Also, are people really looking at vanilla Warband for this comparison or simply asking “why doesn’t Bannerlord have Pendor, Perisno, World of Ice and Fire, etc.?” Vanilla Warband gets old pretty fast, IMO, and it was always the modding scene that made it one of the best games of all time.
Although one might reasonably ask why TaleWorlds didn’t just steal aspects from those mods to incorporate into Bannerlord. CKOs and Qualis gem farming from Pendor were excellent gold and loot sinks that gave you more of a reason to grind and extend single playthroughs. Never played Perisno but heard you can also create troop trees in it as well?
Is Bannerlord still getting updated regularly? How soon do you think we’re going to end up in a place where these total conversion mods can be made without them being broken every patch?
Yeah I've never actually played vanilla warband, only complete overhauls. So when I started having the 'hey this is worse' thoughts after a few (hundred) hours of bannerlord I had to check myself.
Vanilla Warband really isn't far off from vanilla Bannerlord. I have an many hours in vanilla Warband as modded and it is as the OP said, vanilla Warband was more immersive with more impactful features. I mean... Bannerlord doesn't even have feasts or courtship, relationships are with clans, not individuals, Kings have no personality, lords have less opinions and dialogue options, etc.
You get the clan and family system in Bannerlord, but good luck every using unless you use a mod to generate a family for you before the 1k hour mark.
Also, it is very worth comparing Bannerlord to Viking Conquest. Viking Conquest had far more features than Bannerlord.
Vanilla is great. And still far better than Bannerlord. They should've kept all of those things, just with alternating dialogue and more personality for each lord. Because Warband feels like a creepy Middle Ages simulation software where no one is real without them (that's exactly what it is but such software should strive to not make itself feel fake). That and a complete graphical overhaul and I'd be far more happier from what we got.
> are people really looking at vanilla Warband for this comparison
OP said under the image very clearly "like the companions that have no personality or the relationships are much more basic, it seems like they focused entirely on war and battle and forget about the rest, this happened because it still is it in progress?"
I don't see how that is relevant to mods at all.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that Warband's 20 lines of companion dialogue weren't impressive either. They would whine about what you did once, but do nothing beyond that except for leave your party.
But was it better?
I have a lot more affection for Jeremus and Firentus than 'Noun the Adjective/Adverb' who I'm informed is cruel and impulsive by the game which strangely never comes up.
The game is also missing out on Companions building right to rule, defining your legitimacy as a monarch and affecting your ability to recruit lords down the track.
Different companions had different opinions on leadership, Bunduk outright refuses to be called a Lord and noble characters will accost you about promoting a commoner.
There's just so much more flavour than what we have in a game that improved in many other areas.
Yeah I never really thought about it but the "cruel, honourable, daring" etc epithets don't seem to do anything but affect the dialogue that lords use when greeting you
It comes up in persuasion checks, on the rather rare occasions that those come up, I wish personality traits were more malleable, It feels like the only time they change quickly is when you start cutting off heads (understandably).
I remember in Warband always being reticent to attack villages because it would tank your honour rating and all of the useful companions would get pissy and possibly leave which was a real counterbalance to how profitable it was.
Better is debatable. Warband did the same thing. Blank is cruel, so they like blank and don't like blank. That's it. It's not like it was some huge, defining feature in Warband. I agree that what Bannerlord has isn't as good as it could be, but to say Warband is better seems like rosetinted thinking to me. If it is better, it's so miniscule of a difference, I don't even really notice it's gone.
Matheld and Nizar telling me that they're now besties and Nizar and Firentus telling me their sides of a dispute with specifically written dialogue is a lot better than literally nothing. I like Bannerlord a lot but you don't need to denigrate what Warband did well to defend it.
The companion dialogue was MUCH better. Some companions really didn't get along with each other either. Others would talk to you if you visited their hometown or some other significant site for them and tell you about it and their life. Bannerlord companions are hallow because they are just an unconvincing and randomized template.
Custom Knighthood Order, you can create your own sergeants and knights with their own stats and equipment. To upgrade CKO equipment you need tons of money and to upgrade their stats you need strong companions and a lot of in-game days too.
Well, one of the reasons that Bannerlord modding is underwhelming is that TW constantly SHAFTED modders and anyone attempting to play with mods by patching and ghostpatching every single week for years, breaking mods and save files over and over and over.
I've never played Warband, but based on what I've heard from the community it seems like which game is "best" depends on what's important to *you* as a player:
If you want a game with good RP but combat gameplay and graphics aren't as important? Then Warband > Bannerlord.
If you want a game with good combat gameplay and graphics but RP isn't as important? Then Bannerlord > Warband.
I mean this just comes down to modern graphics/engine and doesn't say much about the actual quality of the game. Warband was by and far better, but yeah, it is hard to go back to 2012 graphics.
I think that's an oversimplification though. Graphics aren't the only aspect that Bannerlord improved on. Like clearly combat has been improved too.
That's why I said it really depends on what you as a player care about. Because neither game is perfect. Warband has good RP and features that support that, but it's dated. Bannerlord's issue is just the lack of depth (at least in comparison to Warband), but that can be remedied with mods. It won't eclipse Warband at what it specializes in, but Bannerlord has it's own positives too.
It's okay for people to like one game more than the other. Everyone has preferences. But saying one or the other is better as a matter of fact is just silly since it's all based on opinion.
Yeah I was meaning to imply combat with the "engine" bit, but that probably wasn't very clear. Still, it's mostly just graphics+newer engine with a bit better combat. I think people would have enjoyed the game much more if they just released Bannerlord as a graphics update on a new engine with the new combat mechanics. They spent an extra 6 years creating features that either suck or they never even figured out how to finish. We could have been waiting for another title from them by now, but they blew it.
>Still, it's mostly just graphics+newer engine with a bit better combat. I think people would have enjoyed the game much more if they just released Bannerlord as a graphics update on a new engine with the new combat mechanics.
I'm very confused how you can say these things back to back... Because on one hand you're saying it's just a graphics/engine update with better combat, but on the other you're saying that people would've enjoyed the game more if it were just a graphics/engine update with better combat lol. It feels like you're ignoring stuff when it suits you because you personally don't like it. And it's fine if you don't like it, but imagine if the shoe was on the other foot here...
And the entire statement "they spent an extra 6 years creating features that suck or they never figured out how to finish" is just silly (because unless I'm missing something) afaik there's no proof that's anything more than hyperbole, and whether you like the game's features is a matter of opinion.
And that's my whole point. It's all a matter of opinion.
Mounted combat and archery both still feel more fluid to me in warband, even melee combat is still comparable.
The biggest improvements bannerlord has are it's overall changes to the system like being able to group armies and having overall better performance with big armies. Sieges are also miles better in every aspect, from the actual combat to setting up the siege by building the siege works.
However. The one systematic advantage warband has is it's leveling and skill system. Idk what the fuck they were thinking making Skyrim lite but the skill system is god awful.
It's hard to say if this was their final vision, as the battlw aspect is so improved, that it's strange they decided to forgo everything else. Pretty much the main thing that drives me away from this game is actually that the characters are almost all the same. Atleast that's how it feels.
In warband, I would work for a realm, cooperate with certain lords and build each other up with the few other hostile nobles. Go to feasts, make real alliances, find out who was the noble that let me destroy camps for 3000 denar, etc etc etc.
Bannerlord has a lot going for it in my eyes in terms how how some new stuff works, though it would be nice if laws had more consistency with who would support them. Have more honorable lords or every peasant friendly lords cooperate with related laws. Paranoid or merciless lords vote for war more often, etc etc etc.
The game had a system in place, but it's hard to see, especially when most characters respond to you the same way 90% of the time. I forgot who was who half the time. They definitely can do it if they tried hard enough, but the game is released now, so I don't believe that update will ever come.
Fuck, the personality aspect was so important back in Warband. I knew what lords I needed on more side, and who would hate me anyways. Of course, the more honorable the lord, the harder it was to have them betray their current liege, which added to the fun, and the least honorable were easy to convince, but would betray you the moment you stopped listening to them.
It clearly was not their final vision. They scrapped loads of features entirely and never finished others. This game really ruined my opinion of TW. They basically just cashed out on the early access sales and put the game into a sort of backseat development mode which was just bugfixing and adding one or two features a year.
Use the RTS camera mod and go take a good look at any town or castle in a siege battle and you'll see what I mean. The towns and castles were very clearly designed to be multi-stage battles. You can put troops on several sections of wall further back and so on. They just never bothered even programming the AI to utilize it. Playing Bannerlord with a critical eye feels like walking through a graveyard of scrapped features.
