NA, OCE and Asia but I'm not sure on their numbers.

If skirmish is not your thing, there is a groupfight league for EU, with 15 teams of 18-60+ players, ping is not that big of a handicap in the bigger games so NA etc, do join in.

I might be a bit biased with regards to responsiveness because of frequent server lag and not playing on high end hardware but some of the things just can't be ignored.

Anything more than 80 ping just gets exponentially harder, 150+ is nigh impossible to play as inf, although cav and archer are still doable. And there are desync issues to be had even when playing under 30 ping.

This is why SA should have official servers after they've been asking since early access, OCE should get official servers again and NA should probably have central NA servers instead of East and West.

I personally would really like something that involves the logistics of war including foraging and supply lines, forcing commanders to decide on how best to split up their forces to control area, leading to assymetric encounters, tactical retreats etc.. That's my personal opinion though; from what I've seen BRE&Co seem to be quite content having just one decisive meeting of forces.

The CI and BRE modders seem quite ambitious and with enough support, who knows what they'll do. And the maps on these events, put the native battle maps to shame.

There is no better way at the moment to get rid of new players than to send them to ranked skirmish where either the game will be cancelled due to a player leaving warmup or even worse, they will have to experience an entire game completely getting stomped by the greatest sweats the gaming world has ever seen

There are community skirmish matchmaking discords for EU and NA, that are great if you want to get better since there's no kick button but you have to follow some rules.

 

[flashn00b]

Suppose I should quote myself with a post I made on the 1.2.12 patch notes thread

If multiplayer is of any indication, I feel like they should also filter the feedback they receive.

The current state of multiplayer comes from players having egos so fragile that they need to have intentionally bad units for them to farm kills from despite the fact that those units are player controlled. What the casual gamer would see if they hop into multiplayer would be a few things:

1. The opponent's unit is blatantly overpowered and the gameplay loop will just be "die to overpowered unit"
2. The unit they're controlling is laughably bad, and the gameplay loop is "die because your unit is designed to feed kills to the enemy"
3. A wall of archers that can't be countered by anything other than archery and superior accuracy. Because medieval games carry an expectation that melee combat is a viable option and that the mentioned expectation was not met, the casual gamer will see "Mount&Blade's multiplayer is just a worse version of every other shooter in the market"

Part of why MP doesn't have the playerbase that Warband had is because people are sick and tired of feeding kills to the enemy and they know it's not a skill issue, so most of them had moved to a game where the development team actually cares about PVP game balance.

In the last couple of times I played, up until I ultimately uninstalled Bannerlord, the player count would typically hover between the single digits to the mid tens, with the OCCASIONAL low 20s peak, which goes back to my previous point about Bannerlord's participation in the Steam vs Epic Games debacle

Considering the fact that TaleWorlds spent half a year to do some very minor bug fixes to the singleplayer component of the game while doing basically nothing on the multiplayer side of things, I highly doubt that there will even BE a Bannerlord multiplayer mode by the end of 2025 or early 2026

 

[MP_Erik]

Part of why MP doesn't have the playerbase that Warband had is because people are sick and tired of feeding kills to the enemy and they know it's not a skill issue, so most of them had moved to a game where the development team actually cares about PVP game balance.

I think that some of the imbalance of TDM and Siege could be mended by increasing default money to 120 so everyone can afford the viable/enjoyable classes more often. The 100/90 gold classes are clearly designed for skirmish and serve mostly as last reserve and not as viable first choices. Cavalry would also be more balanced if more people were able to afford classes with a long spear that are able to defend against them.

There are community skirmish matchmaking discords for EU and NA, that are great if you want to get better since there's no kick button but you have to follow some rules.

My point was that TWs default skirmish should not the very first playing opportunity presented to new players when opening the lobby for the first time. The community organized skirmish games might be actually good but they are not what a player who just opens multiplayer for the first time is likely to encounter at his initial match.
A player who has a bad first playing experience is likely not to spend effort to find the actually good ways to play but will often decide that the game just in't for them. Then they are gone for good. This is why some competitive games hand out huge hidden bonuses for players in their first matches or even secretly let them play against NPCs to make sure they start their gaming experience with a success.

The CI and BRE modders seem quite ambitious and with enough support, who knows what they'll do. And the maps on these events, put the native battle maps to shame.

I would surely interested to see what they can do. If TW wants to revive multiplayer it should probably go where the community is.
The reason I think that the community for organized battles might not be interested in the kind of gamemode I suggested was that in the videos I saw they tended to keep their armies together even when there were multiple objectives on the map. That might be a thing of tactical necessity though as it is hard to defend long enough when locally outnumbered. That might also be due to cinematicness.
The reason I think it might still work is that a lot of people play persisten world mostly for the clan wars. There some of my most interesting experiences were when one side tried to get some rare ressource and another tried to rob them. One difficulty I perceive is that there is usually enough time to grind ressources uncontested while most people are offline, so something more tightly scheduled might be interesting.

 

[BeadierFiddle82]

Captains mode needs a rebalance, the main problem are the Aserai and the Sturians, the first is too weak and the other too strong, shock troops are mostly useless, archers, skirmishers and cavalry need a little boost, the armor skins are too few when we have a lot of cool and beautiful pieces in the singleplayer