Just another thread about OP Archers.

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:sad::sad::sad: I am learning to mod the game with the hope to be able to change this. Sad news then. Anyway,taking into account that I can perform headshots without problem in tournaments at lvl 1 with 10 in archery skill, I am not surprised by this.

You need almost zero modding skill adjust the accuracy on bows. Just make a copy of your spitems.xml, then ctrl+f "Accuracy." It is nothing but bows (and stones) with that stat line, a simple number. Bows range from about 85-99; don't drop them down to 0 or anything crazy like that because it might break something but any double digit number should be fine.
 
You need almost zero modding skill adjust the accuracy on bows. Just make a copy of your spitems.xml, then ctrl+f "Accuracy." It is nothing but bows (and stones) with that stat line, a simple number. Bows range from about 85-99; don't drop them down to 0 or anything crazy like that because it might break something but any double digit number should be fine.

Where is spitems.xml? I cannot find it here:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Mount & Blade II Bannerlord\Modules\Native\ModuleData

Thanks.
 
Where is spitems.xml? I cannot find it here:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Mount & Blade II Bannerlord\Modules\Native\ModuleData

Thanks.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Mount & Blade II Bannerlord\Modules\SandBoxCore\ModuleData

I think that gets everyone at least once, lol
 
Ahh ok thanks, it is a folder. I was looking for a spitem.xml file. The thing is accuracy does not actually works for accuracy. I have modify it to 20, and just changed how long the Palatine Guard units start firing. Accuracy is really working like a distance parameter as far I have seen. There should be another place to actually modify accuracy.
 
Taking into account that "Accuracy" actually works like "Distance" in weapons.xml file (or at least it looks like), I have droped the Palatine Guard Bow skill to 20 in spnpccharacters.xml file. The thing is that while they actually performed worse, they were still able to kill everyone without engaging in melee fight (50 Palatine Guards vs 143 army which was stronger according to strenght power bar). Checking a hero with 135 Bow still, he just has +14.9% damage and +12.2% accuracy, so Bow skill really doest not grant a huge amount of accuracy compared with other units with much lower bow skill. It looks like the Base accuracy for archers is too high, reason because it is pretty easy to use bows when we have 0 Bow skills (this does not happens in Warband).

Do you know if there is a way to reduce base accuracy for all archers? That would work great for me and I would not really care if TW fix this issue or not. On the other hand, it looks like the reason because archers are so damn accurate is due to horse archers, to give the player a way to deal with them (I just would drop accuracy for horse archers too and problem fixed, instead of making OP archers).
 
Just adding more evidence for devs, and hopefully this awful situation gets improved:



Things I have noticed:

1- The AI does no make a good use of archers, it just charge with archers in front and rarely fire. It is a better idea that the AI keeps archers out of the formation and let them fire from distance.
2- The AI does not block a s***, even when a lot of units have shields. Please fix this, units should still be able to block arrows effectively even if not in shieldwall formation.
3- Not showed in this video, but Palatine Guard and Khuzait Marksman are pretty OP in melee and sometimes able to defeat Vlandian Sageats just in melee.
4- I think that archwers should get some kind of nerf, not sure if in terms of accuracy, firing speed rate, damage, or something else. ANyway, fixing the points 1 and 2 should improve the situation at some extend.

Please TW, not sure if you are currently working on this but this is something that I think you should priorize. Maybe some people do not care about it because like to wreck the AI easily, but for people who actual want a challenge, battles currently are a joke in terms of difficulty and not enjoyable.

(I have the feeling that the AI is so dumb currently in line formation due to give shield wall some importance and make it impactful. As long as the AI does not know how to use shield wall effectively, please improve the AI in line formation. I prefer to have an useless shieldwall instead of seeing this silly battles all the time)
 
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Taking into account that "Accuracy" actually works like "Distance" in weapons.xml file (or at least it looks like), I have droped the Palatine Guard Bow skill to 20 in spnpccharacters.xml file. The thing is that while they actually performed worse, they were still able to kill everyone without engaging in melee fight (50 Palatine Guards vs 143 army which was stronger according to strenght power bar). Checking a hero with 135 Bow still, he just has +14.9% damage and +12.2% accuracy, so Bow skill really doest not grant a huge amount of accuracy compared with other units with much lower bow skill. It looks like the Base accuracy for archers is too high, reason because it is pretty easy to use bows when we have 0 Bow skills (this does not happens in Warband).

