The State of Captain Mode

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Thanks for the responses.

I've been on both sides of the argument regarding your proposal to introduce a "leash" or "distance limit" on a captains unit formations. At first when you proposed the idea I was vehemently against it as it would severely limit the overall freedom of movement that players have on the battlefield and I think any limits on player actions can negatively impact someone's overall gameplay experience. At one point I changed my stance on the subject and actually advocated for it's introduction as an attempt to stop the devolution of captain mode turning into skirmish mode with extra lives.

Captain Perks (Area of Effect, temporary bonus "abilities")
During the class selection phase each captain can choose a single perk or "ability" that grants a different temporary stat bonus to ai troops within a limited area of effect that is within the immediate area of the player captain unit. These unique abilities would ONLY be given to the captain unit that the player initially spawns into the game as, once that unit has died the captain no longer has access to the ability. Multiple instances of the same effect would not stack.

Examples of what bonuses could look like:

Resistance:
When activated, friendly units surrounding the player captain gain 25% armor rating for 5-10 seconds. (25 second cooldown)

Bloodlust: When activated, friendly units surrounding the player captain gain 10% increased damage and 5% increased attack speed for 5-10 seconds. (25 second cooldown)

Field Medic: When activated, friendly units surrounding the player captain regenerate 1 hitpoint per second for 10-20 seconds. (1 minute cooldown)

Stampede: When activated, friendly units surrounding the player captain gain 20% movement speed for 5-10 seconds. (30 second cooldown)

Each of these abilities could be bound to a single hotkey in the F file, or if there are none left available, a simple combination such as F8-F8 could also be used.

These abilities could also just be passive bonuses in an area effect, the player unit would simply act as a beacon for these bonuses and any nearby ai units would receive the benefits.

Reminder that you would only have access to these abilities on your captain units first life and your captain must be within a close proximity to friendly ai troops in order for them to receive the bonus. Therefor if you die as a rambo before maximizing the usage of these ability bonuses, you would be missing out on a huge advantage for your team thus incentivizing players to stick near their units and not risk dying alone.

I think the "leash" could have a large radius. Having to move your parked cav halfway across the map would be a huge problem for rambo cav, and open up more reliable counter-play, while still allowing rambo cav to hover and poke enemies if the enemies just camp and don't do anything.

I like the idea of passive perks, but I think cooldown perks would feel out of place since it's not present in SP. The idea of perks working only if the original captain-unit was still alive is interesting, but it might lead to captains being too passive and the game mode becoming more boring since you just want to hide and stay alive as your captain.

@Brandis.
Very informative post about the state of captains mode. Just wanted to let you know TW would never ever add tactical depth, they are aiming for casual players, everything in this game is dumbed down for the sake of accessibility.
I think most "new" captain players come from SP, which has a fair bit of complexity to it. There's various levels of resource management and I don't think adding a resource management element or two to captain (such as gold) would scare people away, if it was done right.


The money system would be terrible idea for captain. So instead of trying to predict what the other teams composition is now you also have to try and figure out if they want to spend more money this round? What's great about captain is that it is simplistic in that if you have played some single player you can be a contributing member to your team, unlike skirmish where it takes time to build up skill and knowledge to be contributing at all.

The gold system was a hypothetical example of adding depth to the pick stage of the game. I'm not satisfied with an identical blind pick 3-5 rounds in a row, followed by a near-identical side-swap and 3-5 more blind picks in a row.

That essentially is rock-paper-scissors. So far, we've had one dominant meta (such as if rock beat both paper and scissors) so this wasn't really a problem. In the future if there are several viable comps that counter each other, we'll be in a situation where the round is won or lost on blind picks at the start of the map.

What's great about captain is that it is simplistic in that if you have played some single player you can be a contributing member to your team, unlike skirmish where it takes time to build up skill and knowledge to be contributing at all.

There's not a single successful game with this level of simplicity.
 
