Game News Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord releasing on October 25th

[DesolationStone]

On the other hand, everything not-battle experienced a massive downgrade. The economy is a joke, the AI snowballs super fast (hell, it often starts before you even get your first fief!), AI is all kinds of retarded in many different ways, there are broken systems galore, nothing seems balanced at all, and the quests... Yeah, okay, the quests are just as shit as in Warband, no downgrade there There are also new features added, such as minigames in taverns (who the fuck cares???), being able to have a kid (uh, okay?), and being able to kill enemy lords (YES! FINALLY!). There's also a kingdom management system that seems interesting but needs quite a bit of work before it stops being gamey and kinda stupid.

So all the management aspects they have been promising to us for the past decade were just bullshit?

 

[thesecret1]

So all the management aspects they have been promising to us for the past decade were just bullshit?

It seems like they tried for that; there ARE new systems compared to Warband, ones that even sound like they'd be good... But it's all in such shitty state, unbalanced or even downright broken.

 

[Crescent Hawk]

I would not mind bugs, Jesus I dont mind jank at all if its done with love. But the game has very little presentation, no love poured into it. Companions, feasts, side shit to do should be important in games like this to help the main combat gameplay.

Maybe mods will help it, one day. Who knows. I think they might. I want a similar experience to VC at least.

 

[vibehunter]

Are they really so desperate for console sales that they've been pouring all funds into the console port (funds that came from a dedicated and established PC playerbase btw)? How many console plebs would actually be interested in this game anyway?

M&B community really got cucked by Taleworlds here.

 

[Tavernking]

Remember: Always pirate before a purchase. There are no exceptions to this rule.

What if there's a free demo?

 

[Burning Bridges]

In retrospect I would call this one of the dumbest projects ever. M&B was quite the success but had very tacked on, amateurish mechanics. Still people loved it because of the unique combat.

Then they finally announced a "successor" but took nearly a decade to release the first E/A. When it came out it became clear that instead of a proper M&B with a solid campaign this was only a remake with better graphics, perhaps better programming. Even the horribly underwhelming UI was redone. They took a great concept that had been marred by shitty execution and 10 years and added practically nothing to it. Now they probably have kids and need to replace the devs with millenials who will do jack.

 

[cpmartins]

Remember: Always pirate before a purchase. There are no exceptions to this rule.

What if there's a free demo?

I've played Starsector, Rimworld and Mount and Blade for over 50 hours before I've made a purchase. Those were my best purchases to this day. Coincidence?

 

[Gregz]

Hmm, interesting. So, is this better than/on the same level as Warband/With Fire & Sword/Brytenwalda/Prophesy of Pendor?

Nothing is better than Pendor

 

[Zeriel]

Hmm, interesting. So, is this better than/on the same level as Warband/With Fire & Sword/Brytenwalda/Prophesy of Pendor?

Is this a joke?

 

[Jrpgfan]

I can't think of a single time Early Access was beneficial for consumers. Just a cash-out option for developers who don't believe in their game.

It definitely helped make Subnautica a better game, which doesn't seem bad for consumers -- though admittedly that also takes developers knowing how to filter feedback in a productive manner. Hades was similar, and it's pretty hard to argue they weren't already putting serious resources into it even during EA. To call it a 'cash-out' is a non-starter, not only because Supergiant is one of those devs that relies on their reputation.

I don't know what niche, prosper-tier games codexers buy in EA that warrants this attitude, but I really don't get it. Maybe it was valid in the past when garbage peddlers' asset flips were being given equal attention by Steam algorithmically, but that's nowhere near as prevalent today. Are there lazy cash grabs still? Sure, but you can usually identify a developer's attitude towards their product fairly quickly. People who care about what they're making aren't going to suddenly bail with some token cash and a tarnished name.

Further examples of Early Access titles that turned out great (and where EA served more than merely finding bugs): DUSK, Hunt: Showdown, Factorio, Kenshi, Slay the Spire, Battle Brothers, Rimworld, Jupiter Hell, and Crypt of the Necrodancer. Hell, near everything by Klei starts in EA these days. I think the format makes perfect sense for roguelites and roguelikes especially.

tl;dr there are genuine benefits to EA beyond some amateur QA, and a big gap between an unfinished game being released in EA by indie devs, compared to an unfinished title being released as a whatever jumbo-bonus collectors edition by Ubisoft for 120 euros. There's nothing wrong with selling a WIP as long as you're honest that that's what it is.

Judge the release version when it releases, friends. We are all Butterlords, here.

You are normally insufferably shrill over developers choosing to use Early Access models, what gives that you're suddenly defending TaleWorlds over it?

