Looks Matter, Even in Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord
Bannerlord can still surprise players. It turns out that looks are important in TaleWorlds' game, because NPCs have their own preferences. This can have a measurable influence on the course of courtship.
IN A NUTSHELL
- Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord seems to resemble real life more than many would have thought - the game is in early access phase, and the creators have already implemented NPCs' appearance preferences.
- Getting a wife or husband may be easier depending on the player's appearance.
Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord is a title that keeps surprising the players. Recntly, Reddit featured a post by a user known as Cosmosknecht, in which he claims that the right appearance can help us find a marriage partner in Bannerlord. In the user's opinion, women have their own preferences concerning the suitor's appearance.
"It seems that every other lady in the game has a preference for the kind of men they like. Abagai and Phaea, for example, like their butterlords clean-shaven and scarred, whereas Silvind and Liena like theirs clean-shaven and pristine. Meanwhile, best girl Yana [poster's private opinion - editorial note] likes men with bushy beards AND gnarly scars. If the ladies like how you look, you only have to pass a speech check twice instead of three times."
This seems to be confirmed by another thread on Reddit, founded by user ClockworkSalmon, who claims that the change of appearance not only made the lady of his heart nicer to him, but also changed his available persuasion options (they were also more likely to succeed).
Ira likes beards
We decided to check if the reports are true and make our own lord to experiment on.
The appearance of the hero was supposed to emphasize that he is a warrior - an ugly scar across the eye, beard and longer hair. With such appearances, our lord went to woe his future wife, Ira, daughter of Rhagaea, ruler of the Southern Empire.
So far, the courtship mechanics in Bannerland are quite simple - we have to talk to our ideal partner a few times, win their trust and offer a dowry to the seniors of the family to which the person belongs. The first experiments proved against the "looks matter" theory. Unfortunately, the initial conversations were similar - no matter what the character looked like. This was the case until the last dialogue, which looked like this:
On the top screen, the hero proudly wore a beard, and at the bottom he didn't have one. To be sure, we repeated the test several times. It seems that appearance really does matter. Character with a beard only had to pass two persuasion tests, character without one, all three. This symbolizes the number of dots above the conversation. It seems that Ira likes beards, although having a hairy face didn't seem to have an impact on previous conversations with tour sweetheard. We also did not notice any tangible impact on chances of success (as we can see above), although these, as we have already written, are another, more controversial topic.
Since the change in appearance worked for women, users playing female characters will also be able to encounter similar situations when woeing men, but we didn't get to to check it out.
The discovered mechanic is obviously not something that would turn the gameplay upside down, but it seems to work (at least to some extent). If it gets developed properly, something interesting will certainly arise (and maybe also a basis for interesting mods). Judging by appearance could apply not only to courtship, but also to persuasion tests for all characters. Though who knows if it doesn't matter at the moment - after all, great vassals' favours are uncertain.
About the author:
I started my adventure with Bannerlord in the closed beta phase. Currently, my Steam counter shows a bit over 100 hours, although of course the actual time spent on the game is slightly less. I managed to establish my own country and conquer quite a big part of the continent.
