This game legitimately fell off and I had such high expectations.

[ThatOneGuyL]

There were so many hopes for this game, but Taleworlds (state funded company) just sits in their chairs all day doing nothing apparently, the only thing good is the modding and that is completely inhospitable for the modders, with Taleworlds pretending like they are trying to improve it when they don't.

[Ruffio]

oh dear, this state funded nonsense again. Please tell how they are state funded and at what level that occur?

Check out this, to educate yourself on the incentive programs for the game industry in Turkey.

https://my.visme.co/view/ep74j7yx-mobile-amp-game-incentives-in-turkey-2#s1

[Bulletpoint]

It's the Pareto Principle.

20 pct of the work gets 80 pct of the game done.

But to finish the last 20 pct, you need to do the rest of the 80 pct of the work.

So it's more profitable to just release the game when it's 80 pct finished. And since Steam allows them to sell an unfinished game, it's not profitable to ever finish it.

[Hark]

Originally posted by Ruffio:

oh dear, this state funded nonsense again. Please tell how they are state funded and at what level that occur?

Check out this, to educate yourself on the incentive programs for the game industry in Turkey.

https://my.visme.co/view/ep74j7yx-mobile-amp-game-incentives-in-turkey-2#s1

There's a billion other more constructive, more meaningful, more insightful stuff for people to "educate" themselves with. Nobody cares, dude. What even is that link domain, lmao.

[Chibi Life]

Originally posted by Bulletpoint:

It's the Pareto Principle.

20 pct of the work gets 80 pct of the game done.

But to finish the last 20 pct, you need to do the rest of the 80 pct of the work.

So it's more profitable to just release the game when it's 80 pct finished. And since Steam allows them to sell an unfinished game, it's not profitable to ever finish it.

Yeah early access has done some good things but man everyone knows games sell the most during launch and sales taper off as time goes by. It's just ripe for cash grabbing. It also turns out consumers have become zombies who don't care how awful corporations are or how many times they've been scammed or mistreated, they will buy it anyways.

We all created this problem by supporting those who don't deserve our support. If TaleWorld were to release M&B 3 it will sell well too anyways and they will do the same thing.

[Action Man]

Originally posted by Chibi Life:

Originally posted by Bulletpoint:

It's the Pareto Principle.

20 pct of the work gets 80 pct of the game done.

But to finish the last 20 pct, you need to do the rest of the 80 pct of the work.

So it's more profitable to just release the game when it's 80 pct finished. And since Steam allows them to sell an unfinished game, it's not profitable to ever finish it.

Yeah early access has done some good things but man everyone knows games sell the most during launch and sales taper off as time goes by. It's just ripe for cash grabbing. It also turns out consumers have become zombies who don't care how awful corporations are or how many times they've been scammed or mistreated, they will buy it anyways.

We all created this problem by supporting those who don't deserve our support. If TaleWorld were to release M&B 3 it will sell well too anyways and they will do the same thing.

There is no ethical consumption with businesses.

I certainly think TW could have done more, but I also think a game like this relies on mods for longevity, no matter what. TW can only make so much game. Even if they had more at the endgame, people would still reach it and want more. Those that want to try something different are going to turn to mods.

I'm fairly sure that if you bring ten people together to say what they want, you'll get ten different answers once you get to the details. "Better Diplomacy" is a common example. It's said quite often, but we don't ever really see much more detail than that. What I want for diplomacy may differ greatly from someone else.

I think my mod setup is the best. Someone else can look at it and think it's the worst. There's no way TW is going to satisfy the demands.

So TW made the smart business move. Instead of increasing depth of play, increase their customer base.

[Chibi Life]

Originally posted by Action Man:

Originally posted by Chibi Life:

Yeah early access has done some good things but man everyone knows games sell the most during launch and sales taper off as time goes by. It's just ripe for cash grabbing. It also turns out consumers have become zombies who don't care how awful corporations are or how many times they've been scammed or mistreated, they will buy it anyways.

