MP Suggestion: Replace the class system with something that's actually fun.

[부부를 넘어서 가자]

Your example doesn't prevent snowballing. All it does is give the chance to sacrafice 1 round for better gear in the next. You're also completly ignoring that the enemy team can just spawn as a weaker unit for their second life if they think they're winning (By having f.e. 2 or 3 people survive the first fight).

For 90% of the playerbase this will be completly irelevant. This will only be a thing in organized competetive matches and even there it will probably be a very rare thing, only useful if you get completly stomped without killing anyone or getting any hits in. Will happen yes, but nothing usual.
Even in skirmish this will be not a useble strat unless there's a voicechat.

 

[Tork789]

I don't understand why that means that the old class system in its core is flawed.

In competitive play it is always desirable that the win is mostly determined by skill and as less as possible by other factors. BL does a better job in that regard.

For 90% of the playerbase this will be completly irelevant. This will only be a thing in organized competetive matches and even there it will probably be a very rare thing, only useful if you get completly stomped without killing anyone or getting any hits in. Will happen yes, but nothing usual.
Even in skirmish this will be not a useble strat unless there's a voicechat.

I wouldn't go as far as saying 90%, the matchmaking will serve as a gateway to tournaments and ranked, and it makes most sense for this system to be implemented there. And as before I agree that for casual players the old system is more desirable, but then again, I don't see a problem here either, because like I've already said it will most likely be brought back by mods.

 

[OurGloriousLeader]

That's not the case. Let's consider an example. My team loses a round. We spent all gold because we believed we could still make it, but now we enter 2nd round with the standard 300 gold and enemy has 390 at their disposal - not that big of an advantage, since if they pick the biggest and baddest heavy cav that usually costs 180+ they still can only pick it two times, meanwhile we can pick the same cav, but once and then a lighter troop. Consider we start losing the round again and decide to not use second lives and save up 90 gold for the next round. In the third round we are on equal footing with the enemy team at worst and have more gold at best because we managed to make them spawn 2 times in previous round and now they have less gold at their disposal than we do.

So we lost 2 times and gained a gold advantage in 3rd round due to smart management of our resources and now have a good chance for a comeback - a situation absolutely impossible in Warband, because if you lost 2 times in WB there's no way your team could even be equal in terms of equipment with the enemy team, not to speak about gaining an advantage in gold.

I think this example illustrates perfectly the problem with snowballing in WB that was solved in BL.

1) Needing to lose a round just to keep up with the gold gain of your opponent by not spending lives is not "avoiding snowballing", it's the perfect example showing why snowballing is in the game and indeed is worse than Warband. Further, it's fine to have in something like CSGO where an eco round brings you back in because it's best of 30 rounds - Bannerlord is FT3, so you lose one, need to throw the second round just to keep up with the snowball, leaving you one round. Nice.

2) YOU COULD DO THIS IN WARBAND TOO BY TAKING DEFAULT GEAR NETTING YOU 1K GOLD FOR NEXT ROUND

 

[부부를 넘어서 가자]

If you want a class System that makes snowballing impossible make 2 classes for each troop with different strenghts and weaknesses. For example one archer that has a shield instead of 2 packs of arrows and then another archer with a better (more damage and range perhabs also firerate) bow, 2 packs of arrows, better armour and better melee weapon. So there's a tradeoff. People could chose between more damage on a open map and a shield for a closed map. For infantry you could have a 1h inf that has a good shield and weapon with beefy armour and another class that focuses on having a bit lighter gear but has acsess to polearms and a weaker shield and 1h which then could be the spear guy. Same for cav with a tanky horse but weaker armour or a worse Lance and a class with a more agile and faster horse for open maps. The cost of each class for their troop would be the same though.

E: you then give each class 2 perks for gear selection. Stuff like type of 1h weapon (mace, sword, axe), type of arrows (more shots but less damage), type of shield (bigger but less hitpoints), different bow (firerate and damage), different horse (hp speed maneuver), different lance (length or damage).

For winning a round you get access to a 3rd perk which lets you have s bit more armour or a bit higher damage weapons.

I'd still prefer the warband system but something like this would atleast make sense.

 

[EbdanianAdmiral]

I dont understand why we cant come to a happy medium where we keep the class system but allow more customization through 3 perks. The class system would be working as intended if it were balanced but the community is overly enamored with moaning about how this game isnt warband2 to actually provide a large amount of class specific feedback. Chanting "Movement sucks! I cant hilt spam exactly like I used to!" for 6 months does nothing to actually help Taleworlds enact their artistic vision.

