Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord was announced back in 2012. And now, after just eight years, it finds itself in Steam Early Access. Today we propose to talk about whether the wait was worth it.
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
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I agree with the review in many respects, however, it is still worth mentioning a few things, especially for those who are familiar with the series in general.
There are currently a lot of mechanics in the game that work strangely or don’t work at all. By what logic kingdoms declare war on each other is clear only to the leaders of these same kingdoms themselves (in Warband 2010, the player was given a brief summary of why one faction or another declares war on another).
There is a problem with the balance of factions (the so-called snowballing – a phenomenon when one faction crushes all the others in a relatively short period of time). In the first versions of the game, this was a very sore subject, the lords ran over to the dominant faction like rats from a sinking ship (yes, this may be logical, but at least someone should have a concept of honor and the oath?). Now the situation has improved (not least thanks to the fact that the developers maintain contact with the audience), but there is still some work to be done – for example, introducing a truce period during which factions will be given time to rest after the war, or at least the opportunity not to fight on 10 fronts at once.
Further, the mechanics of heirs currently work very “not very well” – children grow quite slowly, and when they grow up, they have extremely meager parameters (children adopt only the character traits of their parents, and the division is extremely strict – a boy inherits the traits of his father, a girl – his mother. Mix it up – it’s not about us). Their skills are approximately at the level of peasants. I think they will still work on this. Characters, by the way, also age only on paper – for example, Empress Rageya from the Southern Empire is 50 years old, but she looks 25 years old. For some reason, the visual age display was temporarily turned off in the game – even in the character editor they don’t allow you to set your age.
Perks – many of them just don’t work. Not at all. The forums continue to catch non-working perks, but the community is getting closer and closer to the opinion that the perk system as a whole needs to be reconsidered. As is the experience gain, which is too slow, forcing the player to embark on an exciting journey to Grindland. (Starting today, everyone can try out the beta patch, in which the developers have slightly reworked the system for gaining experience – it is now faster, but there are no details yet, because the patch has just been released).
Due to the fact that the game is in early access, there is some monotony of scenes – villages, cities and battlefields often repeat each other (in Warband, cities were unique, villages were occasionally repeated). But the developers honestly warned about this on Steam on the game page, so over time, I hope, they will correct it. Just for those who want to buy now and play – be prepared for repeating locations.
The same is with quests – at the moment there are very few of them – 2 or three types for each quest giver. So be prepared time after time to protect the negligent relative of a noble person from the village, find missing daughters, beat gangs of poachers, etc. Of course, quests are not the cornerstone of the series, but sometimes you still want to take a break from constant sieges and massive slaughter, and you can’t really improve relations with cities and villages in any other way. But, as you can see in the gameplay videos (and in the game files), many more interesting quests await us, we just need to wait.
Managing your own kingdom is completely buggy – to the point that your own kingdom will declare war on others on its own – your opinion is not taken into account here 😀
The main quest, by the way, is also bugged – many cannot complete it at a certain stage. Although others say everything is fine. I won’t say anything myself, I gave up on him instantly.
To my surprise, there is no such mechanic as feasts (or holidays) – this is when one lord invited others to hang out in his castle or city. For the player it was an excellent opportunity to improve relations with them or find a passion. I think they will add it in the future, the players are really asking for it.
In general, internal politics https://slotostarscasino.co.uk/ at the moment is limited to various edicts and votes on who should give what fief. Uprisings, showdowns between clans, state. no coups or anything else yet.
There are problems with performance – in big battles the FPS can gallop like your character on a faithful horse, and in sieges you can’t do without a powerful processor – my frames sometimes drop to a humiliating 15. But the problem is solved by reducing the number of troops on the screen. The developers are also aware of the problem and are looking for a solution (the problem is that the AI cannot calculate routes properly and loads the processor terribly).
And recently, a large amount of armor and weapons disappeared from the game – the developers explained this by problems with the compatibility of game versions and promise to add the items back when everything is fixed. And there are also problems with prices – you have saved up some money, about 300 thousand, go to the market to the armorer, look for the best armor – and it costs 800k. By God, not a single castle costs that much, and the stats of the armor are slightly better than the one you are wearing now. However, the developers correct this almost every day.
In general, if the above things don’t scare you, then you can safely take communion. As a veteran of Wabanda 2010, I can say that so far I like almost everything – the interface has become better, many annoying things have been removed, the AI has become much smarter (seriously, you will love what it can do in battles), lords can finally be completely and irrevocably killed, visual branches for leveling up troops have been introduced, and so on. The game has great potential, I hope the developers will be able to realize everything they have in mind. I’ve already played more than 100 hours and don’t plan to quit just yet.
Well, if you already bought Early Access, then go to the developer forums – surprisingly, they are quite willing to interact with the community and listen to their opinions. For example, just recently the developers reworked the mercenary mechanics based on player advice. And maybe you can help with catching bugs.
What could look more ironic combination than a video sequence from “Vangers” and the phrase “HAVE FUN yourself”?