I think increasing troops numbers a bit more is something everyone will enjoy. We all want the large feeling battles and as you said it could help with the solo cav and make fights more fun.

A lot of other good points as well.
 
There's so many solutions. TW likes it how it is.
That's not quite fair or true; on the Current State of MP page this issue is specifically listed as something they are looking at.

I think increasing troops numbers a bit more is something everyone will enjoy. We all want the large feeling battles and as you said it could help with the solo cav and make fights more fun.

A lot of other good points as well.
Given how performance has improved significantly - I don't see why they couldn't do this. Even 50% more units per squad would be a nice change and make the battle feel more epic. All the better when we finally get more open maps!
 
That's not quite fair or true; on the Current State of MP page this issue is specifically listed as something they are looking at.
I'm currently in the "abject despair" phase of the endless cycle that is trying to play Bannerlord. I'll circle back to "attempting to understand decisions" soon, then hopefully on to "cautious hope."

Given how performance has improved significantly - I don't see why they couldn't do this. Even 50% more units per squad would be a nice change and make the battle feel more epic. All the better when we finally get more open maps!
Even on an 6v6 Rabble match there's no issues at this point, they've made a lot of progress in performance. Pumping up unit counts by 25% or even 10% would be very welcome by pretty much everyone. I'm in favor of 50% unit count buff as you suggest but I could see why TW would balk at that.
 
@Super Jew Im sorry but class selection should 100% be relevant in all levels of captain mode and if you fail to bring the necessary counters to archers such as light infantry and cav the pubs have no one but themselves to blame.
Just because your pub team didn't choose the optimal combination of classes you shouldn't have a chance of winning? Some archers are already better at melee fighting than some heavy infantry, they don't also need to be faster.
@Super JewYou cannot expect heavy infantry to be effective against all unit types. They already have a shield wall they dont need to be able to outrun archers too.
Archers to get distance between themselves and pursuing infantry need a cavalry teammate to engage the infantry. This requires coordination and a reliable teammate. Captain requires lots of teamwork and in almost all situations a single player cannot carry which is great. You would be diminishing that by making archers close to OP.
Were trying to evolve past the infantry melee ball, but you seem to be fine with how useless archers are for some baffling reason, and its not productive or healthy for the mode.
The state of the game allows for the return of archers to competitive play. If a team chooses to only play the infantry ball then that is because they are inexperienced or want to do the easiest strategy. Melee ball will always be there due to bad maps and there being a need for an infantry strategy.

I suggest you play less skirmish its corrupting your judgement.
What an irrelevant point. Since I got my new computer I have played a 10:1 ratio of captain to skirmish games. My guilty pleasure has always been captain. I'm not calling you out because you don't consider the other modes, but because your ideas would also be terrible for captain.
I don't hear you complaining about not being able to chase down cavalry units on foot, why does that not ruin the game for you and yet your heavy infantry who have better weapons, shields, more numbers, and more armor not being able to outrun archers who have limited ammo capacity is somehow going to turn pubs into a walking simulator? Get real. If you think archers perform too well in melee then simply nerf their melee stats, this isnt a legitamate reason to keep them slow and unusable as ranged units.
If infantry was faster than cavalry then goodbye to archers. Why are you making this a point? Infantry being faster than archers is not a good comparison to infantry being slightly faster than archers. Stop responding emotionally and start thinking logically. If archers can keep running away for infantry on a 1 on 1 without ever getting caught then yes, the game would turn into a running simulator.
You don't want to chase archers?:
Stand on a flag, put your shield wall up, and quit crying. Or better yet, have some archers on your team and shoot back.
That is the worst strategy that every pub player does. It is best to push the archers. Eventually the archers will destroy you so sitting in shield wall will only last for a limited amount of time. You know this, so why are you making it a point?
Regarding my perk suggestion: If you think a system that encourages and incentivizes captains to stay with their units by giving them a reason to do so is worse than a system that prevents or restricts players by forcing them to stay with their units like leashing does, then there's no saving you.
There are already games that are captain mode (Conquerors Blade) that use perks. Having perks takes away from what mount and blade is.

