Mount&Blade (used to be Warrider)

[armagan]

You've really got into the game :D Great!

I'd like to be able to place larger bets though, especially considering the prices of equipment.

I'd need to implement a more sophisticated betting scheme for that since player's chance of winning is normally higher than 50%.

I like the little touches, like the crossbow reloading, and not being able to do it on horseback. It's still useful for charging into battle though.

Hey! It is nice to see people enjoying such things. There's one little touch that no player has ever discovered (or mentioned) yet. I'm waiting to see who will discover that one.

There is a balance problem where someone walking backwards with a lance and shield is practically invincible as the lance will keep the enemies back and hurt them all the while. A bit of a problem in the tournaments and battlefields.

Good point. Combat with lances is really difficult to model properly. One of our beta testers had a suggestion which could fix this problem. I hope it will be solved in the future versions.

I did notice a bug where a rider will be carried along with the horse when he is knocked off. At first it looked really good, as if he was dead and caught in the stirrups, but the horse walked right on and the body floats very slowly, sometimes through the tournament walls, for instance. It can also still float along when there is no horse any more.

Permanant corpses is a new addition to the game, and I haven't been able to adequately test it yet. His foot gets caught in the stirrup but I guess I have forgotten to make sure the horse stops before it vanishes.

Is there anything to do with the prisoners, other than selling them to the slaver?

There is a quest you can get from a count where he asks you to capture and bring enemy prisoners. Other than that there isn't much to do with them just yet.

Thanks for your comments. I hope you'll enjoy the rest of the game as well.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Armagan, check out what Stark had to say in the news post about Mount & Blade.

 

[Fez]

A couple of other things I noticed. The AI on each team is prone to friendly fire with ranged weapons or ramming people with the horses. Once they disperse it works fine and the horses start crushing the enemy and the arrows tend to hit the targets, but at the start there tends to be a dozen cries of pain as people let loose with arrows and smash into each other with horses. I presume the same thing is happening on the enemy side at the start too.

It could be good if I could get a range of bounties for slaves, depending on how good they are. It wouldn't need to be a large range, but it would make it seem worthwhile capturing the more valuable/difficult enemies.

On the theme of slaves, I'd also like to be able to hire people armed specifically with clubs or blunt weapons. As it is I tend to have to keep peasants around for the clubbing and capturing of slaves (though the peasants are not always armed with blunt weapons). I rescued some manhunters at one point and they were armed with clubs, a bit better than peasants, though they would upgrade to militia and then I'd be back to square one. Once I upgrade my troops to high level troops such as knights or mid range, my troops slaughter everyone. The slave trade is a good source of money in the game and is kept interesting through the combat. It'd be a shame if it had to be phased out if you wanted to have better troops.

Another idea/suggestion was maybe one-off bounties for a semi random gang? Generate a party according to a difficulty scale and stick in a name ("The Black Lancers", "Angus's Pike", so on). It'd be a bit of a change from wandering for the usual ones. It could be scaled to the player's level to keep it interesting. You could have peasant revolts where you'd have to deal with numbers or elite mounted knights, all archers, pikes and mixed. Just a thought.

When I am trading with a party member I shouldn't have to pay to swap gear as long as he is in the party, it makes it hard for me to upgrade his equipment without him ending up with my money or holding onto my equipment.

I manage to rescue the expert tracker. I like the improvements to the tracking abilities as it levels up.

For the slaves, perhaps you could force them to fight or work for you? I saw there was a salt mine. That seems like a good place to use them. You could get a small set amout each week per slave deposited. It'd make it more risky for the player if he had to run slave trains to the mine to get maximum profit and risk losing it all to bandits.

Similar to the idea of having varying qualities for weapons, perhaps you could have varying qualities of troops? You could start off with basic peasants, equpped with the bare minimum, and them buy them some slightly better gear. It could work on a similar system to Dark Omen. It'd allow more customisation of the troops.

 

[Fez]

Another idea: How about allowing the two kingdoms to claim some of the towns and villages through combat? I was thinking along similar lines to the old game Legends, where you'd see on the main map the armies moving towards other troops or towns and capturing them or being defeated. Towns could have varying garrison levels which would be increased each new day and with each friendly army that arrived up to a maximum limit and decreased when attacked or when they sent out a party. The capital could never be captured though, to always allow some chance to fight back and capture some towns. It let the player have a sense of affecting the world around them when you were defeating the enemy armies and capturing towns for your side.