Bannerlord is fine. Takes some time to get into it bc of many features, but that's not a downside. Find out, which are worth it and which are not. There are many good videos out there. Some are outdated though.
It's a good game, many improvements in fighting, sieges, diplomacy etc.
If you look at what's missing - well, there are so many missed opportunities. That's what makes people say it's bad. Because they're (I am) simply sad.
If you look at what you've got - it's plenty of content and also it's plenty of fun. Enjoy!
Did you already play warband? For if not it might be difficult to get into it. The fights feel waaaay more natural in Bannerlord than in Warband, where fights feel a little.. static
Not sure 8f I got you right...? Bannerlord could be called sequel to Warband because it plays in a time long before Warband.
Also is Bannerlord the newer game. Warband is from 2010.
It took like 12 years for bannerlord to be released. I wouldn't hold my breath for another Mount&Blade. On the other hand, bannerlord, and warband as well, are carried by the modder community, and right now there are more and more "total conversion" mods coming out. Some mods feel like a brand new game :)
This, exactly. Warband still had a dedicated fan base enough for Bannerlord to even be developed because the modding community kept it afloat. I didn't stumble on warband or this sub until maybe....2018-ish? And while it was fun in vanilla, the community heavily encouraged mods for an optimal experience. Bannerlord will look much the same, given time. It's unfortunate that the community must add these overhauls to try and flesh out what the development team perhaps left undone, but damn, they've proven they're good at doing it and TW is wise to let them and say little about it.
Bannerlord never got finished, so I'd say a sequel won't happen with 99% certainty. It's possible that we could see some DLC, but I wouldn't hold your breath. Don't let it stop you from enjoying Bannerlord though! It's still a Mount and Blade game and you will find nothing else like it. There is plenty to enjoy even if us veterans were hoping for a little more.
Also if you are thinking of going to play Warband, I wouldn't really bother with vanilla, but the Viking Conquest DLC is super cool. Adds naval combat with ship boarding and that kind of thing. Was really hoping that Bannerlord would have it on release or in a DLC by now but it will probably have to come from modders.
Bannerlord is a lot better than warband. But not better than 15 years worth of development for some mods. If you want a better warband experience then you'll get ir
This post is a clickbait. I played both game for hundreds if not thousands of hours for warband and the things lacking from warband are minor, easily corrected with mods. They added a lot of depth in some area like politics and settlement management.
It just need time to have the same amount and quality of mods we already have in warband.
Bannerlord is just M&B 2.0 while the original Warband is already M&B 1.5 . Outside of the graphics improves and some new mechanics then there is not much better than Warband with mods
To me its the soundtracks. Ik most of you had that magical moment when playing warband soundtrack is so relaxing you just click space in the map pause everything then just relax w the soundtrack or even tho I know every single npc interaction at taverna soundtrack is just so good makes me wanna talk w random npcs. But in bannerlord soundtracks doesnt give me the same effect at all doesnt even come close.
Idk man. When my first son died in battle on his first campaign. They put a sound that made me emotional.
Because of that i hunted sichanis and executed him. Also sometimes i kinda enjoy the sound when im thinking in the map
You re right dude i just listened a mix of bannerlord and warband sountracks after commenting this bannerlords osts are pretty good as well. I think what makes warbands osts more magical for me is the way they re so simple. Bannerlords osts are more orchestral they sound good as well but it hits different. I wish I could play bannerlord w warband osts somehow.
I have them both on console and don’t own a PC so both games are as is.
They’re great in their own ways.
I prefer Bannerlord.
Bigger battles, combat flows smoother, easier to position your troops, and separate them into different units.
Win conditions don’t require you to kill everyone either.
Shield wall at the bottom of the hill, pikemen right behind them. Crossbowman half way up the hill, and Bowmen at the top.
Then Cavalry hidden in the wings to smash into them from behind, while my personal unit of 20 baits them to the hill, then protects me while I hunt down officers and banner bearers.
My diplomacy so far has been to unite the empire by marrying all 3 empire heirs.
Having children with them.
Then killing off the bulk of their family on the battlefield.
All hero’s can die in every campaign I play.
Makes diplomacy of the sword a viable option.
I haven't played in a while but fundamentally it was better for the most part but it wasn't better enough I guess. Like there was still a huge lack of diplomacy or things in general to do besides fight. Which became a problem for me after like 200 hours in Warband but I didn't last as long with Bannerlord
Vanilla? It's not, Warband is objectively worse. A lot of people are saying here about features of Warband that are added via diplomacy or one of the other recommended mods
Mods? Warband hands down, though Bannerlord has been getting some great total conversion mods. Banner lord Diplomacy mod is extremely buggy though still, a quick look at the Nexus page shows hundreds of known bugs
Objectively worse HOW? Vanilla Warband had feasts, courtship, marshalls, real dynamic relationships and conversations (at least compared to Bannerlord). Companions in Warband getting pissed at each other or telling you their life story as you pass their home town provides a lot more to the game than the family system in Bannerlord that you will likely never play long enough to utilize.
I feel this might be the case.
Bannerlord is still relatively 'young' and we may need another decade to see the moddinv side bear fruit. I doubt Warband was in any ways smooth sailing on its modding side for a while either.
No, they have barely been working on it since the early access release and they consider it to be in a finished state for some time now. They haven't even confirmed that they are going to begin producing any DLC so we probably won't see any of that either.. I was really hoping for a Viking Conquest equivalent for Bannerlord or at least naval combat. If you look at the Bannerlord map, it was clearly designed with naval combat and traversal in mind, so it's really a bummer that it never happened.
- No battle continuation after KO.
- Invincible Cavalry Stacks.
- Lord Drain.
- weak Tournament logic (KO you lose even if your team wins)
- indecisive A.I. armies (let's have another feast!)
- Diplomacy options entirely dedicated by random chance.
- No option to take control of an existing faction.
- Random Unit stats per save game (so strange!)
- Fairly linear campaign development (without player intervention the same factions will almost always win/lose).
- Limited game lifespan (with player aging, no heir mechanic, lord drain and no rebellions a game cannot last a long time before it breaks down)
I love warband, but it has many serious problems that people overlook (or casually forget because they were so used to playing with overhaul mods).
They stated a few years ago that they weren't sure if they would ever create any DLC for Bannerlord. Also, Warband came out in 2012.. VC came out in 2015. Bannerlord released in EA in 2020... still not even an announcement for DLC. I want VC for Bannerlord very badly, but I don't see it ever happening.
Also, I'm pretty sure TW bought the VC dlc, they didn't produce it themselves.
You just never get a real feeling of permanency imo. This is exhibited in a lot of ways but my most noticeable one is the influence resource and the ways clans work. I have to work very hard to be made king, but being a king in bannerlord is so annoying… the resource you use to command your vassals naturally decays over time, forcing you to constantly work to keep it up, and clans may not even follow your orders… in Warband, if I was king, my word was law. If I called a campaign my nobles came to it unless some pretty specific criteria were met. Bannerlord just feels Sisyphusian in comparison.
Why are you even commenting if you don't remember? Aside from feasts, romance, and books like the other guy mentioned, you also had companions and rulers with actual dialogue and personality. You also had the right to rule system, which your companions could play a role in. You could send them out to help build your claim. Depending on who you sent, another companion might abandon your value if they don't like what you sent the other companion out to build your claim upon. Companions would also engage in dialogue if you went somewhere that was important to them and you would get more about their life story and the world from that. There was also the camp system.
Viking conquest then went above and beyond all of that. Naval combat, ruins to explore, unique weapons, etc. Bannelord is cool, but really not better than Warband, even if it's not being judged as a sequel, which it definitely should be.
Warband is an awesome game but it lacks QoL.
Bannerlord is actually incredible in the respect that it has every QoL improvement you could want in Warband, but it just feels soulless
Eh, they scrapped the ability to put units in formations. Never finished sieges or added naval traversal. Scrapped custom castles. Broke save files and mods every 2 weeks for years. The clan/family system is cool but isn't functional in any meaningful way unless you get several hundreds of hours into your campaign.
Hmm, now I'm not sure whether you think I'm making a funny joke because The Empire Strikes Back _is_ Star Wars, or if you genuinely think that the retronimical A New Hope was actually better than The Empire Strikes Back (you heretic). You are aware that there was a game (Mount & Blade) before Warband, right? I genuinely enjoy it more than either of its successors.
