Killing Looters is a Full Time Job

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Looter spawns are out of control.

I have 2 fiefs right next to each other.

Pretty much all I do is kill looters. They spawn constantly, in groups of 20 to 40. It's whack-a-mole 24/7.

I can literally do nothing but kill looters, and it doesn't seem to put a dent in their population. I think if I stop killing them for more than a couple of game days, they would overrun my entire section of the map.

Any way to reduce spawn? In some Warband mods (Pendor) I could send out militia patrols to kill bandits.

I tried setting up an autonomous party to patrol the area, but it wandered way off, 2 kingdoms away, not helping the situation at home at all.

I know for other bandit types, you can hunt down their hide-out, but looters don't have a hide-out, so I don't know what to do.
 
I hate it so much.
It's a shallow game feature, it's always the same generic grindy process, I don't even think this was designed to be enjoyable, it's just something they needed to do to make the game work. The game was built on this bandit loop grind and I'm afraid devs won't do anything about the way it works.
There is just no sense of progress...
I would like to see the game less dependent on farming looters and make it less grindy and repetitive for the player.
Other ways of earning money should be explored, quests are sh*t to, honestly. By this I don't necessarily mean a wide variety of new mechanics but more so developing the existing ones (quality>quantity). I mean, where is the organized crime, bandit factions fighting each other, other ways to train your troops... it would all add up, releasing the dependency on a single mechanic and make everything much more connected and enjoyable.
 
This is because they kept one of the worst design decisions from warband, it's exactly same bandit feature where their spawns were tied to player level.

Their spawns grow with your level so by mid-late game the bandit population gets completely out of control and wreaks the economy with absolutely nothing that you can do long-term.

It's baffling that they kept this in bannerlord that has prosperity and security levels that would be an obvious choice to tie the bandits spawn to.

Only thing you can do for now is use some mod like "improved garrisons" or "garrison do something" that have patrols so they'll help cull the bandit populations around fiefs.
 
Funnies thing is that it affect AI even more. Those bandit nests that can be destroyed to reduce number of bandits? AI ignores them so every time I enter enemy lands it reminds me of Mad Max.
 
Does anyone know how looters spawn and grow?

In my current game, I am seeing looter bands as big as 100 looters.
Do they spawn that large, or do they grow? I'm guessing that they are spawning, because the larger bands seem to be in round number multiples of 10.

Do looter bands grow in size if not killed? I'm wondering if I don't kill that small, 7 looter band, will it metastasize into a 100 looter band?

Is there a cap to the number of looter bands that will spawn, or is it an unlimited number of looter bands on the map at any given time?

Anyone have answers to these questions?
 
This is a short explanation but every day "the game" just checks how many hideouts there are and make some, more if there's less and less if there's more. Looters and bandits gets spawned the same way, not sure if they actually get spawned by the hideout of if it just another "the game makes them" thing. The size of bandit and looter parties that spawn scales with the player lever (I think? But what happens if you change character control?) but parties will free and recruit prisoners and get much bigger anyways. SO the game just :poop:s them out every day forever no matter what. If there's anything else to it, I don't know it.
 
The current bandit implementation is just straight up bad game design. It's been brought up in multiple threads (including my own) going back a long time, but I've yet to see devs actually respond when we point out why its negatively impacting the game.

It's probably going to be up to modders to fix this issue, given TW's silence.

  • Bandit party size should NOT scale up with the player level - the party sizes should rise or fall based entirely on in-world situations (being at war, food shortages etc) and have no link to the player at all. Scaling bandit party sizes up alongside the player feels extremely artificial, it's immersion breaking, and contributes to problems like caravans being captured constantly in longer campaigns

  • The number of bandit parties that spawn could probably be cut in half with no negative consequences, ATM it's such an utter spam that's adding absolutely nothing positive to the experience. The only logical reason I can see for the devs not doing anything about the bandit spam is that AI lords use them to level troops. This is a fair point but doesn't match up with the in-game reality - the number of bandit parties roaming about very clearly dwarfs the numbers needed by AI lords for troop levelling purposes. Plus, the AI lords already cheat on this front, they get additional troop experience gains.
 
Seeing that the game already has a "security" rating for fiefs, it seems logical that bandit and looter spawns should be tied to this security rating.

Endless looter/bandit spawns is one of the things I dislike the most about this game right now.
 
Oh good, its not just me.

I was hoping Looters spawns/parties would be eliminated based on the Prosperity of a region.

If a party tries to spawn in an area with high prosperity, it doesn't spawn. If a small looter party, say less than 10, travels to an area of high prosperity, it despawns.
 
I would love to see the Manhunter mechanic again. Maybe instead of a neutral party let the castle/town garrison sally out and attack the bandit parties in its vicinity (akin to the various mods).

And the scaling of the spawn rate and the party size should be inverse to the security of said fiefs. Thus having a high security should result in small bandit/looter parties spawning from time to time (maybe about one each two days or so). A very low level of security should spawn larger bandit/looter parties (could be even multiple parties per day).
 
Keep the hideouts off the pathway between your villages and your towns. Otherwise I don't bother with them unless I see a group with lots of prisoners... Always like getting a few free hard to find units.

You could set up a couple of parties with companions that can manage large parties, then limit their budget to a couple of hundred. Then they'll scoot about your cities chasing off looters without being snapped up by armies (because of having less than 40% of their potential troop numbers). Set and forget.

I do agree tho... that security and prosperity should play a greater role in limiting looters...
 
I play with several mods that increase the looters number, until 600,by other hand I use Garrison mod to balance it, the AI Garrisons and some lords use to figth small looters groups, I ram the lands chasing big groups and training my army against them.
 
why bother with looters? like honestly why? they don't attack your settlements, they only attack peasants but aren't stronger or faster, groups of 20-40 wouldn't be a threat to your villages unless they are poor AF. what's the point of spending all your time chasing them down/?
i only kill them to train troops that's it. which is why i installed a mod called more looters so i don't have to spend 3 game days chasing down a group of 10 looters, since they come in groups of 300-600 and have movespeed of 1.
 
What's the point of looters if they don't do anything then?
Since every map party needs a bit of CPU time to constantly move and decide what to do next, it's important they all have a role to play - otherwise it's wasting performance.
A punching bag for the player is not a very good role, since there's no challenge for the reward you are getting (XP) and you guys using mods to have large looter parties are effectively using cheats to make the game easier. Fight someone your own size, cowards. :coffee::poop:?
 
Fight someone your own size, cowards.
maybe have an actual training field where i can spend time and resources upgrading my troops so i don't have to fight the looters for level ups.

while it's true that some soldiers did rank up from being in combat, its usually due to their superior officers dying. or achieving significant goals. most of the times. ranking up happened during training. you just trained and equipped soldiers differently from the get go.
a king's elite house guards might have been selected from the infantry originally, but the main difference that sets them apart other than more strict selection parameters, is their daily regiment of training, supplies (food, medical...), and equipment.
 
I used to obsess over killing looters around my towns and villages but then i realized it is pointless and they are mostly harmless.
I do want some counter measures though for players who are perfectionist and want more rewards for going the extra mile to protect their properties.
If we could tell our parties to patrol areas (Our towns) It would be a big step in the right direction.
Getting rid of them completely might not be a good idea since that would mean some quests will be much harder to do (Prisoners for mines, help with brigands).
They are still useful when you take heavy losses and have to quickly recruit fresh recruits and train on them or even have them in your party to upgrade to legions.
Their spawn rates should be reduced though and if there is a way to tie their spawn to security that would be nice.
 
I concur, looters and bandits should not spawn at random and scale up with player level.

However, I could see the spawning tied to certain situations:
- Province has food shortages -> spawn looters
- Villages were looted -> spawn looters
- low Securitiy -> spawn bandits
- large army defeated -> spawn deserters
- there is a hideout in the province -> spawn parties but do not tie them to player level. Upgrade troops if parties are successful and hideout 'wealth' rises
- high prosperity -> spawn Bandits (are attracted by wealth to steal), but remove looter parties (finding work is better to losing life while forcing breadcrumbs out of traders) EDIT: and vice versa so low wealth removes bandits and spawns looters.

Player interaction could also influence this a bit
- visit a hideout and give the bandits money and gear -> spawn units but have truce with this hideout and its parties. Train roguery skill
- have city crimelord give task 'create hideout' -> gather some equipment and men to found a new hideout in province. Result: train roguery, have truce with their bandits, get % of loot. While mission is open you have additional talk option when encountering bandit/looter parties "recruit for hideout". Merchants may not like you for this, if they get wind of it.
- with the right roguery skill you may found hideouts yourself - like a small castle to manage. You are a bandit king after all, aren't you?
- Negotiate truce with bandit parties (Bribe with money to be 'protected' instead).

I always wondered, why the hideout leaders are so generic. Why not have rogue NPCs that could be recruited after defeating them or tie the number of hideouts to number of NPCs doing roguery. Looters and Bandits should be a meaningful part of the game and not just XP-fodder that becomes annoying in the long run. Bring back the Manhunters if there are many looters/bandits in a region.
 
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I concur, looters and bandits should not spawn at random and scale up with player level.

However, I could see the spawning tied to certain situations:
- Province has food shortages -> spawn looters
- Villages were looted -> spawn looters
- low Securitiy -> spawn bandits
- large army defeated -> spawn deserters
- there is a hideout in the province -> spawn parties but do not tie them to player level. Upgrade troops if parties are successful and hideout 'wealth' rises
- high prosperity -> spawn Bandits (are attracted by wealth to steal), but remove looter parties (finding work is better to losing life while forcing breadcrumbs out of traders)

Player interaction could also influence this a bit
- visit a hideout and give the bandits money and gear -> spawn units but have truce with this hideout and its parties. Train roguery skill
- have city crimelord give task 'create hideout' -> gather some equipment and men to found a new hideout in province. Result: train roguery, have truce with their bandits, get % of loot. While mission is open you have additional talk option when encountering bandit/looter parties "recruit for hideout". Merchants may not like you for this, if they get wind of it.
- with the right roguery skill you may found hideouts yourself - like a small castle to manage. You are a bandit king after all, aren't you?
- Negotiate truce with bandit parties (Bribe with money to be 'protected' instead).

I always wondered, why the hideout leaders are so generic. Why not have rogue NPCs that could be recruited after defeating them or tie the number of hideouts to number of NPCs doing roguery. Looters and Bandits should be a meaningful part of the game and not just XP-fodder that becomes annoying in the long run. Bring back the Manhunters if there are many looters/bandits in a region.
Hot damn.. so many good ideas, anything would be better than what we have now in the "banditry department" lol
 
At night every hour the game try to spawn bandits from hideouts. It uses settlements for looters (also at night).
If I read it correctly there's like a maximum amount of bandits+looters party at all time.
bandits (forest/sea raider/mountain) patrol around their hideout, looters too (but loote "hideout" are settlements : villages & towns).

I'm not sure I understand how the settlement are selected for looters but it seems to uses the distance from the player party as a factor.
I think closer settlement score better than further one, which makes the "random" selection skewed towards closer to the player (but still some randomness).

So what might be your issue is that you stay in your own land, killing looters, which makes more looters to spawns and they do so with a high probability to be in settlement near you. And because they patrol around their own hideout (settlement & town) they will stay there.

kill them all before night ends, move far away during the day, let them spawn near you during the night, move back to your land. Maybe that would fix it for you. But yeah it's definitively something that needs improvement
 
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