1.0.6 gives XP for tournaments and...practice matches?

[Perotin]

An easy Solution could be: we loose health in arena fights + less XP as mentioned. The time factor would be eliminated.

I also missed earning Xps in Arena. But for me the big tourneys pop up too often (almost everytime I come to a new city). I want it to be more like a special event than every days work.

 

[Zsword]

Arena XP sounds nice on paper but It becomes very clear very fast that this was not intended for the game unless they nerv down it into oblivion.
For me the practice arena is one of the most fun bits of the game and I love grinding hours in it but I don't want to end up with a freak unbalanced character because of that.

1: What makes you say it was not intended? Besides its initial exclusion that is, which could easily be factored as 'feature not implented in EA'

2: Your character won't be unbalanced, your effort in running the arena will be rewarded in turn appropriate to the investment now, and combat skills scale exceptionally poorly with ranks, the only thing unbalanced will be your own ability (as the player) to navigate the field. If you invest enough focus for weapon skills to get you levels, you're weakening your character over all.

 

[zeidrich]

I can level my troops up to tier 6 with about half an hour of play by chasing down some looters, getting some cash, hiring some recruits, and parking myself by a bandit camp and letting the battles auto-resolve.

This is just in normal play, in a couple of game weeks my fresh recruits are super insane fighters. This is a bit of a pain because my own character has athletics of 10 so when I do something like attack a bandit hideout or participate in another battle I can't even keep up with them running.

I don't think it's unreasonable that when my troops can jump 20-30 skill points in all of their skills from an auto-resolved looter combat that maybe the player can get some points by practicing their skills in the arena.

 

[Bob Gnarly]

Arena XP sounds nice on paper but It becomes very clear very fast that this was not intended for the game unless they nerv down it into oblivion.
For me the practice arena is one of the most fun bits of the game and I love grinding hours in it but I don't want to end up with a freak unbalanced character because of that.

It was in the previous game, so I'd say it was intended, but I agree with you that they could lower the XP gained.

 

[Ichon]

No, you can literally blindly click and still occasionally earn XP and there's zero downside. I'm not being hyperbolic at all.

Also, the idea that a few people have posted here -- that you've put 'real world time' into a skill and so should be rewarded -- is so weird I don't even know where to begin. It completely flies in the face of the very reason for RPGs and hence RPG elements to exist. Should I get XP based on what Steam says my time played is too?

Yes. I can't stand grind for no purpose other than to slow down access to later game events in an open world game. IN a linear story RPG that makes sense. That is not what M&B is.

Not to mention even if you get to 50 skill in 3 hours of real-time play in the Arena. WTF does that do for you in the campaign? Almost nothing. You still have to go out and fight looters, get better equipment, do quests, build influence. It simply exchanges a couple hours of time for a tiny bit less frustrating grinding, especially with certain weapons.

Any reasonably healthy male can run with a spear and shield across a field. Just because they haven't trained for years doesn't mean they move at a jog while everyone else moves at a sprint 100% of the time. I don't get this idea of practice being 'gamey' this is a game. Why spend hours of real time for almost no return to have the chance to move the story forward a tiny bit faster?

I might not have minded as much (was still annoying and main reason I never got into MMPORG) when I was in school and did not have to balance work, friends, family, and trying to play a computer game. Now I have a couple hours a week normally to spend playing. It really is an investment of realtime to progress in the game and if a player is going out and engaging in the game there almost should be a default trickle of XP gain in my opinion. Larger clumps or a faster rate of XP gain could come from doing specific things but as it is it takes literally months and 10s of hours to level up a single character in M&B. Saying that saving 1 hour of real time is dumbing down the game is beyond trivial and stupid. That one hour matters a lot to me where I get annoyed just thinking about starting a new character having to do all the early steps all over again just to get to the more interesting parts of the game.

 

[Brixton Ryze]

It was the same in Warband. Are you guys are new here or something? Also, what do you guys have against the people who want to RP as a gladiator making money traveling the world and fighting in arena's to gain fame and then turn into a merc for a kingdom and later become a Warlord with badass combat skills?

