Leveling system still unenjoyable and unbalanced

Does the leveling system SUCK?

  • yes

    Votes: 110 75.3%
  • no

    Votes: 14 9.6%
  • anime tiddies

    Votes: 35 24.0%

  • Total voters
    146

Users who are viewing this thread

Okay...what follows was directed to someone else, as I read it, but for what it's worth you get that I was referencing that increasing skills increases your level which slows my ability to advance in other skills, right?

It's a lot less messy and I thought clear within the context of the thread how I said it first, at least I thought so. :wink:
Ah, I wasn't responding to the other point, I was quoting it back to illustrate mine to you (I should have used a : rather than a . :smile: ), that raw experience from doing anything is what increases level.

But I still disagree slightly with that basic point: it's not levelling your skills which increases level, it's doing anything - playing the game (the passing of time, essentially). Yes, doing things also of course increases your skills - but A incrementing both B and C doesn't that mean B is incrementing C (particularly when B and C are incremented by different formulae). If levelling up was influenced by XP modified by learning rate, that I think would be the penalty to the player you're describing.
 
Correct the larger the party the faster leadership grows. If I'm not mistaken it's the same way for leading armies. But even so with leading a huge party and large army it's pitifully slow.
Most of the ways to increase leadership come available later in the game, too, so you'll be higher level and get even fewer increases to the skill.

No wonder I still have yet to have a character actually upgrade bandit troops to faction troops, even with having intentionally designed characters to pursue nothing but that. I mean, maybe if not for the updates and restarting...but that still gives me enough playing time that with intention I should be able to reach just that perk?

I think this thread has nailed exactly why I get bored and abandon most of my characters before they even reach the late game, but definitely by that point. I can deal with the endless wars, just not the endless grinding made monotonous by ever less progress.
 
What I don't like also is the needles layers of non-beneficial complexity in the leveling system. Let me start with what's good and then show the layers where it goes wrongs.

1: You use a skill in game and it raises, giving an advantage and lettings you choose perks and it takes much longer to raise higher and levels.
^THIS is a complete char-dev system. This alone is enough. Your choices and time in game = your character's advantage. If you wanna bust your bunz trying to max out many things before you character dies, that's your business in a single player game. Really, this is all they need.


2: You must spec into skill via FP and attributes to learn them. More = faster learning
Okay sounds fair.....

3: You must use 5fp and +8 (10)attributes to reach the highest skill caps
WHAT? Now there's skill caps? Why not just faster and slower learning, why have hard caps?

4: You gain +1 attribute every 4th level
That's gonna take a lot levels to max out the things I want! But I guess it's a looooooong game.....

5: Every level up of character reduces you learning speed for all skills.
What? Why? Why am I punished for leveling up? I guess it's to encourage min/maxing and only raising the skill I really want

6: Exp to level up is the same even if you don't invests into skill, you level up just as fast from their actions, no min/max allowed
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw ****, this is the most trolly obnoxious char dev system I've ever seen!
 
What I don't like also is the needles layers of non-beneficial complexity in the leveling system. Let me start with what's good and then show the layers where it goes wrongs.

1: You use a skill in game and it raises, giving an advantage and lettings you choose perks and it takes much longer to raise higher and levels.
^THIS is a complete char-dev system. This alone is enough. Your choices and time in game = your character's advantage. If you wanna bust your bunz trying to max out many things before you character dies, that's your business in a single player game. Really, this is all they need.


2: You must spec into skill via FP and attributes to learn them. More = faster learning
Okay sounds fair.....

3: You must use 5fp and +8 (10)attributes to reach the highest skill caps
WHAT? Now there's skill caps? Why not just faster and slower learning, why have hard caps?

4: You gain +1 attribute every 4th level
That's gonna take a lot levels to max out the things I want! But I guess it's a looooooong game.....

