A bit disappointed with Bannerlord

[Ray Hoodoo]

Just want to share my thoughts as I was hoping for something more, especially as the game shouldn't be far from release anymore. If you disagree, let me know why.


I've completed Warband like 3 times. After downloading Bannerlord, I am a bit disappointed though. I'll tell you why:

- The game feels more shallow. Hard to describe exactly why, but feels like there is less interesting stuff / events happening to you. Quests seem more boring or just not worth it often times. Everything seems more repetitive. If its a sequel, it should be at least somewhat better regarding this not worse.

- Bannerlord is much easier, at least combat wise. I started the game and after leveling to like just lvl 5, could already easily win most tournaments and arenas without weapon skill specialization. And yes, I play on the hardest combat difficulty. Also the bandit / looter groups patrolling around are tiny and weak. Seems pretty boring when you are at that point when they are too small to attack or even catch bandits, but other kingdoms vassals are too big to fight.

- LOADING SCREENS. Feels like the game is a loading screen simulator. Every stupid interaction spawns a loading screen. You want to check your inventory real quick? - loading screen. You want to then close it? - loading screen. And so on. They are not too long, but it is still very annoying when they happen constantly.

- Battles are usually over super quickly, before you manage to do anything. In Warband you could, for instance, wait for the enemy infantry to attack your infantry, then anvil them from behind, but now I can't do that, because battle is over before I can get to the behind of the enemy. Maybe it's just my experience so far though and will change as my army grows.

- I remember it was promised in the announcement that cities would now feel alive, they would be full of stuff, you would feel like in a medieval town, could play board games etc. In reality its basically the same as it was in Warband with some more upgrades. Taverns are the exact same, but yeah, you can now play a board game, wow. Many NPCs seem stuck in motion.

- UI is not ugly, but it just seems cheaper and unfitting. In Warband there was medieval themed UI which was appropriate to the game. In Bannerlord currently we have something simplistic and modern looking that would fit a sci-fi game just as well. Just seems cheap.

- I know graphics and character creation is an upgrade from Warband, and it's nice. But still, faces look pretty ugly in this game, in my opinion. Weird eye shapes and despite the character customization options, many NPCs look very similar.


I think I could go on even longer about this. Basically I feel like they tried to copy paste Warband from themselves with better graphics and some changed mechanics, at the same time failing at some essentials. And that's it.

[Oleg Jughashvili]

i still prefer warband and mods. (bannerpage and 16th century)

but im going to retry bannerlord now 1.80 is out , has good feedback so far

[v4lexx]

warband is better and has waay less bugs

[Panthaz89]

warbands tourneys were only hard because the AI would team up against you....that's not really an enjoyable level of difficulty.

[warriorofthewind]

Warband def feels more handcrafted with lords and companions having their own quirks. I think I played through once for each faction and my favorite run I remember (I lost the save many years ago) was being a trader moving goods and amassing wealth while the kingdoms endlessly bickered and ransacked towns. After she built up enough of a warchest and amassed an army she took over Dhirim, recruited disaffected lords, and slowly expanded her kingdom while fending off attack after attack. She renamed herself the Merchant Queen and her empire the Kingdom of Merchants, focused on trade and prosperity. She married Count/Lord Trimbau formerly of Rhodorks, and I still remember the little cinematic for all its low quality and cheesiness it still felt like an achievement. After many years of battle only 3 kingdoms remained, 1 major power and 2 lesser powers, and no one wanted to declare war, so she hosted feasts and buttered up her vassals, and peace reigned for many years. then a casus belli came up and she went to town wiping out the last of her foes until finally true peace was achieved.

see I remember THAT playthrough.

with Bannerlord I remember running around all day trying to catch a band of looters, failing 'train the troops' so much I gave up on even accepting it anymore, Mesui's horribad teeth, seeing t6 troops dying to looters, and seeing loads of world spam that goes by so fast I can't sift through it all and there's no way to look at info as neatly as you could with Warband.

All in all for all its age and warts, Warband is mechanically and immersively a far more superior game.