 

[Tork789]

Needing to lose a round just to keep up with the gold gain of your opponent by not spending lives is not "avoiding snowballing"

You don't need to lose a round, you just need to spawn 1 less time. You are of course free to try to tackle their advantage using all gold, the difference between you and the opponent is never too big, it's up to you if you want to save money to go two times as a beefier class next round or spend everything right now and go once as a beefy class and once as a lighter one, or maybe several times as a lighter one. It just adds more depth to your decisions.

so you lose one, need to throw the second round just to keep up with the snowball, leaving you one round

Again, you don't need to lose another one, you can actually carrey in the second round with the single life or using all gold, it's up to you. In Warband you'll just be lagging behind more and more the more you lose, therefore the snowballing effect. BL gives you opportunities to manage resources to keep up with the enemy and make a comeback, Warband just makes it harder and harder with each round lost - creates a snowball that is only getting bigger and bigger with every round lost. So that's why WB has snowballing and BL doesn't, or not to the same extent.

YOU COULD DO THIS IN WARBAND TOO BY TAKING DEFAULT GEAR NETTING YOU 1K GOLD FOR NEXT ROUND

You could not? If you take default gear you're at a huge disadvantage, in BL you can take the equally strong class once and then either save money or choose a weaker class - much better choice than going 1 live in default gear in hopes of saving up puny 500 gold(that's how much you carry over, I checked just now) for the next round - in that case you're actually throwing a round, in BL you don't.

I dont understand why we cant come to a happy medium where we keep the class system but allow more customization through 3 perks. The class system would be working as intended if it were balanced but the community is overly enamored with moaning about how this game isnt warband2 to actually provide a large amount of class specific feedback. Chanting "Movement sucks! I cant hilt spam exactly like I used to!" for 6 months does nothing to actually help Taleworlds enact their artistic vision.

I suggest a better solution: keep everything as is and bring any system you want with future mods. Plain and simple.

 

[EbdanianAdmiral]

I suggest a better solution: keep everything as is and bring any system you want with future mods. Plain and simple.

I am fairly confident TW intend to add a 3rd perk eventually. It is possible to defend the game and its systems while still acknowledging that there are necessary balance changes that would improve what we currently have.

 

[OurGloriousLeader]

You don't need to lose a round, you just need to spawn 1 less time. You are of course free to try to tackle their advantage using all gold, the difference between you and the opponent is never too big, it's up to you if you want to save money to go two times as a beefier class next round or spend everything right now and go once as a beefy class and once as a lighter one, or maybe several times as a lighter one. It just adds more depth to your decisions.

So you just need to engage 12-18 opponents with 6 - tackling their advantage (huh, what do we call a rolling forward advantage in games?) or settling on a huge disadvantage. Nice.

Again, you don't need to lose another one, you can actually carrey in the second round with the single life or using all gold, it's up to you. In Warband you'll just be lagging behind more and more the more you lose, therefore the snowballing effect. BL gives you opportunities to manage resources to keep up with the enemy and make a comeback, Warband just makes it harder and harder with each round lost - creates a snowball that is only getting bigger and bigger with every round lost. So that's why WB has snowballing and BL doesn't, or not to the same extent.

There is zero difference here in what you're describing.

You could not? If you take default gear you're at a huge disadvantage, in BL you can take the equally strong class once and then either save money or choose a weaker class - much better choice than going 1 live in default gear in hopes of saving up puny 500 gold(that's how much you carry over, I checked just now) for the next round - in that case you're actually throwing a round, in BL you don't.

You could, yes 500 gold, which gives you 1500 for the next round + any from kills, which is enough for tanking up on Swadia and better gear in general. Sota tried doing this as Swadia in some tournaments - it just never was that effective because 1) it's a thrown round and 2) snowballing was not strong.

 

[Tork789]

...

I think we've iterated over the topic enough times already. I don't think we'll be able to reach a consensus here, so I'm just gonna leave it at that for now. Agree to disagree. Cheers.

 

[OurGloriousLeader]

You're wrong.

 

[부부를 넘어서 가자]

You could, yes 500 gold, which gives you 1500 for the next round + any from kills, which is enough for tanking up on Swadia and better gear in general. Sota tried doing this as Swadia in some tournaments - it just never was that effective because 1) it's a thrown round and 2) snowballing was not strong.

Germany NC team did this in some official once. 8 default xbows to try and get some kills with kiting. In the second round they all had mail and even a warhorse iirc.

