1.5.5 Balance and Further Changes

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@AVRC I am working to get a video on the Ai exploits up A.S.A.P. but I would like to comment on the few exploits that you did mention and explain how they can be replicated by the development team in the meantime while the video evidence is being worked on. As well as why myself and many captain mode players believe these exploits to be game-breaking issues.

Baiting the archers to switch to melee - Achieved by being the closest enemy unit within the Archers units melee range detection zone.
(Since you are the closest unit within melee range, All Archer Ai will individually try to defend itself from your perceived melee threat by drawing their own melee weapons and attacking you until you are either dead or have left their melee range.)

Getting all archery fire by standing in front with a shield - Achieved by standing in front of enemy archers and being the closest enemy unit located near to them and holding up your shield.
(Since you are the closest unit within firing range, all Archer Ai's will individually decide that you are the priority target and will fire at you exclusively unless another unit somehow manages to get closer to the archers than you.)

Baiting shield troops to break their shield wall - Achieved by walking back and forth either in front of or behind enemy shield wall formations with your captain so that the enemy Ai raises their weapons to strike you, but staying just far enough out of reach so that you never get hit by the Ai.
(When the ai is trying to strike you, their shield wall is broken and enemy archers can hit their exposed bodies. Typically effects only a few units at a time but you can walk alongside the line of shield wall to maximize how many ai break formation.)

Baiting infantry troops into pulling out their spears when it is not a good decision to do so - Achieved by simply bringing a Cavalry unit within melee distance of an infantry unit with a 2ndary spear just before a melee engagement.
(The ai pulls out its spears because the Cavalry units presence indicates that they should, but this is a trap/lure as this means your troops won't fight the enemy infantry with their primary weapons causing them to lose in the melee fight against other infantry when enemy Cavalry is also present.)

All of these exploits can be achieved by a single captain player unit and do not require multiple units to be present in order to happen. This is a huge problem in captain mode that we call "Ramboing" basically just meaning a player character splitting off from his Ai units in order to abuse and exploit the Ai's targeting parameters and behavioral patterns in a low-risk (only risking the players single unit) high reward (can potentially distract and destroy entire groups of units) strategy that diminishes the overall strategic gameplay of captain mode.

Another Potential Solution to Consider:
An idea that has been thrown around the community, originally suggested by Brandis in an older forum post, would be to Limit the distance the player captain unit can separate from his/her respective Ai units. A reasonable distance would be about 10 paces/steps or less so as to ensure that a player captain unit has to stay with his/her troops and couldn't run off on their own to engage in the exploitation of enemy Ai units with the above mentioned strategy as they would also have to risk losing their Ai units in the attempt as well rather than just a single unit, which would discourage players from using these "cheesey" strategies in favor of more organized and command based gameplay.
How to implement this?:
If a player captain gets more than 10 paces/steps away from his ai units that he/she has ordered to hold their position at a certain location, the Ai would automatically switch back to "Follow me" mode making it impossible for the player captain to leave his units unattended. This distance would still be reasonable enough to allow for players to maneuver around nearby their own units, but it would prevent players from separating from their units entirely and going off to exploit enemy Ai.

Thank you again for all your hard work I'm very grateful that your team is taking a look at these issues and addressing our concerns regarding this. I hope this is somewhat helpful, like I mentioned before I still plan to release a video with more details but I thought I could give you something to work with before that time comes.


P.S. Regarding Cavalry Ai improvements: A great way to improve Cavalry Ai would be to tighten their formation by reducing the distance between the Ai units as they charge. If the Ai would be capable of doing cycle-charges as a solid mass / blob it would be a lot more effective on the battlefield by being essentially a moving wall of deadly force. Just some thoughts I had.
Thank you!
 
Improvements to Cav AI hasn't started yet but it will be done for sure. We are currently collecting the issues and deciding on what/how to improve. AI is quite tricky, especially cavs who move around the map much more.

Biggest issues with cavalry currently in my view:

- They usually miss regular attacks pretty often (when couching at max speed they are a bit better), especially at medium speed they miss a lot.
- The cavalry AI vs other cavalry units is almost non-existent. AI rarely target the rider (95% target the horse). This is ok at max speed when the horse could take a lot of damage, but really bad in melee combat and at low/medium speed).

Thanks!
 