5: Every level up of character reduces you learning speed for all skills.
What? Why? Why am I punished for leveling up? I guess it's to encourage min/maxing and only raising the skill I really want

6: Exp to level up is the same even if you don't invests into skill, you level up just as fast from their actions, no min/max allowed
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw ****, this is the most trolly obnoxious char dev system I've ever seen!
3. Pretty sure this is a holdover from WB where we got an attribute point as we leveled. But capping skills is very weird. If it was a super high cap like 60+ I could understand it because that would take longer than a character can live but yeah as is it's completely ****ing weird.
4. Yep TW is emphasizing grind. I always felt like WB was grindy but you could get to around level 30 and be pretty effective and if you worked hard it didn't take more than 20-30 hours but I have no idea how long it would take to get to level 30 in this game. 50+ hours? I personally can't play a campaign more than a few hours as it stands right now.
5. Of all the issues with leveling this one has to be the most puzzling and the most punishing for players.
6. I guess TW really hates players and wants to punish them for playing, because I can't see any benefit to doing something like this.
 
3. Pretty sure this is a holdover from WB where we got an attribute point as we leveled. But capping skills is very weird. If it was a super high cap like 60+ I could understand it because that would take longer than a character can live but yeah as is it's completely ****ing weird.
4. Yep TW is emphasizing grind. I always felt like WB was grindy but you could get to around level 30 and be pretty effective and if you worked hard it didn't take more than 20-30 hours but I have no idea how long it would take to get to level 30 in this game. 50+ hours? I personally can't play a campaign more than a few hours as it stands right now.
5. Of all the issues with leveling this one has to be the most puzzling and the most punishing for players.
6. I guess TW really hates players and wants to punish them for playing, because I can't see any benefit to doing something like this.
In Warband there were caps, but it was a little more complex. In general like this system better than Warband's, but I think resolving the differences is where Taleworlds is turning this one so convoluted. Weapon skills were all increased as you used them, and then you had the Weapon Master skill to increase their caps, as well as being affected by the main attribute if memory serves correct.... I could be wrong about the last one....

The skills were separate, though. Under Strength and Dexterity you didn't go directly to weapon skills, but rather to skills governing them.

So Taleworlds has revamped its systems, and combined these two fairly different systems which on the side of how it relates to other skill development I absolutely love and want to see more opportunities for some certain skills to be applied. But now because it all progresses through use and grinding, there's a change in progression from the steady Attribute and Skill Point selections in Warband. This is their solution, I guess.

What I think would provide a better solution might be to have level influence skill-caps. So a Level 2 character may start to slow at Bow progression around 30, but at Level 20 they won't see progress slow until the skill reaches around 200, maybe. I'd find something along these lines, maybe not my exact but arbitrary numbers here, a lot more agreeable and fun. Most importantly, it would satisfy the cardinal rule for grinding in games -- that it lead to increasing rewards, in this case building an enjoyable character to play and wreck all of Calradia with.
 
Weapon skills were all increased as you used them, and then you had the Weapon Master skill to increase their caps, as well as being affected by the main attribute if memory serves correct.... I could be wrong about the last one....
OBJECTION!: WM just increased the cap on free weapon skill points you could spend and increased the learning rate for weapon skill in battle to certain skill level, then it dropped onto default rates. You could raise weapon skills forever in combat without any weapon master at all though, WM was noob trap to eat skill point :razz:
 
OBJECTION!: WM just increased the cap on free weapon skill points you could spend and increased the learning rate for weapon skill in battle to certain skill level, then it dropped onto default rates. You could raise weapon skills forever in combat without any weapon master at all though, WM was noob trap to eat skill point :razz:
It was a limit much like what we have now. When you increased Weapons Master, a low skill would increase by multiple points because of the skill's multipliers. Of this I'm positive. I used to focus on that skill to start because of it.

One of my big early-game strategies was to increase Weapons Master and then grab some recruits and take them to the training grounds. Quick way to get some mid-tier troops and advance the different weapons skills.
 
There was no limit the only time I put anything into weapon master is if I had points to spare because of high Int builds.
Reporting back from testing, I got the skill increase for using the weapon in the very first fight in the opening tutorial sequence. First or second swing of the sword, but I think the first. Beyond that, part of the Weapon Master skill's function is basically reducing the amount of xp necessary to increase from using the skill.

