Is a light COOP function really asking too much? BattleTime was a chore...

[Folv]

Perhaps I am in the minority here, I genuinely do not know, but I am just shocked after all this time that Bannerlord has no plans of supporting/adding COOP in any form. I am not looking for dual-autonomy for both players, or even necessarily a lobby where the players watch the host play the game and then drop into battles when they happen. I'd be happy with simply allowing the ability for friends to drop-in to your battles when they take place at the very least, as that's what we tried to accomplish with Warband with the use of the BattleTime mod/tool.

Competitive play has to be significantly more demanding i'd assume since you need hits to be responsive and as lag-free as possible for the best experience. Coop within the campaign would be far more lenient since you are dealing with bots, yet all of the focus seems to be going into the competitive side of MP. This is just such an odd development choice. The bulk of your player base enjoyed the previous titles for their campaigns, not so much their online competitive modes. That isn't to say they weren't popular in their own right, but no where near as prominent as the single player experience.

This unfortunately turned into more of a rant than a suggestion, but I genuinely would like to hear from the devs on this particular subject. Specifically whether they chose to exclude it because they think it would be unpopular (or less popular than vs. competitive modes), or is it something that is actually hard to accomplish from a game development standpoint? Again, I want to reiterrate that ANY of these options would be acceptable for anyone I've spoken with who players the game:

1. A light coop feature that allows drop-in from friends to help in battles (could just rely on discord screen sharing or some such thing for sharing the campaign screen in-between battles)

2. A similarly light coop feature that does all of the above but allows for a multiplayer lobby where players sit in and wait for battles while one player controls the campaign

3. A coop mode where one player controls the campaign map/decisions but other multiplayer members get to make their own character and make skill-up choices as they level up, and function the same way as above

4. A full fledged coop/MP mode where both players control their own factions, move in real time, and have full control over their character as in the base game (I find this to be the least realistic for multiple reasons, the largest of which being that the way time operates in the game affects everything including drop-in battles, sieges, etc. and I can't see how you would handle battles going on in real time while the game progresses)

Again, myself and everyone else i've spoken with in my group would be happy enough with the first option, but very much prefer the second for ease-of-use. We are not looking for some legendary coop experience, just a chance to hangout together and shoot the bull inbetween fights while a single player progresses the campaign. Heck, i've been streaming this game in discord for the last few days anyway... may as well let them come sit in my session and help me out in fights. What is preventing this? Please let me know!

[Darth Revan]

taleworlds said that they will think about same party coop as a possible future dlc after the game got fully released.

[Folv]

Originally posted by Legatus Lucanus:

taleworlds said that they will think about same party coop as a possible future dlc after the game got fully released.

I've read that this was basically recanted to some degree as it was hinted at back in 2016, stated in 2018, but has since been taken off the table. Do you have a source of this perhaps not being the case? I may be misinformed.

[$ini$ter-NL]

Originally posted by Legatus Lucanus:

taleworlds said that they will think about same party coop as a possible future dlc after the game got fully released.

So in 10 years.

[Paddon]

+1

Personally I feel like them saying they MIGHT implement it is the worst possible thing they could have said as if they outright said they wouldn't, modders might feel like the time investment would be worth it.

After all these (easily 10+) years of the first requests of co-op in the Mount & Blade series I'd love for them to either properly rule it out of their agenda or commit to implementing it.

As it's pretty much the most commonly requested feature for this series it makes no sense to me that they wouldn't jump on it as they've essentially said now that the programming language is C+ and it's now possible to mod it in...

[Romeo3]

+1

I think they could make it work with many different angles to choose from. It's up to them what they decide to do. I'm just hoping they bring it in. I'd even be happy with just a custom battle coop for something .

[Folv]

Definitely seems to have a large enough following. I 100% agree with the thought that they should consider making an official statement about it one way or the other for the sake of the modding community. I know the coding language that is allowed this time around provides a much deeper control over the modding scene, so here is to hoping that even if it's passed up as an official feature, perhaps we will get something to work with through the content creation community that exists for the game.

[Digan]

+1


I feel the COOP where ppl join and watch as host plays on the map and do their thing until there is a fight, then have the players or player (whatever max limit would be) actually join in combat as their selected character/unit and that would be perfectly fine, it reminds me of few games back in the day that had something very similar but i cant place the name X_X But i fee like this is pretty easily done just to have a player select their unit and then start combat with ur friends :)

[Cosmic Cat]

Loooots of players want this feature.

They can at least add "light coop" which was mentioned before, which means the other player will participate in your battles but can't control stuff on the campaign map.

[Blitz]

+1

Im selfish though. I want full "co-op" meaning if my friends want to lead one kingdom and I want to lead another that should be possible, and all the resulting consequences/benefits. If we want to forge a strong alliance between our kingdoms by marrying our children, or we end up going to war against each other, this game and its fan base deserves, dare I say needs co op. The possibilities, and replay value would go up even more than it already is.

[CT-99 STRIKER]

that would be a nice feature and i support this 100% but i prefer them to introduce fixes and some small and yet very impactful features asap ( diplomacy declare war/make peace) for example instead of the actual method. but it would be cool to play the sandbox part of the game as the host as the leader and friends controlling assigned parties to do tasks :p

[⎛⎝Tiùwilo⎠⎞]

Man, this entire clan system seems like the absolute perfect possible setup to handle co-op campaigns.

[Waffenos]

+1

[Demesis]

Having co-op campaign would certainly be nice, but seeing as it may be too ambitious and unlikely to happen, i'd settle for a custom co-op mode where my buddies and I can select our hero and units and bring them onto the battlefield against the ai. Maybe also add co-op siege mode.

Everything about this game screams for co-op gameplay, and it would be a shame not to have it.

[»Matrim Cauthon«]

This seems like something to ask for once the game is released. Before then they need to get the game feature complete.

[⎛⎝Tiùwilo⎠⎞]

Not necessarily. With many games you have to set things up with multiplayer or co-op in mind from a very early stage if you want to ultimately implement a proper MP mode for it. The earlier they start to shift gears to accomodate this, the better it'd be in the long run, I would imagine.