My Thoughts On The Bannerlord 1.2.7 Update

For some reason I seem to have trouble getting my wife pregnant this new update. Is it just me or???

I came back to this patch after nearly a year of not having touched it. They definitely overdid the AI blocking "aggression", it feels very artificial and non immersive.

I can see the AI lowering its shield, as though it has decided to try an attack, but then cancel it by blocking within 100ms of me pressing LMB for my own attack.
At first I brushed this off as it trying to feint me, but it became a very common occurrence in every tournament fight.
Now it just sticks out like a sore thumb as a machine registering me pressing LMB and near instantly blocking in anticipation for my attack that has barely begun the wind up stage.

Forcing players to rely exclusively on kicking to land a (free) hit to win a duel is not good combat design.
I'm just using 2H axe now to break the shields faster and then use overheads for that sweet breakthrough hit. So I'm having fun, but damn I hope they tune it down next patch.

For the tournaments: i think its to be tested yet how impactful the changes will be

I hate the fact the horse riders in tournaments just continue to ride away, block, then ride away which results in me losing the will to live.

Tournaments are legit my way of making money bro I’m done for lol.

i agree that tournament is not good at all, a waste of time and not worth anything at all.

I definitely noticed the tournament issue right away. What would normally be a quick back-and-forth turned into a multiple minute fight of frustration versus an opponent that blocks 99% of attacks thrown their way.

A lot of the "weird" changes like decreasing the damage on kicks and shield bashes are mainly for Multiplayer
Melee bashes are unblockable, so in PvP you can nudge people to death

The same for riding skill penalties, it's to stop infantry players from mounting horses and being as effective since Cav classes cost a lot more than inf classes

They need to stop worrying about the cheese potential in their game and add substantial changes that change how the game is played outside battles. Tournaments are terrible, 3 renown whether it’s your first win or 100th? The trade system is to complicated for its own good and it affects the caravan and workshop profits. They JUST added kingdom destruction (you know something you think would be mandatory day 1 for a continent conquering game) but I have yet to see how it functions. There are so many issues I have with this game and modding is basically mandatory. They need to stop worrying about silly things like balance and cheese when plain and simple the game is not finished.

The ladders thing is a double edge sword. Yes it is going to force you to build siege equipment, but it will also make siege defense easier and destroying the enemies siege equipment more meaningful. Also siege equipment killing more often and the new Sally out ambush ties into it. Now I feel like I can actually defend against a far larger army by simply destroying their equipment and grinding them down, no more ladder cheese.

I get knocked down but I get up again… I see what you did there

I hope you had a Merry Christmas @reformistTM

As an ex hardcore warband player i can say that even in warband there was a reason to do tournament in late game , for the ladies lol . Also warband npc were much more deeper than bannerlord.

I think the Sturgians can move faster in snow. It was added a while back but I'm not sure if it says it in their culture tab.

The only issue with the newest version is that clans disappear once a kingdom has fallen if they do not join another within a given time-frame.. and the kingdom is destroyed.

Also if you build 4 trebuchets and bring 3 from reserve just before the 4th is finished, they still flatpack every castle defense I've come across, works as a cheese method for sure

I only do tournaments to boost myself to clan tier 1. They take too long for too little return, and most of the time the prizes aren't worth it

Really appreciate such kind of opinion based videos. Thanks a lot.

You should be able to pick a preset kit like in MP for tournaments, I think with these changes for tournaments with a kit would balance it better and let you pick the weapon you are proficient with.

What is cheesing?

I don't think you have a good understanding about how Everything Has A Price works (also, sounds like you want lords to practically give their fiefs away). I've found that the value of fiefs depends a lot on how many fiefs the lord you're bartering with has. The fewer fiefs the lord has, the higher the cost of the fief you're bartering for is going to be, especially high prosperity fiefs (somehow, I knew Daunastica was going to come up in this rant). The best targets are likely going to be fiefs that are newly conquered that are owned by a lord with a lot of fiefs. Of course, cash is going to have way more value for a lord than items, it has way more uses for a lord, but fiefs have more value than cash. So you can try to trade them for fiefs you may deem more valuable to you. Again, this is going to be more viable with lords who have a decent amount of fiefs to spare. If you have the perk, chances are you should have the cash. You'll especially have the cash with smithing along with trading. Pretty easy to make millions of denars in this game, especially if you're going for 300 trade.

I don't know how this perk was "nerfed" or changed at all. This has always been how it worked as far as I've experienced it. It's still the best, and most powerful, perk in the game.