If taking away more ways to skill up is what you all want then take away the huge amount of XP you gain from tactics for fleeing an enemy party. You can level it to 100 by fleeing 31 fights. I've already did it, and at 100 it costs you 3 guys to flee to gain even more xp. Take away trade rumors because that's easy free gold and trade XP. Also while we're at it, take away the EASIEST way to level a skill in the game. By setting yourself as quartermaster and having more than 4 types of food on you to level Stewart to level 100 before a war even starts in the game.

Lastly, lets take away the 8% more XP your troops get for auto battling against looter, and not die but only get wounded.

 

[somaholiday]

You do realize this game is intended for long-term playthroughs where over vast periods of time you master all your characters much needed proficiency right?

Having the Arena, where you literally fight against peasant rabble and rookie swordsmen, be the BEST source of XP gain is absolutely stupid and counteractive to the actual loop of the game... you know... fighting warlords and engaging in warfare, eliminating poachers and bandits, amassing wealth and creating your own empire, etc...

If you want to sit in an Arena and make that your game, earn all the best skills and gear without much effort, etc.. maybe go play Quake or some other lobby shooter? Or just stick to MP.

I really don't think you are understanding what I am saying. The length of time is already there, it already slows down organically. I honestly wonder how far you have gotten through your playthroughs to be making comments on this, given you don't seem to have experienced just how slow it gets. You are worried about lengthy multi-hundred hour campaigns? Trust me, you won't get 250 skill until hundreds of hours are invested even if you spend all your time in the practice arena. One my playthroughs was about 35 hours, and I couldn't make a dent in a combat skill beyond 65. That's 65, companions you can hire have 150. Maybe before everyone panics thinking you'll have a maxed out character right out of the gate because you can practice, these same people should make a personal goal of seeing how long it takes for them to reach 150 skill, and that's not even the cap and then report back.

 

[black_bulldog]

Anyone whose upset are you playing on very easy, easy, realistic? Hell playing on easy (2/3 damage taken) is tough. If you can go in and slaughter npcs left and right in arena you must be a god at combat. I play on realistic and I've only won 1 time out of dozens of tries and I my longest streak was 8 kills. They throw you in with varying weapons and people spawning in left and right it's a b***h. Take my word no one is going in and farming xp it's incredibly difficult and frantic not something you can do on autopilot. I think people are just looking for things to complain about.

 

[somaholiday]

Anyone whose upset are you playing on very easy, easy, realistic? Hell playing on easy (2/3 damage taken) is tough. If you can go in and slaughter npcs left and right in arena you must be a god at combat. I play on realistic and I've only won 1 time out of dozens of tries and I my longest streak was 8 kills. They throw you in with varying weapons and people spawning in left and right it's a b***h. Take my word no one is going in and farming xp it's incredibly difficult and frantic not something you can do on autopilot. I think people are just looking for things to complain about.

They don't care about difficulty, they want an artificial grind to give them a sense of accomplishment, to point and say, hey I spent 1000 hours in this game and now my one handed skill is maxed out. This is in contrast to actually becoming legitimately good in combat, enough to compete in multiplayer anyway, they want to say, I invested X hours, therefore I am deserving of Y number.

 

[Brixton Ryze]

Anyways, these people are probably the same people asking to give them an option to turn off aging so that your main character won't die in the game later on lol.

 

[black_bulldog]

They don't care about difficulty, they want an artificial grind to give them a sense of accomplishment, to point and say, hey I spent 1000 hours in this game and now my one handed skill is maxed out. This is in contrast to actually becoming legitimately good in combat, enough to compete in multiplayer anyway, they want to say, I invested X hours, therefore I am deserving of Y number.

I don't give a damn about what accomplishments someone else gets. "They" can brag all "they" want and I can ignore them and if you think the top tier npcs on realistic are easy you obviously haven't faced one in 1v1 with only a spear and he has a sword and board, it's incredibly tough and tense.