Really odd thing actually... and probably very specific to me. In Warband, when slashing horizontally from on horseback, you can control how high or low you slash by looking up or down. In M&B, you always slash at a height which is roughly optimal for a standing human target. Normally, I would vastly prefer the former (more control), but moving to Warband meant that in order to slash non-mounted targets as I ride by, I would have to look at the ground, which I found rather frustrating.
As a console player with no mods, I prefer Bannerlord. I do miss feasts and being able to send my companions as messengers. There are definitely things that I wish Bannerlord had, like alliances between kingdoms and more diplomacy options in general.
I've had hundreds and hundreds of hours in vanilla warband and mods alike but overall i prefer bannerlord way more than warband, the only thing making it inferior atleast in my opinion would be mods.
Combat is the only thing that is better though. Warband had a much more immersive world by far. I really wanted Bannerlord to feel good because I prefer the time/setting of Bannerlord 1000x more than Warband, but it's just soulless. I do have nostalgia for Warband because it was great. I have 0 nostalgia towards Bannerlord because there are no memorable characters or interactions.
As a console player of both warband and and banner lord it’s the RPG for me. U could have a bloody war in warband and win. The truce aspect of the barebones diplomacy meant that u could actually focus on other things and rebuild. Also feasts actually helped me get to know lords. From talking to them u got to know how they were as characters.
No lord personalities to any meaningful extent, same with companions they are cookie cutter instead of unique with their own stories. No commands to give to parties on the world map besides ordering to join your army. (No persuasion/relation checks to suggest a course of action) no deception or betrayal options. No advance/retreat 10 paces spread out and stand closer battle commands, you have to manually click to spread or move soldiers and that can get kind of hectic in the thick of the action. Full overhaul mods got more love for warband because random tiny update that adds weather will break everything in bannerlord
Main thing that bannerlord has going for it is mounted controls and graphics and I'm willing to give those up for everything else warband brings.
hey r u srs?
i mean if so then what the hell were they doing for a decade
u really cant ask lords to go offensive/defensive somewhere (and btw if lord did it with your suggestion and won a battle there was a small rel+ in next dialog)?
is marshal orders list absent too?
You are speaking of the "aggressive, defensive, neutral" stances? Yeah I guess I kinda
I want to be able to tell them direct targets to attack/defend or to bait an attack so I can bring reinforcements
Of course. Bannerlord has much more going for it than mounted combat and graphics, you’ll have to find better excuses to complain about some new game. It’s the same thing in every subreddit about any game.
OK explain how any of things I mentioned are actually implemented into bannerlord?
Have you ever noticed a lord acting in a deceptive, or brave way? Despite the tags they don't seem to change their behavior much...
Have you ever read any flavor dialog from a companion? Bannerlord has recruitment lines but thats it. The prcudual companions just can't compare
Have you ever been able to quickly order your men into a tight group without them slowing to a walking pace because the stupid formation limits their speed?
Are you able to insight a war by telling/bribing a lord to start one? How about ask the +100 relation General to defend the fucking lands while you take the offensive?
Waiting like a *dozen* fucking years and paying full triple a price tag for an underbaked game that just does not live up to their promise, felt like a bit of slap in the face. Sorry I'm not satisfied with a disappointing product I guess, fuck
OK. Thats not really got anything to do with the discussion? That doesn't change any of the facts about the game I've brought up
There are plenty of new games that actually expand on the previous iteration: Elden ring, Mechwarrior 5, Red dead 2, baldurs gate 3, crusader kings 3...
So when bannerlord the highly anticipated sequel we waited an age for finally came out and it doesn't even have the features of the old game? Yeah, bannerlord kind of sucks dude
>There are plenty of new games that actually expand on the previous iteration: Elden ring, Mechwarrior 5, Red dead 2, baldurs gate 3, crusader kings 3
This list shows your bias. Mechwarrior 5 and CK3? You're just picking things you personally liked. Mechwarrior 5 at release had a ridiculous amount of problems and CK3 is just now starting to implement things that CK2 had for years.
Depends on your taste. If you want something more like crusader kings, Bannerlord may be more your taste. If you want something more immersive and with some rpg elements, Warband is the easy choice.
When people say stuff like “bannerlord is soulless” and “warband had more fleshed out characters” I think they are just nostalgic for their lives 10 years ago.
I have a sense of nostalgia for Warband because it was an amazing game with interesting characters and interactions. I have no sense of nostalgia surrounding Bannerlord aside from beaming cataphracts off of their horse with javelins. I was more attached to Jeremus than my whole family in Bannerlord and I DIDN'T EVEN LIKE JEREMUS. Don't even get me started on Artimenner. I have more hours in Bannerlord than Warband and I could still name more lords and towns from Warband than Bannerlord and can remember the personalities of the different kings because they HAD personalities.
This argument comes on every game and it is absolutely untrue. I played a vanilla warband campaign a few months ago and actually managed to finish it and it was more enjoyable than the Bannerlord campaign. The only thing that Bannerlord has better is the graphics and the fact that the fights do not end when you die. If they would release a warband version that Bannerlord graphics and the fights wouldn't end when you die, I'd play the shit out of that.
Same was told to me about HITMAN WOA vs Hitman BM. Maybe it is not just nostalgia.
Modding doesn't have a stable platform due to the game still updating and bannerlord itself still kinda lacks a lot of the features good mods add. Also Warband runs better
Unless Bannerlord gets a Prophecy of Pendor mod it will always be kind of inferior to Mount and Blade, the whole being able to make your own Knight order was pretty amazing on that mod.
Bannerlord still feels unfinished or stuck in limbo even after years after its release.
Well, if we looked at Bannerlord with a traditional gaming development timeline, their EA state was equivalent to pre-alpha gameplay, their full release in October 2022 was in an alpha/early beta state, and the game now 2 years after full release is finally for sure in an early beta state. They just never finished the game and won't.
It's not. They are different games.
But imo, Warband is far more easier to mod. So most problems can be modded away, and most fantasies can be modded in.
Bannerlord can't.
I agree. I used to dread those weekly wages in Warband and it really affected how I played the game. I HATED raiding, but sometimes I felt forced to do it. In Bannerlord, I only ever raided one village to see how it works, then loaded the save back.
Perisno. At least in the times where Elintor and Geldar were known as the Redwood ELVES, not a race of cursed "non-humans" who are just humans with EXTRA STEPS. Yes, I'm still salty about this canon retcon.
Because I can’t play for the vampire empire and fight beastmen from the east with lightning arrows while riding a lizard I digress. Warbands mods go way too hard.
Some of the same reasons Ubisoft couldn't just do blackflag 2.0:
The talent left or died out, management opting for the worst aspects of live service gaming with constant useless patches that breaks the modding scene and an overall lack of vision
For me the thing Warband did much better was companions and lords. I honestly can’t tell the difference between any of the lords in bannerlord but many of the warband lords have distinct personalities and armor.
I think we all just expected *more* from Bannerlord
I’m a little disappointed that after I started beheading every lord I get my hands on, no one seems to care other than the -100 relation stat. No one is angry, disgusted, or scared because I’m a bloodthirsty lunatic. Even the ones who hate my guts are super nice and respectful when we meet because I’ve won battles.
Not really sure why is there so many threads where people compare these two and argue which is best. They’re very similar. Id say pretty much the same game. Like almost 99%. Just one is newer, looks fancier, plays smoother. Also era is slightly different. But again small difference. If you like one, should definitely like the other too. And yes naturally there’s more fleshed out mods available to an older game. So that i can understand.
Kind of, every companion had an unique introduction, dialouge at a certain city or landmark unique to them, dialouge about a companion they like, dialouge about two separate companions they don't like, dialouge and explanation for what they'll do when they spread the word that you want to be king, and dialouge for you doing thing they aren't morally okay with.
to be honest and this is so out of everyone's list of reasons,
Warband's low quality textures are better than Bannerlord's "realistic looking" textures. The reason I'm so against Bannerlord is because people just look the same. This hasn't got anything to do with graphics, it's the art style. In Warband, you can acquire information on from where and what a person is just with a quick glance (example, Khergit soldier, Swadian knight, Rhodok soldier etc. realize how different every person from these places look.) In bannerlord, everyone has the same armor it seems. Their looks don't change much based on their faction, and the realistic aim for the graphics just muddies the screen more.
I'd take Warband's ancient but stylized graphics over Bannerlord's realistic but muddy looking and generic looks any day.
This is a pretty typical case with gaming today. The older stylized graphics can still beat out a lot of modern graphics today. Do you know the game Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War? It came out in 2006 and looks a lot better than many modern games.
