Recent content by KezzaaT Gaming

HalfMetalJacket said:

Does it really matter? I think weaker low tier troops can be somewhat acceptable, but when everything inevitably leads to high tier, I want more focus on top tier troops.

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It depends, for you for example obviously not, but for me understanding how units fair at different levels and different factions interests me.

However, I agree end game balance is a lot more important than early game - each week I am trying to get the next tier up tested and uploaded.

Silfir said:

Please do Aserai Recruit vs. Aserai Tribesman. If the issue is truly the AI using shields poorly, the recruits should win, and there's no better way to illustrate there's a problem. If the Aserai Recruits beat the Tribesmen, you could test them against the other recruits as well.

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So! I have just finished testing the Aserai Recruits vs Tribesman.

I only operated 10 rounds, but the recruits won out 8-2 - this leads an interesting question whether this will be the same in other factions where tier 1 troops beat out tier 2 troops that use shields.

I will explore these in my next video.

I also tested the recruits out against the other factions, below are the findings:

vs Vlandia - Lost 10-0
vs Battania - Lost 10-0
vs Empire - Lost 10-0
vs Sturgia - Lost 8-2
vs Khuzait - Lost 10-0

So seems even though I mistakenly put the tribesman in rather than recruits, the recruits for the aserai are also weak.

Silfir said:

The reason Vlandian Recruits have a slight edge over Battanian Volunteers 1v1, but get wrecked against highly armored troops, is that they don't have any weapons that really give them a fighting chance against the latter, but their dinky little swords are fully effective against the non-existant armor of the Volunteers - effective enough that even the presence of the sledgehammer in the pool doesn't elevate the average Battanian Volunteer over the average Vlandian Recruit.

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I also tested Vlandia vs Battanians on a 100 vs 100 battle to test whether it was armour or whether it could be down to the fact Battania spawn with a higher number of 2H weapons.

Battania won this out 8-2

Now I didn't count the distribution of equipment, to assess in detail as it was just a quick test, although the battanians lose the win % against Vlandians on a smaller battle size but have high win % at high numbers does point to the fact it could be down to the increased number of that OP 2H weapon.

I will cover this in the start of my next video as well.

hruza said:

I newer said that they are balanced in theory. I said they are balanced. They are simply not balanced perfectly. And there is no reason they should. The only way to balance them perfectly would be by giving them exact same stats and exact same equipment (or one with exact same stats). That's not desirable.



If tier 1 troops of faction A would be able to consistently defeat tier 2 troops of faction B, that would be imbalance. That tier 1 troops of different factions match differently against different enemies is to be expected.



But they don't.



Your tests are fine, as limited as they are. What I disagree with are conclusions you make out of those tests.

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I apologize if I have offended you at all, however I have to disagree with you.

I stand by the fact that I don’t think they are balanced. There are 2 factions that outshine the others massively.

I agree more tests need to be done vs higher tier troops to see if the imbalance is major.

I also state that “If” a tier 1 can beat a tier 2/3 then there is imbalance - I personally feel I need to test and come to the conclusion that they do not not. I understand you may feel they don’t beat higher tiers and that is fine, however I want to do my own tests.

You say you disagree with my conclusion? My video answered a couple of questions I raised and wasn’t just in relation to balance.

I understand if you disagree with some of my findings and I do appreciate the feedback and discussion as it is allowing me to think of further ways to show and test the units within bannerlord.

Silfir said:

I'm looking forward to seeing more! I subscribe to Spirit of the Law, a youtuber who has been doing this sort of content for Age of Empires II. I barely even play that game, but it's still interesting.

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Thanks! I’ll be sure to check out his channel for tips!

Silfir said:

EDIT: I'm sorry to keep harping on this, but the entire reason you run every fight multiple times (I think it was up to thirty for the recruit vs. recruit battles?) is to eliminate RNG as a factor. In some battles they'll have more sledgehammers than in others, but if you run enough battles it balances out to the average. Ideally you'd want to actually count how many sledgehammers they spawn in with each time and check the results.

The reason Vlandian Recruits have a slight edge over Battanian Volunteers 1v1, but get wrecked against highly armored troops, is that they don't have any weapons that really give them a fighting chance against the latter, but their dinky little swords are fully effective against the non-existant armor of the Volunteers - effective enough that even the presence of the sledgehammer in the pool doesn't elevate the average Battanian Volunteer over the average Vlandian Recruit.

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That’s a good point, the increase in number of tests is to make RNG factor irrelevant. However it was my thinking that because the Vlandians have 3 equipment sets which use polearms which means they will always spawn with more means on the smaller battle size it is totally dependent on whether the battanians spawn with more 2H whether they would get the win.

I will look to count equipment types in the future as this could be a thing to watch and as you state will be a good talking point for further depth and analysis.

In regards to your second point, I totally agree in regards to how the vlandians perform, they operate great against the other recruits and bandits but lose out against the battanians on the higher troops.

i am going to also run some 100 v 100 tests on the recruits later as well to see if this would make a difference.

I am getting myself into a rabbit warren here. Gonna be a lot to analyze!

Silfir said:

I can definitely understand not wanting to blow up the video to 40-50 minutes, and I can understand that it would involve some serious editing work to match up the clips in the background to the script with video editing software. It just seemed like a missed opportunity.

Please do Aserai Recruit vs. Aserai Tribesman. If the issue is truly the AI using shields poorly, the recruits should win, and there's no better way to illustrate there's a problem. If the Aserai Recruits beat the Tribesmen, you could test them against the other recruits as well.

Though as to the larger point - just pitching the tier 1 units against each other wouldn't be enough to demonstrate imbalance, you'd also have to rank higher troop types with similar roles against each other. For instance a Master Archer vs Marksman vs Palatine Guard vs Veteran Bowman contest. You could argue that the Battanians are meant to have the best infantry (including the best recruit) in exchange for being stuck with weaker cavalry and no mainline archer.

At any rate, troop tree balance isn't even close to being the most pressing issue at the moment. They need to finalize everything else about how combat works before it makes sense to fine-tune the troop trees.

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I do agree I missed the opportunity, and in hindsight I am annoyed at myself for It as well. Going forward I will look to Mark of the footage rather than do one bulk recording to make it a lot easier.

I am going to get those tested ASAP so I can update my video with the proper findings. And then I’ll highlight it at the start of my next video.

That is my over-arching plan, to do video comparisons of each tier for the factions comparing the troops within. Then do videos on each faction discussing their troops and how they counter other faction units - strengths and weaknesses. And army composition etc.This is the first of hopefully many videos. I am already assuming what you exactly point out about the battanians.

I know troop trees aren’t finished and other areas of the game are more or a priority, however I was looking online and other than the videos talking the best troops overall there isn’t much in depth info discussing the tiers.

I will admit this is my first proper edited video as well so I have a lot to learn.

Really appreciate you putting in some time to give feedback and criticism. My next video hopefully will be out next week discussing the tier 2 troops!

nyarlathotep1975 said:

Sledgehammer deals blunt damage, right? In that case its pretty obvious why they perform so well against heavy armor. Its the same reason why looters take out a knight in shining armor in mere seconds.

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That’s true, but a lot of the 1H weapons the recruits do also do blunt damage, but obv the 2H is a lot more powerful. Which is why I feel that on a larger scale and RNG is less of a factor and more of the battanian volunteers spawn with the sledgehammer they fair a lot better.

hruza said:

They are balanced. They have roughly the same skills and same tier equipment. That they don't perform exactly the same in arbitrary tests is to be expected. They can't, unless you made them copy paste of each other.

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But the fact that they seem to be balanced in stats, but then in performance are not shows that they are not indeed balanced.

You can have balance in theory but not in practice.

You can have some cultures that will defeat others and others that beat others. Which we see with 3 of the factions, they all perform similarly against the bandits.

But to have two factions that totally out rank the others is very imbalanced.

If a tier one recruit in performance due to equipment is like a tier 2/3 it makes that army a hell of lot stronger at early stage of army recruitment.

If you have any suggestions on how to test the troops in a more effective way then please let me know, be happy to incorporate any feedback for future videos.

Silfir said:

I realized fairly quickly that the battles shown in the video don't match up at all with what you were talking about. Seems a bit of a waste to record that much footage and then talk over it as if it wasn't there. You missed an opportunity to make the viewing experience a little more engaging - show the matchup, encourage players to guess who wins, then show the actual battle unfolding. Pick the one most representative of the matchup - for a 10-0 matchup, pick the biggest blowout, for a 6-4 one, a close victory, for a 5-5 one, pick the closest one and point out that it overall came out to a draw.

I would have liked to see Aserai Recruit vs. Aserai Tribesman. Did you test this? Were the Tribesmen beaten by even their own recruits? Also, what about Mameluke Soldiers? You just put Tribesmen into that test over Recruits without acknowledging at all that tribesmen aren't actually the tier 1 troops.

I have to question one of your conclusions. It seems to me that the two-handed sledgehammer just isn't much of an advantage against low-armored troops as it is against heavily armored cataphracts and shock troopers. I would assume that's why the Volunteers are only about as good as the Vlandian Recruits in the 1v1, but perform exceptionally well in the Cataphract/Shock Trooper test. It has little to do with RNG. No matter the reason, it's certainly valid to give Volunteers the top spot based on their performance against high level troops.

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Hey thanks for the feedback! I will be totally honest I attempted to get that it all to match up initially however the video was broaching on 40-50 minutes when I went into detail, and I didn’t think people would want to stick around when it was only discussing recruits. However However I will definitely take that on board for my next videos when I do the higher tiers.

Now I comepltey admit a blunder, since the start of bannerlord I have always had the tribesman as the tier one recruit due to the recruiting bug that was in the game initially! That is a total mistake on my part and I’ll add a comment to the video now to reflect that. I mean I even said they are the only tier 1 troop to get a shield! Oooops!

However it does beg the bigger question why are they losing to tier 1?

In regards to the sledgehammer I still think RNG is a factor as the 2H is OP against all armor, yes it is a greater advantage vs heavily armored troops but they need to be able to spawn with the equipment. Maybe I could have gone into a bit more detail on the conclusion and discussed the weapon match ups a bit more. Surprised at myself for not it considering that if I’m honest - I mean I showed all the weapons!

Thanks again for the feedback, I’ll add a comment to video to reflect your thoughts!

AnandaShanti said:

Akshually peasants can spawn with throwing stones so they're even better then recruits

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That is a very good point! A couple of well placed stones and bam! Peasants win.

I have noticed a few issues in regards to Lord HP within Tournaments.

For example some Lords/Heros are able to be killed in one hit - 30 damage or so.

Then others are as standard.

I am unsure if this is due to these Lords/Heros not being allocated to the right category and therefore receiving the wrong health.

Examples:

Those Multiplayer changes!