[Ray Hoodoo]

Originally posted by warriorofthewind:

Warband def feels more handcrafted with lords and companions having their own quirks. I think I played through once for each faction and my favorite run I remember (I lost the save many years ago) was being a trader moving goods and amassing wealth while the kingdoms endlessly bickered and ransacked towns. After she built up enough of a warchest and amassed an army she took over Dhirim, recruited disaffected lords, and slowly expanded her kingdom while fending off attack after attack. She renamed herself the Merchant Queen and her empire the Kingdom of Merchants, focused on trade and prosperity. She married Count/Lord Trimbau formerly of Rhodorks, and I still remember the little cinematic for all its low quality and cheesiness it still felt like an achievement. After many years of battle only 3 kingdoms remained, 1 major power and 2 lesser powers, and no one wanted to declare war, so she hosted feasts and buttered up her vassals, and peace reigned for many years. then a casus belli came up and she went to town wiping out the last of her foes until finally true peace was achieved.

see I remember THAT playthrough.

with Bannerlord I remember running around all day trying to catch a band of looters, failing 'train the troops' so much I gave up on even accepting it anymore, Mesui's horribad teeth, seeing t6 troops dying to looters, and seeing loads of world spam that goes by so fast I can't sift through it all and there's no way to look at info as neatly as you could with Warband.

All in all for all its age and warts, Warband is mechanically and immersively a far more superior game.

Exactly man. In addition, the little things that make the game feel more immersive is what's missing a lot for me too, like wanting to buy something in Town, but then get jumped by bandits.

[catbox99]

Originally posted by v4lexx:

warband is better and has waay less bugs

It isn't that it has less bugs. It has more, because it attempts more complicated things, and that leads to trial an error. It has different bugs, but still, even after the update, some of the same ones. For example, there are still cities with walls that prevent infantry from crossing; infantry still abandon their own siege equipment when something else touches a wall first, running across sometimes the entire length of a wall and getting slaughtered all the way. It also appears that Calradia has the world's finest air-guitarists and lip syncers (outside Japan). For that matter, why aren't you charged for staying overnight in a city? Probably because Warband was notorious for multiple charges and they figured "why even bother with it?"

Now, the AI has improved quite a bit. In Warband, if a unit got stuck on a terrain feature, you could pretty much count it stuck for the duration of the battle. In Bannerlord, the units usually find their way around an obstacle (except in sieges, looks like). That doesn't mean that if there are six trees, 1/4 of your cavalry won't manage to find them somehow.

The thing is this: I don't think we can view Bannerlord as a game without being a bit disappointed. Instead, we should see it as a framework for modification (once the spinning stops), assuming there are modders left by the time a full release hits (we've lost so many good ones, you guys). As with Warband, Bannerlord will never be complete for the same reasons that Warband was never complete.

"- The game feels more shallow. Hard to describe exactly why, but feels like there is less interesting stuff / events happening to you. Quests seem more boring or just not worth it often times. Everything seems more repetitive. If its a sequel, it should be at least somewhat better regarding this not worse."

I think you might be right, but then remember how many "narrowly missed release windows" there have been prior to "EA." I've heard that the studio head has a penchant for micromanaging, and if true, I think we can see the length of development time, but also the results. Some things are brilliant; some things haven't been fleshed out at all. No matter how hard you try, you cannot be everywhere at once. You have to trust your people to do their best, not second guess them. In insisting that everything be perfect, very little actually is. I am reminded of the parable about the donkey and the bridge. Mods help: they introduce aspects that we are either waiting for, or that have been ignored. And yes, that's a bit sad in and of itself, but like I said, I think we need to see this game as a framework to build on, not an end in and of itself.

And that, maybe, is why Warband remains a viable product, and can still be very enjoyable.

[flyingscot1066]

Originally posted by Ray Hoodoo:

Just want to share my thoughts as I was hoping for something more, especially as the game shouldn't be far from release anymore. If you disagree, let me know why.


I've completed Warband like 3 times. After downloading Bannerlord, I am a bit disappointed though. I'll tell you why:

SNIP
.

Question: are you comparing to vanilla Warband or Modded Warband?