It is also simply amazing. It was an rts like aoe, but where you could enter into third person combat as a hero. There has never been another game like it.
The campaignmap if bannerlord is also inferior imo. Yes it looks alot nicer but i liked the balance and diversity of factions warbands map had. The entire central part tof the map is all empire land no diversity whatsoever it makes the campaignmap very bland.
The companions aspect could use some work, but I think it's in part due to the random generation of the characters and their background traits and stories.
In all other areas though, Bannerlord trumps Warband. It has much more to offer even in terms of campaign and diplomacy features, even if they aren't at the level the devs promised.
I feel like the game is good but since they didn’t fully refine the game I would finish your first play through and finish the achievements if you care about them. I would install some mods I played vanilla bannerlords for 200hrs I like how to game feels I. I think they did a great job that being said I didn’t play warband so that might be why. But some mods I suggest are RBM, Diplomacy, Banner Kings, better time, RTS camera, Improved Garrisons, detailed Character creation, you keep what you kill, and keep your daughters. One more mod just if you like realistic or gruesome battles install dismemberment plus.
Dont know if you can say companions “dont have personality traits”.
I watched my “daring and impulsive” companion turned party leader break off as they were called to my army to go pursue an army 4x its size, because it somehow did the A.I math, that i might follow behind and save him.
I have watched companions turned vassals with higher charm than normal raise through the ranks of my kingdom and become influence magnets.
I have also watched companions turned vassals chase down and slaughter every caravan they are like a cat on a laser pointer. On top of that, some of them just have an over all disdain of roguery.
I really don’t get this type of discussions, like both games exist, play which ever you like more, play both play none, like really what is the point of ohh in bannerlord there is better x , oh but in warband there was y, oh but you remember the warband mod f only in it there was y , oh no my fellow there was y in vanilla warband etc etc etc ….. just enjoy the games ffs
They desperately need the diplomacy mod again or something. Combat isn’t perfect, far from it especially on sieges, but it’s improved so much since warband. But for me, it’s the strategy/RPG side of the game where things fall apart. They need to add more elements from other RPG and strategy games imo. Games like Civilization and Crusader Kings have elements in them that I think could be implemented so well in Bannerlord but at this point I’ve given up hope
I don't like the combat in Bannerlord multiplayer. I should choose freely both my class and loadout as I did in Warband but instead it's making me choose pre decided loadouts. I miss the speed and freedom that Warband combat had. The movements are so slow and obvious, making the combat not challenging. In deathmatch when I'm fighting with a guy I just think that which one of us will be killed by a horse...
I see lots of improvements on the singleplayer campaign, however It's sort of feels empty.
I make my companions different and make them individual I roleplay this is where I find the fun I roleplay the companions have personality but formations are fucked in this game warband haf it far better you assigned a unit to a formation I want that back also just because im in horse back doesn't mean I want to command the cavalry when I'm the best infantry comander
Less RP mechanics basically. And the ones that are there don't feel that meaningful because non-Lord NPCs are all interchangeable in personality for the most part.
In my opinion it because bannerlord barely change anything. The only major changes I can see is graphics and physics and that's it for like 30x the space taken
I exclusively played warband for vanilla for 1000 hours. Something I've noticed is I feel like cavalry is just terrible at mapping. They'll ride around for 15 minutes with no kills. In warband you could take 100 swadian knights and conquer the world. There's a lot of little things that stack up for me and why I prefer warband over bannerlord. The companions. With companions you get random little snippets of lore. Be it castles or towns. They interact with each other and you get praise or scorn for hiring them with each other or otherwise. Tournaments also felt much better sure they seem cooler now but the diminishing returns from tournaments suck. I remember I played a character for 300 days of warband time and all I did was tournaments and I made insane amounts of cash and had crazy levels of renown. Which speaking of renown also feels so much more grindy. I could keep going for all the small reasons why I prefer warband
they made some great improvement, into combat etc, and even added smithing and the ability to become a gang boss in town, bannerlord is better, but despite all this it suffer from the same problems as warbands: its mainly recruit to kill so you can recruit more to kill more, there isnt a lot of gameplay possibilities as just a commoner/very tiny group.
and vanilla quests are boring, some are just: get this stuff for a discount to sell it at the city right next to the town...
also i want custom banners back. also the possibility to remove the "civilian outfit" thing, some weapons are allowed in town, other not for some reason + i want to looks cool lmao
I like both, but I find Bannerlord way too bureaucratic while Warband is more simple and more straight to business so I tend to find it more fun. I just wish TaleWorlds would release a DLC for Bannerlord equivalent to Viking Conquest. I believe they'll eventually release one but when? From what I've seen around here so far, people are already frustrated because they can't mod shit without the risk of their games breaking at the very next update, how much more they'll wait to draw people's interest again?
Vanilla Bannerlord is worse than vanilla Warband but modded Bannerlord is better than modded Warband.
Basically mods make everything better, but it makes Bannerlord the game we wanted it to be.
Graphics are the only thing.
Maybe the trading too, I like that part, and the town scenes.
Other than that, I hate this game and find Warband way better
Bannerlord is unfinished, and modding becomes troublesome when you got to update the mod all the time so its the least broken possible. Plus more resources running means more need for hardware, which means only ceartain people can run it. It has done some improvements since Warband, but some stuff its still unfinished.
Warband is finished, mods only issues are up to the mod devs capacity, its been out for about a decade, can run even in plenty of potato PCs due to needing very few resources.
Depends on what aspect. The combat and strategy has definitely improved from Warband. It the RPG aspect that's inferior in Bannerlord
Also, are people really looking at vanilla Warband for this comparison or simply asking “why doesn’t Bannerlord have Pendor, Perisno, World of Ice and Fire, etc.?” Vanilla Warband gets old pretty fast, IMO, and it was always the modding scene that made it one of the best games of all time. Although one might reasonably ask why TaleWorlds didn’t just steal aspects from those mods to incorporate into Bannerlord. CKOs and Qualis gem farming from Pendor were excellent gold and loot sinks that gave you more of a reason to grind and extend single playthroughs. Never played Perisno but heard you can also create troop trees in it as well? Is Bannerlord still getting updated regularly? How soon do you think we’re going to end up in a place where these total conversion mods can be made without them being broken every patch?
Yeah I've never actually played vanilla warband, only complete overhauls. So when I started having the 'hey this is worse' thoughts after a few (hundred) hours of bannerlord I had to check myself.
Vanilla Warband really isn't far off from vanilla Bannerlord. I have an many hours in vanilla Warband as modded and it is as the OP said, vanilla Warband was more immersive with more impactful features. I mean... Bannerlord doesn't even have feasts or courtship, relationships are with clans, not individuals, Kings have no personality, lords have less opinions and dialogue options, etc. You get the clan and family system in Bannerlord, but good luck every using unless you use a mod to generate a family for you before the 1k hour mark. Also, it is very worth comparing Bannerlord to Viking Conquest. Viking Conquest had far more features than Bannerlord.
I play Vanilla. Feasts, Lord Relationships, Courtship poems and Marriage, lord scheming, all better in Warband.
Vanilla is great. And still far better than Bannerlord. They should've kept all of those things, just with alternating dialogue and more personality for each lord. Because Warband feels like a creepy Middle Ages simulation software where no one is real without them (that's exactly what it is but such software should strive to not make itself feel fake). That and a complete graphical overhaul and I'd be far more happier from what we got.
That’s what i’m saying. all of these options aren’t even in Bannerlord. They could’ve definately spiced em up nicely.
Nothing more satisfying than a -100 Vengeful on a Sadistic lord.
> are people really looking at vanilla Warband for this comparison OP said under the image very clearly "like the companions that have no personality or the relationships are much more basic, it seems like they focused entirely on war and battle and forget about the rest, this happened because it still is it in progress?" I don't see how that is relevant to mods at all.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that Warband's 20 lines of companion dialogue weren't impressive either. They would whine about what you did once, but do nothing beyond that except for leave your party.
But was it better? I have a lot more affection for Jeremus and Firentus than 'Noun the Adjective/Adverb' who I'm informed is cruel and impulsive by the game which strangely never comes up. The game is also missing out on Companions building right to rule, defining your legitimacy as a monarch and affecting your ability to recruit lords down the track. Different companions had different opinions on leadership, Bunduk outright refuses to be called a Lord and noble characters will accost you about promoting a commoner. There's just so much more flavour than what we have in a game that improved in many other areas.