Also: when I have used up one set of food, it'd be good to have the game put the next cheapest bag of food into the slot for me, if one was available in the inventory. As it is you can run into problems if you rest at an inn and you are nearly through a set of food. You get dozens of warnings flashing up quickly and you can't do anything about it.

There is an odd bug when in real combat on the field, it doesn't happen in training: If the PC's shield is destroyed, he can not use his weapon to defend against blows, yet he can during training.

 

[armagan]

A couple of other things I noticed. The AI on each team is prone to friendly fire with ranged weapons or ramming people with the horses. Once they disperse it works fine and the horses start crushing the enemy and the arrows tend to hit the targets, but at the start there tends to be a dozen cries of pain as people let loose with arrows and smash into each other with horses. I presume the same thing is happening on the enemy side at the start too.

Actually AI does try to avoid shooting friendly troops. There may be accidents but they should be rare. However there's no avoidance for running over friendly troops with horses, hence the chaos at the beginning. Apart from looking silly, it's harmless since they are not causing any damage. But I'll eventually need to fix that.

On the theme of slaves, I'd also like to be able to hire people armed specifically with clubs or blunt weapons.

That's a good point indeed. I'll try to add such troops.

Another idea/suggestion was maybe one-off bounties for a semi random gang? Generate a party according to a difficulty scale and stick in a name ("The Black Lancers", "Angus's Pike", so on). It'd be a bit of a change from wandering for the usual ones. It could be scaled to the player's level to keep it interesting. You could have peasant revolts where you'd have to deal with numbers or elite mounted knights, all archers, pikes and mixed. Just a thought.

That's a nice idea. I'll think about it. The peasant revolt thing is something I'd like to add anyway.

When I am trading with a party member I shouldn't have to pay to swap gear as long as he is in the party, it makes it hard for me to upgrade his equipment without him ending up with my money or holding onto my equipment.

I disagree with this one. It kind of gives NPC's more character that they own and manage their own stuff. It should be easy to upgrade his outfit since the upgraded equipment is more valuable than the old one.

I manage to rescue the expert tracker. I like the improvements to the tracking abilities as it levels up.

Nice to hear that. Tracking skill is my favorite.

For the slaves, perhaps you could force them to fight or work for you? I saw there was a salt mine. That seems like a good place to use them.

Yes you can sell your prisoners to the guy at the salt mine.

Another idea: How about allowing the two kingdoms to claim some of the towns and villages through combat? I was thinking along similar lines to the old game Legends, where you'd see on the main map the armies moving towards other troops or towns and capturing them or being defeated. Towns could have varying garrison levels which would be increased each new day and with each friendly army that arrived up to a maximum limit and decreased when attacked or when they sent out a party. The capital could never be captured though, to always allow some chance to fight back and capture some towns. It let the player have a sense of affecting the world around them when you were defeating the enemy armies and capturing towns for your side. .

I must have missed Legends. This is all around a good idea and close to what I'd been planning initially. I'll think about it but it may have been to late to incorporate that.

Also: when I have used up one set of food, it'd be good to have the game put the next cheapest bag of food into the slot for me, if one was available in the inventory. As it is you can run into problems if you rest at an inn and you are nearly through a set of food. You get dozens of warnings flashing up quickly and you can't do anything about it.

Good point. Only thing is you wouldn't always want to feed your troops with the cheapest food since this will effect their morale badly. I guess I should make the party not consume food while resting.

There is an odd bug when in real combat on the field, it doesn't happen in training: If the PC's shield is destroyed, he can not use his weapon to defend against blows

You can't use small weapons like daggers and knifes for parrying attacks. But I forgot to add that info to the item descriptions.

Thanks a lot for your ideas and suggestions.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Okay, well I think Fez pretty much covered everything I was going to. I'm really liking this game. Alot. The tracking skill really was a nice slap to the face for me as well. Being able to have large parties really adds to the feel of big battles. And horses just flat out rock.

This is something I would definitely invest in. Hell, I've had more fun with this game than I did with either of the Gothic series. Especially considering the size and price.

 

[armagan]

Hey Otaku, it's great to hear that! :D

 

[mathboy]

I'm just wondering, does it have an end, like an end boss or something?

