Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

Tuco

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Punko said:
NPCs forming a blob like that is a bit special.

Knowing the M&B engine, there is no way you could be in that blob and swing a weapon, you'd just hit one of the guys around you before your strike is even halfway ..

Doesn't inspire confidence.
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No reason to expect that's the current state of the AI campaign warfare when it's working properly. This is just a vid from a simple mod someone made to create a singleplayer fight with minimal features. Formations are a pretty in Warband and they've talked a lot about them in their dev blogs. Dev Blog 25/10/18 - TaleWorlds Entertainment

Of course, if the AI and player just send an all out charge command, you'll get two blobs that attack each other blindly. If the formation / tactic AI is so shitty this is common, then they've totally failed.


In different warband mods there would be differently levels of complexity for formation AI, and a lot of times the more complex it was the easier it was to exploit, such that the toughest opponents in the game literally just clumped and charged you, and easier opponents would set up these dumb formations that you could juke and pick off with cavalry charges and archers. It's not trivial to create a game that allows free player movement on horseback where the field tactics don't break down.
 
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Tuco

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With bannerlords release i decided to try playing the only big warband mod ive been putting off for years now, warsword conquest.

www.moddb.com

Warsword Conquest mod for Mount & Blade: Warband

Warsword Conquest is a total conversion of warbands mount and blade 1.153 based on the warhammer fantasy world by Games workshop and is single player only at moment.
www.moddb.com www.moddb.com

A few hours in i started getting frequent crashes, what a shame. These guys have been developing it for six years or some shit and it never got that much traction because it was never ready, but it's one of the most ambitious and content rich mods for warband.
 
Tuco

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Also i checked out the mod that lets you have test single player battles in bannerlord. Looks like bannerlord has a fairly comprehensive .NET API, which makes me pretty excited for the mods that'll come out for it. The engine easily handles thousands of fighters simultaneously, way more than warband. Im pretty pumped.
 
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BrotherWu

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Speaking of mods, I was trying out a mod I had not played previously and contacted the dev about pretty big bug in it. We got to talking a bit about Warband modding and he sent me the source to see if I could track down the bug, which I did pretty quickly.

But. HOLY FUCK Warband modding is a kloogy mess. Poorly documented "Python" (not really) scripts that get "compiled" into text files with function IDs and the parameters passed to them. The txt files are interpreted at runtime (AFAIK).

One of the files I was looking at, I shit you not, was 80k lines of this mess:
mess.PNG

Interesting to see all the stuff that is going on under the hood but it's a wonder people have been able to do the things they have.
 
Punko

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BrotherWu said:
Speaking of mods, I was trying out a mod I had not played previously and contacted the dev about pretty big bug in it. We got to talking a bit about Warband modding and he sent me the source to see if I could track down the bug, which I did pretty quickly.

But. HOLY FUCK Warband modding is a kloogy mess. Poorly documented "Python" (not really) scripts that get "compiled" into text files with function IDs and the parameters passed to them. The txt files are interpreted at runtime (AFAIK).

One of the files I was looking at, I shit you not, was 80k lines of this mess:
View attachment 249625

Interesting to see all the stuff that is going on under the hood but it's a wonder people have been able to do the things they have.
Click to expand...

I've managed to edit values to attain the goals I had in mind.

At least the M&B files aren't encrypted. Editing a file like the one you showed is np to me, and I've never written a line of code, opening an encrypted file is something else.
 
BrotherWu

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Yeah changing values is not that bad and the one I showed was pretty straightforward. Figuring out what some sections are doing is a little more arcane.
 
Tuco

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BrotherWu said:
Speaking of mods, I was trying out a mod I had not played previously and contacted the dev about pretty big bug in it. We got to talking a bit about Warband modding and he sent me the source to see if I could track down the bug, which I did pretty quickly.

But. HOLY FUCK Warband modding is a kloogy mess. Poorly documented "Python" (not really) scripts that get "compiled" into text files with function IDs and the parameters passed to them. The txt files are interpreted at runtime (AFAIK).

One of the files I was looking at, I shit you not, was 80k lines of this mess:
View attachment 249625

Interesting to see all the stuff that is going on under the hood but it's a wonder people have been able to do the things they have.
Click to expand...
It really is astonishing that the modding scene is as active as it is. Warband's modability is almost an afterthought.

It's crazy that still in 2020 one of the most mod-friendly engines is the Infinity Engine made for Baldur's Gate in 1998.
 
A

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Not too sure about the price point. Part of its success was that it was a cheap game and so the jankiness was easily excused.
 