When was the last time you played? For those that don't k
Not to be hostile (as you are right to have your own opinion) but why do you support 'Ramboing'? I feel it heavily distorts the game mode Captains is meant to be - a mode where you command and control a small army of bots to leverage victory. It isn't meant to be skirmish with extra lives and even one player doing this forces everyone else to adapt. Now one team has to play with effectively 5/6th as many troops and the other has to deal with the player.

It isn't enjoyable for anyone else in the game other then the person doing it. That alone should prove why it needs to be fixed.
The difference between Bannerlord's captain mode and the other games that are similar is each induvial unit behaves by itself. A unit should be able to break from the group. If the other team is all ramboing there are ways to currently counter that.
now Ling it is not recent.
 
Leash the cav to the player and improve the ai's ability to kill in an f1f2 charge into enemies without spears drawn, most other fixes don't address the core of the problem. There is very little room for a deeper strategy showcasing all units strengths and weakness in a field battle while free and unbridled rambo caving exists.

I don't think there is a problem with archers speed. It is good for strategic play to have the other members of the army responsible for buying time and giving archers the opportunity to get away safely from charging enemy infantry, I think that is a good symbiotic relationship for potentially powerful units like archers to have in order to survive. Cav can catch archers easily, leashing just means rightly so the cav risks losing a few men in the process of playing his role in executing this strategy
 
Just because your pub team didn't choose the optimal combination of classes you shouldn't have a chance of winning? Some archers are already better at melee fighting than some heavy infantry, they don't also need to be faster.
-Nerf their melee ability. I don't expect archers to be good melee fighters, nor should they be. They should be light on their feet, manuverable ranged units.

Archers to get distance between themselves and pursuing infantry need a cavalry teammate to engage the infantry. This requires coordination and a reliable teammate. Captain requires lots of teamwork and in almost all situations a single player cannot carry which is great. You would be diminishing that by making archers close to OP.
-Archers should be able to create distance on their own without having to rely on a specific class choice to aid them. I don't think this diminishes anything.
The state of the game allows for the return of archers to competitive play. If a team chooses to only play the infantry ball then that is because they are inexperienced or want to do the easiest strategy. Melee ball will always be there due to bad maps and there being a need for an infantry strategy.
-If this were true archers would get picked a lot more often, which hasn't been happening so I don't know where you are getting the idea that they are back in competitive play, because the data shows otherwise.
What an irrelevant point. Since I got my new computer I have played a 10:1 ratio of captain to skirmish games. My guilty pleasure has always been captain. I'm not calling you out because you don't consider the other modes, but because your ideas would also be terrible for captain.
-You cast doubt on my own game knowledge and yet have fewer games played in the mode than me, Ide say this point is entirely relevant.

Stop responding emotionally and start thinking logically. If archers can keep running away for infantry on a 1 on 1 without ever getting caught then yes, the game would turn into a running simulator.
-Wrong on so many levels. Use the Morale flags and shield wall. Your units won't get picked off if you position your shields properly against incoming archer fire. If you expose your sides and leave gaps in your wall, then you deserve to be picked off. You pretty much guarentee a melee ball meta by not giving ranged units enough time to use their bows. I also suggested your team picks ranged units as well so you won't just be sitting ducks, you'll be able to return fire but you just ignored that point. The only time this really happens is against cavalry and horse archers who have an insane amount of speed, but i'm not asking for archers to be on equal grounds as cavalry in terms of movement speed, they would just be fast enough to reposition during a battle without being immediately overrun before getting a chance to turn around and shoot more arrows, allowing for more dynamic formations and coordinated gameplay by making ranged warfare actually viable and not a niche strategy. Believe me you haven't seen an emotional response yet.
That is the worst strategy that every pub player does. It is best to push the archers. Eventually the archers will destroy you so sitting in shield wall will only last for a limited amount of time. You know this, so why are you making it a point?
-See the above point. You are wrong. Unless you are in circle formation or square formation, your units shields will soak most if not all incoming ranged projectiles when properly positioned. If proper positioning is a problem for players, i suggest they get better at that aspect of the game.
There are already games that are captain mode (Conquerors Blade) that use perks. Having perks takes away from what mount and blade is.
-The perk suggestion was an illustration of how a system can reward players to stay with their units as an alternative method to punishing players for leaving their units.
When was the last time you played? For those that don't know Ling it is not recent.
-I played this morning. And you know very well that I watch all competitive matches that are presented. Make more comments like this, please, it will help you go far.
The difference between Bannerlord's captain mode and the other games that are similar is each induvial unit behaves by itself. A unit should be able to break from the group. If the other team is all ramboing there are ways to currently counter that.
-Yes and that's why I suggested a system that does not punish a player for separating from his units, but rather encourages him to stay with his units instead and leaves that choice up to the player. "Do I maximize my stat bonuses for my troops? or Do I go off on my own and rambo?"
 