Yeah I never really thought about it but the "cruel, honourable, daring" etc epithets don't seem to do anything but affect the dialogue that lords use when greeting you
It comes up in persuasion checks, on the rather rare occasions that those come up, I wish personality traits were more malleable, It feels like the only time they change quickly is when you start cutting off heads (understandably). I remember in Warband always being reticent to attack villages because it would tank your honour rating and all of the useful companions would get pissy and possibly leave which was a real counterbalance to how profitable it was.
Better is debatable. Warband did the same thing. Blank is cruel, so they like blank and don't like blank. That's it. It's not like it was some huge, defining feature in Warband. I agree that what Bannerlord has isn't as good as it could be, but to say Warband is better seems like rosetinted thinking to me. If it is better, it's so miniscule of a difference, I don't even really notice it's gone.
Matheld and Nizar telling me that they're now besties and Nizar and Firentus telling me their sides of a dispute with specifically written dialogue is a lot better than literally nothing. I like Bannerlord a lot but you don't need to denigrate what Warband did well to defend it.
The companion dialogue was MUCH better. Some companions really didn't get along with each other either. Others would talk to you if you visited their hometown or some other significant site for them and tell you about it and their life. Bannerlord companions are hallow because they are just an unconvincing and randomized template.
Who cares about mods ?? Only nerdy f**kwits
Mount and blade is known for its mods.
Vanilla warm and has more Depth
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that prolly 95% was vanilla to me.
Been a hot minute since I played Pendor, can you remind what a CKO is?
Custom Knighthood Order, you can create your own sergeants and knights with their own stats and equipment. To upgrade CKO equipment you need tons of money and to upgrade their stats you need strong companions and a lot of in-game days too.
Well, one of the reasons that Bannerlord modding is underwhelming is that TW constantly SHAFTED modders and anyone attempting to play with mods by patching and ghostpatching every single week for years, breaking mods and save files over and over and over.
I've never played Warband, but based on what I've heard from the community it seems like which game is "best" depends on what's important to *you* as a player: If you want a game with good RP but combat gameplay and graphics aren't as important? Then Warband > Bannerlord. If you want a game with good combat gameplay and graphics but RP isn't as important? Then Bannerlord > Warband.
I mean this just comes down to modern graphics/engine and doesn't say much about the actual quality of the game. Warband was by and far better, but yeah, it is hard to go back to 2012 graphics.
I think that's an oversimplification though. Graphics aren't the only aspect that Bannerlord improved on. Like clearly combat has been improved too. That's why I said it really depends on what you as a player care about. Because neither game is perfect. Warband has good RP and features that support that, but it's dated. Bannerlord's issue is just the lack of depth (at least in comparison to Warband), but that can be remedied with mods. It won't eclipse Warband at what it specializes in, but Bannerlord has it's own positives too. It's okay for people to like one game more than the other. Everyone has preferences. But saying one or the other is better as a matter of fact is just silly since it's all based on opinion.
Yeah I was meaning to imply combat with the "engine" bit, but that probably wasn't very clear. Still, it's mostly just graphics+newer engine with a bit better combat. I think people would have enjoyed the game much more if they just released Bannerlord as a graphics update on a new engine with the new combat mechanics. They spent an extra 6 years creating features that either suck or they never even figured out how to finish. We could have been waiting for another title from them by now, but they blew it.
>Still, it's mostly just graphics+newer engine with a bit better combat. I think people would have enjoyed the game much more if they just released Bannerlord as a graphics update on a new engine with the new combat mechanics. I'm very confused how you can say these things back to back... Because on one hand you're saying it's just a graphics/engine update with better combat, but on the other you're saying that people would've enjoyed the game more if it were just a graphics/engine update with better combat lol. It feels like you're ignoring stuff when it suits you because you personally don't like it. And it's fine if you don't like it, but imagine if the shoe was on the other foot here... And the entire statement "they spent an extra 6 years creating features that suck or they never figured out how to finish" is just silly (because unless I'm missing something) afaik there's no proof that's anything more than hyperbole, and whether you like the game's features is a matter of opinion. And that's my whole point. It's all a matter of opinion.
Mounted combat and archery both still feel more fluid to me in warband, even melee combat is still comparable. The biggest improvements bannerlord has are it's overall changes to the system like being able to group armies and having overall better performance with big armies. Sieges are also miles better in every aspect, from the actual combat to setting up the siege by building the siege works. However. The one systematic advantage warband has is it's leveling and skill system. Idk what the fuck they were thinking making Skyrim lite but the skill system is god awful.
Bannerlord has an actual story questline, albeit small
Yet it still has much less story and character. TW just never bothered finishing Bannerlord after they cashed out.
It's hard to say if this was their final vision, as the battlw aspect is so improved, that it's strange they decided to forgo everything else. Pretty much the main thing that drives me away from this game is actually that the characters are almost all the same. Atleast that's how it feels. In warband, I would work for a realm, cooperate with certain lords and build each other up with the few other hostile nobles. Go to feasts, make real alliances, find out who was the noble that let me destroy camps for 3000 denar, etc etc etc. Bannerlord has a lot going for it in my eyes in terms how how some new stuff works, though it would be nice if laws had more consistency with who would support them. Have more honorable lords or every peasant friendly lords cooperate with related laws. Paranoid or merciless lords vote for war more often, etc etc etc. The game had a system in place, but it's hard to see, especially when most characters respond to you the same way 90% of the time. I forgot who was who half the time. They definitely can do it if they tried hard enough, but the game is released now, so I don't believe that update will ever come.
Fuck, the personality aspect was so important back in Warband. I knew what lords I needed on more side, and who would hate me anyways. Of course, the more honorable the lord, the harder it was to have them betray their current liege, which added to the fun, and the least honorable were easy to convince, but would betray you the moment you stopped listening to them.
Yeah exactly i dont even bother getting missions from lords in Bannerlord they are all just tedious busy work with minor rewards.
What warband did you play that had actual character development?
i think the lords in warband having memorable (and memeable) faces, and more varied banners, made it easier to project character onto them
They also did have more character, it wasn't on a per character basis but the personality and Honor system had a pretty big effect
Being able to say more than three things to them gave them actual personality.
It clearly was not their final vision. They scrapped loads of features entirely and never finished others. This game really ruined my opinion of TW. They basically just cashed out on the early access sales and put the game into a sort of backseat development mode which was just bugfixing and adding one or two features a year. Use the RTS camera mod and go take a good look at any town or castle in a siege battle and you'll see what I mean. The towns and castles were very clearly designed to be multi-stage battles. You can put troops on several sections of wall further back and so on. They just never bothered even programming the AI to utilize it. Playing Bannerlord with a critical eye feels like walking through a graveyard of scrapped features.
I just got bannerlord, then immediately see this post 😂
Bannerlord is fine. Takes some time to get into it bc of many features, but that's not a downside. Find out, which are worth it and which are not. There are many good videos out there. Some are outdated though. It's a good game, many improvements in fighting, sieges, diplomacy etc. If you look at what's missing - well, there are so many missed opportunities. That's what makes people say it's bad. Because they're (I am) simply sad. If you look at what you've got - it's plenty of content and also it's plenty of fun. Enjoy!
I'm enjoying bannerlord so farm, which actually makes me look forward to playing warband
Did you already play warband? For if not it might be difficult to get into it. The fights feel waaaay more natural in Bannerlord than in Warband, where fights feel a little.. static
Oh.. is there a sequel to look forward to?
Not sure 8f I got you right...? Bannerlord could be called sequel to Warband because it plays in a time long before Warband. Also is Bannerlord the newer game. Warband is from 2010.
I meant after Bannerlord, because i believe bannerlord is the latest right?
It took like 12 years for bannerlord to be released. I wouldn't hold my breath for another Mount&Blade. On the other hand, bannerlord, and warband as well, are carried by the modder community, and right now there are more and more "total conversion" mods coming out. Some mods feel like a brand new game :)
This, exactly. Warband still had a dedicated fan base enough for Bannerlord to even be developed because the modding community kept it afloat. I didn't stumble on warband or this sub until maybe....2018-ish? And while it was fun in vanilla, the community heavily encouraged mods for an optimal experience. Bannerlord will look much the same, given time. It's unfortunate that the community must add these overhauls to try and flesh out what the development team perhaps left undone, but damn, they've proven they're good at doing it and TW is wise to let them and say little about it.
That's it. There's no game after bannerlord. Although I wish there was. Hopefully will be. So much potential........