Realism vs fun is of course very subjective. To some, realism = fun. Some people want to immerse themself into another world and the more real that world feels, the more fun they have. And some players feel the exact opposite. Game designers have the unenviable task of disappointing both groups and aiming somewhere in the middle.
On the point of siege duration, I have to agree with you, it is already pretty long. Especially getting all the trebuchets up. On the other hand, you still want to give the defending player time to mass a relief army. This can be tricky in places like Sturgia where travel times can be long.

They nerfed the fighting mechanics of the main character and NPCS are OP such as shield bash and Castle defense ambush so it’s 💩 game now.

I am highly in favor of players being able to tune the difficulty of a game to their skill level. Bannerlord has a fair selection of sliders to control difficulty. However, as a new player, I had quite a bit of trouble getting into tournaments. If they are increasing this difficulty, I would appreciate a separate slider specifically for tournaments. I feel new players will appreciate this; tournaments are an ideal setting for new players to learn fighting skills.

All I wanted was throwing axe buffs and I got what I wanted just not how I wanted it. Throw speed is nice but even the good throwing axes are straight up worse than basic javelins.

I tend to play moded with old world. Doubt these changes will go into effect there. Tourneys are a joke to unbeatable already, Vampire lords have 100+ in all weapons and uber gear, So no tourneys till they are a joke as I surpass them in skills and gear. But old world has much more random trash to gear up and skill up.

Just gifted myself Bannerlord for Christmas and I'm looking forward to experiencing these points for the very first time 😅 I pray I don't tear my hair out 🤣 btw belated Christmas wishes to all 🎉🍻

With regards to tournaments, this COULD be solved by the game looking at player level (or maybe renown and/or clan tier)and then setting up 'divisions' for different skill levels. Like running simultaneous tournaments for 'commoner' (tier 1-3 troops) Veteran (tier 4 and 5, as well as lower skilled nobles) and 'champion' (high grade nobles and unique troops like Khan's guard) divisions, with increasingly good rewards for the more difficult divisions. The player can only compete in 1 division per 'tournament' and the companions that are of adequate skill for other divisions get auto-battled through. They could also let a player pick 'preferred' weapon types and only issue those to the player during tournaments. Like, 1-hand, 2-hand, polearm, etc. Restrict ranged to random and make it force one-hand with no shield and it should be reasonably balanced.

For me, I do tournaments til I get 100 on leaderboard. Not sure why but it’s a premeditated challenge for me before I considered joining a faction. But overall the new update has its flaws and greatness. I believe they’re trying to make it more grinding because online players have conquered the whole continent before their main character dies.

Thanks for the info. Great video. I hope you do more like this. You are one of few mount and blade content creators still around.

They are killing this game. It's a shame that the building blocks are there for an amazing experience but many modders have been chased away by the constantly breaking mods of the patches.

I personally like the patch for the most part although I absolutely agree that some skills need big changes.

In particular spears in anything other than mounted combat absolutely suck... Spearmen and especially later on pikemen were a key part of any army. Right now they're exclusively an anti-cavalry tool.

I agree with whatever your opinion is, I don’t play the game, and I just enjoy whatever content you make.
Keep up the great work it’s very appreciated!

I feel like this game has not much to offer honestly. I don't intend to reinstall it, wirhout anything interesting to be added.

What’s the name of your Mod?

Tournaments should be completely reworked as a whole. I rarely did them at low levels because the rewards sucked so bad.

I'm doing a play through atm and it feels lifeless. I can't believe it's been out this long and still no feasts? Also The nobles just bunch up in the corner of a castle,what's up with that?

About increase siege time - you look only from attacker site, think defender. You have more time to have fun defending your castle, especially in situation where auto resolve change, so it is easier for AI to take castle. Use dialectic, look on both side of situation.

I completely disagree with your take on the tournament improvements. As someone who plays majority multiplayer, AI is a bit of a joke to me and most players in the community. I have had zero enjoyment out of tournaments due to how easy they are, beating them consistently from Lvl 1-5 and winning easy cash in the early game and so improvements to AI is awesome. If you struggle with the AI there is always the option to turn it down but even on Bannerlord difficulty the AI was just sad.

I think what tournaments could use improvement on is the map variety because playing 1 tournament arena per culture is rather boring and should be given the hideout treatment. Additionally if they ever bother to make clan relation increasing, could introduce different types of tournaments ranging from local tournies for peasant soldiers and having a reasonable award compared to a noble/royal tournament which would be clan members making it much harder but also yield a much greater award. I also think betting should give you a little bit extra from what it already does. I sometimes just forget to bet because you earn so little. It also might be nice if you could pick a weapon loadout instead of getting a random one.

Great video. I was wondering if anyone is having Any issues with missing beard textures? I’ve tried to revert back to an old build but it’s still the same. I’ve also tried to uninstall and reinstall the game too.

