Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

[gerey]

These guys can't even get the base game to a decent level of functionality and polish. Are you really surprised that they aren't smart enough to build in something like extensive mod compatibility?

How can they be more incompetent than Bethesda?

 

[thesecret1]

I have one question didnt buy this because early access is even more cancerous than pre ordering but do sieges look like this in the current version? Can you destroy the walls with catapults like they show in this video or was it fake?

You can destroy the battlements and I think some castles have some specific walls that can be destroyed. It's not fully destructible environment or anything of that sort.

 

[Lokiamis]

Forget destroying walls. Units still can't really climb ladders after a year in EA. Siege towers just don't work at all.

 

[Fedora Master]

The funny thing is: They are working on the game diligently. At least that's the appearance. There's small and medium patches with some regularity. But the game just goes nowhere, it's completely treading water. They only recently managed to make all the perk work. The biggest change I saw after trying it out recently was the kid education feature... Which is nice but doesn't help with the actual game one bit. The individual factions are also horribly imbalanced and get shuffled around seemingly at random.

 

[thesecret1]

I must say I like a lot of the shit they did with the game, I enjoy the battles a lot and everything, so I don't regret the money spent, but it feels like the game just isn't moving forward at all. Like all they do is bugfixing rather than adding in new content or fixing some of the most glaring issues (ladder climbing should be a priority, damn it!). Yesterday, it's been exactly a year since release, and what did they do in that time? It feels like they went full maintenance mode, fixing bugs and stuff, but barely did any actual game development. Even their EA proclamations on Steam talk about how they expect the game to be in EA for about a year, yet a year has passed, and they don't seem any closer to finishing the game than before. What's going on?

 

[Lokiamis]

The funny thing is: They are working on the game diligently. At least that's the appearance. There's small and medium patches with some regularity. But the game just goes nowhere, it's completely treading water. They only recently managed to make all the perk work. The biggest change I saw after trying it out recently was the kid education feature... Which is nice but doesn't help with the actual game one bit. The individual factions are also horribly imbalanced and get shuffled around seemingly at random.

There are still plenty of perks that aren't implemented/don't work properly. Yesterday was the one year anniversary of Early Access, by the way. No special update or news post or anything.
I almost wish they'd do one final update to finish whatever bits and pieces they're working on so modders have a stable base to work with. I'd have a more fun to play and feature-rich game a lot faster.

 

[Hellion]

Purely content-wise, the only additions after 1 year of Early Access are 3-4 new sidequests, and 2 repeatable main quests which you can do in order to stall the "Main Story" indefinitely. And some helmets/armor or whatever. Everything else has been just tweaking/fixing/rebalancing.

The pandemic is probably to blame, at least partially, or perhaps its lead devs were drafted by Erdo to fight in Kurdistan or something. But this game's development timeline remains both funny and tragic at the same time.

 

[thesecret1]

I wouldn't even care if they didn't add in more content (since I'm waiting for mods to provide that anyway) if the rest of the game worked as intended. But it doesn't, it feels like everything connected to economy is broken in some way, faction snowballing is awful, and sieges are fucked as well.

 

[Spectacle]

I wouldn't even care if they didn't add in more content (since I'm waiting for mods to provide that anyway) if the rest of the game worked as intended. But it doesn't, it feels like everything connected to economy is broken in some way, faction snowballing is awful, and sieges are fucked as well.

Faction snowballing has actually more or less been fixed in the latest betas.

 

[Zanzoken]

I don't think they understand their own game and why people like it. They've failed to properly implement and polish the key systems that are vital to gameplay, and instead put a lot of stupid shit in the game that doesn't really matter.

Again, this could have been a really solid Early Access release where the game launched with a small but fun and effective feature set, allowing us to get our hands on the game much sooner and TW to start iterating based on player feedback. Then the game could've grown over time until it was feature complete, leading to a much more polished and satisfying end product.

Go back and look at what the Overhype type team did with Battle Brothers if you want to see an example of this process done correctly. The game was fun from the start because that team knew their game and what it needed to work, but then over time they've been able to add more and more features and content and the game has only gotten better and better.

It's really not rocket science level stuff here but somehow Taleworlds still managed to fuck it up.

 

[jungl]

Idk why anyone bought this game. The first mount and blade was extremely bare bones. You always use the first game as a reference to what to expect from a sequel.

 

[Galdred]

I don't think they understand their own game and why people like it. They've failed to properly implement and polish the key systems that are vital to gameplay, and instead put a lot of stupid shit in the game that doesn't really matter.

Again, this could have been a really solid Early Access release where the game launched with a small but fun and effective feature set, allowing us to get our hands on the game much sooner and TW to start iterating based on player feedback. Then the game could've grown over time until it was feature complete, leading to a much more polished and satisfying end product.

It is very strange, beause Mount and Blade 1 was fun from the beginning, and was one of the games that invented Early Access (the version I first played had 2 companions and 3 quests or so, no player faction...).

Idk why anyone bought this game. The first mount and blade was extremely bare bones. You always use the first game as a reference to what to expect from a sequel.

It was bare bones indeed, especially early on, but it had a great core system (which other game managed to have mounted combat working?), and a ton of great mods.

 

[Spectacle]

The basic gameplay in Bannerlord is also tons of fun, it's just that everything that isn't riding around and killing things feels like it's poorly thought out. During EA Taleworlds has been tweaking stuff like clan management, diplomacy, character building, but a lot of these systems are fundamentally flawed and it doesn't seem like there's going to be any major changes.

