Damage/protection conception: the elephant in the room

[five bucks]

It would necessarily require a readjustment of the AI as well as for the damage/protection calculation. The AI of the single agent when operating at high tiers + high weapon skill is already quite competent in Native, so only a small boost in the tiers is needed overall. In my opinion, what needs to be adjusted is the group AI... I'm tired of talking about it here.

It would be as "easy" as looking for an analogy to what the RBM guys propose in their AI module, where the agents keep a vital space, keep a better shape of the formation and attack, defend and retreat in block.

Applying that, Taleworlds would be making a very large group of players happy in both SP and MP and at the same time not altering the playable experience of those players who feel overwhelmed by micromanagement who still can use the delegate command or the simple f1+f3.

I agree that a small number of well-trained and well-armoured units can stand up to a larger group of less armoured and with less experienced weapons proficiency. Here is a RBM video test of 50 Legionaries vs 950 Looters with an ending that should surprise no one.
Check this:

Interesting.

Regarding that video, my thoughts are that a good way of balancing Bannerlord units is to use their tier as an indication of roughly how many T1 Recruits they can fight at the same time, without the use of special tactics.

So a T5 unit should be able to simeltaneously take on 5 T1 recruits (on average, success not guaranteed). If you had 10 Legionaries, they could usually kill 50 Recruits before dying.

I think this would be a good, easy to remember standard for balancing that makes higher tier units feel useful, makes them worth their 6X higher wage cost, but isn't too drastically unrealistic.

And perhaps Looters and Farmers could be something slightly lower than T1, such as "Tier 0.5" or "Tier 0.75".

The result of that battle appears to be 50 Legionaries killing 400+ Looters before losing, defeating nearly 9X their number, which seems pretty good and close to what I want. Maybe a bit high. A middle ground somewhere between vanilla and RBM, but closer to RBM, would be ideal for me.

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

It would necessarily require a readjustment of the AI as well as for the damage/protection calculation. The AI of the single agent when operating at high tiers + high weapon skill is already quite competent in Native, so only a small boost in the tiers is needed overall. In my opinion, what needs to be adjusted is the group AI... I'm tired of talking about it here.

It would be as "easy" as looking for an analogy to what the RBM guys propose in their AI module, where the agents keep a vital space, keep a better shape of the formation and attack, defend and retreat in block.

Applying that, Taleworlds would be making a very large group of players happy in both SP and MP and at the same time not altering the playable experience of those players who feel overwhelmed by micromanagement who still can use the delegate command or the simple f1+f3.

I agree that a small number of well-trained and well-armoured units can stand up to a larger group of less armoured and with less experienced weapons proficiency. Here is a RBM video test of 50 Legionaries vs 950 Looters with an ending that should surprise no one.
Check this:

To be frank, that looks absolutely absurd. Realistically, those legionaries will find themselves surrounded, tired out or just overwhelmed by the sheer weight of those looters.

Wearing armour doesn't mean you feel nothing either, you be battered up and bruised even from things that don't necessarily penetrate you. And I think a lot of people here underestimate the potential for just getting knocked out too.

And considering how easily and quickly you can amass a force of t5 elites, the game does get pretty easy with RBM.

 

[JunKeteer]

To be frank, that looks absolutely absurd. Realistically, those legionaries will find themselves surrounded, tired out or just overwhelmed by the sheer weight of those looters.

Wearing armour doesn't mean you feel nothing either, you be battered up and bruised even from things that don't necessarily penetrate you. And I think a lot of people here underestimate the potential for just getting knocked out too.

And considering how easily and quickly you can amass a force of t5 elites, the game does get pretty easy with RBM.

RBM does seem a bit extreme but besides that, there's no way to really simulate 'cunning' in games atm. 5 looters/bandits realistically should be able to cheese a way to kill one legionnaire or vice versa; but that shouldn't discount that armor should be meaningless. But because they all share the same AI system, the only way to really represent any difference between a legionnaire and a looter is the 'tier' of their armor protection so that at least the % chance is less predictable.
It's the same as we have with the discussion on the spear, hard to calculate AI for that 'fear' of running into a wall of them or other 'versatile' uses of spears. We have to make do with what we have which is tweaking the numbers for a fairer representation than what we have now (ie spears useless).

RBM is just a mod to address one of the issues with the game, but the whole game is a mess with all these 'tied' economical systems (ie ease of acquiring T5 troops) that have to be balanced as a result too.

 

[five bucks]

To be frank, that looks absolutely absurd. Realistically, those legionaries will find themselves surrounded, tired out or just overwhelmed by the sheer weight of those looters.

To be fair, they *did* lose!
The amount of casualties they managed to inflict before dying is IMO not incredibly unrealistic, and good from a gameplay perspective. Poorly armed and armoured wastrels can't just squish armed men to death without getting stabbed in the process and getting in each others' way. As for the surrounding part, you're right there, but the looters didn't do that in that battle so the outcome reflects that.