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Great post, Brandis, I think I agree with all the points except the forced limited distance between captain and his bots.
I'm buby, you might know me or we could have seen each other in a match, as I tend to play a ton of captain games. I'm not a newbie.

I think the problem you are trying to tackle with this is obviously legit but really this way of doing it would introduce a ton of issues and just make the game frustrating, in my opinion.

Let me explain, how many times as a captain I was a bit forward my troops, not much, I'm not talking about ramboing or anything, and then got isolated by enemies charging me in a bad spot.

Usually, in those occasions, I will give a final order to my troop to back far away because they might get engaged and I don't want that to happen. Now if we have a bots limit radius, what will happen?

The order might be registered at first and then when they will reach the fixed limit, they will come back to me, or as I die the game might consider I'm out of range and make the units run towards the place where I died or any other unexpected issues that could be introduced by such system, which would be really frustrating.

You will be just switching a flawed system with another flawed system, and people will still try to optimise it in an unfun way, the game will force you to battle or play around as much as you can around this fixed limit in order to be the most effective. This is just frustrating, this will result in the most skilled player trying to fight the game mechanic, min/max it as much as possible, but with an element of frustration added.

It's just an example, but you could make a ton of other better cases where such a system will just ruin your experience because at the end of the day it's way too rigid to account for all the kind of situations that you can have in the game and that has nothing to do with ramboing in itself.

My personal solution to the issue of ramboing, will be to make the bots have 100% in all stats, basically enter god mode when only one or two solo enemy player is inside a determined radius around them (for the solo players trying to abuse AIs).

Such radius will be fairly small around them but will make them super effective, but the process would get cancelled if more enemy units enter that radius around them.

Basically if a cav rambo player enters this determined radius (which would be different and balanced for each troop) and he is alone in that radius. The units will turn god mode and have 100% accuracy, increased efficiency, everything possible to make them kill that isolated player entering their radius.

In the most common example,for a troop of an archer against a solo cav player, as an anti rambo mechanic, they could prioritize hitting the horse and make the player go down his horse (and doing it so with the best accuracy possible if such player enters the radius alone). I'm sure no one will want to rambo solo against archers with a simple change like this.

The RP explanation is that such troop would have to only face one unit or two, so their focus should be through the roof and they should be able to hit the sickest shot and just be the best AI they can be in that scenario.

Such radius would only work or turns on if that isolated enemy unit inside that small radius is controlled by a player, so god AI mode would never turn on against enemy AIs, in order to prevent some other unexpected issues/rare situations where a solo ai will get terminated for stepping in a radius alone.

And if the issue of ramboing is abused by two players getting on the same troop at the same time, maybe the god gamer AI mode threshold could max out at 2 solo players entering the radius of the troop, it would be a balancing act that would take some iterations, but imo would be fairly easy to implement and way less frustrating and problems inducing than limiting the distance between the captain and his troops.
 