 

[somaholiday]

I don't give a damn about what accomplishments someone else gets. "They" can brag all "they" want and I can ignore them and if you think the top tier npcs on realistic are easy you obviously haven't faced one in 1v1 with only a spear and he has a sword and board, it's incredibly tough and tense.

Oh I know, the game is actually very hard when you crank up the settings, I actually find practice fights much much harder than tournaments.

 

[Ironking]

Anyone whose upset are you playing on very easy, easy, realistic? Hell playing on easy (2/3 damage taken) is tough. If you can go in and slaughter npcs left and right in arena you must be a god at combat. I play on realistic and I've only won 1 time out of dozens of tries and I my longest streak was 8 kills. They throw you in with varying weapons and people spawning in left and right it's a b***h. Take my word no one is going in and farming xp it's incredibly difficult and frantic not something you can do on autopilot. I think people are just looking for things to complain about.

You don't have to win or even kill anyone to gain xp. Just landing hits will do even if you die straight away. Rinse repeat and voila you have a perfectly exploitable xp farm. And it costs nothing in game not even time.

 

[Killercam22]

Yeah i honestly think that practice shouldnt give xp and tournaments should be more of an event then one in every city every day. like the lords of one country host a big tourney for all allied/neutral factions.

 

[Ichon]

You don't have to win or even kill anyone to gain xp. Just landing hits will do even if you die straight away. Rinse repeat and voila you have a perfectly exploitable xp farm. And it costs nothing in game not even time.

It costs you the player lots of time and for much less reward in loot than fighting battles but Arena fights are an excellent way to practice for 1 v 1 fights and occasionally 1 v 2 when you are a noob or just want to try and level a particular weapon skill enough to take it out onto a real fight or get a particular piece of equipment with a minimum skill proficiency (crossbow ahem).

Tournaments are something separate- they are much easier and actually offer some loot and renown rewards so in my opinion don't need to be full XP necessarily though as others have pointed out... in the long run if you start your character just in the Arena and Tournaments and do nothing else for 20 hours of realtime you might achieve 100 skill in you most used weapons and athletics... and still have to go and spend another 20 hours actually accumulating soldiers, stewardship, leadership, influence, etc to do anything with kingdoms/fiefs. 40 hours to just get into the middle part of the game IF you know what you are doing.

To be honest I think tournaments are waaay too easy for the rewards. I think jousting or mounted tournaments should require you to have a fief or at least clan level 2 while the arena melees should give greater renown and rewards because they are really much more difficult to do well in.

Historically grand melee on foot was the main 'type' of tournament for centuries and they used real but blunted weapons. Eventually, enough people died that Kings started to encourage horse back jousting which had fewer deaths due to the special armour and tournament lances and gradually most Kingdoms forbade the older foot melees done with real weapons.

 

[Killercam22]

I disagree practice should be just practice and once your comfortable you shouldn't do it anymore XP on practice is just dumb.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

You no like you no do.
This exp is a huge quality of life improvement. I want some perks in some skills but I can't use those skills in live combat, I need to go hard or I'll lose my good men. Live combat = mounted archery + long glaive, no mercy, I need this casual practice combat to get the lame petty +hp sword perks, too bad I already did the 2 handed on in live combat, and paid in blood because 2 handed is absolute garbage. I want the athletic perks too but same deal, I'm not getting off the horse in a real battle. And the whole point is to have the useful perks BEFORE I'm going into sieges constantly, not after.

IMO virtually everything about exp, skills and perks is garbage and needs improvements and large changes, but for now I'm gonna make it work and this little bit of exp is helping it work.

 

[primethief147]

"sigh" So people in this thread are complaining about fighting in a practice arena giving you experience in fighting... for practicing fighting? This is like people arguing 2+2 shouldn't equal 4.

 

[Ironking]

"sigh" So people in this thread are complaining about fighting in a practice arena giving you experience in fighting... for practicing fighting? This is like people arguing 2+2 shouldn't equal 4.

Its not a question about realism but about gameplay balance.

 

[kanzy]

When I read this thread (Lock down sickness) immediately came to my mind.