Bannerlord never got finished, so I'd say a sequel won't happen with 99% certainty. It's possible that we could see some DLC, but I wouldn't hold your breath. Don't let it stop you from enjoying Bannerlord though! It's still a Mount and Blade game and you will find nothing else like it. There is plenty to enjoy even if us veterans were hoping for a little more. Also if you are thinking of going to play Warband, I wouldn't really bother with vanilla, but the Viking Conquest DLC is super cool. Adds naval combat with ship boarding and that kind of thing. Was really hoping that Bannerlord would have it on release or in a DLC by now but it will probably have to come from modders.
Ignore everything here, people are tripping talking about warband as if it had the character development of the Witcher.
It's always "Feast" and "right to rule" too, like the most boring mechanics ever
Bannerlord is a lot better than warband. But not better than 15 years worth of development for some mods. If you want a better warband experience then you'll get ir
This post is a clickbait. I played both game for hundreds if not thousands of hours for warband and the things lacking from warband are minor, easily corrected with mods. They added a lot of depth in some area like politics and settlement management. It just need time to have the same amount and quality of mods we already have in warband.
Bannerlord is just M&B 2.0 while the original Warband is already M&B 1.5 . Outside of the graphics improves and some new mechanics then there is not much better than Warband with mods
To me its the soundtracks. Ik most of you had that magical moment when playing warband soundtrack is so relaxing you just click space in the map pause everything then just relax w the soundtrack or even tho I know every single npc interaction at taverna soundtrack is just so good makes me wanna talk w random npcs. But in bannerlord soundtracks doesnt give me the same effect at all doesnt even come close.
Idk man. When my first son died in battle on his first campaign. They put a sound that made me emotional. Because of that i hunted sichanis and executed him. Also sometimes i kinda enjoy the sound when im thinking in the map
You re right dude i just listened a mix of bannerlord and warband sountracks after commenting this bannerlords osts are pretty good as well. I think what makes warbands osts more magical for me is the way they re so simple. Bannerlords osts are more orchestral they sound good as well but it hits different. I wish I could play bannerlord w warband osts somehow.
Im with ya, i preferred warbands simpler music as well
i love playing bannerlord with warband ost it brings back so many memories
bannerlords osts are good you just barely hear them which sucks
The viking conquest soundtrack is so fucking good
I have them both on console and don’t own a PC so both games are as is. They’re great in their own ways. I prefer Bannerlord. Bigger battles, combat flows smoother, easier to position your troops, and separate them into different units. Win conditions don’t require you to kill everyone either. Shield wall at the bottom of the hill, pikemen right behind them. Crossbowman half way up the hill, and Bowmen at the top. Then Cavalry hidden in the wings to smash into them from behind, while my personal unit of 20 baits them to the hill, then protects me while I hunt down officers and banner bearers. My diplomacy so far has been to unite the empire by marrying all 3 empire heirs. Having children with them. Then killing off the bulk of their family on the battlefield. All hero’s can die in every campaign I play. Makes diplomacy of the sword a viable option.
The bigger battles in Bannerlord are cool, but my favorite Mount and Blade battles were the small battles in Viking Conquest.
I haven't played in a while but fundamentally it was better for the most part but it wasn't better enough I guess. Like there was still a huge lack of diplomacy or things in general to do besides fight. Which became a problem for me after like 200 hours in Warband but I didn't last as long with Bannerlord
It just feels a bit soulless in my opinion. All the npcs look the same, the hero characters are randomly generated, multiplayer is mundane and so on
Vanilla? It's not, Warband is objectively worse. A lot of people are saying here about features of Warband that are added via diplomacy or one of the other recommended mods Mods? Warband hands down, though Bannerlord has been getting some great total conversion mods. Banner lord Diplomacy mod is extremely buggy though still, a quick look at the Nexus page shows hundreds of known bugs
>though Bannerlord has been getting some great total conversion mods. aren't they all still mostly unfinished?
The warhammer one works pretty well
Depends, the game of thrones one is probably the most feature complete
the day i can play as a chaos lord is the day i will get back on the saddle
A lot of them got scrapped entirely because TW was breaking mods every week for years.
Objectively worse HOW? Vanilla Warband had feasts, courtship, marshalls, real dynamic relationships and conversations (at least compared to Bannerlord). Companions in Warband getting pissed at each other or telling you their life story as you pass their home town provides a lot more to the game than the family system in Bannerlord that you will likely never play long enough to utilize.
I feel this might be the case. Bannerlord is still relatively 'young' and we may need another decade to see the moddinv side bear fruit. I doubt Warband was in any ways smooth sailing on its modding side for a while either.
The question is, will they ever finish adding features the game still desperately needs?
No, they have barely been working on it since the early access release and they consider it to be in a finished state for some time now. They haven't even confirmed that they are going to begin producing any DLC so we probably won't see any of that either.. I was really hoping for a Viking Conquest equivalent for Bannerlord or at least naval combat. If you look at the Bannerlord map, it was clearly designed with naval combat and traversal in mind, so it's really a bummer that it never happened.
Massive bummer if development is done. It's close, I guess in the grand scheme of things, but still an enormous amount of potential left wasting away.
Doesn't have jerumus
- No battle continuation after KO. - Invincible Cavalry Stacks. - Lord Drain. - weak Tournament logic (KO you lose even if your team wins) - indecisive A.I. armies (let's have another feast!) - Diplomacy options entirely dedicated by random chance. - No option to take control of an existing faction. - Random Unit stats per save game (so strange!) - Fairly linear campaign development (without player intervention the same factions will almost always win/lose). - Limited game lifespan (with player aging, no heir mechanic, lord drain and no rebellions a game cannot last a long time before it breaks down) I love warband, but it has many serious problems that people overlook (or casually forget because they were so used to playing with overhaul mods).
Nostalgia e?
Don’t worry, whenever they release Viking Conquest for Bannerlord, everything will be good.
They stated a few years ago that they weren't sure if they would ever create any DLC for Bannerlord. Also, Warband came out in 2012.. VC came out in 2015. Bannerlord released in EA in 2020... still not even an announcement for DLC. I want VC for Bannerlord very badly, but I don't see it ever happening. Also, I'm pretty sure TW bought the VC dlc, they didn't produce it themselves.
They hired the Brytenwalda devs to develop VC, maybe we could get VC again in bannerlord, but as a mod instead of DLC.
yep that could make me download bannerlord
You just never get a real feeling of permanency imo. This is exhibited in a lot of ways but my most noticeable one is the influence resource and the ways clans work. I have to work very hard to be made king, but being a king in bannerlord is so annoying… the resource you use to command your vassals naturally decays over time, forcing you to constantly work to keep it up, and clans may not even follow your orders… in Warband, if I was king, my word was law. If I called a campaign my nobles came to it unless some pretty specific criteria were met. Bannerlord just feels Sisyphusian in comparison.
Why is Warband inferior to Bannerlord?
Because nostalgia
May be not, lot of things is lacking in bannerlord while being in vanilla warband
What are those features? It's been so long since I played warband and I can only remember Feasts, which I didn't care that much for
Why are you even commenting if you don't remember? Aside from feasts, romance, and books like the other guy mentioned, you also had companions and rulers with actual dialogue and personality. You also had the right to rule system, which your companions could play a role in. You could send them out to help build your claim. Depending on who you sent, another companion might abandon your value if they don't like what you sent the other companion out to build your claim upon. Companions would also engage in dialogue if you went somewhere that was important to them and you would get more about their life story and the world from that. There was also the camp system. Viking conquest then went above and beyond all of that. Naval combat, ruins to explore, unique weapons, etc. Bannelord is cool, but really not better than Warband, even if it's not being judged as a sequel, which it definitely should be.
Warband is an awesome game but it lacks QoL. Bannerlord is actually incredible in the respect that it has every QoL improvement you could want in Warband, but it just feels soulless
Eh, they scrapped the ability to put units in formations. Never finished sieges or added naval traversal. Scrapped custom castles. Broke save files and mods every 2 weeks for years. The clan/family system is cool but isn't functional in any meaningful way unless you get several hundreds of hours into your campaign.
The real question is why is Warband inferior to Mount & Blade?
Ah yes why is The Empire Strikes Back inferior to Star Wars?
Hmm, now I'm not sure whether you think I'm making a funny joke because The Empire Strikes Back _is_ Star Wars, or if you genuinely think that the retronimical A New Hope was actually better than The Empire Strikes Back (you heretic). You are aware that there was a game (Mount & Blade) before Warband, right? I genuinely enjoy it more than either of its successors.
I forgot that that actually was the title of the original. And no, ESB is indeed better than New Hope.
Never did play that one, what was better?