We all created this problem by supporting those who don't deserve our support. If TaleWorld were to release M&B 3 it will sell well too anyways and they will do the same thing.

There is no ethical consumption with businesses.

I certainly think TW could have done more, but I also think a game like this relies on mods for longevity, no matter what. TW can only make so much game. Even if they had more at the endgame, people would still reach it and want more. Those that want to try something different are going to turn to mods.

I'm fairly sure that if you bring ten people together to say what they want, you'll get ten different answers once you get to the details. "Better Diplomacy" is a common example. It's said quite often, but we don't ever really see much more detail than that. What I want for diplomacy may differ greatly from someone else.

I think my mod setup is the best. Someone else can look at it and think it's the worst. There's no way TW is going to satisfy the demands.

So TW made the smart business move. Instead of increasing depth of play, increase their customer base.

Just cuz how you disagree with how diplomacy should work doesn't mean we let a modder do it instead of the developers. The developer can do it and a modder can tweak what was done. How can it be 2025 and we're still defending "Let the modders finish it"? These modders aren't getting paid by the developers for finishing their game. There's excessive moral and ethical problems with this that nobody seems to care about anymore but it used to be a hot topic.

No dude, a game gets fleshed out, polished and finished by the developer and THEN modders go to work. It isn't a developer gives us a bare bone game to mod and we flesh out/polish the game for them.

Not to mention if they're done with the game they should move on instead of breaking everyone's mods for 5 years. I tried to find mods on the workshop and a lot never bothered to update after September's patch so we gotta go play the game where we open the game and experiment to see if the mod is actually working or not lol. How many mods will not update come next patch?

Queue the gruesome twosome to come harp on me next

[Action Man]

Originally posted by Chibi Life:

Just cuz how you disagree with how diplomacy should work doesn't mean we let a modder do it instead of the developers. The developer can do it and a modder can tweak what was done. How can it be 2025 and we're still defending "Let the modders finish it"? These modders aren't getting paid by the developers for finishing their game. There's excessive moral and ethical problems with this that nobody seems to care about anymore but it used to be a hot topic.

No dude, a game gets fleshed out, polished and finished by the developer and THEN modders go to work. It isn't a developer gives us a bare bone game to mod and we flesh out/polish the game for them.

Not to mention if they're done with the game they should move on instead of breaking everyone's mods for 5 years. I tried to find mods on the workshop and a lot never bothered to update after September's patch so we gotta go play the game where we open the game and experiment to see if the mod is actually working or not lol. How many mods will not update come next patch?

Queue the gruesome twosome to come harp on me next

TW did finish Diplomacy. They finished it in the way they wanted it, as explained in their dev blogs. Then TW gave the customer base the ability to make up their own rules. Many did.

My point was that everyone who says 'let modders finish it' is very nebulous. What I think Diplomacy should be and what you think it should be are probably very different. So if TW created a Diplomacy system that was custom tailored to what I want, but you hated it, would you still consider Diplomacy bad and that modders need to come in and 'finish it'?

I very much agree this game could have used quite a bit more polish from TW. I've made my critiques known through many posts in this forum. However, I also accept that no matter how much polish they could have used, there would be a section of the player base that doesn't like it and will use mods to change the rules to suit them.

TW has also said they are not done with the game. So modding carries that risk of instability with a new update. It's TW's game. They get to do what they want with it. I don't see the point in getting mad at them for it. I also don't think TW should have to tip toe around mods when they release their updates. I certainly understand the frustration when a mod stops working, but that's not TW's fault.

[Hark]

Originally posted by Action Man:

TW did finish Diplomacy. They finished it in the way they wanted it, as explained in their dev blogs. Then TW gave the customer base the ability to make up their own rules. Many did.

Mechanically, I disagree with you.

RNG is not a logical, methodological way for diplomacy to function.

