Since we've now ended beta and entered Early Access, I thought this would be a good time to collate feedback from various parts of the competitive community, some of whom have been more active in their feedback and some who have not. This is not meant to be feedback on competitive viability of Bannerlord, just feedback on the general mechanics and state of multiplayer, from people that played competitively in Warband. It's a lot, so skip to the end if you want a summary.
Charlini, leader of FT, a distinguished Warband team with tournaments under its belt, has this thread, for the sake of brevity I would summarise it as:
-Damage and hits in melee are too inconsistent, some attacks bounce when they should hit (a lot of 1h weapons) whilst some things damage when they should bounce (a lot of spear hits)
-Lack of feedback and sound from feints
-Movement issues
-Weapons can be swapped too quickly
But the full thread is worth a read. I'm sure you'll be hearing more from him also...
Thorr, one of the top players in the Warband scene and long term member of Unity, which recently won the last WNL, provided feedback by PM, which I'll summarise:
- movements in general are too floaty and slow
- classes and perks are unbalanced (who would play a peasant with bad weapons and armor?)
- spears and javelins in melee are too strong
- throwing weapons do too much damage
- shooters are too accurate
- blocking will be good once you can block 2 opponents (this is what we mean by clutch blocking - OGL)
- jumping need a nerf (while fighting you can leap like a kangaroo to escape)
- infantry spears need to be shorter (I feel like some spears are longer than some lances of the cavs)
- bumpstabs need to be more easy to do
Kawaii and Habi, who also played for Unity last tournament but have played for other clans previously and been in the scene a long time, provided this feedback, again summarised:
Infantry
-no killpressure; removing feints is fine but they need something to be able to force a kill, shields are too strong
-theres no movement speed penalty for s keying i think. moving left/right and backwards should make u slower, right now u can just survive 2v1 forever (I think there is penalty for directly moving backwards but no penalty for strafing or diagonal - OGL)
-instant-hits with spears still a thing; you can also still hit straight back after getting hit (less than previous patch but still there)
Archer
-could use more damage overall, xbow headshot should be able to 1hit right now I think it does always 95ish damage
-Sturgia archer needs more damage, 30-35 is fine i guess so it's 3/4 bodyshots to kill. 20-25 is a joke
-don't like how there's barely an arrow drop
-for competitive I think more archers could use a shield perk
Cavalry
-handling cav still awful feels like iceskating
-3 second bumpdown on enemies seems very strong
-most of the time when i hit an archer with fullspeed (no couch) the archer tanks, think could use a bit higher damage or speed rating
-shields should cover more (legs in particular are very easily hit on cav riders - OGL)
-couch needs to time out, right now u can couch forever even uphill lol
-bumpcouching is too easy needs to be looked into
Firunien, a long term German player who has played in a lot of competitive teams, said:
-generally combat is fine mostly, i personally dislike directional shieldblocking and the need for stances to chamber, i really dislike the casual armour customization plus body armor as one value just takes away some core features
-kicks are not rewarding
-timeframe of stun should be wider
Anchor, member of both AE and recently again Unity, says:
-Shield bash seemingly serves no purpose, ruins the flow of combat
-1H cav is useless, presumably the reason they added 2 attack directions for lances/spears on horseback
For AE, Deacon has made this thread - however in general our feedback after beta and playing some in EA, was very similar to Thorr's feedback.
From North America, Lagstro, member of wK and one of the best archers in NA, said a lot which I've done my best to summarise:
-The small unnecessary amounts of delay on attacks just makes the game feel unresponsive most of the time.
Many mechanics, like kicking, chambering, shield bashing, etc. are either impractical or useless for the most part.
-The arcs of swings are too big, which leads to hitting people behind you that you don't even intend to hit, the arcs of swings should be shorter and more precise
-The amount of time that people that get bumped lay on the ground defenseless is ridiculous, even more so when you compare it to how extremely short the amount of time a player that just got dismounted lays on the ground.
-Cav needs to be punished more for running into objects. Double tapping W gets them out of situations that they don't deserve to get out of.
-The 3rd person crosshair placement is really counter intuitive, and should be made similar to how warband's worked.
-The only way to really play the game safely is to follow the hit-block-hit-block-hit-block flow which becomes boring and dull really fast. Warband had something within it's stun mechanics that allowed for players to safely go for double, sometimes even triple swings sometimes. (Lagstro had suggestions here but it's quite long so probably another thread or he can reply with it. He also basically suggests clutch blocking should be possible)
Cobra, a more recent player and so can give a good perspective without being tied to some of the older Warband players expectations, says (again a lot, I summarised):
-Blocking responsiveness is vital
-When using a one-handed weapon, I’ve found that when chaining from a left swing to an upswing, you can’t tell the difference.
-The movement is too skatey, in regards to both the infantry movement and the cavalry movement.
-Chambers aren’t really a viable mechanic in Bannerlord
-Currently there isn’t any downside to using a spear.
-Re-implement shield stunning.
-I still fundamentally disagree with the unwillingness to implement an equipment system and battle system...The equipment system in regards to the competitive side of things is also a system that could be more easily balanced
All of these players come from different teams, backgrounds, started playing at different times, so I hope if you're reading this you don't get the sense of a circlejerk or similar - most of these players disagree on a lot of things, and all of them disagree with me, but we see some consistent issues brought up (some of which I cut out from the above as it was doubling up a lot):
-spears
-shields and footshots
-melee not enough damage
-throwing weapons
-shields too much health
-blocking
-movement
Which are simply fundamental. I think we also see some of this frustration bleeding into the single player - spears and armour in the tournaments are pretty clearly broken there too.