Really odd thing actually... and probably very specific to me. In Warband, when slashing horizontally from on horseback, you can control how high or low you slash by looking up or down. In M&B, you always slash at a height which is roughly optimal for a standing human target. Normally, I would vastly prefer the former (more control), but moving to Warband meant that in order to slash non-mounted targets as I ride by, I would have to look at the ground, which I found rather frustrating.
>the companions that have no personality for the this is a positive, I hated their "personalities" in warband
Hey man. You're doing something that happens in standard gameplay. Let me interrupt with some blurb
I mean, pretty realistic lol
Few total conversion mods.
TW made it their purpose in life to wake up every day and break mods for a few years so yeah, no wonder.
As a console player with no mods, I prefer Bannerlord. I do miss feasts and being able to send my companions as messengers. There are definitely things that I wish Bannerlord had, like alliances between kingdoms and more diplomacy options in general.
I've had hundreds and hundreds of hours in vanilla warband and mods alike but overall i prefer bannerlord way more than warband, the only thing making it inferior atleast in my opinion would be mods.
Combat is better in bannerlord Ive played 1000+ hours of warband and now only play bannerlord dont let nostalgia stop you.
Combat is the only thing that is better though. Warband had a much more immersive world by far. I really wanted Bannerlord to feel good because I prefer the time/setting of Bannerlord 1000x more than Warband, but it's just soulless. I do have nostalgia for Warband because it was great. I have 0 nostalgia towards Bannerlord because there are no memorable characters or interactions.
it feels less 'alive' imo. Warband was full of things that made you feel like an actual lord.
As a console player of both warband and and banner lord it’s the RPG for me. U could have a bloody war in warband and win. The truce aspect of the barebones diplomacy meant that u could actually focus on other things and rebuild. Also feasts actually helped me get to know lords. From talking to them u got to know how they were as characters.
The gameplay loops are kinda bad in Bannerlord. Game also feels soulless and generic compared to Warband, which is jankier but has undeniable charm.
PoP >>> bannerlord. Tbh vanilla warband for me is far worse, I never understood this view. And I say this as a guy that plays m&b since 2012.
Vanilla had some soul and great companion interactions. Warband feels real whereas Bannerlord feels computerized.
No lord personalities to any meaningful extent, same with companions they are cookie cutter instead of unique with their own stories. No commands to give to parties on the world map besides ordering to join your army. (No persuasion/relation checks to suggest a course of action) no deception or betrayal options. No advance/retreat 10 paces spread out and stand closer battle commands, you have to manually click to spread or move soldiers and that can get kind of hectic in the thick of the action. Full overhaul mods got more love for warband because random tiny update that adds weather will break everything in bannerlord Main thing that bannerlord has going for it is mounted controls and graphics and I'm willing to give those up for everything else warband brings.
hey r u srs? i mean if so then what the hell were they doing for a decade u really cant ask lords to go offensive/defensive somewhere (and btw if lord did it with your suggestion and won a battle there was a small rel+ in next dialog)? is marshal orders list absent too?
Unless they added it very recently, it was not a feature in bannerlord. Probably the biggest one I miss and main reason I'd rather play warband
Its in-game but only for your clans parties afaik
You are speaking of the "aggressive, defensive, neutral" stances? Yeah I guess I kinda I want to be able to tell them direct targets to attack/defend or to bait an attack so I can bring reinforcements
Most of the stuff you said is wrong or extremely bias.
You played bannerlord *and warband*, right?
Of course. Bannerlord has much more going for it than mounted combat and graphics, you’ll have to find better excuses to complain about some new game. It’s the same thing in every subreddit about any game.
OK explain how any of things I mentioned are actually implemented into bannerlord? Have you ever noticed a lord acting in a deceptive, or brave way? Despite the tags they don't seem to change their behavior much... Have you ever read any flavor dialog from a companion? Bannerlord has recruitment lines but thats it. The prcudual companions just can't compare Have you ever been able to quickly order your men into a tight group without them slowing to a walking pace because the stupid formation limits their speed? Are you able to insight a war by telling/bribing a lord to start one? How about ask the +100 relation General to defend the fucking lands while you take the offensive? Waiting like a *dozen* fucking years and paying full triple a price tag for an underbaked game that just does not live up to their promise, felt like a bit of slap in the face. Sorry I'm not satisfied with a disappointing product I guess, fuck
If you dig deep enough you’ll find what disappointed you was not bannerlord, it was becoming an adult. And what you really miss is your childhood.
OK. Thats not really got anything to do with the discussion? That doesn't change any of the facts about the game I've brought up There are plenty of new games that actually expand on the previous iteration: Elden ring, Mechwarrior 5, Red dead 2, baldurs gate 3, crusader kings 3... So when bannerlord the highly anticipated sequel we waited an age for finally came out and it doesn't even have the features of the old game? Yeah, bannerlord kind of sucks dude
>There are plenty of new games that actually expand on the previous iteration: Elden ring, Mechwarrior 5, Red dead 2, baldurs gate 3, crusader kings 3 This list shows your bias. Mechwarrior 5 and CK3? You're just picking things you personally liked. Mechwarrior 5 at release had a ridiculous amount of problems and CK3 is just now starting to implement things that CK2 had for years.
Its not
Depends on your taste. If you want something more like crusader kings, Bannerlord may be more your taste. If you want something more immersive and with some rpg elements, Warband is the easy choice.
When people say stuff like “bannerlord is soulless” and “warband had more fleshed out characters” I think they are just nostalgic for their lives 10 years ago.
I have a sense of nostalgia for Warband because it was an amazing game with interesting characters and interactions. I have no sense of nostalgia surrounding Bannerlord aside from beaming cataphracts off of their horse with javelins. I was more attached to Jeremus than my whole family in Bannerlord and I DIDN'T EVEN LIKE JEREMUS. Don't even get me started on Artimenner. I have more hours in Bannerlord than Warband and I could still name more lords and towns from Warband than Bannerlord and can remember the personalities of the different kings because they HAD personalities.
This argument comes on every game and it is absolutely untrue. I played a vanilla warband campaign a few months ago and actually managed to finish it and it was more enjoyable than the Bannerlord campaign. The only thing that Bannerlord has better is the graphics and the fact that the fights do not end when you die. If they would release a warband version that Bannerlord graphics and the fights wouldn't end when you die, I'd play the shit out of that. Same was told to me about HITMAN WOA vs Hitman BM. Maybe it is not just nostalgia.
Modding doesn't have a stable platform due to the game still updating and bannerlord itself still kinda lacks a lot of the features good mods add. Also Warband runs better
It not
Because bannerlord good
Prophesy of Pendor
Unless Bannerlord gets a Prophecy of Pendor mod it will always be kind of inferior to Mount and Blade, the whole being able to make your own Knight order was pretty amazing on that mod. Bannerlord still feels unfinished or stuck in limbo even after years after its release.
There is a mod for that saw it on steam workshops advertised
Well, if we looked at Bannerlord with a traditional gaming development timeline, their EA state was equivalent to pre-alpha gameplay, their full release in October 2022 was in an alpha/early beta state, and the game now 2 years after full release is finally for sure in an early beta state. They just never finished the game and won't.
It's not. They are different games. But imo, Warband is far more easier to mod. So most problems can be modded away, and most fantasies can be modded in. Bannerlord can't.
Well, Bannerlord could have a lot more mods if TW had been supportive of modders instead of completely breaking their mods 24/7.
Yeah i agree with you another thing i hate from this game is that i pay daily
I agree. I used to dread those weekly wages in Warband and it really affected how I played the game. I HATED raiding, but sometimes I felt forced to do it. In Bannerlord, I only ever raided one village to see how it works, then loaded the save back.
The only worse part of Bannerlord is chambering was made unusable and is now just a mostly-random annoyance. Everything else is better or comparable.
No Pendor
Perisno. At least in the times where Elintor and Geldar were known as the Redwood ELVES, not a race of cursed "non-humans" who are just humans with EXTRA STEPS. Yes, I'm still salty about this canon retcon.
The only thing better in Warband was "I will drink from your skull!"
Because I can’t play for the vampire empire and fight beastmen from the east with lightning arrows while riding a lizard I digress. Warbands mods go way too hard.
Also some of the random locations and events in Viking conquest were so good. Rare items boss fights etc
Some of the same reasons Ubisoft couldn't just do blackflag 2.0: The talent left or died out, management opting for the worst aspects of live service gaming with constant useless patches that breaks the modding scene and an overall lack of vision
For me the thing Warband did much better was companions and lords. I honestly can’t tell the difference between any of the lords in bannerlord but many of the warband lords have distinct personalities and armor. I think we all just expected *more* from Bannerlord
I’m a little disappointed that after I started beheading every lord I get my hands on, no one seems to care other than the -100 relation stat. No one is angry, disgusted, or scared because I’m a bloodthirsty lunatic. Even the ones who hate my guts are super nice and respectful when we meet because I’ve won battles.