There are things that seed the diplomatic algorithms that dictate the war/peace mechanics, but these are hidden under the hood, are never explained, there's no rhyme or reason to them.

Anyone, feel free to break down the causes for war/peace mechanics. We're all waiting to be enlightened.

I understand and respect what you're saying, about the sentiment about "diplomacy" as a finished product. That is to say, you aren't playing and then a faction declares war, and the game crashes. But that's about as far as you can go.

It's literally an arbitrary, hidden-mechanic system, based on an algorithm that is weighs certain factors in the game, which we are not privy to. For example, you can go raid a bunch of some enemy's villages. How many though before they offer peace? How much does each raid impact on the #s? Etc etc. Average player doesn't even begin have the capability to assess these factors, and eventually has to make assumptions based on very generaland vague concepts, like "they're getting beaten up pretty bad so they will want peace cheaper than they would if they were smashing me".

[Action Man]

Originally posted by Hark:

Originally posted by Action Man:

TW did finish Diplomacy. They finished it in the way they wanted it, as explained in their dev blogs. Then TW gave the customer base the ability to make up their own rules. Many did.

Mechanically, I disagree with you.

RNG is not a logical, methodological way for diplomacy to function.

There are things that seed the diplomatic algorithms that dictate the war/peace mechanics, but these are hidden under the hood, are never explained, there's no rhyme or reason to them.

Anyone, feel free to break down the causes for war/peace mechanics. We're all waiting to be enlightened.

I understand and respect what you're saying, about the sentiment about "diplomacy" as a finished product. That is to say, you aren't playing and then a faction declares war, and the game crashes. But that's about as far as you can go.

It's literally an arbitrary, hidden-mechanic system, based on an algorithm that is weighs certain factors in the game, which we are not privy to. For example, you can go raid a bunch of some enemy's villages. How many though before they offer peace? How much does each raid impact on the #s? Etc etc. Average player doesn't even begin have the capability to assess these factors, and eventually has to make assumptions based on very generaland vague concepts, like "they're getting beaten up pretty bad so they will want peace cheaper than they would if they were smashing me".

You're not disagreeing with me. You're disagreeing with TW. I also think the diplomacy system in this game is lame. My point is TW decided that the diplomacy in the system was good enough for them, so they shipped it. I don't like it, so I use mods to change the rules. TW could have gone full hog and made a much more in depth system. If I hated that system, I'd still use mods to change the rules.

I could point to my observations of why the AI makes war/peace decisions, but I don't know what's running under the hood, or how it's running. Even if I could see it, I would have no idea what I'm looking at.

I use the Diplomacy mod quite a bit. I've been considering BannerKings to test out their Diplomacy features on a future run. Their systems would also be based on arbitrary decisions set by the mod creator(s) think they should be, just like TW, wouldn't they? It may or may not be hidden (I don't know if the mod makers have made their code available, and even if they did, I have no idea how to read it).

[Chibi Life]

Originally posted by Action Man:

Originally posted by Chibi Life:

Just cuz how you disagree with how diplomacy should work doesn't mean we let a modder do it instead of the developers. The developer can do it and a modder can tweak what was done. How can it be 2025 and we're still defending "Let the modders finish it"? These modders aren't getting paid by the developers for finishing their game. There's excessive moral and ethical problems with this that nobody seems to care about anymore but it used to be a hot topic.

No dude, a game gets fleshed out, polished and finished by the developer and THEN modders go to work. It isn't a developer gives us a bare bone game to mod and we flesh out/polish the game for them.

Not to mention if they're done with the game they should move on instead of breaking everyone's mods for 5 years. I tried to find mods on the workshop and a lot never bothered to update after September's patch so we gotta go play the game where we open the game and experiment to see if the mod is actually working or not lol. How many mods will not update come next patch?

Queue the gruesome twosome to come harp on me next

TW did finish Diplomacy. They finished it in the way they wanted it, as explained in their dev blogs. Then TW gave the customer base the ability to make up their own rules. Many did.

