Why "Focus Fire" Should be a top priority and implemented immediately.

Should a "Focus Fire" command for ranged units be a top developmental priority?

  • "Focus Fire" should be a top priority and should be implemented immediately.

    Votes: 51 46.8%
  • "Focus Fire" should be implemented eventually, but it is not a top priority.

    Votes: 50 45.9%
  • "Focus Fire" should not be implemented at all.

    Votes: 3 2.8%
  • I do not care about "Focus Fire" one way or another.

    Votes: 5 4.6%

  • Total voters
    109

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Let's start by discussing 4 major exploits with the Ai caused by the lack of Focus Fire.

Exploit 1:
Ranged units being drawn into an unwanted melee engagement by a single unit.
-It only takes one unit to force ranged troops into switching to melee weapons, which in effect makes them unable to function as ranged units during a battle as long as they are prevented from firing their ranged weapons.

Exploit 2: Ranged units being distracted by stray cavalry.
-Your ranged units will attempt to fire at cavalry within proximity which causes them to lose focus on their initial target and will often turn around 180 degrees to fire at stray cavalry units. This distraction renders ranged units unable to make a significant impact in the overall battle for as long as the stray cavalry is in the detection zone.

Exploit 3: Ranged units being distracted by a single player with a shield.
-Your ranged units will attempt to fire at the closest unit within their targeting zone, if this unit is a player with a shield he will be able to endlessly soak up ranged fire as long as he maintains this position and will cause your ranged units to waste their ammunition and time.

Exploit 4: Siege weapons destroying friendly units and structures
-Due to the fact that siege weapons work by targeting enemy ai troops rather than specific locations or specific formations, they often will fire their projectiles at large concentrations of enemy ai which happen to also be where your siege towers and friendly units are located. These projectiles will oftentimes destroy friendly siege towers and cause massive friendly fire casualties as a result.

These unwanted behaviors are large contributing factors as to why exploiting the ai is so easy and commonplace. In addition to this, these behaviors are the cause of ranged units being not considered at all viable for competitive mp play, or for any level of play where players understand and are able exploit these behaviors including in the Singleplayer campaign where the ai is just as exploitable as it is in Multiplayer.

What is "Selective/Focus Fire" and how does it work to solve these exploits?

This command would enable the player (and sp battle commander ai) to be able to manually command their ranged Ai to fire at a specific area or a specific unit and to ignore all other distractions while this order is active. By implementing this, the exploits mentioned above are immediately rendered obsolete as long as the player is in control of the situation by eliminating possible distractions that would otherwise render them useless. If for example I ordered my troops to focus fire at a group of peasants, they will shoot the peasants and they will ignore the stray cavalry unit galloping behind them. If I order my troops to fire at a different location, they will fire at that location without being baited by the single-shield rambo player attempting to soak up their fire. If i order my troops to fire at a different group, they will ignore melee proximity threats that would otherwise cause them to stop firing. Only when given another order by the player to "Cease Fire" will they revert back to melee form. If I order my siege engines to concentrate their firepower at the main gate of a castle, they won't blow up friendly siege towers and will make short work of the enemies defenses.

A history of Overwhelming Support from the Playerbase

This suggestion has been brought up as early as 2019 by multiple players and has garnered the support of the vast majority of the community. It is a feature that players desperately want to be implemented even today. Just take a look at any one of these forum threads which have previously discussed this topic:

Focus fire on enemy unit
Deciding target of the ranged troops
Captain mode ai targeting
Why won't my ranged units target the cavalry
Selective targeting for formations
How about a focusing command
Archers are stupid
Little list of issues

Additionally, the players of Captains League recently participated in a poll about implementing focus fire and the results were overwhelmingly positive:
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If that weren't enough to convince you about the demand for this feature, simply take a look at one of the most popular mods for Bannerlord that exists which achieves a similar functionality albiet for melee targeting instead of ranged targeting: The RTS Camera mod, which allows you to order your troops to fight select targets while ignoring all other threats in the process.
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I will never stop advocating for this feature to be included in native bannerlord and I hope you will join me in my attempts to persuade Taleworlds to implement this immediately. Thank you for your time.
 