Also you'd never actually run into 950 Looters with a party of 50 Legionaries in normal gameplay. I don't think it's even possible, let alone likely, to spawn that many looters without using cheats.

 

[Chironte]

For the AI I use the improved combat AI, I can clearly see the difference between a legionary and a looter, the legionary fights way better than a lower tier unit, they even feints and paces itself

 

[Terco_Viejo]

No fatigue - Legionaries must tire themselves out killing so many (arm ache after killing 10 looters). No outflanking - even brain-dead looters should be swarming from behind with those odds.

This is Bannerlord not Manor Lords . I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the latter as soon as possible .

To be frank, that looks absolutely absurd. Realistically, those legionaries will find themselves surrounded, tired out or just overwhelmed by the sheer weight of those looters.

Wearing armour doesn't mean you feel nothing either, you be battered up and bruised even from things that don't necessarily penetrate you. And I think a lot of people here underestimate the potential for just getting knocked out too.

And considering how easily and quickly you can amass a force of t5 elites, the game does get pretty easy with RBM.

Do not just stick with the case in the video... it is an unusual situation and the only reason I wanted to share it is to show the difference between a few elite armoured units > a lot of untrained and light ones.

As others have pointed out, the game is what it is... and RBM can work around that (But in some cases they are handcuffed whith hardcoded stuff). I wish we had an AI interesting enough to carry out flank-pincer-wrap manoeuvres... that was decisive in bad weather conditions and dependent on a proper morale system...etc (see Mannor Lords video) But as I said... the game offers what it offers.


Only for the basics in my eyes is needed:

A review of the damage/protection cal between RBM experiences and Warband (+dlcs) experience.
A final fix for agent wild jittering
A tune up of agent AI (tier boost and palpable differences between low skill and high skill) and group AI (attack-defend in formation)

This is a must for many players.

 

[0tto]

nah
bunch of weak hungry guys in rags will get obliterated by fit, trained, experienced, and armoured guys

the looters should have broken at 1/2 their losses with nothing to show

Is there anything else anyone wants to say about damage/armour or have we covered all bases?

some skills effects are weak as ****, like combat 10% at 100 and 20% at 300 (compared to lvl0)
a lot are painfully slow to level too, like medicine and tactics needing 40 years to reach 200

compared to warbands power strike/throw/draw and proficiency providing 150% at 10/450
as well as the awesome swing speed boost making heavy normally slow weapons viable


there's effectively no character growth, 50 is as good as 200 in combat skills
the non-combat skills are the same but they soft cap at like 125, anything beyond has no significant effect

 

[Roy1012]

118 to 1…I’m running out of popcorn.

 

[CrazyElf]

Is there anything else anyone wants to say about damage/armour or have we covered all bases?

I guess longer battles would expose the weak points of the AI, as they would allow for more tactical moivement in combat.

It seems like Realistic Battle AI is the most important fix for that.

The challenge is the strategic AI needs to be smarter too - the AI often abandons sieges with inadequate food supplies and does not follow through on their actions. They would do well as well to buy horses and sometimes the AI doesn't use the most logical path to recruit the most soldiers (ex: village recruitment).

They did add village food purchase in 1.7.2, but they need more supplies (I'd say much more food in reserve and a large amount of horses).

 

[Helerek]

The challenge is the strategic AI needs to be smarter too - the AI often abandons sieges with inadequate food supplies and does follow through on their actions. They would do well as well to buy horses and sometimes the AI doesn't use the most logical path to recruit the most soldiers (ex: village recruitment).

That's not all. They not only abandon siege when they have no food left. THEY ABANDON IT EVEN WHEN THEY HAVE FOOD!! For no reason! No village/town/castle is under attack. HEY GUYS LET'S GO BACK TO TOWN WE JUST BUILT OUR CAMP 3 ONAGERS BATTERING RAM AND HAVE 3 * the number of the enemy. But let's call it off .

They did add village food purchase in 1.7.2, but they need more supplies (I'd say much more food in reserve and a large amount of horses).

They simply don't buy food in an army. When I make an army and visit all villages/towns before sieging. I still have parties starving and eating my food. Villages still had food you could buy, but they simply wouldn't. They also all had money (my companions and my clans in kingdom, non was poor/very poor. All average+). So yeah, they simply don't buy food.

 

[DLW khan]

is it possible that fixing this issue will just show more fundamental problems with the game?

or is it just THEVISION

so much for community imput

 

[Roy1012]

so much for community imput

Ahhhhhh tfw he realizes TW only cares about money!!!

 

[Lord Grindelvald]

118 to 1…I’m running out of popcorn.