Another Potential Solution to Consider:
An idea that has been thrown around the community, originally suggested by Brandis in an older forum post, would be to Limit the distance the player captain unit can separate from his/her respective Ai units. A reasonable distance would be about 10 paces/steps or less so as to ensure that a player captain unit has to stay with his/her troops and couldn't run off on their own to engage in the exploitation of enemy Ai units with the above mentioned strategy as they would also have to risk losing their Ai units in the attempt as well rather than just a single unit, which would discourage players from using these "cheesey" strategies in favor of more organized and command based gameplay.
Maybe one could also introduce a harsher punishment for commander deaths like a long respawn time or "follow only" as soon as the commander dies and the remaining squad is essentially leaderless.

Of course most people would be happier abount an AI that is able to react propperly and proportionally to the dancers at hand. Maybe some losening of positional restrictions could also help. I found that a charge order in the right moment can be quite helpful to deal with cav that tries to pick on stationary infantry.
 
They usually miss regular attacks pretty often (when couching at max speed they are a bit better), especially at medium speed they miss a lot.

I agree that the cavalry too often misses with the usual thrusting blows, this is especially noticeable in the light cavalry, which does not have access to lance. If increase their accuracy and force the cavalry to maintain formation during the charge, then it seems to me that the cavalry will become a serious threat on the battlefield.
 
I'm not sure which patch it got changed, but it's been around for a while and I can't quite put my finger on exactly what was changed, but spamming is so damn effective in the game these days. You can almost always strafe and spam with 2handers, and even with 1handed you can usually spam in an extra hit or two before an enemy can respond. I don't remember it being like this earlier on in Bannerlord's life, and honestly I preferred it when it was more turn-based than what it is now. So much of the time now it can almost feel like a gamble whether your next hit will land first even after a successful block. I know how footwork plays into it but it still feels inconsistent.

Anyway, this could be due to latency, movement speed changes or just me becoming ****, but it definitely feels like something has changed on a mechanical level. The combat has gotten better in so many regards but I can't help but feel this aspect is a huge step back from what it used to be.
 
I'm not sure which patch it got changed, but it's been around for a while and I can't quite put my finger on exactly what was changed, but spamming is so damn effective in the game these days. You can almost always strafe and spam with 2handers, and even with 1handed you can usually spam in an extra hit or two before an enemy can respond.

You can always respond to an attack if you block it first then attack back. Always. If you fail it's due to timing or positioning.

2h are pretty strong at spamming right now due to movement disparity, arcs of the swing, and the lack of turncap, but none of that is down to timing.
 
You can always respond to an attack if you block it first then attack back. Always. If you fail it's due to timing or positioning.

2h are pretty strong at spamming right now due to movement disparity, arcs of the swing, and the lack of turncap, but none of that is down to timing.
Fair enough. Then it must have been the big movement speed increase shock classes got a few patches back that brought this issue up, as they can keep you off to their side and repeat the same attack until you manage to get into a better position. I still reckon it felt better the way it used to be, and has only made 2handed combat look all the more retarded in tandem with ballerina tactics.
 
I think it's worsened by the 2h animation being more beneficial than the 1h one, seems like less reset. Also the large arcs mean people who are correctly making the fastest attack have to turn quite hard into the swing, with the opponent almost to your side - this looks off putting and counterintuitive. Would love to see shorter, more accurate arcs to swings, have been asking for over a year.
 
Absolutely, especially with the ridiculous length of some of the 2handed weapons too. It's sickening to watch lol.
 
@AVRC
Thanks for the update, pretty much what we needed. Still wanted to point out some existing problems that multiple people tried to highlight here on forum which would help make infantry better