My point was that everyone who says 'let modders finish it' is very nebulous. What I think Diplomacy should be and what you think it should be are probably very different. So if TW created a Diplomacy system that was custom tailored to what I want, but you hated it, would you still consider Diplomacy bad and that modders need to come in and 'finish it'?

I very much agree this game could have used quite a bit more polish from TW. I've made my critiques known through many posts in this forum. However, I also accept that no matter how much polish they could have used, there would be a section of the player base that doesn't like it and will use mods to change the rules to suit them.

TW has also said they are not done with the game. So modding carries that risk of instability with a new update. It's TW's game. They get to do what they want with it. I don't see the point in getting mad at them for it. I also don't think TW should have to tip toe around mods when they release their updates. I certainly understand the frustration when a mod stops working, but that's not TW's fault.

That last patch was so pathetic it really wasn't worth releasing it at all except to tell us "Hey we're still doing something guys". Not worth the mod breaking. Yes they have the right to do whatever they want with their own game 100% agree, but it doesn't mean what they do won't annoy people. A ton of people who were playing with mods had their mods broken over a small patch that didn't really do a whole lot and their frustration is more relatable than, "TW can do whatever they want with their game and modders know the risks".

I'm trying to bring into perspective a more empathetic viewpoint from the eyes of many people who consume this product. It's true that modders know the risks, but if the patches being offered for the game are breaking mods and not delivering enough to make it worth it, people are going to be mad no matter how unreasonable their anger may be.

I spent my whole life being forced into customer service roles and I often feel like when it comes to gaming customer satisfaction is the last thing on anyone's mind and every time a customer has a complain they are called all sorts of names and bood off the stage. It's actually quite amazing. If I told any customer for a place I worked at to shove their complaints up their ass or just walk off and ignore them there'd be no warning before I get fired and I can't use that job as a reference anymore. TW's idea of customer service is to say nothing, ever and let people rage while they do whatever.

I can't for the life of me see that their last several patch releases were met with ever increasing clown awards and hate comments as something normal and just the usual entitled whiners. There is something internally wrong here and it's frustrating me to no end that it's being passed off as nothing. Keeping in mind that most people don't publicly express their problems with games they play like an overwhelming majority of people don't bother coming to forums to complain (mostly because people don't want to deal with abusive forum moderators with vague rules or game shills making their frustration worse) and would rather do it to friends, social groups or social media instead. So it may only look like 70 clown awards in the last patch notes out of the 3+ million copies sold but the silent majority needs to be considered too.

[Action Man]

Originally posted by Chibi Life:

snipped for length

That last patch was so pathetic...
I agree. After months of silence, we got a small bugfix patch. I appreciate bugfixes, but TW refusing to say anything is indeed annoying. This is also why I constantly tell people to not play on the current version. I'm still on 1.2.10. I never got that update. All my mods work. Many of my mods have worked across multiple versions. When I first started modding this game, an update caused a crash. Two minutes of Googling showed me how to lock my game version. This tool is there for everyone. So I can repeat this advice on a near daily (sometimes more than once a day) basis, at some point, people do need to light a candle instead of sitting in the dark.
TW gave modders a solution. They can still work on their game, us mod enjoyers can play older versions.

I'm trying to bring into perspective a more empathetic viewpoint...
TW is a businesses. Businesses are soulless. It makes decisions that they see as beneficial to them, and it made the decision to keep absolutely mum about development and release a trivial update that may have harmed the player base that uses mods. The people in TW are probably fine, I don't have any opinion on them. I have no empathy for TW as a business. To their credit, TW gave us the ability to refuse all these updates, as I mentioned above. It sucks when your game breaks, but there's a solution available.

I spent my whole life being forced into customer service roles...
You and I both. I honestly think everyone should have to work customer service just to truly experience it.
I say be mad if you feel mad. Speak up and make the complaints known. Others may disagree with you. I don't take it personally. I hope we're having a good discussion at least. :)
TW has made the decision to keep quiet. Unless they're making posts on their forum. I don't know, I don't have an account there. I link it sometimes if it comes up in a google search.