Yeah, did my testing on 1.4.0 so troops skills didn't work back then. That being said, you're missing the most important part of the Bow skill finally being active: 15% extra damage is probably about enough (depending on bow) to cross the 100 damage through armor breakpoint that makes archers start to become even more effective because all the head hits are suddenly one shot kills.

Do you know if there is a way to reduce base accuracy for all archers? That would work great for me and I would not really care if TW fix this issue or not.

I don't know. We have a few modders here though. Hopefully they won't get spicy if I tag them.
@mylittletantan
@Captain_Octavius
@KaelusVonSestiaf
 
AI is not programmed to target head. When AI archers hit head it's not because their accuracy is so great, it's because their accuracy sucks.
Also they aim at center so a unit moving forward ends up with it's head in the path.

I would like to find infantry, archers and cavalry units useful and balanced.
I agree with this, I just blame poor AI, shield s and armor mechanics much more then archer/HA because in my experience thy're not so hot when the AI doesn't walk into their line of fire.

Maybe my game is just ****ed up for whatever reason, but when I tested archers with nerfed accuracy there was no significant change in their performance. I'm just assuming the accuracy stat for ranged weapons in spitems.xml is actually functional but when I cranked it down to 60, nothing really changed in archer effectiveness except maybe they loosed at shorter ranges (it is hard to measure).
Maybe it has diminishing returns and the unit skill makes it less noticeable.
 
Also they aim at center so a unit moving forward ends up with it's head in the path.

Yes, but AI in some cases adjusts for a movement of the target. If I remember right one of the dev blogs, chance of AI to do that raises with either skill or level.

I was pleasantly surprised when I found this out (you can notice it in the arena fights for example) and it shows that there were large improvements to the AI made since Warband, despise players often not appreciating them.

Bannerlord AI is not perfect, but is leaps and bounds better then it was in Warband and it's pity that devs don't receive more praise for it.
 
Bannerlord AI is by far better than It was in Warband in terms of 1v1 or army cohesion, there is no doubts about. On the other hand, there are still some basic aspects which are not working well and hurt a lot the player experience. AI does not making a decent use of archers or just raising shields to block projectiles were working properly in Warband. Plus sieges are still a mess. If TW manage to fix these things, the AI could be somehow challenging but currently It does not represent any danger for the player.
 
I honestly don't think archers are really that overpowered. A good archer line is a big help, yes. However, in things like castle sieges they perform as expected, no better or worse from my standpoint. What makes them easy to use is when the enemies line up nice for you and take forever to get to you. Particularly if they are close together, a miss is as good as a hit. However, I still make very efficient use of my cavalry and infantry and they are an integral part of my forces, and entirely necessary protection for my archers.

The only time my archer line can take down all the enemies is if my archers greatly outnumber my opponents forces. Then again I play everything on realistic, so this might have to do with easier settings people are using?
 
I honestly don't think archers are really that overpowered. A good archer line is a big help, yes. However, in things like castle sieges they perform as expected, no better or worse from my standpoint. What makes them easy to use is when the enemies line up nice for you and take forever to get to you. Particularly if they are close together, a miss is as good as a hit. However, I still make very efficient use of my cavalry and infantry and they are an integral part of my forces, and entirely necessary protection for my archers.

The only time my archer line can take down all the enemies is if my archers greatly outnumber my opponents forces. Then again I play everything on realistic, so this might have to do with easier settings people are using?

All the videos I have uploaded are on realistic settings (easy settings do not Increase damage dealing as far I remember, just damage received). As you can see, getting just 50 palatine guards which is something pretty easy to archieve the first 100-150 days, you will be killing parties with 120-150 men without losing a single unit. Only Khuzaits and maybe Aserai armies will kill you some units due to Horse Archers. This game is everything about missile units.

 
I honestly don't think archers are really that overpowered. A good archer line is a big help, yes. However, in things like castle sieges they perform as expected, no better or worse from my standpoint. What makes them easy to use is when the enemies line up nice for you and take forever to get to you. Particularly if they are close together, a miss is as good as a hit. However, I still make very efficient use of my cavalry and infantry and they are an integral part of my forces, and entirely necessary protection for my archers.