- Horse hoofstopmps are hard to hear. I have almost 500 hours in skirmish and I still struggle to hear horse coming from behind - so in real battle I have to be too careful to not feed. This problem punishes even harder on A or B spawn on Trading Post - because you hear hoof stomps from above/below exactly the same as on the same level as you are.
- Camera spin button (~) makes it harder to react in time and punish cav trying to backstab. There was a post from Apriko that suggested to make it instant as an option. Pls do it for competitive players
- Spear damage is fine now (I got 60-70 for heavy cav rear which is fine). But still, heavy cav can easily face tank tons of damage if it stays close to infs because there's almost no damage to armor.
- There was a nice suggestion to temporarily turn W or S key off when cav is reared. Make it like a 3-4 seconds cooldown and cav will have to play much more careful
- I don't know why the couch implemented in this way but the cooldown on it needs to be added. As well as harsher requirement speed to begin it and time limit to use it.
- I would suggest decreasing max knockdown duration - now if done properly you can hit knocked down enemy 3 times in a row. That's just too much.
- Decrease max archer/xbow speed so inf could always catch archers in the long run but melee fight remain untouched.
- Make heavy archers choose between 2h weapons and nice bows. It's just not fair having 2 insta kill weapons at once.
- Slightly increase sword damage to armored enemies. Maces are fine or at least I didn't figure out they're broken yet. Let us choose between slow and high damage maces, fast and medium damage swords, and shield breaking and medium damage axes.
- Increase shield break potential from axes - shields are too tanky when attacked by 1h axe. Axes are already harder to wield than swords (because of hilt damage) so we need some advantage from it. (it would also buff Sturgia)

EDIT: Or as alternative to turning W button off for cav. You can make cav receive additional damage and temporarily lower cav rear threshold if cav presses W. Will fix the situation as well as allow some risky MLG moves
 
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@AVRC
Thanks for the update, pretty much what we needed. Still wanted to point out some existing problems that multiple people tried to highlight here on forum which would help make infantry better

- Horse hoofstopmps are hard to hear. I have almost 500 hours in skirmish and I still struggle to hear horse coming from behind - so in real battle I have too careful to not feed. This problem punishes even harder on A or B spawn on Trading Post - because you hear hoof stomps from above/below exactly the same as on the same level as you are.
- Camera spin button (~) makes it harder to react in time and punish cav trying to backstab. There was a post from Apriko that suggested to make it instant as an option. Pls do it for competitive players
- Spear damage is fine now (I got 60-70 for heavy cav rear which is fine). But still, heavy cav can easily face tank tons of damage if it stays close to infs because there's almost no damage to armor.
- There was a nice suggestion to temporarily turn W or S key off when cav is reared. Make it like a 3-4 seconds cooldown and cav will have to play much more careful
- I don't know why the couch implemented in this way but the cooldown on it needs to be added. As well as harsher requirement speed to begin it and time limit to use it.
- I would suggest decreasing max knockdown duration - now if done properly you can hit knocked down enemy 3 times in a row. That's just too much.
- Decrease max archer/xbow speed so inf could always catch archers in the long run but melee fight remain untouched.
- Make heavy archers choose between 2h weapons and nice bows. It's just not fair having 2 insta kill weapons at once.
- Slightly increase sword damage to armored enemies. Maces are fine or at least I didn't figure out they're broken yet. Let us choose between slow and high damage maces, fast and medium damage swords, and shield breaking and medium damage axes.
- Increase shield break potential from axes - shields are too tanky when attacked by 1h axe. Axes are already harder to wield than swords (because of hilt damage) so we need some advantage from it. (it would also buff Sturgia)

All of these are super accurate and would be most welcome, great post

Cav horse receiving more damage while reared is a very very interesting idea, because that would actively punish the player for making a mistake
 
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@AVRC
Thanks for the update, pretty much what we needed. Still wanted to point out some existing problems that multiple people tried to highlight here on forum which would help make infantry better

- Horse hoofstopmps are hard to hear. I have almost 500 hours in skirmish and I still struggle to hear horse coming from behind - so in real battle I have to be too careful to not feed. This problem punishes even harder on A or B spawn on Trading Post - because you hear hoof stomps from above/below exactly the same as on the same level as you are.
- Camera spin button (~) makes it harder to react in time and punish cav trying to backstab. There was a post from Apriko that suggested to make it instant as an option. Pls do it for competitive players
- Spear damage is fine now (I got 60-70 for heavy cav rear which is fine). But still, heavy cav can easily face tank tons of damage if it stays close to infs because there's almost no damage to armor.
- There was a nice suggestion to temporarily turn W or S key off when cav is reared. Make it like a 3-4 seconds cooldown and cav will have to play much more careful
- I don't know why the couch implemented in this way but the cooldown on it needs to be added. As well as harsher requirement speed to begin it and time limit to use it.
- I would suggest decreasing max knockdown duration - now if done properly you can hit knocked down enemy 3 times in a row. That's just too much.
- Decrease max archer/xbow speed so inf could always catch archers in the long run but melee fight remain untouched.
- Make heavy archers choose between 2h weapons and nice bows. It's just not fair having 2 insta kill weapons at once.
- Slightly increase sword damage to armored enemies. Maces are fine or at least I didn't figure out they're broken yet. Let us choose between slow and high damage maces, fast and medium damage swords, and shield breaking and medium damage axes.
- Increase shield break potential from axes - shields are too tanky when attacked by 1h axe. Axes are already harder to wield than swords (because of hilt damage) so we need some advantage from it. (it would also buff Sturgia)