I can't for the life of me see that their last several patch releases were met with ever increasing clown awards...
I would wager TW is looking at different metrics than Steam Forum Stickers. If I were TW, I'd be looking at the over 80% positive review rating. I'd be looking at sales numbers. So even if 70 people stuck a clown sticker to a post, if TW keeps seeing money roll in, they probably aren't paying it much attention.

[Hark]

Originally posted by Action Man:

Originally posted by Hark:

Mechanically, I disagree with you.

RNG is not a logical, methodological way for diplomacy to function.

There are things that seed the diplomatic algorithms that dictate the war/peace mechanics, but these are hidden under the hood, are never explained, there's no rhyme or reason to them.

Anyone, feel free to break down the causes for war/peace mechanics. We're all waiting to be enlightened.

I understand and respect what you're saying, about the sentiment about "diplomacy" as a finished product. That is to say, you aren't playing and then a faction declares war, and the game crashes. But that's about as far as you can go.

It's literally an arbitrary, hidden-mechanic system, based on an algorithm that is weighs certain factors in the game, which we are not privy to. For example, you can go raid a bunch of some enemy's villages. How many though before they offer peace? How much does each raid impact on the #s? Etc etc. Average player doesn't even begin have the capability to assess these factors, and eventually has to make assumptions based on very generaland vague concepts, like "they're getting beaten up pretty bad so they will want peace cheaper than they would if they were smashing me".

You're not disagreeing with me. You're disagreeing with TW. I also think the diplomacy system in this game is lame. My point is TW decided that the diplomacy in the system was good enough for them, so they shipped it. I don't like it, so I use mods to change the rules. TW could have gone full hog and made a much more in depth system. If I hated that system, I'd still use mods to change the rules.

I could point to my observations of why the AI makes war/peace decisions, but I don't know what's running under the hood, or how it's running. Even if I could see it, I would have no idea what I'm looking at.

I use the Diplomacy mod quite a bit. I've been considering BannerKings to test out their Diplomacy features on a future run. Their systems would also be based on arbitrary decisions set by the mod creator(s) think they should be, just like TW, wouldn't they? It may or may not be hidden (I don't know if the mod makers have made their code available, and even if they did, I have no idea how to read it).

Sure, if we want to reduce this to semantics?

It is indeed "stable" and... I suppose the implication there is to say it's functional. Sure.

But... is it fleshed out? Is it intuitive, engaging? Deep or - gasp - innovative? Lmaowtfbbq hell naw.

It's arbitrary, shallow, and essentially schizoid.

It's designed to maintain a certain pace of warring, that honestly doesn't even remotely match up with the pacing on a generational level. That alone speaks so much about the vision for this game, and the execution of that vision (or lack thereof).

You can beat the game in a couple of years soloing on Bannerlord difficulty... yet there's a cap of 60 family member/companions? Who has 60 family members within 2 years? So many things like this that beyond surface level don't square up at all, Diplomacy is one of the most obvious ways, and how that impacts pacing of gameplay. TW designed a game to engage you on a battle simulator level, but everything else is off-kilter at that pace. Thus the war/peace seems schizoid.

[Chibi Life]

Originally posted by Action Man:

Originally posted by Chibi Life:

snipped for length

That last patch was so pathetic...
I agree. After months of silence, we got a small bugfix patch. I appreciate bugfixes, but TW refusing to say anything is indeed annoying. This is also why I constantly tell people to not play on the current version. I'm still on 1.2.10. I never got that update. All my mods work. Many of my mods have worked across multiple versions. When I first started modding this game, an update caused a crash. Two minutes of Googling showed me how to lock my game version. This tool is there for everyone. So I can repeat this advice on a near daily (sometimes more than once a day) basis, at some point, people do need to light a candle instead of sitting in the dark.
TW gave modders a solution. They can still work on their game, us mod enjoyers can play older versions.