And should "Salt Mine" and the inn on the map supposed to be empty? I was hoping to get some salt for the trader in the start town there and only found a slave trader.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Is it okay if I really, really hate the combat in this game? The movements are slow, it seems, but frustrating at the same time. You block when they attack, then go to attack and it seems like they smack you before you get a shot off. I have it on the EASY setting, and I'm a bitch for even the lowliest training grunt I have to face off against.

Well, okay.. Second character is a hunter, and I'm fairing pretty decent in combat now.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

You can't use small weapons like daggers and knifes for parrying attacks. But I forgot to add that info to the item descriptions.

Thanks a lot for your ideas and suggestions.

There is such a thing as too much realism. Perhaps a dagger should be able to parry, but at a penality based on the size of the weapon.

Likewise, I'm a little fuzzy on why you can't block a lance with a shield. I know lances would be hard on a shield, but I think you should be able to block and the lance do more damage to the shield than say the axes.

 

[DarkSign]

The horses are cool, but they dont handle very well. The turning radius needs to be faster.
As someone who owns several horses, they can turn on a dime if need be.

Of course this may be part of the gameplay structure. If so, forget what I said.

 

[Sol Invictus]

I've been playing the tournament for about an hour now, and it's pretty fun. I love riding people down with the lance. However, I wonder why shields don't work against lances, and horses should turn faster. They aren't cars, you know. After all, they're on four legs. It's pretty easy to manoeuvre a horse in real life.

My character lived her former life as a court lady, and got a nice bonus to horseriding. I've got a ton of points in polearms.

 

[jiujitsu]

I like the combat. It is way better than Morrowind's. So is the dialogue.. Ok, let's not compare it to Morrowind.

It's a cool game, but I'm not totally convinced yet. I may need to commit myself more to it. Then maybe I'll find more I like, but for now I really like the combat. Especially on horseback.

I'm still unclear on how to equip items and stuff. I have my sword in the weapon slot, but my character isn't holding it. He was holding it, but now he isn't and that confuses me.

Looks promising, though.

 

[armagan]

Yay! Everybody started to play the game :D

mathboy:
There's no storyline right now, but I'll be adding one soon. It won't be anything big and fancy though.

Saint, DarkSign, Exitium:
Shields block normal lance attacks. They only can't block a charging rider with a couched lance. To charge with the couched lance you should not press the left mouse button. Just bring your horse to a fast canter wielding a lance. Your character then will lower and couch her lance and devastate everyone in her way. This is a very powerful attack in reality too since the whole momentum of the horse and rider is concentrated at the tip of the lance.

Your horse turning speed depends on the horse's quality and your riding skill. A limp sumpter horse at the hands of a poor rider will turn very slowly whereas a courser mounted by an expert horseman will turn much faster. Then again, I may not have balanced it very well and it may require more adjustment.

Jiujitsu:
You have got four item slots in your inventory screen where you should place the arms you'd like to carry to battle. Then you can equip and cycle through these four items with the ' ] ' key.

 

[Fez]

My character lived her former life as a court lady, and got a nice bonus to horseriding. I've got a ton of points in polearms.

That's the same character I chose. :D It worked a lot better than I thought it would.

Make sure you get a band of peasants to keep everyone busy while you ride them down. That crossbow is damn good too.

 

[Balor]

Hmm, bow pwns the crossbow hands down! Especially double-curved (I recall it's arab/turkish in origin) bow - in some competitions, they shot for nearly thousand yards! Of course, I doubt that you can actually aim when you shoot at such distances, but that's pretty impressive nonetheless.
Famous English arches with their longbows are noobs in comparison, and even them managed to drive their arrows (AP ones, of course) thru breastplates with relative ease.
Of course, you have to train from the very childhood to achieve that, though. Crossbows are just much easier to handle.
BTW, about not being able to use shields against a charging horseman - why not allow to use it, but the lance will impale him thru the shield anyway? Or that's how it happens?
*Really impatient about getting the demo*
Btw, Armagan, are you somehow connected with RL historical sword-fencing? I was in it for a while - great fun (I cannot any more, though - damn my knee).

 

[mathboy]

I want a bank or something, going on merchant trips is a little too dangerous if you can't save some money.

 

[HangFire]

I tried it for a while, and it definently exceeded my expectations.

I loved the mounted combat, it surpises me how more developers don't add this. Even in first person, it just feels right on the horse the way it was done. I thought it'd be an awkward mess when I first read that there was riding in the game.