No, well, there is some kind of principle that every next 1% improvement in anything is exponentially more expensive than the previous one. Because of this, a 720p screen with a puny matrix and crappy viewing angles can cost 500 rubles, a normal 1080p monitor is approaching 10k, and a reference screen with perfect color rendition, 4k resolution and full stuffing already costs around a million (or millions) (prices I snatched out of thin air, but I hope this is an indicative example). Like, this is quite realistic. There are speakers that are more expensive than apartments.
I agree, first impressions in the game: “We are at home”
Everything is so familiar, it functions according to the principles hammered in in 2008
And then you start studying and discover the nuances. NUANCES. And captivates.
50 hours and I want more and more.
I’ll say one thing. When I launched Bannerlord, galloped on my horse towards the enemy, and then my frail horse was killed under me with a couple of precise blows from a spear – I screamed with delight. The game makes you rejoice and experience the same delight as 12 years ago. And, considering that patches are frequent and numerous, I’m ready to forgive the game a lot.
Uhh. The review was viewed at all? There, as it were, about dynamic systems (i.e. n. a “truly LIVING” world), Warband had its own kingdom, trade and politics, blaming early access for bugs is stupid to say the least, and interface changes and other “changes compared to Warband” are small minor changes that in some places didn’t make anything better at all, the same interface was crap and remains the same, only more beautiful now. Well, the same inheritance system, as indicated in the comments above, in fact does not work and is not needed. Ivan spoke about a major overhaul of the content and new systems that provide an honest simulation of processes in the world instead of crutches in the original and Warband. Why not make an overview that describes all the significant changes?
Well, yes, early and midgame have practically not changed since the days of warband, with the exception of small strokes in places of questionable usefulness
“Characters, by the way, also age only on paper – for example, Empress Rageya from the Southern Empire is 50 years old, but she looks 25 years old.»
in this regard, it was funny when I decided to find myself a wife, went to castles and chose purely by appearance, I looked like she was pretty and amenable to compliments, I opened the encyclopedia, damn, she’s 55 years old and has 3 children)))
although quite recently some kind of big patch was released, which, according to the description, also changes the physiognomy of NPc and maybe something has changed there, I haven’t checked yet)
He managed the castle, got involved in trade (but poorly), but here it’s like we’re talking about the version from early access. And before the release of the game about Bannerlord there are no plans. Is it so important to thoroughly explain trade, economics, politics, and the numerous shortcomings (which I myself noticed and were mentioned in abundance in the comments above)? I think not, because it will still change 20 times before release. And already there you can play all 100 hours before sitting down to write the text.
It may be realistic, but it simply misses the point of buying armor, which costs as much as half of Calradia, and in fact is better than your tattered vest only in that it has +2 leg protection, and your vest +1.
But now the situation with prices has also become a little better, before there was a guard. There was only one crossbow in the game, its stats were not so great (average), but it cost about 20 thousand gold apiece, + required a skill of about 20. Against this background, it was funny to receive the quest “The leader of a criminal group asks to get a weapon,” when you are asked to bring 10 crossbows (20 thousand gold each), and the reward is promised as much as 6 thousand! 😀 Moreover, after the battle the crossbows did not fall at all.
But, I repeat, the developers are in very close contact with the community and take care of all these matters. True, yesterday they announced that they want to switch to weekly patches, but they will be thorough and with content, and not just crash fixes. So so far everything is fine with the game, and such problems can be forgiven. Let’s call it temporary inconvenience.
The main problem so far is 8 gigs of RAM. The game currently has a problem with memory leaks, especially those who have 8 GB of RAM suffer from this. If you believe the developers, then the fight against memory leaks is now one of their priorities.
I had a similar problem (i5-2300 overclocked to 3.2 8 gigs and gtx 760), helped change the resolution to 1024×800.In principle, now on medium-low you can play for about three hours calmly
And there are also problems with prices – you have saved up some money, about 300 thousand, go to the market to the armorer, look for the best armor – and it costs 800k.
Well, don’t tell me, here the interface, although there aren’t enough stars in the sky, is still MUCH better than what was in Warband. Here, at least the branches of troop development are more or less clearly shown, a convenient encyclopedia, finally you can track settlements so as not to look at the same encyclopedia 10 times if you get lost… The lack of a log, which was in Warband, is depressing. Well, I don’t have time to read all these notices about who beat whom, who took whom prisoner, which castle was besieged where, who declared war on whom, and so on.
Recently I finally decided to buy the game and, in principle, I’m happy with everything, except for one thing: optimization. I don’t know where I sinned like that (but even at minimum settings the game freezes all the time and drops FPS to zero (although the same doom is new, it works great at high settings)
What is your config?? Not the one in the profile, right??
I have a feeling it’s due to lack of RAM. Same problem, periodic freezes. I compared it with a person who has four times more memory, in principle there is no such problem. And my 8, although fast, does not pull. I’m thinking of clearing a space on the solid state drive and throwing the game there for the sake of experimenting.
