1.7 - Too many noble troops available

[Sweynforkbeard]

Luckily the game is moddable. I hope there will be some "realism" mods which take into account the very costs to field "nobles". I would opt for about 10% to 15%, that's often the ratio of well armed troops in Dark Age armies.

It would take a very radical change in the economy of the game to reach a point where cost would factor into the party creation process. I personally doubt this is going to happen.

If we are being realistic. The overwhelming majority of strategic or tactical type games tend to have you favor fielding an elite force, in one way or the other.

To Khan Guards and Fians, or ranged in general, armor is not the main solution in my opinion. Better blocking with shields is more important, also because most units on the field should be lowly armored normal troops and not plated elites from which there are much too many in the game (I count many T5 into this category too). I often have the feeling that "armor fans" are the no-shield-wreak-havoc-with-twohanders-from-behind guys who need big armor for their unrealistic deeds and who are disturbed by arrows too easily.

Nahh, shields tend to work quite well now. A decently sized and equiped enemy party is going to get to your line, if you just stand there unloading arrows straight to the front...

Ofcourse, you are just not going to do that.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

We already discussed this. This discussion has gone on too long, so please try not to bring up arguments that have already been covered. Otherwise we are just going in circles.

https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/1-7-too-many-noble-troops-available.449991/page-3#post-9783867

"But if armour is buffed against arrows, and KG become weaker melee fighters, then a party of Fians will find the enemy surviving enough of their arrows to get into melee range and inflict casualties. And a KG party will find that their enemies often survive enough arrows that they have to charge into melee, where they perform worse than before and take casualties. In both cases, this means more attrition than now."

Unrealistic expectations. People adapt tactics to the circumstances.

I think you are working under the faulty assumption that people actually want pure KG or Fian parties. At the risk of unjustly speaking for all; they dont. They just choose what works.

If instead infantry became really strong then pure T5 infantry parties would end up dominating instead. Likewise for cavalry the T6s would end up on top of the food chain. With alot of trial and error maybe, one day, a situation might arise where a reasonably balanced party composition would be favored.

If you want anything below the top tiers to be relevant, as something other than temporary fillers, then either reduce the difficulty to a level where you can steamroll everything irregardless of the troops you bring or make quality-gear so useless that it doesnt matter whether you bring a peasant or knight.

It is also completely misguided to claim that e.g. the fact that the AI have access to nobles means you must also fill your ranks with them. The AI do not run around with any significant number of T6 nobles, be that cavalry or archers. They might have plenty of nobles but they will virtually all be T3-5. So, if you want to, you can basically always outclass them with normal T5 troops.

 

[five bucks]

Unrealistic expectations. People adapt tactics to the circumstances.

There is a finite amount of tactical adaption you can do to alter how effective troops are in battle after a significant nerf.

You can't just tactics away the fact that with armor changes it takes a tier 6 Fian Champion, say, 6-8 bodyshots to kill a tier 5 armoured unit. (Instead of the current situation where it takes them about 2-4 bodyshots, so a Fian can easily kill a T5 shieldless melee unit before they can even reach them).

More Fians will definitely die than before, as more enemies are able to get into melee range and kill them.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

There is a finite amount of tactical adaption you can do to alter how effective troops are in battle after a significant nerf.

You can't just tactics away the fact that with armor changes it takes a tier 6 Fian Champion, say, 6-8 bodyshots to kill a tier 5 armoured unit. (Instead of the current situation where it takes them about 2-4 bodyshots, so a Fian can easily kill a T5 shieldless melee unit before they can even reach them).

More Fians will definitely die than before, as more enemies are able to get into melee range and kill them.

No, because you dont want infantry to reach your archers in the first place. Atm it just isnt a big thing, mostly just because fian champions are well armed and armored themselves.

Infantry is easy to deal with, in an actual battle they tend to be nice enough to go full on shieldwall making them slow and easy to flank. I dont even count the number of infantry an opposing force has when I determine whether I should engage them or not. I almost exclusively evaluate an enemy army´s strength based on the number of cavalry it has.

Here some basic problematic issues with balancing.

You can always just retreat and re-attack if ammo is your limitation.

Improvement in the AI´s use of shields has made flanking more important. But, you are still better off with 2 or more stacks of archers to hold and flank them, rather than an infantry and archer stack.

Then you have the infantry issue. Infantry fighting other infantry tend to do poorly when outnumbered, they suck at handling multiple opponents. The effectiveness of infantry simply scales with their numbers.