I'm trying to bring into perspective a more empathetic viewpoint...
TW is a businesses. Businesses are soulless. It makes decisions that they see as beneficial to them, and it made the decision to keep absolutely mum about development and release a trivial update that may have harmed the player base that uses mods. The people in TW are probably fine, I don't have any opinion on them. I have no empathy for TW as a business. To their credit, TW gave us the ability to refuse all these updates, as I mentioned above. It sucks when your game breaks, but there's a solution available.

I spent my whole life being forced into customer service roles...
You and I both. I honestly think everyone should have to work customer service just to truly experience it.
I say be mad if you feel mad. Speak up and make the complaints known. Others may disagree with you. I don't take it personally. I hope we're having a good discussion at least. :)
TW has made the decision to keep quiet. Unless they're making posts on their forum. I don't know, I don't have an account there. I link it sometimes if it comes up in a google search.

I can't for the life of me see that their last several patch releases were met with ever increasing clown awards...
I would wager TW is looking at different metrics than Steam Forum Stickers. If I were TW, I'd be looking at the over 80% positive review rating. I'd be looking at sales numbers. So even if 70 people stuck a clown sticker to a post, if TW keeps seeing money roll in, they probably aren't paying it much attention.

Well at least you're writing intelligent replies and aren't being stupid or hostile or just sounding like a shill. I get defensive pretty easily on these forums cuz I'm so used to the usual idiocy. Bannerlord is the only sequel released to a successful game (Warband) from this company. Whether Bannerlord was truly a success for TW's future or not will be determined on their next game launch. As in, that's the only way we can see if customer faith was actually lost or if it really is a vocal minority and everything is fine. Mostly because we can't judge how large the silent majority is cuz they're not speaking out in places that can be watched and collected to piece together statistics.

[Action Man]

Originally posted by Hark:

Sure, if we want to reduce this to semantics?

It is indeed "stable" and... I suppose the implication there is to say it's functional. Sure.

But... is it fleshed out? Is it intuitive, engaging? Deep or - gasp - innovative? Lmaowtfbbq hell naw.

It's arbitrary, shallow, and essentially schizoid.

It's designed to maintain a certain pace of warring, that honestly doesn't even remotely match up with the pacing on a generational level. That alone speaks so much about the vision for this game, and the execution of that vision (or lack thereof).

You can beat the game in a couple of years soloing on Bannerlord difficulty... yet there's a cap of 60 family member/companions? Who has 60 family members within 2 years? So many things like this that beyond surface level don't square up at all, Diplomacy is one of the most obvious ways, and how that impacts pacing of gameplay. TW designed a game to engage you on a battle simulator level, but everything else is off-kilter at that pace. Thus the war/peace seems schizoid.

Yup. I agree. The simplistic diplomacy funnels more war, the real meat of this game. None of the non-combat systems really work with the combat either.

Raise kids! Grandkids! Great grandkids! Develop your territory and grow your prosperity!

Oh...you already have a bunch of family members? No more for you!
Oh, you conquered the map in a few years?
Oh, you got all your money from battle so you don't have to make use of the economy, workshops, caravans, trading, or fief management?

I would love to have an actual reason to engage with the non-combat side of the game.

[Action Man]

Originally posted by Chibi Life:

Well at least you're writing intelligent replies and aren't being stupid or hostile or just sounding like a shill. I get defensive pretty easily on these forums cuz I'm so used to the usual idiocy. Bannerlord is the only sequel released to a successful game (Warband) from this company. Whether Bannerlord was truly a success for TW's future or not will be determined on their next game launch. As in, that's the only way we can see if customer faith was actually lost or if it really is a vocal minority and everything is fine. Mostly because we can't judge how large the silent majority is cuz they're not speaking out in places that can be watched and collected to piece together statistics.

I don't plan on buying their next game without seeing some significant improvement.