Tournaments are showcases of martial prowess across the board, so it makes perfect sense to make them much more difficult. After all, weapons skills take decades to perfect, there should be a tangible difference between a veteran of a hundred battles vs a dude off the street. Especially archery. It takes decades to become proficient, and these skills were greatly valued and respected in asiatic cultures, but that is not coded into the game.

What does NOT make sense is the lack of mechanics surrounding it. Historically, tournaments were a great opportunity to get attention and social climbing, but there are no honour or dedication mechanics, nor will it change interactions with NPCs and your men.

Implementation is key here. Historically, the skill requirement, reach and weapon mass dictate which weapons were used in field battles, and reach + handling influenced duelling weapons. Spears are legendary weapons for both use cases, and crossbows were used for their ease of training. It is annoying for spears to have a minimum range dead zone, because it is so easy to adjust your grip, and the huge mass of the spear gives you absolute authority over a short sword.

Cavalry also had huge unit masses, which was why they were dreaded until gunpowder came into use. Armour was also immensely useful in history, and plate armour turned all blows aside, even a lance. There were very few openings for anything that wasn't a polearm.

vanilla bannerlord is just a joke at this point tbh... current playthrough has no meaningfull difference to all the others before this patch. Soulless boring so much lack of features and content. There is no point in writing everything down, it is useless, too much and too late, the child has fallen into the well with the speed and secret problems that TW seems to have. The big and only relevant problem is that a game like Bannerlord is unfortunately still unrivaled on the market, at least for console players. The game feels so weird and unfinished - everything from the politics to the dialogue to the gameplay to the armor, weapons and the way you earn money - everything feels slapped on and not like a game that is ready for the market. Never in my entire life i played and experienced such a strange and weird game and company.

I started a Sturgis campaign on this patch and I noticed the changes this patch right away. When I got to the point where I could do caravan escort missions in the snow as a tip they are way easier in those reasons now due to the weather changes the low skill low armor calvarymen fall fall easily before even just recruits. As a sturgian playthrough it has created so many tactical options that takes away from the number game maybe I can't take on that 2000 troop vlandian cav commander on the plains but I kite him into a valley during a snowstorm and suddenly his cav doesn't count for as much as my hardened infantry Frontline and even my less than stellar sturgian archers can pick off horsemen before they reach my Frontline where my infantry butcher them. Where before if I'm outnumbered by an enemy cav force they simply trample everything no tactics involved. With your ongoing modd3d campaign I believe your experience with your troops is due to your use of them. In my experience horse archers in general are less than satisfactory unless I give them actual commands. They horse archers normal charging command while it looks impressive and should lead to many kills is ultimately ineffective. Using horse archers as a mobile archer force however is tremendously effective setting up a mounted archer line behind the enemy infantry on the unshielded side will wipe out enemy infantry formations in little time. You can even use them as dragoons if you are sure of your position and get them to a position normal archers could never reach in time and dismount them as their accuracy and killing potential is always higher dismounted. So possibly changing the way you use your mounted camel riders will give u different results as it did for me

Great patch overall! Do you think they will add naval stuff in the future?

I think that Rant some up a lot of issues I have with Bannerlord. It keeps adding feature bloat over 20 million things which on paper sound amazing. The management of a paradox game with the tactics of total war and the individual rpg mechanics of an expanded mount and blade.

But when mixed together it’s just too much. Too much management, too many different systems fighting for your attention and none of them combine well or are interesting enough to feel worth interacting with.

With warband you had much less control and customization but it gave you some space to breath and focus on the best parts of the game. Even with the addition of all these features the gameplay of bannerlord hasn’t really improved anything from Warband aside from some occasional quality of life stuff.

Thank you for the video. I have to respectfully disagree with your point on realism/fun though. For me Realism increases immersion which in turn increases fun (especially for the battles/combat aspect, ) but that is just my opinion as I am playing medieval games (like KCD or Bannerlord )to get immersed in the medieval environment as much as possible. There tons of fantasy/arcade games but very few who attempt to inject a bit of realism. Having said that, there are indeed some realistic aspects that would reduce the fun, that is fair enough (like siege preparation delays as you mentioned or if your wounded char would need a year to heal), however if you turn the game into a kind of ZeldaLord game (that would be another extreme , I am aware it is not what you meant but it is just to illustrate the point), I would personally stop playing it. For all those 3%/5% perk boost, they already turn your character into a semi-God eventually but it is true that they could make the perk system more meaningful if the late game balance can be maintained so that there is still a challenge combat wise.

"bad weather can increase camp prep time for sieges" STURGIA IS BACK BABY!

didnt sturgia has the snow bonus speed perk ages ago and basically didnt matter for 99% of the game ^^
If we really wanted realism, forbid the AI to maphack XD