Also, perhaps its just me, but with the random shop at the start sometimes it didn't have any arrows for sale. Kind of bugged me when I wanted to be an archer. Maybe weapon dealers should always stock both bolts and arrows?

 

[jiujitsu]

Jiujitsu:
You have got four item slots in your inventory screen where you should place the arms you'd like to carry to battle. Then you can equip and cycle through these four items with the ' ] ' key.

Aaah, ok thanks. I'll try that then.

 

[armagan]

Btw, Armagan, are you somehow connected with RL historical sword-fencing? I was in it for a while - great fun (I cannot any more, though - damn my knee).

No, but I would love to try that. Unfortunatetly there is no club or society dedicated to historical fencing in Turkey and it's not something I could do on my own. I guess I would get my ass kicked all the time since I'm not really into sports, but I still think I would have a lot of fun.

I want a bank or something, going on merchant trips is a little too dangerous if you can't save some money.

It is kind of assumed that you are using the services of a bank. When you are defeated by bandits you lose approx. 50% of the trade goods and horses you have with you but only around 7% of your money. Therefore, most of your money is safe.

Also, perhaps its just me, but with the random shop at the start sometimes it didn't have any arrows for sale. Kind of bugged me when I wanted to be an archer. Maybe weapon dealers should always stock both bolts and arrows?

I'll add more arrow types sometime and hopefully the probability of a merchant stocking arrows will increase.

 

[Balor]

Unfortunately there is no club or society dedicated to historical fencing in Turkey

That's because you, most likely, didn't search properly I've never known that we had something like that in my city (and would be surprised if someone will tell me) until I run into a poster-add!
It turned out, we have like 7 of those in our city, varying in quality, but nonetheless.
It depends on your city, however. But, ain't Istambul a pretty large city? Tver is about 500k people, and yet we have 7 of those. You can try and search internet - I guess you'll find up a lot of them, and perhaps even some from your city... and that's having in mind that not every organization has a website.
Turkey is rather rich in military history (heh, against Russia too... but, like I already mentioned, you can poke on the Eurasia map blindly - and you have a very good chance of hitting a country that had attacked Russia somewhere in the history). I doubt that there are no people who would want to somehow recreate that.

 

[Fez]

I managed to kill a horseman with a headshot from a crossbow when he was a tiny speck in the distance - locational damage! Good to see.

Does the speed of the horse add to damage caused? I know that charging with a lance will cause nearly instant kills, but is it a sliding scale or only a single boost when you do the special with the lance?

 

[JC Anejo]

Have been playing around with different characters for a few days just training and tournaments. Seems like you have to take a few points in horsemanship right off the bat or your a sitting duck in the tournaments. Training with skills you don't have can be real annoying right of the bat and why the hell would you start so many training sessions with the guy behind you whacking you in the head to start. Also seems like the arena needs to be just a tad bigger to get a good flow with the horse.Especially when it gets down to just you and one other. Either that or I have yet to master the beast. Overall I like the way the combat is going. Tomorrow will head out into the world to see the rest.

Has anyone figured out the bow system. I use it and sometimes I hit but not really sure why. Can't seem to ever win with a couple bowman against anything else. They just run up and whack away.

 

[Fez]

The bow gets more accurate the better your PC is with it. If you are still and aim for longer it is more accurate too. IF you are up close, don't bother aiming, just tap the button and you'll probably hit the target. Aim for the head to get bonus damage and if it is a rider, shoot his horse to slow him down.

 

[armagan]

Does the speed of the horse add to damage caused? I know that charging with a lance will cause nearly instant kills, but is it a sliding scale or only a single boost when you do the special with the lance?

The victim's speed and moving direction effects the damage he takes from ranged weapons. The game uses a physically accurate model there. Also for lance damage, warrider damage etc.,. the speed of the horse is always taken into account. Continious scales are used to calculate the damage.

Has anyone figured out the bow system. I use it and sometimes I hit but not really sure why. Can't seem to ever win with a couple bowman against anything else. They just run up and whack away.

The size of the crosshair shows how accurate you will shoot if you release at that moment. Using bows, you should not shoot too early or too late. Against an opponent with a shield you must wait until he gets near and drops his guard to attack. At that moment, you need to release the arrow at his face. You'll generally have only one chance to do it so try not to miss :twisted: