Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
Role: Designer
Engine: RGL (Custom engine)
Genre: Trading, Strategy, RPG
Platform: PC, PlayStation & Xbox
Duration: September 2022 - June 2023
Team Size: 10 (150)
My Contributions
I started working on Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord to investigate irregularities and improvement in the Combat AI system. Once this research was completed, together with the document I produced, I communicated with the Combat team on areas of improvement. They took the feedback and improved on the areas.
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I researched clarity and accessibility in combat, which resulted in a proposal to our main stake holder to improve unit gear. I created a document that would be handed to the art team to improve the gear.
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I researched the influence economy system to resolve inflation of the resource possessed by the AI. Whilst working on this I used existing tools that aided in my data gathering, and I requested tools that would make the data gathering more efficient.
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Combat
Improving AI behavior and unit targeting
Research and Test
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Observe Ai behavior
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Use debug tools to aid in research
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Document AI behavior irregularities and improvements for designers.
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Create document as a discussion point with the Combat team
Targeting debug tool
Documenting
I led the effort to improve combat by creating a document to clearly communicate AI irregularities and improvement points to the combat development team. I experimented with different types of documents and found that a simple sheet with data and an example image or video was the most effective. My document was well received by my team and we used it as the main communication tool in meetings to address and improve combat issues.​
Iteration of document types used for the intended research
Improving gear clarity
To improve combat, one of my proposals was to improve gear clarity and enhance their visuals. The goals were to make the gear more representative of the factions they belong to, and to make it clearer to what factions units belong to in the battle field.
Overview of the current state of units.
List of equipment items that can be visually enhanced to improve clarity, while remaining to the game's aesthetic and historical accuracy.
Weapon improvement
In this project, I focused on identifying gaps in the game's weapon archetypes and tiers. I researched a wide range of historical and culturally significant weapons to find new options that fit the game's world. After identifying missing archetypes, I analyzed the current tier system, calculated values for new tiers, and implemented them to improve balance and enhance the overall gameplay experience.
I made a list of all weapons types to identify what weapons were missing for each faction.
Found missing weapons types within their respective tiers that could be added to the game.
List of all individual weapons to find what tiers. From this I concluded the game had too few 5th tier weapons.
Listed all suggested additions which were approved by the game's senior game designer and lead of the design team.
After identifying the weapon types that needed to be added, I began researching real life historical weapons to expand the game's weapon content.
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After the research, I made proposals of what kind of weapons that could be added to the game.
Created sheets with new weapon proposals.
Researching weapons in ancient civalizations museum
Created a document with possible weapon additions with the game's current content.
System Design
Influence System
I got tasked to research and find ways to improve the influence system with the goal to prevent huge inflating numbers of the AI factions.
Researched all inputs and outputs of the game's influence system by analyzing the code base.
Researched the influence over time stat.
Researched and found solutions to balance the influence system.