[NED STARK]

I think there are a lot of nostalgia playing into everyone's memory of warband. Bannerlord improves almost everything. Especially the "mount" in mount and blade. Cav is SO MUCH better in this game.

[Onimaho]

Originally posted by NED STARK:

I think there are a lot of nostalgia playing into everyone's memory of warband. Bannerlord improves almost everything. Especially the "mount" in mount and blade. Cav is SO MUCH better in this game.

It depends...

If you liked the stuff like feasts, companion complaints, etc (basically any sort of text box stuff).... then yeh, warband might be better.

If you liked the stuff like massive melee fights, charging first through a seige gate, lopping heads from a mount (basically anything that wasn't a text box).... then yeh, bannerlord is definitely better.

[Voncrow]

Originally posted by Onimaho:

Originally posted by NED STARK:

I think there are a lot of nostalgia playing into everyone's memory of warband. Bannerlord improves almost everything. Especially the "mount" in mount and blade. Cav is SO MUCH better in this game.

It depends...

If you liked the stuff like feasts, companion complaints, etc (basically any sort of text box stuff).... then yeh, warband might be better.

If you liked the stuff like massive melee fights, charging first through a seige gate, lopping heads from a mount (basically anything that wasn't a text box).... then yeh, bannerlord is definitely better.

Aside from feasts I'm pretty sure this is also nostalgia. People complain about quests despite have the same level of depths but have many times more types. The main complaint I hear about this is they are apparently all fetch or kill quests, they aren't and if you think they are then it's literally the same in Warband anyway.

Companions compain in both games, have personality traits influence the game in the same way, the one difference is that the companions are not randomly generated and have slightly more dialogue boxes (I guess that matches your point). I guess you can be angry that unique companions don't exist but they would never work in a world where characters die in battle or from old age.

But the most absurd thing I'm seeing in this thread is the outright delusion in saying Warband battles were better. Army comps were poorly balanced and much more limited than they were before. Formation and commands were less functional and less diverse. Apparently people liked having one static siege ladder for each defense over the completely improved overhaul that was made. Most importantly, there's is just more of everything map-wise. You can complain that the combat is more wonky but it doesn't perform that much worse considering how much better it looks.

As with every thread on here, some people bring up some valid complaints followed by other people making ♥♥♥♥ up or going on nostalgia trips.

[Kalimah]

I still remember a discussion topic on "If they don't have capes in the game, I'm not buying it" SMH

[Diarmuhnd]

Originally posted by Ray Hoodoo:

Just want to share my thoughts as I was hoping for something more, especially as the game shouldn't be far from release anymore. If you disagree, let me know why.
...

Heya, i disagree.

It took Warband years to "get gud" with community mods in my opinion.
And I feel that is the same with Bannerlord.

Bannerlord was released into early access, not a full release, so right from the get go we all knew it had some major issues that the devs needed to work on. With our feedback and paid playtesting they have been getting that feedback and more. Development has been slow, but this is the real world, we can't just snap our fingers and make ♥♥♥♥ happen. lol

However, those amazing community modders have added lots to vanilla Bannerlord so far, so we know that many things that are missing are possible.

Welp, thats my 2 cents (opinion).

Good luck, ahve a fun day/night playing something you find fun.

[Rhapsody]

Game depth: The setting of Bannerlord is much larger, with more factions, lords, fiefs, etc. that give Warband the illusion of having more stuff going on. Similar impact events in smaller setting = illusion of greater impact. Bannerlord is just bigger, but it's also much more detailed and deeper in many cases, like how economy works and how party speed or battle simulation is calculated.

Difficulty: On current 1.8 beta which I've played for about 20 years in game time, it's not difficult, but it's also not any easier than Warband (which I played with Diplomacy mod). Everything still takes a lot of time, but prior to 1.8 I could resolve nearly every battle with cavalry mass. In 1.8 I find a more balanced composition to be required due to various updates like how reinforcements appear on battlefield. But as a whole, this series was never difficult to begin with.