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-Wrong on so many levels. Use the Morale flags and shield wall. Your units won't get picked off if you position your shields properly against incoming archer fire. If you expose your sides and leave gaps in your wall, then you deserve to be picked off. You pretty much guarentee a melee ball meta by not giving ranged units enough time to use their bows. I also suggested your team picks ranged units as well so you won't just be sitting ducks, you'll be able to return fire but you just ignored that point. The only time this really happens is against cavalry and horse archers who have an insane amount of speed, but i'm not asking for archers to be on equal grounds as cavalry in terms of movement speed, they would just be fast enough to reposition during a battle without being immediately overrun before getting a chance to turn around and shoot more arrows, allowing for more dynamic formations and coordinated gameplay by making ranged warfare actually viable and not a niche strategy. Believe me you haven't seen an emotional response yet.
Put your archers in a line facing the enemy, tell them to fire and move your player to the other side of the infantry. The reason why it is not a running simulator chasing archers right now is because archers aren't faster than infantry.
-I played this morning. And you know very well that I watch all competitive matches that are presented. Make more comments like this, please, it will help you go far.
Then you should know that archers are usable. How good do you want archers to be?
-If this were true archers would get picked a lot more often, which hasn't been happening so I don't know where you are getting the idea that they are back in competitive play, because the data shows otherwise.
The problem doesn't lie with the fact that archers are bad. New teams don't know anything besides infantry and many experienced teams just stick with what they are comfortable with. Just from looking at screenshots of BoA and CrCC I can tell they took archers and it worked. A teams not willing to try doesn't mean that archers are unusable.
-You cast doubt on my own game knowledge and yet have fewer games played in the mode than me, Ide say this point is entirely relevant.
How many wins in captain would you say you have? I'd estimate I got 1100 and I played a lot more solo queue than you so I'd expect my win percentage to be lower so I'd have more games played. You have gotten so emotional that you are defending this statement "I suggest you play less skirmish its corrupting your judgement." What does playing skirmish along with captain have to do with the argument you are advocating for?
 
The solution to cav rambo is to fix the archer AI so that it can respond effectively to a rambo. It's not hard, and doesn't require archers to be extremely overpowered. Simply make it so that archers will take out a lone rambo quickly enough that they will have to think twice about charging archers by themselves.

The easy way to do this is to have archers target the horse first. Horses are weak enough right now so that they will likely die with a single volley directed at its body. It's not hard to turn that horse into a pincushion. Sometimes, the player will even die with the horse if a couple of arrows catch them when they're stunned and can't shield up. The next thing is to prevent the player from drawing archers attention on foot. Simply make it so that archers will not target a player(not on horseback) unless he is very close (within striking range). So the archers can continue targeting other units until the player is actually a threat, and OP cavalry will no longer be able to solo a unit.

Of course archers will still have to deal with these annoyances, but it will be way harder for the rambo player and will have a greater cost if they repeatedly lose their horses.
 
I'm somewhat surprised the leagues dont have rules against this? They did in NW.
the problems with set rules against ramboing is they are extremely difficult to enforce fairly. Especially playing as cav, its really easy to get separated from your squad while all of the cav are pathing around and chasing down enemies or attacking a group thats spread out. Leaving an arbitrarily set definition up to admins discretion will cause really inconsistent rulings and just cause arguments that dont need to happen.

There are extremely obvious cases of ramboing where youre just hiding your troops in a corner and running around, but from my limited interactions with the NW community their definition of ramboing is much more broad than that. You have roleplayers who essentially create evil cav boogeymen to justify why wK_PPK157 and his stack were able to 4v14 them and their bots.

There is also the case of very few bots in your squad left alive. It would be drastically stupid and offputting for players to force them to join a still alive group once their bots have all left the field. At that point you are taking agency out of the players hands and sacrificing competition for roleplay.

Edit: Ill also say that it should be the captains responsibility to protect his troops from ramboing. You as a captain are able to kill a lone dude as much as he is able to kill your bots. Cav vs Cav exists. If youre an archer captain you have a bow. If youre an infantry captain you should have a shield and a spear. If you cant stop him that really isnt the other players problem. It isnt his responsibility to not be better at the video game than you. Its yours. In arguments against solo ramboing players the offended party always acts like a helpless victim. You have a mouse, keyboard, and weapons to kill the guy with.
 
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the problems with set rules against ramboing is they are extremely difficult to enforce fairly. Especially playing as cav, its really easy to get separated from your squad while all of the cav are pathing around and chasing down enemies or attacking a group thats spread out. Leaving an arbitrarily set definition up to admins discretion will cause really inconsistent rulings and just cause arguments that dont need to happen.

There are extremely obvious cases of ramboing where youre just hiding your troops in a corner and running around, but from my limited interactions with the NW community their definition of ramboing is much more broad than that. You have roleplayers who essentially create evil cav boogeymen to justify why wK_PPK157 and his stack were able to 4v14 them and their bots.

There is also the case of very few bots in your squad left alive. It would be drastically stupid and offputting for players to force them to join a still alive group once their bots have all left the field. At that point you are taking agency out of the players hands and sacrificing competition for roleplay.

Edit: Ill also say that it should be the captains responsibility to protect his troops from ramboing. You as a captain are able to kill a lone dude as much as he is able to kill your bots. Cav vs Cav exists. If youre an archer captain you have a bow. If youre an infantry captain you should have a shield and a spear. If you cant stop him that really isnt the other players problem. It isnt his responsibility to not be better at the video game than you. Its yours. In arguments against solo ramboing players the offended party always acts like a helpless victim. You have a mouse, keyboard, and weapons to kill the guy with.
It's not a question of the efficacy of the 'strategy'. Afterall I honestly believe having someone on your team doing this lowers your chance of victory.

It is more regarding how it goes against the intentions of the game mode. Team killing does not help you win a game; but it does ruin the fun for others - I consider this in a similar category.

The concept of captains mode is to lead armies of bots into battle; and using them in an effective way to defeat the opposing army of bots. Utilising bots as nothing more then glorified respawn is not the intention of the game mode - nor is it fun for the allies of that player who now are competing 5v6; or the enemies of that player for which this strategy is supremely annoying.

Not to mention it doubles the length of a game needlessly.

I'm sure between us we can come up with plenty of valid fringe cases for going alone; but this is more a question of what Captains mode is meant to be. And if/how you enforce that (to a reasonable extent).
 
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The problem doesn't lie with the fact that archers are bad. New teams don't know anything besides infantry and many experienced teams just stick with what they are comfortable with. Just from looking at screenshots of BoA and CrCC I can tell they took archers and it worked. A teams not willing to try doesn't mean that archers are unusable.
As a member of BoA, I would think twice before using archers against many of the more experienced teams, and specifically the rambo heavy ones. Besides that, I think Khuzait is at the moment the only faction with archers that are truly on a competetive level, and even then I'd say thats only because they perform so we'll in melee.

Ramboing shuts down so many aspects of the game, and I seriously can't believe you want it to be a part of the mode so hard.
 
Edit: Ill also say that it should be the captains responsibility to protect his troops from ramboing. You as a captain are able to kill a lone dude as much as he is able to kill your bots. Cav vs Cav exists. If youre an archer captain you have a bow. If youre an infantry captain you should have a shield and a spear. If you cant stop him that really isnt the other players problem. It isnt his responsibility to not be better at the video game than you. Its yours. In arguments against solo ramboing players the offended party always acts like a helpless victim. You have a mouse, keyboard, and weapons to kill the guy with.
If this was the design intent I'd agree with you, but removing vital organs from horse heads pushes this further away from reality rather than bringing it closer(As does nerfing braced spear damage). The absolute Chad move of Summer2020 was to strut your Varyag Captain out from the Spear Wall and throwing-axe-to-horse-dome an annoying Solocav ****er, then just shield bash the rider to death in front of your men while they nodded approvingly, but we don't live in that beautiful world any more.


Not to mention it doubles the length of a game needlessly.
I agree with pretty much all you've said here, but the delaying issue is slightly divergent from the Solocaving issue and could be solved without the big mechanic changes we're talking here.
There are many solutions to the delaying issue that do not necessarily mean radically changing any core mechanics, such as my pet "Overwhelming Odds Multiplier" suggestion:
 
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Ramboing shuts down so many aspects of the game, and I seriously can't believe you want it to be a part of the mode so hard.
I'm not advocating for the game mode to be based on ramboing like you are suggesting, but I do not think that covering the issue with a blanket instead of actually directly making changes so people choose not to rambo will not make the game better.
 
If this was the design intent I'd agree with you, but removing vital organs from horse heads pushes this further away from reality rather than bringing it closer(As does nerfing braced spear damage). The absolute Chad move of Summer2020 was to strut your Varyag Captain out from the Spear Wall and throwing-axe-to-horse-dome an annoying Solocav ****er, then just shield bash the rider to death in front of your men while they nodded approvingly, but we don't live in that beautiful world any more.
Design decisions from taleworlds that dont make any sense should not be the responsibility of the community to write and enforce rules around. The change you mention is being brought about to allow throwing spears to stay in the game without being overpowered. This is another example of why throwing spears should just be removed, they are destroying every gamemode they are in.
 
Design decisions from taleworlds that dont make any sense should not be the responsibility of the community to write and enforce rules around. The change you mention is being brought about to allow throwing spears to stay in the game without being overpowered. This is another example of why throwing spears should just be removed, they are destroying every gamemode they are in.
I agree with you, I don't think any community/tourney level enforcement of any rules is a good idea, for the reasons you mentioned. Hell, I thought the "Only 2 of any unit" idea was goofy. I just don't think the game is being designed in a way that really correlates with effective or even really enjoyable Solo handling of Solocav as a strategy.

I also agree with you on Throwing Spears, largely. If your solution to a problem with one weapon is to change the way every weapon works, you're doing it wrong. They have a place in captain, generally because they are interesting and specifically to help with Solocav, but are overpowered for other game modes. I agree they are overabundant in Captain as well, it seems like the devs were so obsessed with lowering throwable ammo counts that they thought the solution was to give everyone throwing spears instead????

If the legendary "Perk Split" ever materializes from the Great Soon In The Sky, this is a 5 minute fix by just taking Throwing Spears out of all game modes that are not Captain, I can't wrap my head around why you'd change base game mechanics instead of just doing the thing you already said you would do.

Yep, I'm back to "abject despair".
 
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I have a suggestion for balance (please ignore if someone else already mentioned this but skimming the topic I dident see it) and thats that you can only spawn each class once per match. That might help with balance.

So each player can spawn once with each class at max (captain mode is also best of 3 right? So maximum of 5 spawns for 7 classes for a very closely fought match) so that would ensure that more varied classes are used. If a class (like cav for 1 faction for example or strong heavy infantry for another etc) is very good people cant spam it for the entire game. It opens up tactics for tourney play where people might hold onto an 'ace' incase they are up a very rough match up and ensures that the game mode should see more class variety.

In a game like that having 1 or 2 classes that are abit better then the rest isent the end of the world as they cant be brought for every round :grin:

That said it would have to have classes that are worth picking so having at least some balance is even more of a factor. But I think if they can poll it off they got a very interesting game mode on their hands! They also wouldnt need to do anything fancy like rotating spawns or whatnot (even though it could help) and I feel would make for more varied fights in the game mode. They also wouldnt need to include some gold system that people might have an issue with. An aura system which sounds nice also is maybe abit to complicated to programme (but I could be wrong there) and I think the auras would need to be pretty powerfull to make them worthwhile, which might be hard to balance.

Straight forward concept, easy to grasp and if balanced well sounds like an interesting concept to me :smile:
 
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