I don't think you understood my other comment on it. I'm not suggesting it's some hard limit and you can't advance past some point, though I'm certain there is a point where it simply stops, but once you get to the soft limit you're talking about such a slow crawl that you won't feasibly reach 300 in any weapon skill without increasing Weapons Master to do so.
 
is a point where it simply stops, but once you get to the soft limit you're talking about such a slow crawl that you won't feasibly reach 300 in any weapon skill without increasing Weapons Master to do so.
I disagree with you. Also it wasn't even what he was talking about!
3. Pretty sure this is a holdover from WB where we got an attribute point as we leveled. But capping skills is very weird. If it was a super high cap like 60+ I could understand it because that would take longer than a character can live but yeah as is it's completely ****ing weird.
This is about skills being able to be raised to 1/3 of their governing attribute. Not "weapon proficiency" or the weapon master skill.
In warband you would easily gain 30-40 levels in a game, so you could max out 2 of the 4 attributes, This allowed for a lot of variation in which skills you got on the MC. In bannerlord you get about 8 attributes from leveling in a un-modded game, so you can get to 10 in one of the six attribute groups and the rest varied depending on starting choices. It's pretty stingy even just in this respect. Add on the multi layers of skill learning speed depreciation and the lack of any direct benefit from leveling up and it just bottoms out into an awful set up.
 
I disagree with you. Also it wasn't even what he was talking about!
Okay, so you disagree. I literally just reinstalled the game and tried it out, so I know perfectly well how wrong you are.

I'm okay with that if you are. :razz:
 
Back to Bannerlord.
I have same problem with leveling system in case of my main character and also with companions. Roguery, Medicine, Tactics, Athletics and Engineering - progression is too slow.

Engineering - its weird. I would like to have a companion for governor position, then i have to put him to be a engineer of my company. He learn how to be good in engineering through operating with siege engines. It is weird. XP in engineering from post of governor is too low. He should be improve, even in proces of building in settlement, not only in finishing. It should be oportunities to learn how to build in others settlement, if a construction is underway, while waiting to heal wounded soldiers.

Medicine, it should be oportunities to heal somebody else, like other lord (quest), heal their wounded soldiers and people in settlements.

Athletics, some extra xp from walking through rivers, or climbing to hill, or ladder, from succesfully kicking oponents, bashing with shield, I don't know, just something!

Tactics - you should be get some xp from waiting in ambush in hideouts, or in case of helping other parties and conversely. In advantage or in disadvantage in battle - not just because of the superiority one side, but if some party have better troops, or have advantige in terrain (perks, culture advantage). You learn how to be good tactician through victories and also defeats - if you survive. Tactics should by also directly proportional to profit of renown from battles.

Rougery - it is good that we are improving in implemented prison break feature. It will be nice see more similar quests. It would be good to get a chance try bribe some enemies to join my side before battle (not just byuing xp, but only in case, when it is really matters, cases of 50-50).

Just something! :grin:

I apologize for my level of English. Also slow progression. :grin:
 
Last edited:
Engineering - its weird. I would like to have a companion for governor position, then i have to put him to be a engineer of my company. He learn how to be good in engineering through operating with siege engines. It is weird. XP in engineering from post of governor is too low. He should be improve, even in proces of building in settlement, not only in finishing. It should be oportunities to learn how to build in others settlement, if a construction is underway, while waiting to heal wounded soldiers.
The Engineering gains you get from governing aren't low -- they are zero. It only levels Stewardship, and Charm as an effect of the emissary system.
 
As a sandbox, this game allows you to play pretty much the way you want. Some people play this game to give commands in battle, other people do it to conquer the world. I am that kind of player that likes the RPG elements: companions, skill progression, inventory, etc. I am that kind of player that inspects the troops before battle, knows all his companions’ names and can recognize them from afar. And I am like: “People, we have to win this battle! For the glory of our clan!” And the clan becomes like a family.

The thing I enjoy the most is leveling, sadly character and companion skill progression is so frustrating and unenjoyable right now that sometimes it’s discouraging to play the game. Every time I recruit a companion I have to use the CharacterManager Mod to make the experience bearable. I do understand though that this is Early Access and that is a work in progress.