 

[Shemaforash]

Tork repeating same points that were heavily counter argued in callums Thread. Snowballing is far more severe in bannerlord than it is in warband. Once you start winning in bannerlord you have three lives as a heavily armored knight instead of two lives.

 

[Noviix]

Snowballing is simply the idea that once a lead is gained over another player or group of players it becomes far too difficult to stop their exponential rise to power. It's still very much so present in Bannerlord and easier to achieve in Bannerlord.

While Snowballing WAS a problem in Warband, the lengths you needed to go in order to actually accumulate that much gold were pretty rigorous for most players. Sure there were exceptions as there were certainly people out there that could run battle servers for the entire day without any competition. That's in almost every game and cannot be prevented unless you handicap players.

Snowballing in Bannerlord is now a few simple steps:

1. Pick the best class for your money, if you can dominate with the recruit it's even more ideal due to affordability.
2. Kill one person and get a bunch of assists because they're worth more (or were in the beta, I've really avoided multiplayer since release)
3. Pick the best class for your money again, you can probably get a pretty broken class now.
4. Dominate with said class.
5. You should have enough money to rebuy that class, and dominate once more.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5.

I believe there was a point made about each class having strengths and weaknesses, I'd like to dissect that.

The only weak class in reality, is any melee class. Let me explain. If you pick melee, you are likely not going to pick up a bow or ranged weapon, you probably won't take a suitable lance, you're pretty much stuck on the ground.

The strongest class is probably archer or better yet the horse archer for Khuzait. Not only do most of the better ranged classes get absurd melee weapons better than any melee class. but they also get complete ranged capability and can get on a horse and ride it just like they were cav.

Cav is pretty good because worst case you get dismounted and you're just infantry.

There's really just no depth here. Pick the best class you get the best result. It's not creative for the player, no one feels unique, it doesn't feel more immersive considering no army of the time period was standardized to my knowledge.

 

[Achaner]

There's really just no depth here. Pick the best class you get the best result. It's not creative for the player, no one feels unique, it doesn't feel more immersive considering no army of the time period was standardized to my knowledge.

That's a major issue I've seen throughout the Beta and now even more with sieges. Nothing is unique, nothing stands out.

 

[jmjay]

Current Bannerlord system seems to be aimed at the presently popular competitve play and easier start for new players (have been noticing this in other games as well). Not necessarily bad for business or consumer.

Personally, I've always been quite terrible at Warband's multiplayer and just enjoyed running round and doing my best so the whole combat/snowballing thing doesn't interest me as much. Saying that, the customisation and 'do what you want' approach of the m&b games is what always kept me playing. Though I enjoy the fixed class system occasionally, the fact that there is so little of it in the mp of a 'Mount & Blade' titled game tickled me a little.

As much as one can hope, I don't see them making many changes to the current system but why not compromise and at least add a more varied choice of armour, helmets and weapons within the current classes... seeing how shields will show the banner and colours will match the faction anyways and team kills are disabled.

 

[RCC_God]

It’s not just the competitive players that don’t like bannerlord combat, it’s the guys on gk tdm, the crpg guys, the pw guys, Reddit calradic campaign guys. Saying it’s only comp is disingenuous

 

[Sundeki]

Current Bannerlord system seems to be aimed at the presently popular competitve play and easier start for new players (have been noticing this in other games as well).

Nobody in my region that plays competitively that I've talked to likes or thinks the new class system works. There's been a couple that don't care one way or the other, but as a concept this class system has been rejected by competitive players. I believe it is the same for other regions as well. This class system definitely hasn't been designed with competitive play in mind. It is purely for newer casual players at the expense of everyone else.

 

[hoe12moe]

It's just... shallow. I feel like BL mp is inspired by shallow warband clones that had a lifespan of 6 months instead of 10+ years.

 

[RCC_God]

It's just... shallow. I feel like BL mp is inspired by shallow warband clones that had a lifespan of 6 months instead of 10+ years.

we have seen so many games that where said to kill warband that didn't. Holdfast, War of the Roses, For Honor, the list goes on. I am personally worried Bannerlord is going to be like the rest of those games, had a lifespan of 5 months before people got bored

 

[SirAlecks]

It's just... shallow. I feel like BL mp is inspired by shallow warband clones that had a lifespan of 6 months instead of 10+ years.

we have seen so many games that where said to kill warband that didn't. Holdfast, War of the Roses, For Honor, the list goes on. I am personally worried Bannerlord is going to be like the rest of those games, had a lifespan of 5 months before people got bored

I couldn't have said it better.