 

[vota DC]

The basic gameplay in Bannerlord is also tons of fun, it's just that everything that isn't riding around and killing things feels like it's poorly thought out. During EA Taleworlds has been tweaking stuff like clan management, diplomacy, character building, but a lot of these systems are fundamentally flawed and it doesn't seem like there's going to be any major changes.

Modders have no idea how to implement quests and how to implement races. Basic game Is supposed to provide Dynamic quests and new skeletons that means you don't get a modified horse but you can have a Elephant....but nothing has been unlocked.

And developers are behind even mount and Blade 1 mods, for example there was a Quick Battle mod that allowed to choose each troop while now with bannerlord you can Just choose 4 classes, that means testing battles Is awful.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

The basic gameplay in Bannerlord is also tons of fun, it's just that everything that isn't riding around and killing things feels like it's poorly thought out. During EA Taleworlds has been tweaking stuff like clan management, diplomacy, character building, but a lot of these systems are fundamentally flawed and it doesn't seem like there's going to be any major changes.

How much has charater building changed? It was a disaster when I played it, it needed to be thrown to the bin and started from scratch.

 

[Spectacle]

The basic gameplay in Bannerlord is also tons of fun, it's just that everything that isn't riding around and killing things feels like it's poorly thought out. During EA Taleworlds has been tweaking stuff like clan management, diplomacy, character building, but a lot of these systems are fundamentally flawed and it doesn't seem like there's going to be any major changes.

How much has charater building changed? It was a disaster when I played it, it needed to be thrown to the bin and started from scratch.

It hasn't changed at all

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Jesus

 

[Abu Antar]

These guys can't even get the base game to a decent level of functionality and polish. Are you really surprised that they aren't smart enough to build in something like extensive mod compatibility?

How can they be more incompetent than Bethesda?

They are Turks.

 

[deuxhero]

The basic gameplay in Bannerlord is also tons of fun, it's just that everything that isn't riding around and killing things feels like it's poorly thought out. During EA Taleworlds has been tweaking stuff like clan management, diplomacy, character building, but a lot of these systems are fundamentally flawed and it doesn't seem like there's going to be any major changes.

How much has charater building changed? It was a disaster when I played it, it needed to be thrown to the bin and started from scratch.

It hasn't changed at all

There actually made major changes back in July

• Added a new system for XP sharing, where after a battle a portion of upgrade XP earned by troops will be distributed to the rest of the party.
  
• Character levels now depend on raw experience collected from skills rather than skill level increases. Overall this should make it easier to focus on a particular set of skills.
  
• Some of the calculations of perks were wrong because primary and secondary increment types were not divided. This was fixed.
  
• Skill effects were not applied to non-hero agents. This was fixed.
  
• Added 10 new athletics perks for the campaign side and prepared the UI for the combat/mission perks.
  
• Added 7 new riding perks for the campaign side and prepared the UI for the combat/mission perks.
  
• Fixed bugs for the perks Confidence and Public Talker.
  
• Fixed a bug with the wholesaler and appraiser perks. Profits should now be marked.

 

[ArchAngel]

I am still playing, v1.5.8 atm. Game is very good with this version. Much less crashes, many irritating bugs fixed, QoL stuff added, most perks are now working. Only irritating thing is that after you play for 1-2 h opening Party screen becomes very slow and you need to restart the game to fix it (funny thing this bug was not in 1.5.7)

 

[Tyrr]

I am the only one who preferred the Warband companions (with a personality, that you could level up in a way you wanted) to the Bannerlord ones (randomly generated, generic, already leveled up)?

 

[Danikas]

I am the only one who preferred the Warband companions (with a personality, that you could level up in a way you wanted) to the Bannerlord ones (randomly generated, generic, already leveled up)?

 

[Zanzoken]

I am the only one who preferred the Warband companions (with a personality, that you could level up in a way you wanted) to the Bannerlord ones (randomly generated, generic, already leveled up)?

I don't have strong feelings about companions no longer having pre-written personalities, but the fact that they have lost all functionality except for leading warbands is a major issue.

The companions in Warband were useful as doctors, scouts, engineers, trainers, etc. They provided important skills that the party needed so the player could focus on leadership and combat.

However in Bannerlord, even if you find a companion who is a skilled doctor or whatever, their skill adds virtually nothing to the party. If the player isn't skilled in medicine or whatever then you just have to do without it.

Ideally they should've kept the system from Warband and then added the ability for companions to lead parties on top of it. So you'd be able to spec companions either as captains who are better at combat and leading troops, or as retainers who provide some kind of ancillary service to your party.

 

[Spectacle]

I am the only one who preferred the Warband companions (with a personality, that you could level up in a way you wanted) to the Bannerlord ones (randomly generated, generic, already leveled up)?

I don't have strong feelings about companions no longer having pre-written personalities, but the fact that they have lost all functionality except for leading warbands is a major issue.

The companions in Warband were useful as doctors, scouts, engineers, trainers, etc. They provided important skills that the party needed so the player could focus on leadership and combat.

However in Bannerlord, even if you find a companion who is a skilled doctor or whatever, their skill adds virtually nothing to the party. If the player isn't skilled in medicine or whatever then you just have to do without it.

Ideally they should've kept the system from Warband and then added the ability for companions to lead parties on top of it. So you'd be able to spec companions either as captains who are better at combat and leading troops, or as retainers who provide some kind of ancillary service to your party.

Have you failed to notice that you can assign party roles such as surgeon and quartermaster to companions? Their skills can have a huge impact.

 

[Zanzoken]

Yes I'm aware you can assign those roles, but the last time I played (which was admittedly a while ago) the bonuses were so small they didn't make any meaningful difference. Maybe that's been fixed.