Some months ago I thought: “look, developers are implementing all the perks and giving purpose to some unused skills. That’s awesome!” But the truth is that this game released almost a year ago with bare bones character progression: almost no perks were implemented. Beta 1.5.9 is the newest version as of today and they are still implementing systems like prison break, rebellions, etc., core systems that will be used to level up some skills. Now, I do not know if TW has an internal roadmap the developers are following and the skill and XP overhaul is at the end of it, or they are just figuring out everything on the way, but I do not think we will see a skill system rework before they have implemented all these other systems. Sure Charm must have an impact on diplomacy but diplomacy is yet to be implemented. But then I could say: “alright TW, just give us a satisfying leveling system, even if levelling doesn’t mean much.” And that’s true. They could do it. Remove the XP nerf per level. Get rid of that logarithmic progression. On the other hand, developers might think: “Why bother? We will do it later, when we have a reason to”.

And yes, I agree with most of you: I do not understand the reason why leveling prevents you from leveling further. Perhaps the developers could explain us the reason behind this?
 
Does anyone else get the feeling that all their characters and companions are pretty much the same regardless of leveling and perks? I just can't shake the feeling every time I play Bannerlord that each companion and character is fundamentally the same. I have tried to limit myself to a certain playstyle but it just doesn't really feel different. Like if I wanted to I could just as well be an archer as I could use throwing weapons or be a two handed berserker with every play through.

The only one if feel really does it is athletics with the insane change in speed but maybe I am playing with rose colored glasses but it seemed to feel skills gave bigger changes in Warband. I have even tried it with companions but I always just give them whatever is the best weapon and they do fine.
 
The only one if feel really does it is athletics with the insane change in speed but maybe I am playing with rose colored glasses but it seemed to feel skills gave bigger changes in Warband. I have even tried it with companions but I always just give them whatever is the best weapon and they do fine.
they're either morbidly obese or decked out on LSD
 
Does anyone else get the feeling that all their characters and companions are pretty much the same regardless of leveling and perks? I just can't shake the feeling every time I play Bannerlord that each companion and character is fundamentally the same. I have tried to limit myself to a certain playstyle but it just doesn't really feel different. Like if I wanted to I could just as well be an archer as I could use throwing weapons or be a two handed berserker with every play through.

The only one if feel really does it is athletics with the insane change in speed but maybe I am playing with rose colored glasses but it seemed to feel skills gave bigger changes in Warband. I have even tried it with companions but I always just give them whatever is the best weapon and they do fine.
yeah I kinda get what you're saying. There are many issues at hand...

For one we have the main issue, where leveling skills becomes so grindy that you would only reach the end-level perks by unrealistic dedication. It's even more impossible to level up anything on your companions, so all character are just kinda "balanced", or, the same. [It's easy to level up smithing still, but anything else just becomes a chore. You are forced to play only one thing because exp gain decreases after level-ups, so a big joy-killer for me is that I have to force myself to min-max if I want a desired character, and it's still slow af. Smithing tricked me for a long time. It's like: oh, we give you 1 endurance point and 1 vigor or control if you level up smithing so you level up skills faster, what a bargain! But in reality the levels gained because of smithing makes you gain exp actually slower in other skills, which makes the vigor/endurance bonus way less than useless, so now I have to avoid smithing on main character, even if I specialize in endurance... and it doesn't make your character any different when you level smithing and gain more attributes because you gain something only to lose it through the bad mechanic of reducing exp after level-up (because attributes ONLY give extra exp anyway, so what's the point of this?). And then gameplay becomes really boring, because I'm forced to just shoot enemies with my crossbow my entire life just so that I don't reduce my exp gain in crossbow by doing other actions, like quests (god forbid if I have 1 charm skill by mistake and that will make me level up if I do quests so now I have to NOT do quests to reach my character goals)... and even when you do literally everything right, you still level-up slow as F! too much exp requirements!!!]

Also the high damage of weapons and the ineffectiveness of armor makes combat skills obsolete. I can one-shot any unit with a menavlion without any points in polearms (there are weapons with over 100 base damage...), so what is the point of gaining %damage for more skill in polearms, and also the last perk that gives more damage, what is the point of it again? The point is that more damage = more exp gain, so you want more damage to gain more exp for the stupid system again, that is literally the only reason you want more damage, to level-up faster. You don't want more damage to actually be more effective in combat, everything ties up into the lackluster leveling system... it's actually painful.