But that 1 vote comes from a Developer so it counts for however many votes you have +1.

 

[MostBlunted]

It´s like the russian veto in the united nations council.

 

[Lord Grindelvald]

It´s like the russian veto in the united nations council.

Or Russian democracy.

 

[Terco_Viejo]

I would like to make a reminder to anyone who might be interested in this.

Again, fixing the calc. of damage/protection + combat Ai + jittering is an absolute must for both the new and veteran player gameplay experience.

I recently watched this video which I start in this minute:


Pops to KoA crew

Well, it doesn't matter if it's Lotr themed, samurais, 100 years war, pike & shot, ancient battlefields etc... without the basics of a 100% working Native combat system it's going to be the same bad experience with diferent paint coat.

Imagine for a moment how a mod with a "Greek/Macedonian wars" theme would work today with the fundamentals of the current native combat system... I'm telling you... a disaster...pikes that don't work... formations making blobs... absurd projectiles damage... jittering... a non stop nightmare.

I don't understand how something so obvious and that is necessarily approachable in a cross-cutting way for all player spectrum gameplay has been neglected for such a long time.

 

[bestmods168]

I would like to make a reminder to anyone who might be interested in this.

Again, fixing the calc. of damage/protection + combat Ai + jittering is an absolute must for both the new and veteran player gameplay experience.

I recently watched this video which I start in this minute:


Pops to KoA crew

Well, it doesn't matter if it's Lotr themed, samurais, 100 years war, pike & shot, ancient battlefields etc... without the basics of a 100% working Native combat system it's going to be the same bad experience with diferent paint coat.

Imagine for a moment how a mod with a "Greek/Macedonian wars" theme would work today with the fundamentals of the current native combat system... I'm telling you... a disaster...pikes that don't work... formations making blobs... absurd projectiles damage... jittering... a non stop nightmare.

I don't understand how something so obvious and that is necessarily approachable in a cross-cutting way for all player spectrum gameplay has been neglected for such a long time.

LOL. True. True. I say the same thing all the time. People in the modding discord have got to stop inflating their egos everyday and attacking anyone not in their boyz club. They can have all the cool and best looking assets in the world, but at the end of the day their soldiers will just clusterf_ck on the battlefield.

Formation attacks and complex ai tactics are possible. Its just not on taleworld's list of things to do. Think about it. TW was able to change the ai behavior and allowed them to march forward cohesively. Then allow the infantry to engage the enemy while the cavalry does a perfect flank. RBM was able to make the two sides keep a distance while engaged. Enhanced Battle Test was able to allow one to select which unit to attack.

In all fairness to tw, polearms have been improved since release. They just need to keep working at it and they will get it eventually. They would get more done if they made a team that focused on such. Only a few people are needed in such team.

 

[SanicK]

Just stirrin the pot

LOL

 

[Terco_Viejo]

LOL. True. True. I say the same thing all the time. People in the modding discord have got to stop inflating their egos everyday and attacking anyone not in their boyz club. They can have all the cool and best looking assets in the world, but at the end of the day their soldiers will just clusterf_ck on the battlefield.

Formation attacks and complex ai tactics are possible. Its just not on taleworld's list of things to do. Think about it. TW was able to change the ai behavior and allowed them to march forward cohesively. Then allow the infantry to engage the enemy while the cavalry does a perfect flank. RBM was able to make the two sides keep a distance while engaged. Enhanced Battle Test was able to allow one to select which unit to attack.

In all fairness to tw, polearms have been improved since release. They just need to keep working at it and they will get it eventually. They would get more done if they made a team that focused on such. Only a few people are needed in such team.

Yeah, there are things that can't be neglected, especially something that is supposed to be the backbone of the game.

Another thing that has been little talked about are the animations; whoever has been reading me will know that I have been (and still am) concerned about a few of them throughout this development process. The swing arcs is one of them.

This root problem is more palpable in MP but certainly affects SP. Well, first OurGloriousLeader provided feedback regarding this issue in 2019 and after bringing the issue to Taleworlds attention repeatedly (I insist, repeatedly), recently we were officially told that modifying the animations has a low chance of being implemented.

It's all a question of priorities... I wonder...instead of having your animators busy with cutscenes and other menial things, why don't you get them to actively review this problem and fix it once and for all? The vision™... there's another example of the Bannerlord experience™.

And I repeat, this fundamental issues cannot be relegated to modding because regardless of the people who may be concerned, it affects the newcomer to the franchise just as much as the veteran player. Want new items? -Modding ok... want more factions? - modding ok, you want AoE-style RTS mechanics like Bloc's latest video demo? -modding ok.

OK; but the combat system must necessarily be as solid or stronger than Warband's was back in the day.

I'm quite concerned about this issue, honestly.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

I'm quite concerned about this issue, honestly.

Here's a hug buddy. ?