The buttomline. It is not going to be nearly as easy to find a sweet spot where you will want a combination of both infantry and archers. If you dont go fare enough ranged will remain the top dogs, if you go a little too fare then ranged is going to be replace entirely by e.g. infantry (so you can hopefully benefit from having enough infantry to be able to outflank their infantry instead).

 

[five bucks]

No, because you dont want infantry to reach your archers in the first place. Atm it just isnt a big thing, mostly just because fian champions are well armed and armored themselves.

Sure you don't want infantry to reach your archers, but if armor is buffed it will happen more, regardless of whether you want it to happen or not. Therefore, Fians will sustain more attrition than they do now.

You can always just retreat and re-attack if ammo is your limitation

Yes, the endless retreat exploit obviously needs to be fixed, even if we weren't having this discussion. Pretty easy fix, too: Warband required you to sacrifice troops if you wanted to retreat. This already exists in the Bannerlord worldmap, just needs to be added to the field battles.

Improvement in the AI´s use of shields has made flanking more important. But, you are still better off with 2 or more stacks of archers to hold and flank them, rather than an infantry and archer stack.

Because armor hasn't been changed yet. We are discussing a hypothetical where armor *does* get changed. Thus significantly reducing archers' DPS relative to infantry.

Then you have the infantry issue. Infantry fighting other infantry tend to do poorly when outnumbered, they suck at handling multiple opponents. The effectiveness of infantry simply scales with their numbers.

Yes, infantry are worse in asymmetrical situations, but this is not too significant as hopefully TW will fix infantry AI, and even if they don't, the player typically pursues battle situations where they have parity or a superior force.

The buttomline. It is not going to be nearly as easy to find a sweet spot where you will want a combination of both infantry and archers. If you dont go fare enough ranged will remain the top dogs, if you go a little too fare then ranged is going to be replace entirely by e.g. infantry.

You can make this statement about balancing anything in a video game. But it really isn't that insanely hard. Once armor damage formulas have been reworked to give more sensible weighting to blunt and pierce, balancing them after that will be as easy as changing a single number (pierce damage armor penetration value).

Patch 1: "Ok, archers with 3 hits-to-kill on armor is insanely OP, so we're going to change archer HTK on armor from 3 to 10."

Patch 2: "Right, 10HTK was way too much, now archers are too UP and players don't want to use them outside sieges; so we'll tweak the pierce armor pen number to reduce it to 8HTK."

Patch 3: "Testing from patch 2 has shown us that 8 hits to kill is a good middle ground, and that players use both archers and infantry equally."

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

You can make this statement about balancing anything in a video game. But it really isn't that insanely hard. Once armor damage formulas have been reworked to give more sensible weighting to blunt and pierce, balancing them after that will be as easy as changing a single number (pierce damage armor penetration value).

Lol, once this and once that has been handled, its going to be easy.

The game has been out for two years already. Soo, how many years do you thing it is going to take for them to handle this "easy" process.


Anyway, this is a pointless discussion. My personal opinion is that the easier access help alleviate some of the balance issues in the game.
- The quality of AI parties has been improved.
- It partly offset the weakness of heavy cav, by at least allowing you to replenish them.
- And for the rest of us it eliminates the whole convoluted recruitment process.

When or if balance is improved it is entirely possible that my opinion might change. Until then I am going with "a bird in the hand..."

 

[five bucks]

Lol, once this and once that has been handled, its going to be easy.

The game has been out for two years already. Soo, how many years do you thing it is going to take for them to handle this "easy" process

Warband has a formula they can easily imitate, modders made multiple armour-fixing mods within months of the game's release which they are legally allowed to just copy+paste the code from, and this other guy has already written them up a formula for them to use. https://forums.taleworlds.com/index...t-doesnt-work-and-how-to-make-it-work.426296/

The fix has been delayed because they've been working on other stuff as a higher priority, such as sieges. Now sieges are fixed and out of the way, they have said they are working on armour, and announced they are going to fix it in their future plans- and actually committing to things or communicating what they are working on is something Taleworlds rarely does now for fear of false promises. So I am confident it's not going to be a matter of years, but months. @Dejan please don't let me be wrong about this.

- The quality of AI parties has been improved

If elite notables are reduced then the amount of high tier units both in the player and AI parties will be reduced, therefore the challenge will be comparatively the same. Plus, the quality of AI parties is no longer really an issue ever since the update that made notables offer already-upgraded troops.

- It partly offset the weakness of heavy cav, by at least allowing you to replenish them.

Armor changes and a very simple AI change to just make the cavalry able to hit their targets will completely fix that weakness.

- And for the rest of us it eliminates the whole convoluted recruitment process.

