Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

[deuxhero]

12 hours left! Rest well tonight, for tomorrow you set sail for the kingdom of... Daggerfall Calradia.

 

[Catacombs]

I'm tempted to buy it but want to wait for people's experiences.

 

[IDtenT]

I'm honestly waiting to see what the localized price is.

 

[Catacombs]

Probably in the $40-$50 range.

 

[SmartCheetah]

11 hours left. IIRC they said that missing features will be parts of the crafting system, some scenes and other systems. But it should be something like warband experience plus other content anyway, on early access start.

 

[Lithium Flower]

My biggest reservation re: Bannerlord:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcwrKBGFkzY&feature=youtu.be&t=176

It seems like AI has very little sense of distance and just clusterfucks into each other when charging into melee. I've seen this occur in many gameplay videos. (It gets even worse in that video circa 6:20 when both sides charge each other) Although it looks like the AI fights more naturally when their numbers are sparser, so perhaps the cause of this is that the front ranks are pushed by the second ranks and thus unable to move naturally? In which case the basic line formations are superior to the (much-needed IMO) special formations.

The fact that this is behavior post patch that was supposed to improve combat AI worries me.

Of course I don't expect the same level of unit cohesion you would find in a total war game, but even warband *seemed* to be less clusterfucky (that's an adjective btw) than this. I've also seen an older video where the an elite unit of AI, when put into a shieldwall formation and charged at by chaff, literally could not raise their weapons because their own formation was so dense... which would be a pretty cool simulation of that one defeat of the Romans? by the Carthaginians? but not as the default outcome of using that formation.

 

[deuxhero]

The maps we have now were never intended for more than ~20 AI soldiers per player and were likely given AI routes with that in mind.

 

[Mortmal]

Probably in the $40-$50 range.

Who cares , might be the last good game you play...

 

[Lithium Flower]

The maps we have now were never intended for more than ~20 AI soldiers per player and were likely given AI routes with that in mind.

Is pathfinding actually to blame for the way AI behaves in mass battles though? You can see the same behavior replicated on flat maps where terrain navigation is not an issue.

Furthermore, I'm surprised to see no toggle to force AI to use polearms when most infantry get a free one as a secondary when we've had a blunt weapon toggle since the first M&B. Other videos showed Legionaries ignoring spears even when using defensive formations and the Empire troop literally named after the polearms they are supposed to be using charge into battles with their sidearms drawn. I suspect this might be because, just like in Warband, spears are weak in the hands of the AI - here the problem could be even worse because the infantry just hugs each other.

I get it, unit and polearm simulation is tough, but things were actually *better* at some point. Check out Viking Conquest:



Besides the enemy constantly reforming the shieldwall in the middle of the engagement for some reason (I assume thats why they keep dancing to the side), notice how the AI actually give each other much more space which not only enables them to use their weapon types effectively but also means that adjacent characters in a unit can actually cover each other and prevent flanking - you know, the whole point of a formation. The individual AI might be too passive in the video, sure, but this is something I expected Bannerlord to fix: take the massive tactical advancements introduced by to the game by mods and arguably perfected by VC (which in itself is a mod glorified into a DLC) and build a an individual battle AI that actually uses them to their full potential. Instead we appear to be getting formations from aforementioned mods with an even more spastic AI, which is the only way I can explain shieldwall AI being as broken as it was for as long as it was in the beta (when a few playtests could have identified the issues present, let alone some degree of design effort).

I could be wrong on a lot of these counts as I don't have access to the beta myself, and am only going by the bannerlord videos + my own experiences in prior titles and their mods, but I am yet to find footage or information that addresses this.

idk fam I hope I'm wrong but it sure looks p. f. disappointing

 

[Butter]

8 hours.

 

[Lyre Mors]

Ok, now that I know the campaign is in the Early Access, I'm pretty hyped. Going to have to get this I think.

 

[Black Angel]

ITZ going to be the best Monday ever be and will ever be

 

[Catacombs]

Probably in the $40-$50 range.

Who cares , might be the last good game you play...

That remains to be seen.

 

[A horse of course]

Is the courtship, marriage and children system in the early access release? I remember talk about being killed or executed and carrying on playing as your kids or something.

 

[razvedchiki]

nop.

 

[Jimmious]

This game plans to unlock in approximately 2 hours

 

[Turisas]

It's finally harvesting season.

 

[IDtenT]

One hour boys!

 

[Lyre Mors]

One hour boys!

Pretty sure that means two hours with the way the steam store page countdown works. In an hour it'll start to count down minutes.

 

[Aemar]

Two hours until the Steam servers overload.

 

[Turisas]

Pretty sure that means two hours with the way the steam store page countdown works. In an hour it'll start to count down minutes.

Yeah no idea why they haven't fixed that already.

 

[Aemar]

 

[Jenkem]

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

Well, the 30th has come and gone and its still not released. Any news on why not?

 

[Jenkem]

one hour left