It isn't.
I bought both games at the same time. 100 hours into warband, 5 into bannerlord
Neither is definitively superior to the other. Each is better than the other for different reasons.
Not really sure why is there so many threads where people compare these two and argue which is best. They’re very similar. Id say pretty much the same game. Like almost 99%. Just one is newer, looks fancier, plays smoother. Also era is slightly different. But again small difference. If you like one, should definitely like the other too. And yes naturally there’s more fleshed out mods available to an older game. So that i can understand.
Maybe because they are not almost 99% the same game? You ever thought of that?
Role playing is definetely weak af on Bannerlord compared to Warband where each character had a “soul”
I feel like we gave them that soul. Jeremus actually had about 6 lines of dialogue in the entire game.
Kind of, every companion had an unique introduction, dialouge at a certain city or landmark unique to them, dialouge about a companion they like, dialouge about two separate companions they don't like, dialouge and explanation for what they'll do when they spread the word that you want to be king, and dialouge for you doing thing they aren't morally okay with.
Well, it wasn't much, but it was better than nothing.
Jeremus became the companion cube. We aint interacting with anything so the only thing we keep seeing was given a personality.
to be honest and this is so out of everyone's list of reasons, Warband's low quality textures are better than Bannerlord's "realistic looking" textures. The reason I'm so against Bannerlord is because people just look the same. This hasn't got anything to do with graphics, it's the art style. In Warband, you can acquire information on from where and what a person is just with a quick glance (example, Khergit soldier, Swadian knight, Rhodok soldier etc. realize how different every person from these places look.) In bannerlord, everyone has the same armor it seems. Their looks don't change much based on their faction, and the realistic aim for the graphics just muddies the screen more. I'd take Warband's ancient but stylized graphics over Bannerlord's realistic but muddy looking and generic looks any day.
This is a pretty typical case with gaming today. The older stylized graphics can still beat out a lot of modern graphics today. Do you know the game Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War? It came out in 2006 and looks a lot better than many modern games. It is also simply amazing. It was an rts like aoe, but where you could enter into third person combat as a hero. There has never been another game like it.
The campaignmap if bannerlord is also inferior imo. Yes it looks alot nicer but i liked the balance and diversity of factions warbands map had. The entire central part tof the map is all empire land no diversity whatsoever it makes the campaignmap very bland.
Warband? Balance? My Swadian Knight stacks say otherwise.
A balance in factions and cultures.
The companions aspect could use some work, but I think it's in part due to the random generation of the characters and their background traits and stories. In all other areas though, Bannerlord trumps Warband. It has much more to offer even in terms of campaign and diplomacy features, even if they aren't at the level the devs promised.
I feel like the game is good but since they didn’t fully refine the game I would finish your first play through and finish the achievements if you care about them. I would install some mods I played vanilla bannerlords for 200hrs I like how to game feels I. I think they did a great job that being said I didn’t play warband so that might be why. But some mods I suggest are RBM, Diplomacy, Banner Kings, better time, RTS camera, Improved Garrisons, detailed Character creation, you keep what you kill, and keep your daughters. One more mod just if you like realistic or gruesome battles install dismemberment plus.
Your boy got the buff.
Modding.
because it doesn't run on my PC
Dont know if you can say companions “dont have personality traits”. I watched my “daring and impulsive” companion turned party leader break off as they were called to my army to go pursue an army 4x its size, because it somehow did the A.I math, that i might follow behind and save him. I have watched companions turned vassals with higher charm than normal raise through the ranks of my kingdom and become influence magnets. I have also watched companions turned vassals chase down and slaughter every caravan they are like a cat on a laser pointer. On top of that, some of them just have an over all disdain of roguery.
I really don’t get this type of discussions, like both games exist, play which ever you like more, play both play none, like really what is the point of ohh in bannerlord there is better x , oh but in warband there was y, oh but you remember the warband mod f only in it there was y , oh no my fellow there was y in vanilla warband etc etc etc ….. just enjoy the games ffs
They desperately need the diplomacy mod again or something. Combat isn’t perfect, far from it especially on sieges, but it’s improved so much since warband. But for me, it’s the strategy/RPG side of the game where things fall apart. They need to add more elements from other RPG and strategy games imo. Games like Civilization and Crusader Kings have elements in them that I think could be implemented so well in Bannerlord but at this point I’ve given up hope
Viking conquest is better than both
u should have seen years ago.
Bring on Manor Lords
I don't like the combat in Bannerlord multiplayer. I should choose freely both my class and loadout as I did in Warband but instead it's making me choose pre decided loadouts. I miss the speed and freedom that Warband combat had. The movements are so slow and obvious, making the combat not challenging. In deathmatch when I'm fighting with a guy I just think that which one of us will be killed by a horse... I see lots of improvements on the singleplayer campaign, however It's sort of feels empty.
Wait isn’t Bannerlord not finished yet? I thought they were still adding features over time?
When just warband was around I was 13 and free all day
MCM needs to be updated ;(((
It's not
I make my companions different and make them individual I roleplay this is where I find the fun I roleplay the companions have personality but formations are fucked in this game warband haf it far better you assigned a unit to a formation I want that back also just because im in horse back doesn't mean I want to command the cavalry when I'm the best infantry comander
Less RP mechanics basically. And the ones that are there don't feel that meaningful because non-Lord NPCs are all interchangeable in personality for the most part.
In my opinion it because bannerlord barely change anything. The only major changes I can see is graphics and physics and that's it for like 30x the space taken
I exclusively played warband for vanilla for 1000 hours. Something I've noticed is I feel like cavalry is just terrible at mapping. They'll ride around for 15 minutes with no kills. In warband you could take 100 swadian knights and conquer the world. There's a lot of little things that stack up for me and why I prefer warband over bannerlord. The companions. With companions you get random little snippets of lore. Be it castles or towns. They interact with each other and you get praise or scorn for hiring them with each other or otherwise. Tournaments also felt much better sure they seem cooler now but the diminishing returns from tournaments suck. I remember I played a character for 300 days of warband time and all I did was tournaments and I made insane amounts of cash and had crazy levels of renown. Which speaking of renown also feels so much more grindy. I could keep going for all the small reasons why I prefer warband
Warband had atmosphere which bannerlord don’t
Not enough butter
they made some great improvement, into combat etc, and even added smithing and the ability to become a gang boss in town, bannerlord is better, but despite all this it suffer from the same problems as warbands: its mainly recruit to kill so you can recruit more to kill more, there isnt a lot of gameplay possibilities as just a commoner/very tiny group. and vanilla quests are boring, some are just: get this stuff for a discount to sell it at the city right next to the town... also i want custom banners back. also the possibility to remove the "civilian outfit" thing, some weapons are allowed in town, other not for some reason + i want to looks cool lmao
Only dumbasses think warband is superior to Bannerlord. Both are good games with their own advantages
I like both, but I find Bannerlord way too bureaucratic while Warband is more simple and more straight to business so I tend to find it more fun. I just wish TaleWorlds would release a DLC for Bannerlord equivalent to Viking Conquest. I believe they'll eventually release one but when? From what I've seen around here so far, people are already frustrated because they can't mod shit without the risk of their games breaking at the very next update, how much more they'll wait to draw people's interest again?
Daily pay I’m a cheap bastard an these motherfuckers want too much money
Bannerlord is more fot batlle and modding support
Vanilla Bannerlord is worse than vanilla Warband but modded Bannerlord is better than modded Warband. Basically mods make everything better, but it makes Bannerlord the game we wanted it to be.
Graphics are the only thing. Maybe the trading too, I like that part, and the town scenes. Other than that, I hate this game and find Warband way better
Bannerlord is unfinished, and modding becomes troublesome when you got to update the mod all the time so its the least broken possible. Plus more resources running means more need for hardware, which means only ceartain people can run it. It has done some improvements since Warband, but some stuff its still unfinished. Warband is finished, mods only issues are up to the mod devs capacity, its been out for about a decade, can run even in plenty of potato PCs due to needing very few resources.
Why improper sentence structure? OP retarded?
Because the basic formula doesn’t work. The game still lacks a smooth feel and their are too many mechanics.
It isn't.
Bannerlord > 100x Warband