Already addressed this FIVE times. It's pretty clear that you know you have no response to it, but are just repeating yourself like a broken anyway in the hopes of tricking someone into thinking you actually believe that.

Anyway, this is a pointless discussion.

Yes, but only because you keep repeatedly ignoring arguments you don't have an answer to. Let's stop here.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

If elite notables are reduced then the amount of high tier units both in the player and AI parties will be reduced, therefore the challenge will be comparatively the same. Plus, the quality of AI parties is no longer really an issue ever since the update that made notables offer already-upgraded troops.

I disagree with this point and its truly a simplification. Making it longer for the player to gather the party they want doesn't increase difficulty since we aren't ever forced into fights. We shouldn't be attempting to shape players parties, they will gather the party they want despite how long the process. If players think there are too many noble troops to recruit then they have the option to not recruit them, I leave behind noble troops once I hit my desired amount in the party.

The only thing we should be worried about is how AI parties are impacted. With the current amount of noble recruits I have yet to see an issue of an overabundance of Noble troops. Here are several more examples. We see parties ranging from none to around 25% of their party. I do not want to see this percentage reduced. If you can show me a faction's parties with 40%+ average noble troops then i'll agree it may needed to be toned down for that faction.

Spoiler: 1 out of 107, 1%

Spoiler: 0 out of 136, 0%

Spoiler: 22 out of 86, 26%

Spoiler: 16 out of 99, 16%

Spoiler: 14 out of 70, 20%

Spoiler: 158 out of 638, 25%

Spoiler: 4 out of 124, 3%

Spoiler: 24 out of 140, 17%

 

[Dejan]

So I am confident it's not going to be a matter of years, but months. @Dejan please don't let me be wrong about this.

Can't promise anything beyond what I have already noted here (that you're already aware of).

In short, we are aware of your concerns but have not yet decided on a final solution for armour balance. Due to this, you are more likely to see other balancing efforts first, for example, the balancing of skill gains, economy/caravan/workshop gameplay,... or the introduction of features that we talked about in our "Future plans" post.

 

[geala]

I disagree with this point and its truly a simplification. Making it longer for the player to gather the party they want doesn't increase difficulty since we aren't ever forced into fights. We shouldn't be attempting to shape players parties, they will gather the party they want despite how long the process. If players think there are too many noble troops to recruit then they have the option to not recruit them, I leave behind noble troops once I hit my desired amount in the party.

The only thing we should be worried about is how AI parties are impacted. With the current amount of noble recruits I have yet to see an issue of an overabundance of Noble troops. Here are several more examples. We see parties ranging from none to around 25% of their party. I do not want to see this percentage reduced. If you can show me a faction's parties with 40%+ average noble troops then i'll agree it may needed to be toned down for that faction.

skip

Actually good arguments. But I find 25% nobles still too high an amount. I would accept it easier if the normal T5 troops wouldn't be so well equipped, so that "nobles" were just a general term for weathy people which can afford good stuff. It's actually more the T5 normals which bother me (to the extent that I gave most of them lower tier armor ...).

It would take a very radical change in the economy of the game to reach a point where cost would factor into the party creation process. I personally doubt this is going to happen.

...

That's true, sadly. I tried mods which made higher and better equipped units much more expensive, as it is mind-boggling that a cataphract or champion costs the same as a T5 infantry archer and 4 gold more than a T4 infantryman for example. The whole tier system is nonsense of course. But it is the system and more realistic costs of the units lead to several problems. It counters the flow of the game and I came back to the vanilla system. Nevertheless I hope for a bit more realistic troop composition and costs. The Warband mod 1257 AD banner system comes to mind for example.

 

[five bucks]

I disagree with this point and its truly a simplification. Making it longer for the player to gather the party they want doesn't increase difficulty since we aren't ever forced into fights.

The fundamental aim of reducing elite notables isn't to increase difficulty. That's why I said it would make no major change in difficulty either way, at least when dealing with melee cav elite troops.

We shouldn't be attempting to shape players parties, they will gather the party they want despite how long the process.

If players think there are too many noble troops to recruit then they have the option to not recruit them, I leave behind noble troops once I hit my desired amount in the party

Right now the players who don't want a party largely comprised of noble troops have to pass up a big bunch of recruits in order to do so. As many as 40% sometimes as I showed earlier! This is a common issue for other posters in this thread.

We don't like that in order to have a varied army that isn't largely comprised of a troop with a single upgrade path, we have to forgo lots of guys in towns and artificially limit ourselves, breaking immersion and making the game take longer just to get an interesting army.

The only thing we should be worried about is how AI parties are impacted. Wee see parties ranging from none to around 25% of their party. I do not want to see this percentage reduced.

Then it's your and other people's preference versus my and other people's preference to how many elite troops nobles have.

However that is definitely not "the only thing we should be worried about", as stated earlier there are multiple other good reasons why elite recruits should be reduced in quantity.

And if I understand correctly you want AI parties to keep the same level of elite recruits mainly because that helps them be a challenge to the player, but as I have already said if the elite recruits available are also being reduced for the player it will not make a huge difference either way.

I wouldn't be averse to a compromise where elite recruits in general are reduced but clan leaders get a higher proportion of elite troops in their parties, expanding the existing mechanic where they get cheated 20-odd troops for free, so when you fight a clan leader it feels more special and threatening.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

The fundamental aim of reducing elite notables isn't to increase difficulty. That's why I said it would make no major change in difficulty either way, at least when dealing with melee cav elite troops.

I understand what you are saying and I disagree that it makes no major change in difficulty.

And if I understand correctly you want AI parties to keep the same level of elite recruits mainly because that helps them be a challenge to the player, but as I have already said if the elite recruits available are also being reduced for the player it will not make a huge difference either way.

Assume I have the exact same party regardless of noble recruit levels, if I get to fight less nobles troops then the game is easier. It absolutely makes a difference, I can tell because we spent the majority of EA fighting normal armies (even back then i had the same number of noble troops, just through bandit conversion) and now I can actually notice the difficulty increase since there are ~25% nobles in armies.

Right now the players who don't want a party largely comprised of noble troops have to pass up a big bunch of recruits in order to do so. As many as 40% sometimes as I showed earlier! This is a common issue for other posters in this thread.

You made an error in your calculations.

Spoiler: Math revision

I only went a small way out of my way to visit fiefs during the journey.
Total: 4 elite and 11 normal recruits. 36% were elite.
Should be 4/15 = 27%
Then loaded up a different save where I had about 2-3 slots in many places, and went from Car Banseth to Epicrotea.
Total: 9 elite and 28 normal. 32% were elite.
Should be 9/37 = 24%
In the same save, Rhotae to Pravend.
Total: 12 elite, 35 normal, 34% of recruits were elite.
Should be 12/47 = 26%
Finally a lategame save. Reyvl to Tyal.
Total: 18 elite, 43 normal, 41% of available recruits were elite!
Should 18/61 = 30%

You divided the noble troops by the normal troops, when you should be dividing the noble troops by the total available recruits (nobles + normal). When you recalculate your results there are about 27% nobles troops, which to no surprise lines up with the average noble troop % i observed for AI parties that stop by those villages.

We don't like that in order to have a varied army that isn't largely comprised of a troop with a single upgrade path, we have to forgo lots of guys in towns and artificially limit ourselves, breaking immersion and making the game take longer just to get an interesting army.

As I showed you earlier I am one of those players who strive for a varied and balanced army, I have always had to artificially limit myself in order to achieve a balance. If I had enough archers, I stopped recruiting archers, if I had enough infantry I stopped recruiting infantry. Getting normal troops is still easier than getting noble troops due to the fact that towns are purely normal and can have 4-6 notables in town to recruit from, compared to the 2-3 notables at villages. Towns also can have 2-3 villages attached that have only normal troops, so there isn't a lack of normal troops. If this was as serious a problem as people are making it out to be then we would see a way higher % of noble troops in the AI parties.

Then it's your and other people's preference versus my and other people's preference to how many elite troops nobles have.

However that is definitely not "the only thing we should be worried about", as stated earlier there are multiple other good reasons why elite recruits should be reduced in quantity.

Yep we can all have our own preferences, I think its obvious by now that I value AI party balance more these other reasons.

I wouldn't be averse to a compromise where elite recruits in general are reduced but clan leaders get a higher proportion of elite troops in their parties, expanding the existing mechanic where they get cheated 20-odd troops for free, so when you fight a clan leader it feels more special and threatening.

That would certainly be a middle ground, but personally id rather keep it out of the cheats. I like the current variability of seeing parties with no noble troops and a decent amount of noble troops.

Actually good arguments. But I find 25% nobles still too high an amount. I would accept it easier if the normal T5 troops wouldn't be so well equipped, so that "nobles" were just a general term for weathy people which can afford good stuff. It's actually more the T5 normals which bother me (to the extent that I gave most of them lower tier armor ...).

Its anecdotal, but I feel its hard to notice noble troops in large battles unless they are around 25% of troops. I've been enjoying noticing and having difficult confrontations with them.