Statement Regarding Plans For MP Vol.5

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Warriors of Calradia,
Welcome back for a new update on what we have planned for the upcoming months. First and foremost, we are working on the stability of our game servers. We are aware of the current issues and we already fixed some of the problems. Fixing the server issues is our top priority. We have many new features almost completed and ready to be experienced by you all:
  • In-game Voice Chat is in the final testing stage and will be going live very soon.
  • Duel Mode is in the final polishing stage and will be going live very soon.
  • Observer Mode is in the final testing stage and will be going live very soon.
  • Sound Occlusion is nearly done and will be featured on the next beta.
  • Many MP HUD and Lobby UI improvements have been finished.
  • Improvements on the Reporting Tools have been finished, including Kick Player and Mute All functions.
  • First part of the Level Progression system is nearly done, it will, later on, tie in with the Customization System.
  • Lots of new badges have been added.
  • Work on new Siege maps is almost complete and work is in progress on new Skirmish maps.
  • Fixes and Improvements on current maps are being made.
  • Improvements to Matchmaking Experience.

We are also working non-stop on improving and balancing the game following player feedback. We have been sending more frequent balance patches straight to live servers as promised and more will follow.
Current issues we are working on that are in various stages of development:

Combat
  • Knockdown/Get up and Dismount/Get up animation improvements
  • Certain swing related inconsistencies
  • Adding recovery delay to missed kicks
  • Crossbows being too accurate and too effective in close range.
Skirmish Mode
  • Cavalry being too impactful
  • Infantry being less impactful
Captain Mode
  • Separation of some Perks and some Troop Stats for Captain Mode
  • Ranged AI not being effective enough
  • Cavalry AI not being effective enough
  • AI abuses by player Captains
Siege and TDM
  • Increasing the cost of Cavalry units.
Other features that are in progress and are expected to arrive further down the road:
  • Customization System which allows the players to unlock new pieces of armor by playing and customize their characters.
  • Ranked Mode with Ranked Matches and player skill ranks.
  • Battle Mode. A single-life per round game mode.
Any chance for custom (modable) servers and commander battles (Mount and Blade Napoleonic wars style)?
 
With all the archer spam happening in the past few days, I cannot in good conscious keep supporting the Mount&Blade series. I WOULD go back to Warband but it's apparent to me that NeoGK's server is heading into a decline so... I guess whoever wants to still play a medieval combat game instead of what can best be described as a 2009 tactical shooter with a medieval skin... I guess i'll see you all in Chivalry 2. A shame too, cuz I actually like M&B combat a lot more than Chivalry's.
 
  • Battle Mode. A single-life per round game mode.
Sooooooooo, what happened to this one? Also does TWs even have a MP Dev team anymore? I never ever see devs responding on this side of the forums anymore. Not to mention it would be nice if you updated the MP Statement after 1 entire year of supposed "Development".
 
Hey, what's the fastest way of earning gold in MP ? I get like 25 max after a game which feels too slow.. Is it tied to playtime or score?
At least for skirmish you get like base 10 + up to 20 for losing and 30 + up to 20 for winning (rough numbers). The variable is depended on score.

Pretty sure captain and skirmish are fastest ways to grind loot
 
Warriors of Calradia,
Welcome back for a new update on what we have planned for the upcoming months. First and foremost, we are working on the stability of our game servers. We are aware of the current issues and we already fixed some of the problems. Fixing the server issues is our top priority. We have many new features almost completed and ready to be experienced by you all:
  • In-game Voice Chat is in the final testing stage and will be going live very soon.
  • Duel Mode is in the final polishing stage and will be going live very soon.
  • Observer Mode is in the final testing stage and will be going live very soon.
  • Sound Occlusion is nearly done and will be featured on the next beta.
  • Many MP HUD and Lobby UI improvements have been finished.
  • Improvements on the Reporting Tools have been finished, including Kick Player and Mute All functions.
  • First part of the Level Progression system is nearly done, it will, later on, tie in with the Customization System.
  • Lots of new badges have been added.
  • Work on new Siege maps is almost complete and work is in progress on new Skirmish maps.
  • Fixes and Improvements on current maps are being made.
  • Improvements to Matchmaking Experience.

We are also working non-stop on improving and balancing the game following player feedback. We have been sending more frequent balance patches straight to live servers as promised and more will follow.
Current issues we are working on that are in various stages of development:

Combat
  • Knockdown/Get up and Dismount/Get up animation improvements
  • Certain swing related inconsistencies
  • Adding recovery delay to missed kicks
  • Crossbows being too accurate and too effective in close range.
Skirmish Mode
  • Cavalry being too impactful
  • Infantry being less impactful
Captain Mode
  • Separation of some Perks and some Troop Stats for Captain Mode
  • Ranged AI not being effective enough
  • Cavalry AI not being effective enough
  • AI abuses by player Captains
Siege and TDM
  • Increasing the cost of Cavalry units.
Other features that are in progress and are expected to arrive further down the road:
  • Customization System which allows the players to unlock new pieces of armor by playing and customize their characters.
  • Ranked Mode with Ranked Matches and player skill ranks.
  • Battle Mode. A single-life per round game mode.
HEY whats up, what about a vol.6? and was the voice chat even implement at least in custom servers?
 
New maps for all gamemodes when? Warbands class system when?
When TaleWorlds finally decides to discontinue the multiplayer mode in its current form in favour of a "Multiplayer 2.0" that's to be developed by a third party with the following basic guidelines that said third party developer should follow:
-Mouse-controlled directional attacks and blocks (Left, right, Overhead, thrust)
-Three unit types: Infantry, Archer, Cavalry
-Factions match singleplayer cultures
-Everything else would be at the MP 2.0 developer's discretion. This last part is listed because I'm pretty sure most people have lost their trust in TaleWorlds' ability to make a multiplayer game
 
When TaleWorlds finally decides to discontinue the multiplayer mode in its current form in favour of a "Multiplayer 2.0" that's to be developed by a third party with the following basic guidelines that said third party developer should follow:
-Mouse-controlled directional attacks and blocks (Left, right, Overhead, thrust)
-Three unit types: Infantry, Archer, Cavalry
-Factions match singleplayer cultures
-Everything else would be at the MP 2.0 developer's discretion. This last part is listed because I'm pretty sure most people have lost their trust in TaleWorlds' ability to make a multiplayer game
can't wait to tactical slide rush into the enemy aserai infantry with my berserker in dust2 tunnels
 
can't wait to tactical slide rush into the enemy aserai infantry with my berserker in dust2 tunnels
You will need to buy the tactical pack first to unlock the slide perk card - that's assuming you have a premium account which unlocks the 3rd card slot. Regardless you will then need to level up your slide card - or buy an XP bundle to instantly level it.
 
Captain Mode
  • Separation of some Perks and some Troop Stats for Captain Mode
  • Ranged AI not being effective enough
  • Cavalry AI not being effective enough
  • AI abuses by player Captains
I think we had some progress here. Captain Leash and the "local superiority" concept have made dedicated kiting much less attractive to middling players.
I saw someone trying to solocav on Forest yesterday and it made me laugh. Couldn't get a positive KDR against Light Infantry and Light Archers.

I saw that 1.8.0 has some Aim-related AI improvements. I'm extremely anxious for those. Skirmishers will never be feasible in Captain until they can hit their target reliably. Since they aim high and miss high, they're only very effective against enemies that are running away from them, and there is never any reason to run away from Skirmishers.

Archers are in a very good place. With judicious facing commands they are very hard to AI-abuse, and can be effective if given a chance. The Heavy Infantry meta means that they often aren't as attractive since most players are guaranteed to have big shields but I don't think that is a problem with Archers at this point.

Cavalry AI is still unusable, unfortunately. Heavy Cavalry will struggle to engage an exposed and alone Light Archer unit in a straight melee. I can often win a melee as Axe Rangers against almost any heavy cavalry (Glaive Lancers will make it costly but still winnable). Since the driving desire of cavalry AI set to "Charge" is to run around the map and do big loops, the entire mob of light archers will be able to stall each cavalryman alone and just shiv him to death.

Since we have diverged Captain and other game mode stats now, it might be appropriate to look into increasing Charge damage across the board for heavy cavalry in Captain. The AI struggles to do anything on its own, and the most "correct" way to use them is to constantly reposition with F1 to form up for charges, and then place an F1 Hold Position well behind an enemy formation you want to be run over.
The AI also seems to struggle use lances correctly. Even on a huge open field like Forest, I can't really get them to consistently Couch Lance targets on a charge. I'm not sure if they are not setting the lances, or if they are just missing their targets.
Increasing Charge damage is honestly the only easy win I can think of with the current state of cavalry. They can usually run people over correctly at a gallop, it just doesn't do much.

For Light Cavalry, I'm not sure what the design intent was, but they are very largely unusable. All the wonky movement and engagement problems of H. Cav, none of the armor, so an AI's mistake is sometimes instantly fatal. It doesn't matter how "fast" their horses are, because the AI will not gallop without a gun to their head. For reasons that are unclear to me, Cavalry AI moves slower when their shield is held up, and they will decide to present their shields at seemingly random times. Nomads are sometimes playable with Imp Armor + Bow, but only because they can just stay out of combat until the final phases of the game, then dismount to charge with the infantry, or dismount earlier to use spears against enemy cavalry. Again, most Light Archers will dominate Light Cavalry in a straight melee, and gods forbid you run up on some heavy archers with your Raiders.

This is largely unfixable, I think. Light Cav AI does not have the crutch of the couched lance. It would require a crazy amount of AI work and playtesting to develop an AI decision model that accounts for the fact that Light Cav are the most maneuverable but weakest unit in the game correctly. AI would need to be able to judge reach and timing on their slashes while maneuvering the way a human player would, and the AI literally can't use the WW/SS commands that are pretty integral to moving your horse in close quarters. The Other game modes are fine as humans understand the inputs there. I'd honestly suggest we just don't attempt to make the AI work for light cav play.

I'd rather suggest we just diverge Captain Light Cav perks, the way that we have diverged Medium Infantry perks for Shock classes. A Mounted Infantry perk that circumvents the AI issue by optimizing the unit to be dismounted for combat. Give them a trash horse, +2 troops, shorter/faster sidearms optimized for on foot combat, and better foot speed (just to be comparable to normal Infantry). A Mounted Infantry's horses would be for strategic positioning and engaging out-of-position enemies quickly. Battanian Mounted Warriors (its literally right there in the name) are the best candidate for this, but Raiders should be close behind. Historically this practice was common in Northern Europe and really throughout history in any culture that didn't have great war horses and riders.
Their job in Captain mode is still the same. Harass enemies to prevent charges to your exposed allies, and punish poor position by enemy light archers, they would just now have the option to dismount to fully commit to destroying an archer target or fully supporting an ally. Their troop counts and loadout still prevent them from being able to go toe-to-toe with Light Infantry, Heavy Infantry, or Shock, but they could finish off Light Archers, get into a serious fight with Skirmishers, and with some assistance fight Heavy Archers. They are not going to be holding the center of a line anywhere or able to stand up to sustained missile fire, but they'd be dangerous instead of a complete write off and wouldn't make your team as angry that you picked them.
 
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Im guessing since the spectating tools were close to being finished 2 years ago, and really close to being finished 2 patches ago, and really really close last patch, thats theyre now really really REALLY close to being finished?
 
Since Recruit being the absolute worst peasant in the game seems to be an intentional design decision, can we have other Imperial units be buffed to compensate for a "Ragequit if you die as this unit" downside? Perhaps the following could be added:

Archer Militia
Give them a crossbow that deals less damage than the Vlandian Light Crossbow, but can be used on horseback to compensate. I imagine other Perk 1 perks would need to be buffed to compensate. Perhaps one way to go about this would be to have their perks set up like this:
Stronger Shortbow (Slightly stronger than the perk bows of Aserai/Khuzait bows, but weaker than most heavy archer bows)
One-handed axe (Default bow is a tad stronger and more accurate than the Nordic Shortbow, but is still weaker than the perk bows of other archers. No shield unlike the Hunter's Sword/Shield perk)
Crossbow (Replaces default bow with a Cavalry Crossbow that's weaker than their Vlandian counterparts but can be used on horseback)

Menavlion Infantry
I don't know if anyone wants the Menavlion Infantry to be reverted to his 2020 balancing, though I don't think he's nearly strong enough to make up for the downsides he has. If we absolutely cannot buff Menavlions back to their former glory, perhaps the Armor Padding perk could instead be replaced with the Spatha? Cuz a measly 10% resistance against Blunt damage is nothing compared to extra damage against shields or cavalry.

Legionary
Yes, he is slightly cheaper than other heavy infs, though I think a 140 price difference doesn't seem to make much of a difference against other heavy infantry units barring the Varyag. I wonder if it'd be worth it to bump up the price back to 150, but allow the Legionary to replace his one-handed weapons with a bastard weapon. I can't be the only one who misses the having of non-cavalry non-Khuzait bastard weapons.

Cataphract
While a strong Cavalry unit on paper, there's really no reason to play as this class in a Skirmish game when picking him is basically a "one life" mode, where if you die, you're better off hitting the Forfeit Spawning button than give the enemy team a free kill (especially if you're up against a Khuzait Rabble with Looter). I still wonder if it'd be worth it to have something of a Looter perk, though if 10 gold per kill is too much for a heavy cav, would 5 per kill be more reasonable (need to kill two players to get the Archer militia span, and 4 for a Menavlion spawn)?

I think Courser and Palatine Guard in a good position though.
 
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According to these stats recorded by the most active NA matchmaking server bot, empire already has the highest skirmish win rate by a large margin. Not sure they need to be buffed TBH, although they may not be as strong in other game modes

 
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