Loading screens: That's really subjective, I can get into almost any scene instantly. Only the occasional auto save pause occurs a bit suddenly, but I'd rather take a robust auto-save feature over a broken one that runs on background while the game is still playing and gets corrupted. Many other games like Skyrim/Fallout do that.

Battle length: Fixed in 1.8 from what I can tell, but there's some issues where cavalry is unable to engage remnants effectively. Thanks to the new formations system, it's now finally viable to do hit and run tactics effectively. As an example, I can send my Faris and horse archers to pepper enemy backline with javelins and arrows, while my heavy lancers counter enemy horse archer skirmish. If you are attacking and the enemy is defending, you have the initiative and can take all the time you like to encircle the enemy before they are forced to respond to ranged attacks or something else. "Knowing is half the battle"...

Town scenes: They are dull as heck, I agree. I don't know if it's for performance or design reasons, but it's bad. I almost never go to town except during early game counterspy missions. There's absolutely no reason to head into towns other than questing... But at least they *do have* quests to complete inside, unlike Warband (can't really call those assassination attempts quests).

UI: Warband UI was super clunky to get used to for me and I never found it intuitive to use. Many lists of nobles, fiefs, etc. are more like PowerPoint documente pages than video game interface. Bannerlord UI is not super great either, but it does what it needs to do. There could still be more information available in some places, but there's such a thing is cluttered interface as well.

Character faces: They are generated dynamically. There's always going to be malformed or same-looking NPCs with such a system.

[Muu]

Originally posted by Rhapsody:

Game depth: The setting of Bannerlord is much larger, with more factions, lords, fiefs, etc. that give Warband the illusion of having more stuff going on. Similar impact events in smaller setting = illusion of greater impact. Bannerlord is just bigger, but it's also much more detailed and deeper in many cases, like how economy works and how party speed or battle simulation is calculated.

Difficulty: On current 1.8 beta which I've played for about 20 years in game time, it's not difficult, but it's also not any easier than Warband (which I played with Diplomacy mod). Everything still takes a lot of time, but prior to 1.8 I could resolve nearly every battle with cavalry mass. In 1.8 I find a more balanced composition to be required due to various updates like how reinforcements appear on battlefield. But as a whole, this series was never difficult to begin with.

Loading screens: That's really subjective, I can get into almost any scene instantly. Only the occasional auto save pause occurs a bit suddenly, but I'd rather take a robust auto-save feature over a broken one that runs on background while the game is still playing and gets corrupted. Many other games like Skyrim/Fallout do that.

Battle length: Fixed in 1.8 from what I can tell, but there's some issues where cavalry is unable to engage remnants effectively. Thanks to the new formations system, it's now finally viable to do hit and run tactics effectively. As an example, I can send my Faris and horse archers to pepper enemy backline with javelins and arrows, while my heavy lancers counter enemy horse archer skirmish. If you are attacking and the enemy is defending, you have the initiative and can take all the time you like to encircle the enemy before they are forced to respond to ranged attacks or something else. "Knowing is half the battle"...

Town scenes: They are dull as heck, I agree. I don't know if it's for performance or design reasons, but it's bad. I almost never go to town except during early game counterspy missions. There's absolutely no reason to head into towns other than questing... But at least they *do have* quests to complete inside, unlike Warband (can't really call those assassination attempts quests).

UI: Warband UI was super clunky to get used to for me and I never found it intuitive to use. Many lists of nobles, fiefs, etc. are more like PowerPoint documente pages than video game interface. Bannerlord UI is not super great either, but it does what it needs to do. There could still be more information available in some places, but there's such a thing is cluttered interface as well.

Character faces: They are generated dynamically. There's always going to be malformed or same-looking NPCs with such a system.

No.

[Ray Hoodoo]

Originally posted by flyingscot1066:

Originally posted by Ray Hoodoo:

Just want to share my thoughts as I was hoping for something more, especially as the game shouldn't be far from release anymore. If you disagree, let me know why.


I've completed Warband like 3 times. After downloading Bannerlord, I am a bit disappointed though. I'll tell you why:

SNIP
.

Question: are you comparing to vanilla Warband or Modded Warband?

Vanilla