This topic isn't about just the player, it's about the universal application of armor, which also includes the player's troops, allied troops, and opposing forces' troops.
Simply saying "Oh, well you can just turn the player damage down to 50%. See? Problem solved!" doesn't actually address the core issue and honestly comes off as a flippant Taleworlds-esque response to a problem the community has been ticked off about since 2020.
yes i know that's the main thing and i am currently experimenting on how to balance this myself just by using in game stats. (it's mainly a way to create an "impossible" difficulty, it mainly relies on giving everyone the medicine perk and giving the AI all the good perks that increase armor, health and level up units) it feels way better and challenging playing that way.
I do know what you guys talk about and i get it, but just realize that changing the entire way combat works can't be done in a snap, takes time, work, failures and testings to get there.
But Honestly speaking i never felt the need to want more armor. sure you always want more but with smart decision making you can fight without taking hits in almost any situations.
Oftentimes i take a big shot cause i try to be reckless and get 80% of my health taken away by a crossbowman because i charged him at full speed. the way i see it, in that situation, i made a mistake and i got punished. then adapt my playstyle to try and stay alive by killing as many as i can until the end, managing troops in the meantime and so on.
The thing guys is that i don't see this as a problem, if it wasn't obvious, but a preference.
I like units and me to be more squishy, getting punished for mistakes and take advantage of the ones made by the AI.
For you guys making anything last longer is more enjoyably, that's good, there happens to be a mod for you guys to download and get what you looking for. Why pushing so hard, often insulting, directly or not, the work of people who work on the game and test stuff any day just because you have a preference?
Also i'd like to clarify, changing the entire way the combat works would require a ton of time and we all know players don't want to wait, not at this stage.
I don't want to sound like a guy who says you shouldn't criticize the game, you should if you feel like you do. but be realistic with your demands, especially when solutions are out and available
Fixing armour will fix all these things.
don't know about that. The main reasons i believe the AI and troops in vanilla Bannerlord fail to deliver interesting and meaningful fights are a few:
1) The player can very easily rack up the best units there are out there as long as he can pay for them. now with the fairly recent stewardship perks it's easier then ever to rebuild an army after you lost one.
2) Ai enemies don't have very good tactics, in terms of AI behavior (only way to make them scary is using mods or buffing their in game stats) the typical cavalry suicidal charge, the archers skirmishing before infantry, the repositioning at the wrong times, the skirmishing of horse archers into infantry lines. and the almighty CIRCLE
3)AIs don't bring very good troops: i am not talking about bringing a Vlandian Pikeman over a Voulgier but about Tier, an average army brings mostly T3 and lower troops, leaving very few spots for T4, T5 & T6.
4) The AI currently brings too much cavalry: the reason this is bad is because cavalry is just easy to fight, it's pretty sad but fixing cavalry behavior already has a more relevant impact than fixing armor just because of the sheer numbers.
5) After being defeated enemies start to "recruit spam": Thousands of new and fresh troops are brought to the frontlines but they are all recruits or low levels (troops recruitment can only go up to T4) decreasing the difficulty
6) The AI has no good captains: as the player you can use and abuse this feature to turn any troop into what you want, works better for some than others but generally you build yourself as the infantry guy, 2 archer captains, cavalry and HA in case you use a lot of them.
7) The AI are bad party leaders. i mean in terms of perks. the player can very easily get all the best perks his build allows but the AI selects them randomly (not sure if only new perks are selected randomly or any time a campaign is started) but the point is that they can select some laughably bad ones making them worse.
8 ) The AI often uses poor formations commands: i have always told people that shield wall and hold fire is the way to go for infantry but the AI doesn't seem to think the same. a similar situation happens for the archers, they'll shoot whatever is in range, no matter the distance.
So i think there are a few, already fixable points ( 3-4-5?-6-7-8 ) that can make fights better and require minimal coding. before rewriting everything that should be attempted at least in testings.
It's very easy to jump to a conclusion and thinking that's the root of all evil. don't get me wrong it plays a part but there are plenty more things that do too and are underrated