This, together with the weapons switching order, should be a priority...I will not add anything more than what I have already said.
My vote is for the first option.

----
With Ling's permission, I would like to mention this comment of yours. The polls are revealing...if this is not a priority...:roll:

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Focus fire is a good idea, but the only problem that I think would be for controller users, how would they use this feature. Pc players have an advantage with all the keys. This is why console kinda gets annoying.
 
Focus fire is a good idea, but the only problem that I think would be for controller users, how would they use this feature. Pc players have an advantage with all the keys. This is why console kinda gets annoying.
I'm sure that it could be added to a radial menu option for the console-specific version of the game. I am however firmly under the belief that the focus of Taleworlds should first and foremost be on releasing a final and quality PC game and only after they achieve this should they work to port the game into a console form and should not base their initial design decisions on the need to make the game more console friendly at the cost of lacking depth and necessary game features in the PC version.
 
This feature would drastically improve the gameplay! Also would be really nice to boost the reliability of getting the most out of Skirmisher classes in captain mode without having to make javs op or to plentiful
 
Rts Camera is what I expected from native Bannerlord without its features of birdview and being able to play as a companion or a soldier after the player knocked out at battle.

I voted as a top priority and It should be in the game. I played Diplomacy Litdum mod from Warband, there was volley fire, there was the feature being able to command which weapon to use to your soldier, there was a deployment orders(this will be added) and I was a fool to believe that these will be in native Bannerlord. Prove me I am not a fool, TW.
 
[...]I played Diplomacy Litdum mod from Warband, there was volley fire, there was the feature being able to command which weapon to use to your soldier, there was a deployment orders(this will be added) and I was a fool to believe that these will be in native Bannerlord. Prove me I am not a fool, TW.
...and bracing spears.

Hold me tight and tell me everything is going to be alright...:iamamoron: ?
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Focus fire is a good idea, but the only problem that I think would be for controller users, how would they use this feature. Pc players have an advantage with all the keys. This is why console kinda gets annoying.
So basically what your saying is they should limit pc players because it's difficult to do for console players? :unsure:
 
no no no we don't need more complicated design like these for bannerlold, i am so pleased to see there is no such thing in this game

just keep it simple, we are heading in the right direction
 
If they could make ''volley fire at position'' command I would be very satisfied, it would have no target formation, just a circle where the archers would shoot volleys at
I like this particular volley idea the most out of the two options for focus fire. It would work best for the siege-engine ai as well because you could use it to shoot at different areas of the castle walls instead of having to rely on hitting a specific formation. The volley would basically function as an area of effect attack where arrows would rain down and hit targets who are located within the zone.

A visual reference of what the "Focus Fire" indicator could look like from a UI perspective: (The green circle indicating where the archers will shoot).
targeted-area-macros-to-help-disabled-gamers-world-of-warcraft-example.png
 
I am pleased that the debate has been opened up.


As Ling says and also other players who previously gave their feedback in this regard, I think the circle as a focused fire UI element is the best option as this type of implementation is widely used in the industry.

It pisses me off to have to constantly refer to Conqueror's Blade over and over again (despite never having played it) because in many ways this being a free to play game surpasses Bannerlord in a number of points. An analogue implementation to what CB has would be an interesting solution for Bannerlord imho.

That said, for me Focus fire and Volley fire, despite being two elements that move in the same orbit, both should be different from each other; let me explain.

Focus fire: By means of the UI element in the shape of a circle projected onto the ground, the player should be constantly repositioning it so that the ranged units keep a localised fire there. This function would be the "subordinate" that would accept the two fire variables: fire at will/hold fire + volley fire.

Volley fire: This is simply a group cast. Unlike fire at will, the units will wait until each and every one is ready to release the volley in unison.

Focus fire - detail: positionable blue circleVolley Fire - like the mods ones
 
Out of nowhere, a topic was made about the issue, an enthusiastic Taleworlds employee quickly took notes and started working on the issue that was known since the closed beta almost 2 years ago. Only in 3 days a patch was ready to launch. People were applauding behind their screens. Then suddenly, there was a noise. A familiar noise... The clock of the protagonist was ringing. He woke up and got ready for the day.
 