Anyway, not everyone that I asked gave feedback and I didn't ask everyone, so feel free to add more below. Perspectives from all welcome (except DoF).
Charlini, leader of FT, a distinguished Warband team with tournaments under its belt, has this thread, for the sake of brevity I would summarise it as:
-Damage and hits in melee are too inconsistent, some attacks bounce when they should hit (a lot of 1h weapons) whilst some things damage when they should bounce (a lot of spear hits)
-Lack of feedback and sound from feints
-Movement issues
-Weapons can be swapped too quickly
But the full thread is worth a read. I'm sure you'll be hearing more from him also...
Thorr, one of the top players in the Warband scene and long term member of Unity, which recently won the last WNL, provided feedback by PM, which I'll summarise:
- movements in general are too floaty and slow
- classes and perks are unbalanced (who would play a peasant with bad weapons and armor?)
- spears and javelins in melee are too strong
- throwing weapons do too much damage
- shooters are too accurate
- blocking will be good once you can block 2 opponents (this is what we mean by clutch blocking - OGL)
- jumping need a nerf (while fighting you can leap like a kangaroo to escape)
- infantry spears need to be shorter (I feel like some spears are longer than some lances of the cavs)
- bumpstabs need to be more easy to do
Kawaii and Habi, who also played for Unity last tournament but have played for other clans previously and been in the scene a long time, provided this feedback, again summarised:
Infantry
-no killpressure; removing feints is fine but they need something to be able to force a kill, shields are too strong
-theres no movement speed penalty for s keying i think. moving left/right and backwards should make u slower, right now u can just survive 2v1 forever (I think there is penalty for directly moving backwards but no penalty for strafing or diagonal - OGL)
-instant-hits with spears still a thing; you can also still hit straight back after getting hit (less than previous patch but still there)
Archer
-could use more damage overall, xbow headshot should be able to 1hit right now I think it does always 95ish damage
-Sturgia archer needs more damage, 30-35 is fine i guess so it's 3/4 bodyshots to kill. 20-25 is a joke
-don't like how there's barely an arrow drop
-for competitive I think more archers could use a shield perk
Cavalry
-handling cav still awful feels like iceskating
-3 second bumpdown on enemies seems very strong
-most of the time when i hit an archer with fullspeed (no couch) the archer tanks, think could use a bit higher damage or speed rating
-shields should cover more (legs in particular are very easily hit on cav riders - OGL)
-couch needs to time out, right now u can couch forever even uphill lol
-bumpcouching is too easy needs to be looked into
Firunien, a long term German player who has played in a lot of competitive teams, said:
-generally combat is fine mostly, i personally dislike directional shieldblocking and the need for stances to chamber, i really dislike the casual armour customization plus body armor as one value just takes away some core features
-kicks are not rewarding
-timeframe of stun should be wider
Anchor, member of both AE and recently again Unity, says:
-Shield bash seemingly serves no purpose, ruins the flow of combat
-1H cav is useless, presumably the reason they added 2 attack directions for lances/spears on horseback
For AE, Deacon has made this thread - however in general our feedback after beta and playing some in EA, was very similar to Thorr's feedback.
From North America, Lagstro, member of wK and one of the best archers in NA, said a lot which I've done my best to summarise:
-The small unnecessary amounts of delay on attacks just makes the game feel unresponsive most of the time.
Many mechanics, like kicking, chambering, shield bashing, etc. are either impractical or useless for the most part.
-The arcs of swings are too big, which leads to hitting people behind you that you don't even intend to hit, the arcs of swings should be shorter and more precise
-The amount of time that people that get bumped lay on the ground defenseless is ridiculous, even more so when you compare it to how extremely short the amount of time a player that just got dismounted lays on the ground.
-Cav needs to be punished more for running into objects. Double tapping W gets them out of situations that they don't deserve to get out of.
-The 3rd person crosshair placement is really counter intuitive, and should be made similar to how warband's worked.
-The only way to really play the game safely is to follow the hit-block-hit-block-hit-block flow which becomes boring and dull really fast. Warband had something within it's stun mechanics that allowed for players to safely go for double, sometimes even triple swings sometimes. (Lagstro had suggestions here but it's quite long so probably another thread or he can reply with it. He also basically suggests clutch blocking should be possible)
Cobra, a more recent player and so can give a good perspective without being tied to some of the older Warband players expectations, says (again a lot, I summarised):
-Blocking responsiveness is vital
-When using a one-handed weapon, I’ve found that when chaining from a left swing to an upswing, you can’t tell the difference.
-The movement is too skatey, in regards to both the infantry movement and the cavalry movement.
-Chambers aren’t really a viable mechanic in Bannerlord
-Currently there isn’t any downside to using a spear.
-Re-implement shield stunning.
-I still fundamentally disagree with the unwillingness to implement an equipment system and battle system...The equipment system in regards to the competitive side of things is also a system that could be more easily balanced
All of these players come from different teams, backgrounds, started playing at different times, so I hope if you're reading this you don't get the sense of a circlejerk or similar - most of these players disagree on a lot of things, and all of them disagree with me, but we see some consistent issues brought up (some of which I cut out from the above as it was doubling up a lot):
-spears
-shields and footshots
-melee not enough damage
-throwing weapons
-shields too much health
-blocking
-movement
Which are simply fundamental. I think we also see some of this frustration bleeding into the single player - spears and armour in the tournaments are pretty clearly broken there too.
Anyway, not everyone that I asked gave feedback and I didn't ask everyone, so feel free to add more below. Perspectives from all welcome (except DoF).
Last edited by a moderator: