Fixing ladders needs to be the very next thing

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There is nothing more immersion breaking in this game right now than how badly AI units do pathing up ladders. A lot of the main gameplay is at least up to levels of rough adequacy. But sieges and the ladder mosh puts are pre-beta level broken. It's not reasonable to expect fans to put up with this problem indefinitely. I don't think there's anything left in the game as horribly broken as the siege AI.

Which is a real pity because if it could just get that polish it needed on sieges, this game would be in amazing condition. It would remove the single biggest remaining frustration players have with the game and may wind up solving the siege performance problems along the way (pathing calculations for a large battle are one of the things that eat up a lot of CPU cycles, bad pathing -> requiring more frequent recalculations -> extra load on the CPU)

That said -- it's time, TaleWorlds. If you can't fix the existing module start the process of ripping it out and replacing it. Some legacy spaghetti code is probably at the core of why it performs so badly in siege right now anyway when the pathing isn't all that bad in general.

The core of the problem in my mind is based in my observation of how things are NOT working, everyone is trying to get to the spot at the bottom of the ladder so they can climb up, but the spot is only just big enough to accomodate one person and collision is making it impossible for anyone to get to that precise point as a result.

The solution could be as simple as widening the snap-to-ladder aperture so that if soldiers are at the base of the ladder, at least one soldier sticks to the bottom of an empty ladder at any given time, and assigning a FIFO priority chain in terms of who goes next rather than making them all engage in a mass shoving match to get to the exact spot of the bottom of the ladder at the exact same time.

Alternatively, make them cluster 3 paces back from the ladder and only release one soldier from that position at a time, and that only when a certain group of pixels on the ladder is clear at the moment. We know this can be done because the method is used in other siege functions, such as assaulting the gate where a group of reserves hangs back while specific members of that group are assigned to points in front of the door.

Either way would be a simpler and more effective solution than the spastic mosh pit we have going on at the bottom of our ladders right now.

It would also be useful if there was a column formation in the game in general. If there was, it could be adapted to make the troops line up and take turns on the ladder.
 
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I don't know how many times I have to say that a workaround is no substitute for a solution. Generally speaking I'm usually one of the best fighters in my army. I have better things to do than run over my soldiers in the hopes that that reminds them what ladders are.
 
Couldn't agree more. How this has not been an absolute TOP priority I will never know or understand.

It's a fundamental thing for Bannerlord.
 
There's usually stuff to shoot at until the ladder is clear. I tend to play an archer anyway.
Well there'll be plenty for you to shoot since nobody's going up the ladder ?

I'm not seriously trying to excuse the siege situation, but I do find it hilarious that you can actually push them into the ladder and it makes them go!?
 
Ladders and AI are main issues for me.
My eyes are literally bleeding when I see my entire army running past archers and ballista shooters on walls and running towards only God knows where. Meanwhile enemies are kicking and shooting their arses.
AI and targeting are totally fckd up even 1.5 years after release. That's why I'm calling BL deadborn baby. Because no chance to resurrect it, lol.
 
I'd not be surprised if they eventually swap all ladders with level-1 siege towers and remove the secondary gates. Problems solved. Release!
 
Well there'll be plenty for you to shoot since nobody's going up the ladder ?

I'm not seriously trying to excuse the siege situation, but I do find it hilarious that you can actually push them into the ladder and it makes them go!?
You can actually just run your character into them and it will cause them to go up faster (sometimes). I believe it's because it causes them to recheck the queuing and it may help clear some issues.

I absolutely agree with the op that this needs to be dealt with asap. It's one of my biggest bugbears with this game.
 
The path-finding for the AI needs to be fixed badly for sure.

Not all ladders are used on siege towers. The AI sometimes only uses 1 ladder still and gets cut down.

Often the AI will run towards a destination and ignore that there are enemies nearby (Ex: archers running towards a wall to shoot arrows down, but ignoring that the player is already on the wall and they get easily killed).

The AI still does not try to dodge when shot at the way a human would. This is an issue on field battles as well. The AI could be better at blocking as well.

The AI also does not seem to have a good sense of what targets to prioritize and is very poor at aiming with siege equipment.

Also, the AI is not very good at "big picture" analysis (ex: when to retreat vs take the walls). The end result is that the AI will throw men against positions that the enemy has taken and take avoidable losses for areas that are firmly in control of the enemy. The attacker too - I think the attacker should retreat when it's clear they are going to lose - why waste troops on a hopeless siege and get captured?

Long story short - there needs to be a lot of work done on sieges.
 
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Pathing and target prioritization definitely need a rework, queueing needs to be refreshed as well, it is annoying seeing a group of spawned archers completely ignoring me as they run to a static defensive spot. Unsure how that logic works, but agents shouldnt shut down their AI while running to a point lol
 
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