Wasn't AoD in EA too?

Colony Ship is in EA and is turning out great too.

 

[Zeriel]

I've played this game a bunch since release. Overall impression is that combat has improved a lot since warband – the battle AI is much better, staying alive is overall significantly harder (mostly because the AI can actually aim in this game), graphixx are pretty (if you care about such a thing anyway), and I can have a 500 vs 500 units battling it out simultaneously while the game runs better than 150 vs 150 in warband.

On the other hand, everything not-battle experienced a massive downgrade. The economy is a joke, the AI snowballs super fast (hell, it often starts before you even get your first fief!), AI is all kinds of retarded in many different ways, there are broken systems galore, nothing seems balanced at all, and the quests... Yeah, okay, the quests are just as shit as in Warband, no downgrade there There are also new features added, such as minigames in taverns (who the fuck cares???), being able to have a kid (uh, okay?), and being able to kill enemy lords (YES! FINALLY!). There's also a kingdom management system that seems interesting but needs quite a bit of work before it stops being gamey and kinda stupid.

The good news to take from this is that all of the bad shit seems to be contained in the campaign part, and that part tends to be the easiest to mod, or such is my impression, at least. I truly believe that mods will be able to turn this game into a 10/10 experience, just gotta wait for them to come out (I have my eye on In The Name of Jerusalem II, and Shokuho). As for the base game... It's fun when you just want to go and fight some battles, just don't expect anything more from it.

Killing lords is pointless because they instantly spawn a new one though. The size of the faction will never change. It's always the wrong decision to do it.

Also I remain puzzled by people who say Warband quests are the same in comparison to Bannerlord. In my recollection, Warband had a lot more quests & flavor. That's my biggest disappointment with Bannerlord; it just doesn't feel like a real world. The huge amount of flavor text Warband had aside that fleshed out the world, maybe the crucial difference is all the story and quests that were tied to companions whereas in Bannerlord they are completely pointless, but eh. Overall I feel like Warband had a lot more quests & storyline content than Bannerlord does, even in vanilla, unmodded state. I only ever played Warband unmodded and my time with it was so much more compelling than Bannerlord.

 

[thesecret1]

Killing lords is pointless because they instantly spawn a new one though. The size of the faction will never change. It's always the wrong decision to do it.

It still feels good. Plus, it's something modders can make use of, whereas it was a big no-no even in modded warband.

Also I remain puzzled by people who say Warband quests are the same in comparison to Bannerlord. In my recollection, Warband had a lot more quests & flavor.

Then your recollection is wrong, warband quests were utter dogshit that sent the player on the most tedious of errands, and had little flavour to speak of. "Hey a dude committed crime against me. Go to some shithole, spend 30 min trying to find him there somewhere, and kill him." "Hey give this letter to another lord at the other side of the world." "Hey, kill a bunch of looter gangs roaming about. Also they'll all scatter instantly to who knows where. Good luck." "Find a bandit hideout somewhere in a radius between two metres and three light years and clear it out."

They were horrible and only wasted the player's time.

 

[Zeriel]

That sounds like you are criticizing quest design, not talking about comparisons between the two games.

"I didn't like the quests in Warband due to my subjective opinions, therefore Bannerlord having way less of them doesn't matter" is not really an argument, it's just you applying a completely bizarre personal standard and grafting it onto something else.

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

"I didn't like the quests in Warband due to my subjective opinions, therefore Bannerlord having way less of them doesn't matter"

The problem is that a lot of the quests that warband has are just fundamentally broken and also when I'll have a time I'll check if there's really less of them because it just seems like some that were just rank were replaced with others that are better.

When I read some of comments itt I wonder when was the last time you've played the game because fuckload of these are just the opposite of what's happening now. Like "hurr not enough battles" - there's too many of them, in the sense that you get the retarded 2k stack vs 2k stack garbage and whichever side tricks the other to come further away from their spawnpoint wins, while the more reasonable 200 v 200 kind of affairs are much more rare. Like you fags don't even know what to complain about.

 

[ArchAngel]

That sounds like you are criticizing quest design, not talking about comparisons between the two games.

"I didn't like the quests in Warband due to my subjective opinions, therefore Bannerlord having way less of them doesn't matter" is not really an argument, it's just you applying a completely bizarre personal standard and grafting it onto something else.

Bannerlord has enough variety in quests. I never felt it lacked it , at least in latest version of EA I played 6 months ago.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Killing lords is pointless because they instantly spawn a new one though.

The only reason to ever use it I think is when you've captured their king and wiped out their faction, otherwise its not worth it. Its purely an RP feature.
Would've been better if it destabilized the faction bit by bit for every noble you killed.