I am pleased that the debate has been opened up.


As Ling says and also other players who previously gave their feedback in this regard, I think the circle as a focused fire UI element is the best option as this type of implementation is widely used in the industry.

It pisses me off to have to constantly refer to Conqueror's Blade over and over again (despite never having played it) because in many ways this being a free to play game surpasses Bannerlord in a number of points. An analogue implementation to what CB has would be an interesting solution for Bannerlord imho.

That said, for me Focus fire and Volley fire, despite being two elements that move in the same orbit, both should be different from each other; let me explain.

Focus fire: By means of the UI element in the shape of a circle projected onto the ground, the player should be constantly repositioning it so that the ranged units keep a localised fire there. This function would be the "subordinate" that would accept the two fire variables: fire at will/hold fire + volley fire.

Volley fire: This is simply a group cast. Unlike fire at will, the units will wait until each and every one is ready to release the volley in unison.

Focus fire - detail: positionable blue circleVolley Fire - like the mods ones

Yea thats great, this can also be used for captain mode as well. We'll see I guess. Hate to say it'll be molded instead
 
Yea thats great, this can also be used for captain mode as well. We'll see I guess. Hate to say it'll be molded instead
Of course, in SP and MP.


And it is here that we again see a degree of negligence on Taleworlds part where they did not consider suitable within Banerlord's own design line as fundamental, mods that were extraordinarily and indisputably indispensable and essential to the Community. Because... honestly, I refuse to believe that it was a question of ignorance of what their own Community generated at the time for their previous titles


Here, another missed opportunity to add to the unfortunately long list, imho.


Any M&B veteran who has played with mods already knows (directly or indirectly) about Caba`drin's Pre-Battle Orders & Deployment (not forgetting the illustrious add-ons by motomataru, Papa Lazarou, The Mercenary...etc).


In my opinion, PBOD should be (should have been) the foundation from which to build tactical options and implement them through a 2.0 adaptation for Bannerlord (+ what we already have). Whoever joins the franchise with Bannerlord should read the feature list of that particular mod and ask themselves if they wouldn't want that already implemented in Bannerlord.


And as I've said many times, focus fire should be a feature available for Bannerlord... mostly as a matter of sum of inheritance from mods and as a natural evolution of the franchise in this regard.
 
Of course, in SP and MP.


And it is here that we again see a degree of negligence on Taleworlds part where they did not consider suitable within Banerlord's own design line as fundamental, mods that were extraordinarily and indisputably indispensable and essential to the Community. Because... honestly, I refuse to believe that it was a question of ignorance of what their own Community generated at the time for their previous titles


Here, another missed opportunity to add to the unfortunately long list, imho.


Any M&B veteran who has played with mods already knows (directly or indirectly) about Caba`drin's Pre-Battle Orders & Deployment (not forgetting the illustrious add-ons by motomataru, Papa Lazarou, The Mercenary...etc).


In my opinion, PBOD should be (should have been) the foundation from which to build tactical options and implement them through a 2.0 adaptation for Bannerlord (+ what we already have). Whoever joins the franchise with Bannerlord should read the feature list of that particular mod and ask themselves if they wouldn't want that already implemented in Bannerlord.


And as I've said many times, focus fire should be a feature available for Bannerlord... mostly as a matter of sum of inheritance from mods and as a natural evolution of the franchise in this regard.
Too complex my dude. Here, have some new 4K cow textures.
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Focus fire, movement speed, accuracy and spears. Not being totally confused when cav is around. The list of archer fixes is long. And I have seen no indication or statements from TW, that they think archer AI is too weak and need to fixed. The next round of nerfing will even hit X-bows, because they make to much damage in close range, they think. Right now rabble with rocks almost make more range damage than archers. It's pathetic and ridiculous and I am disappointed that TW ignores the community on archers. What's the point of giving feedback then ?
 
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