Kirun

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Dom said:

Not too sure about the price point. Part of its success was that it was a cheap game and so the jankiness was easily excused.
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Early access was a shit sandwich gamers reluctantly swallowed and could somewhat rationalize/justify. Now comes the release of full-price early access, that impulsive consumers will happily swallow. Wolcen thread is a prime example. These guys can get fuuuuuuuucked if they seriously plan to release an EA title at 50 fucking bucks.
 
BrotherWu

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I am currently working on a PoP playthrough. I would give my left nut for a mediocre release of this game. The mod community will pick up the slack.
 
Caliane

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honestly I was going to defend it at first too.

I mean, PoE was a free to play game. but I paid $25 iirc to get into the closed EA beta. I think paying a premium for exclusive early access is fine, and reasonable. Early adopters taking risks. And with that, its up to the Devs to provide a strong pitch. Either at least a very promising design doc, which admittedly never really works. Everyone has great ideas, but those great ideas being brought into fruition is rare. From Starbound to GW2, to No mans sky. Even Wolcen as mentioned. But when you start building a game, sometimes you just can't get those ideas to work. Sometimes, you realize in practice they are boring. Having a strong working game prototype is best, before being brought to EA. Which is where something like PoE comes in. But sadly, so does Wolcen/Umbra...

It does look like they are bringing something to the table for this EA. Personally I'm not going to be the one to test it. I'll let one of you jump in and tell me how complete this EA game is. how much of the core loop is there, etc.
 
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Kirun

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Caliane said:
honestly I was going to defend it at first too.

I mean, PoE was a free to play game. but I paid $25 iirc to get into the closed EA beta. I think paying a premium for exclusive early access is fine, and reasonable. Early adopters taking risks. And with that, its up to the Devs to provide a strong pitch. Either at least a very promising design doc, which admittedly never really works. Everyone has great ideas, but those great ideas being brought into fruition is rare. From Starbound to GW2, to No mans sky. Even Wolcen as mentioned. But when you start building a game, sometimes you just can't get those ideas to work. Sometimes, you realize in practice they are boring. Having a strong working game prototype is best, before being brought to EA. Which is where something like PoE comes in. But sadly, so does Wolcen/Umbra...

It does look like they are bringing something to the table for this EA. Personally I'm not going to be the one to test it. I'll let one of you jump in and tell me how complete this EA game is. how much of the core loop is there, etc.
Click to expand...

EA was fine when it was the "alternative" to Kickstarter. A lot of people looked at Kickstarter and balked at the idea of investing in something "unproven". So, along comes early access, where indie companies (hopefully) are saying, "Look, invest into this awesome idea, take part in the development process, and in return for your investment we'll give you a somewhat playable version of the game, with the promise that you keep the title on "release" and help/watch the game come to fruition". Not an awful deal, especially since you're getting at least something for your money, unlike the risk that was Kickstarter.

Now they want to charge "full-price" for that same idea structure/investment? How about go fuck yourself.
 
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swayze22

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Early access is the biggest dogshit that ever happened to gaming (maybe besides micro transactions). There have been like 5 successful games out of 10000000 failures, and usually those successes are only after three years of EA work and then most people buy it after two price cuts. Only suckers buy in early, this has been proven time and time again.

I guess if you want to buy early access, you are welcome to, but I hate you for it!
 
Kirun

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swayze22 said:
Early access is the biggest dogshit that ever happened to gaming (maybe besides micro transactions). There have been like 5 successful games out of 10000000 failures, and usually those successes are only after three years of EA work and then most people buy it after two price cuts. Only suckers buy in early, this has been proven time and time again.

I guess if you want to buy early access, you are welcome to, but I hate you for it!
Click to expand...

Do you like Anthem? How about Mass Effect: Andromeda? Because as shitty as early access is, those are about the only titles you'd get without early access/Kickstarter.

Battletech, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, Divinity: OS 1+2, Shadowrun, etc. likely never get made without Kickstarter/Early Access. Look at the movie industry as an example for what happens when only giant, mega corporations are able to make content. Sure, you get the occasional indie-flick that's awesome, or Mad Max: Fury Road. But, 95% of it is nothing but remakes, sequels, and super heroes.

I am totally in agreement that I'm against both Kickstarter and early access in principle. However, I also understand that shithead companies like EA, Ubisoft, EPIC, etc. have made the barrier/cost of entry so enormous that EA/Kickstarter are a necessary evil for good PC games and healthy competition.
 
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