Arena - Practice fights

[Dabos37]

Am I the only one who finds practice fights in the arena pretty useless?

- It is not good for levelling up fighting skills, because I have the feeling that the current experience penalty is pretty high.
- The reward we get is ridiculous compared to tournaments, despite of practice fights are arguably harder to win (except if you cheese the game xD)

I am ok with practice fights giving almost no money for the winner, but the experience penalty is probable to high and makes this feature pointless for me.

What do you think about it? Someone knows about the exact experience penalty percent we are getting in practice fights?

I am looking these current unused features we have in-game which could be improved easily, and practice fights is probable one of them.

 

[black_bulldog]

Yes it's heavily penalized and iirc it was the same way in vanilla Warband. I think it's a 75% penalty in tournaments and like a 95% in arena. Plenty of mods either got rid of it or reduced the penalty in Warband. I've seen people on these forums claim "it makes you level your character too fast" if it's not nerfed. But if you're playing as a battle commander you're not getting in the thick of things to level up your combat skills. The only explanation I can think of for the heavy nerf to skill leveling in arena fights is that Taleworlds loves grind or no one there has actually tried to level a character's skills up so they have no idea how to balance things properly and they sure as hell don't listen to player feedback. There's literally no reason to go into arena unless you really love grinding skills or are desperate for money early game.

 

[Wheem]

Yes it's heavily penalized and iirc it was the same way in vanilla Warband. I think it's a 75% penalty in tournaments and like a 95% in arena. Plenty of mods either got rid of it or reduced the penalty in Warband. I've seen people on these forums claim "it makes you level your character too fast" if it's not nerfed. But if you're playing as a battle commander you're not getting in the thick of things to level up your combat skills. The only explanation I can think of for the heavy nerf to skill leveling in arena fights is that Taleworlds loves grind or no one there has actually tried to level a character's skills up so they have no idea how to balance things properly and they sure as hell don't listen to player feedback. There's literally no reason to go into arena unless you really love grinding skills or are desperate for money early game.

Arena Practice Fights gave no skill-experience whatsoever when Bannerlord went into early access, and some players pitched a fit at the idea of that being changed. So Taleworlds leaving a really large penalty in place may actually be because they did listen to (some) player feedback.

Personally, I don't think the arena/tournament experience needs to be reduced all that much, if any, below the gains from battles. If somebody wants to "grind" certain skills in arena practice fights in a single player game...fine, go for it, why should any of the rest of us care? And frankly, it makes sense that one would gain skill that way.

 

[Dabos37]

I think battles giving more XP than tournaments and practice fights is the way to go, and I have not camplains about it. I just think that practice fights are overnerfed to a point where there is nonse to spend time on it at all.

I think there were better ways to avoid practice fights becoming OP, than just make it useless. For example:

- Arena just gives you XP until reaching skill level 75 in every weapon.
- You can only access practice fights only two or three times per day because your character gets “exhausted” or whatever other reason.

I am in favor to balancing every exploit, even if it is a singleplayer game, but making something totally useless in balancing favor is for sure not a good idea. Especially when this game does not shine for the number of features it has.

 

[Arvenski]

I play a lot practice fights, because I enjoy the combat and I think they're fun. Frankly, they're the easiest way for me to have fun in a game which I'm just beginning to get bored with, especially since I'm currently a mercenary for a country that would rather be at peace with everyone. If anything I wish practice fights were bigger: some of the arena maps are pretty big, so I wish there could be up to a dozen NPCs out there at any one time for complete bloody mayhem. And being the last fighter standing out of 30 sometimes feels too easy: wasn't it 40 in WB? Hopefully someone will make a mod someday that will let us adjust those numbers and play with making practice fights bigger and more challenging.

The reward we get is ridiculous compared to tournaments, despite of practice fights are arguably harder to win (except if you cheese the game xD)

The trouble with comparing practice fights to tournaments, IMO, is that tournaments kinda suck. I like that they reward you with items, that's a good feature, but the monetary rewards aren't worth bothering with: I quickly reached the point where I could only make like 150 from bets. Plus, the fights are too easy, and multiple rounds of 1v1 and 2v2 fights are just plain dull. Also, I feel guilty for beating up my companions in tournament after tournament.

 

[black_bulldog]

Arena Practice Fights gave no skill-experience whatsoever when Bannerlord went into early access, and some players pitched a fit at the idea of that being changed. So Taleworlds leaving a really large penalty in place may actually be because they did listen to (some) player feedback.

Personally, I don't think the arena/tournament experience needs to be reduced all that much, if any, below the gains from battles. If somebody wants to "grind" certain skills in arena practice fights in a single player game...fine, go for it, why should any of the rest of us care? And frankly, it makes sense that one would gain skill that way.

Taleworlds throws a crumb to players and calls a day, that's pretty much their m.o.

 

[five bucks]

+1

Experience penalty should be reduced