EDIT: Or as alternative to turning W button off for cav. You can make cav receive additional damage and temporarily lower cav rear threshold if cav presses W. Will fix the situation as well as allow some risky MLG moves
+1
 
There was a nice suggestion to temporarily turn W or S key off when cav is reared. Make it like a 3-4 seconds cooldown and cav will have to play much more careful

If a cav tries to WW out of full stop, the moment they WW the horse can be reared again, putting the delay on WW and SS will end up making the cav stronger, if the double tap delay is implemented, it shouldnt be more then 2 seconds max.
 
@AVRC
Thanks for the update, pretty much what we needed. Still wanted to point out some existing problems that multiple people tried to highlight here on forum which would help make infantry better

- Horse hoofstopmps are hard to hear. I have almost 500 hours in skirmish and I still struggle to hear horse coming from behind - so in real battle I have to be too careful to not feed. This problem punishes even harder on A or B spawn on Trading Post - because you hear hoof stomps from above/below exactly the same as on the same level as you are.
- Camera spin button (~) makes it harder to react in time and punish cav trying to backstab. There was a post from Apriko that suggested to make it instant as an option. Pls do it for competitive players
- Spear damage is fine now (I got 60-70 for heavy cav rear which is fine). But still, heavy cav can easily face tank tons of damage if it stays close to infs because there's almost no damage to armor.
- There was a nice suggestion to temporarily turn W or S key off when cav is reared. Make it like a 3-4 seconds cooldown and cav will have to play much more careful
- I don't know why the couch implemented in this way but the cooldown on it needs to be added. As well as harsher requirement speed to begin it and time limit to use it.
- I would suggest decreasing max knockdown duration - now if done properly you can hit knocked down enemy 3 times in a row. That's just too much.
- Decrease max archer/xbow speed so inf could always catch archers in the long run but melee fight remain untouched.
- Make heavy archers choose between 2h weapons and nice bows. It's just not fair having 2 insta kill weapons at once.
- Slightly increase sword damage to armored enemies. Maces are fine or at least I didn't figure out they're broken yet. Let us choose between slow and high damage maces, fast and medium damage swords, and shield breaking and medium damage axes.
- Increase shield break potential from axes - shields are too tanky when attacked by 1h axe. Axes are already harder to wield than swords (because of hilt damage) so we need some advantage from it. (it would also buff Sturgia)
very good points, agreed with everything.
perhaps, as an alternative to slowing down archers, you could also speed up infantry instead. pretty sure they used to be faster than they are now (too fast back then, so a buff should land them somewhere in the middle) and were nerfed some time around beta - not sure why, but I'm guessing it was due to feedback from people that don't even play the game anymore...

edit: also what Landalore just posted is true, if the inf is slightly competent they can stop a cav again right away if they try to WW out of where they just got reared. a cooldown of a second or two might still be nice though.
 
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@Silvernj Quite agreed too. As for the archers' issue, I would personally endow them with the same speed as the infantry (or very slightly higher) but lowering their melee skills significantly. " Camera spin button " has long been requested as an implementation. It is a must.
 
Camera spin?
Do u have a thread that shows it?
I'm assuming hes talking about the same thing as the guy hes replying to, so you can easily check it yourself - just spawn in somewhere, SP or MP doesn't matter, and press the button right below ESC (usually ~ (tilde) though it might be different on some layouts) - you can freely turn your camera 360° around your character. When you let it go, it animates back to the normal position.

It's used by a lot of players in multiplayers to check their back for incoming cavalry and such. In Warband it used to instantly snap back to the normal position (rather than taking half a second or so to animate back) which made it easy to quickly react to incoming threats. It being slower in Bannerlord means its harder to react in time (plus it feels worse using, to me at least) which is why most (if not all) people would prefer having it snap back instantly.
 
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