The only time my archer line can take down all the enemies is if my archers greatly outnumber my opponents forces. Then again I play everything on realistic, so this might have to do with easier settings people are using?
nope, nothing to do with easier settings. If anything, easier settings should get our inf/cav better, since they won't die as much. Combined forces are way more fun, but if you didn't do it yet, you should try mass archers at least for the experience. They outperform everything unless:
- Battle takes place on uneven terrain with poor los and even then, splitting your archers in 2 or 3 groups so they can cover each other usually does the trick. This also works for being outnumbered.
- Sieges, although you can still cheese them out finding a spot to put all your archers where they kill more than they die. AI will reposition their troops on the battlements until everyone dies or routs or you run out of ammo, in which case you can retreat, then resume the onslaught. It's cheese, so I wonder if we can count this as strategy. Then again, mass archers by itself feels like cheesing..
 
- Sieges, although you can still cheese them out finding a spot to put all your archers where they kill more than they die. AI will reposition their troops on the battlements until everyone dies or routs or you run out of ammo, in which case you can retreat, then resume the onslaught. It's cheese, so I wonder if we can count this as strategy. Then again, mass archers by itself feels like cheesing..

It is only cheesy because the AI is scripted to just keep sending units to keep the wall filled with men, even if the player brings way more archers.
 
I wish the AI lords would use captains when there's multiple lords and try to surround from all sides instead of everyone moving in blobs. I thought that's already set up so I don't know why they don't use it.
 
I wish the AI lords would use captains when there's multiple lords and try to surround from all sides instead of everyone moving in blobs. I thought that's already set up so I don't know why they don't use it.

It is. Watch their cavalry closely; it splits into two groups and screens/flanks as applicable. They don't do it with infantry or archers but they sorta do it between javelin cavalry and shock cavalry. The former usually breaks off on its own, assuming it has enough dudes, and goes streaking in front of your formation.
 
It is. Watch their cavalry closely; it splits into two groups and screens/flanks as applicable. They don't do it with infantry or archers but they sorta do it between javelin cavalry and shock cavalry. The former usually breaks off on its own, assuming it has enough dudes, and goes streaking in front of your formation.
Yeah I see that, I guess I wish they would do it with inf and archers too.

Edit: Particularly when fighting a much larger group, it would be much more difficult to deal with 5-hundred unit detachments all trying to surround you, each with own archer/inf formations, then 1-500 man blob slogging across the map that's easy for a the player and a small mounted force to disrupt and filter.
 
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I wish the AI lords would use captains when there's multiple lords and try to surround from all sides instead of everyone moving in blobs. I thought that's already set up so I don't know why they don't use it.

It is. Watch their cavalry closely; it splits into two groups and screens/flanks as applicable. They don't do it with infantry or archers but they sorta do it between javelin cavalry and shock cavalry. The former usually breaks off on its own, assuming it has enough dudes, and goes streaking in front of your formation.

Yes, the AI is aleady assigning orders to "independent" groups, even if we fight regular parties (not just for armie). The problem is that the AI does not know how manage archers at all due to two reasons:

1- AI puts its archers in front and try to move them as fast as it moves infantry units. It is good that the AI tries to rush the player with its infantry (otherwise the infantry would get wrecked by our archers even easier), but AI archers trying to keep the cohesion with the whole army means that they rarely fire while infantry is moving forward. AI should "release/separate" achers from the army cohesion as long as they are in rage to start firing. There is not really need to keep cohesion between infantry and AI, and they could move at different speed when archers are shooting.

I think TW devs do this in order to avoid archer units being flanked and ganked by player's cavalry, but the result is much worse performance in 100% of the battles.


2- The second issue is also related to archer units trying to avoid being flanked and ganked by cavalry. Archers are in some kind of "skirmish mode" and they try to run away when cavalry is attacking them. This does not make anything good for these archers because they stop firing while keep dying because cavalry is faster and able to catch them. They should just stand and keep fighting and they would perform much better than the do currently.


Then we have the issue with AI infantry which do not block projectiles most of the times. The thing is that watching again some of my videos, it looks like the AI infantry is sometimes able to use shields pretty effectively but this just happens eventually. Check this video at 6:10




If TW would make infantry able to always use shields in this way, plus making a better use of archers, the battles would be much funnier, enjoyable and challenging. Hopefully they can fix this in some time. Not sure if it would be enough to balance archer units but this would be at least a good start to deal with players' OP archer armies.
 
They outperform everything unless:

They don't. High tier units outperform low tier units. Advantage of archers is that they can fight at range without getting in to contact with enemy melee units. As they should. Therefore in some situations player can get away without sustaining any casualties.
 
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