There are also things missing in the game. Remember in warband the attributes also gave small stat bonuses. This needs to make a return to bannerlord, some kind of bonus when choosing an attribute other than "increase exp gain and limit". The only things we gain from focus points and attributes are things that shouldn't have been in the game to begin with - we lower "HARD CAPS". Remove the hard caps and adjust the exp gain and exp multiplier of focus points, max it out let's say to 3% and start all skills at 0.5% learning rate and reduce the freaking exp requirements with the dumb math that is in place atm, so you then reduce the exp gain bonus from attributes or even remove it and add other benefits that make characters more unique instead. Putting a vigor/endurance requirement on melee weapons/armors (it's heavy ****, cmon, at least implement some penalties for not having the requirement like more movement speed reduction for armor, less damage/speed with weapons... those are basic rpg features that just shouldn't be missing). And do the same thing with Control and ranged weapons. Then intelligence can again be used with a long-lost feature, Books. Your character and your companions can read books if they have a certain intelligence level and that would give them 1 focus point or experience in different skills etc. It would also give another incentive to wait in cities when doing smithing and such.

Without those kind of little nuances then of course characters feel the same. What would be cool would be if the attributes gave small bonus for each of the 3 skills. For example 1 point in endurance can give some riding bonus, some movement speed bonus, and maybe some health for smithing or something. Something that helps in general, that improves those skills a little bit more than if you didn't have the attributes governing the skills or just give other unique bonuses. Because why else put everything under one specific attribute, if it doesn't influence anything but a hard-cap in exp? How I imagine it should be is that a character with 50 polearms but with all attributes in intelligence should not be "the same" as a character with 50 polearms but all his attribute points in vigor. The vigor character should definitely stand out in combat in comparison, by damage, knockback, anything (call it inherent ability, talent or something. Same way an intelligent character should be better at engineering even if they just started leveling up the skill). And high endurance characters being a little more tanky and not needing the last athletics perk to achieve that would just be great. It would give every unique character some better stats, and by that I mean player character, companions, and lords, so they finally stand out just a little bit more. And it doesn't have to be big stat boosts... I'm sure that players would be happy with literally anything that is more than what we have now, which is currently just nothing... I mean it's crazy to think that the only thing we're receiving is a leveling speed bonus, and even that is taken away from us by leveling up anyway, and by huge amounts of exp requirements at the later skill points. It's just meaningless... we basically have no rewards for leveling up, there are penalties for leveling up and that's it.

If you don't want to read my giant rant: Long story short, characters are the same because they don't gain anything for leveling up, the perks are not so unique/significant to make a noticeable difference (Which I don't mind, still there needs to be more unique perks, and attributes need to give something more than exp bonus), game/combat is not very well balanced (some weapons deal way too much base damage. Polearms should just gain more armor penetration instead of 120+ damage, so it still takes 2 hits to kill something without leveling up polearms, and armor should be more effective in general), and there are features missing as well. Maybe such small things will be introduced later on, who knows.

I want to add that some perks do change gameplay, like the trading perk to buy castles, roguery will introduce a perk where you can recruit bandits over your party limit, in leadership you can transform bandits to actual recruits... but we just need way more such game changing perks for us to see real differences in our playthroughs and companions, plus what I mentioned with small bonuses for attributes would be great I think.
 
Last edited:
Combat skills level at OK rate, except of Athletics, it still need to be tweaked, maybe like x 1.5 of current rate will be nice. Riding leveling up just from fighting mounted, through normal gameplay, like all skill must be.

Smithing levels up very quickly and I don't even bothered by stamina anymore, anyway need to spend time in cities to trigger pregnancy.

Scouting levels up slowly at the beginning, but later it catches up. Tactics too slow, need x2 rate or even more to be able to reach high levels. Roguery need huge buff to learning rates, it is insanely slow to level up.

Charm leveling up quickly, Leadership need way to be trained outside of army commanding, otherwise it is leveling at OK rate. Trade leveling fast, but it's so boring and interfere with other gameplay elements, maybe it is worth to speed it up.

Steward levels fine. Medicine have huge issues. In literally 10 years of constant fighting as mercenary my surgeon leveled from 80 to 120, no way I will see 150 some day until I start to whelp hundreds of recruits on purpose. Engineering not leveling up at all for me. I guess it is because siege warfare implemented so badly - I try to avoid it altogether, only joinig ongoing siege battles.
 
Back
Top Bottom