1.5.5 Balance and Further Changes

[OurGloriousLeader]

Oh it was @Aprikosenmann who made a script for it:

https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/instant-camera-snapback-proof-of-concept.436125/

 

[Terco_Viejo]

Oh... I had already seen the Apri-button juggling . I don't have any knowledge about it, but maybe this is a current problem that can be solved with a line of code like with the autorun problem... oh boi... I wonder what @Ster thinks of all this. And not to mention that this option is not available for the first person view, as well as its corresponding death cam.

 

[OurGloriousLeader]

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.

Disagree. If it's 1v1 sure, but the issue with cavalry is in groupfights, and in a groupfight you don't always have the luxury of setting up that second spear. Quite often the punish for a cav getting reared is from getting stopped in amongst multiple people. Right now the heavily armoured horses get reared, and take a bit of damage, but then the people on the sides have their attacks bounce from the armour, and the person coming behind can't even hit because the rider then WWs away.

A good rule of thumb is if a rider gets stopped in amongst a group of inf - say, 3 or 4 people - he should be able to be dismounted and killed. I would challenge the devs to demonstrate this is possible with a heavy cav stopping then WWing away. If they all in sync jump stab the rider's head, maybe.

But that said, a short cooldown is all that's needed.

 

[Aprikosenmann]

If it's 1v1 sure

? I need to see that xD. So when you rear someone 1v1 you dont hit him while he is reared to get in position to rear him again? Because if you do that the rider will just turn around and leave lol.

 

[OurGloriousLeader]

Well I mean in terms of being able to stop him riding past you, 1v1 is the situation where you can reliably stop him doing it before WWing away. But yeah normally I go for the damage as well.

Just put a cooldown on it ffs!!

 

[Mushbeast]

Look at all of these meaningful class choices in this game of TDM. Something is just wrong at a fundamental level...

 

[Einarcf]

Look at all of these meaningful class choices in this game of TDM. Something is just wrong at a fundamental level...

I think Warband TDM spawning system used less spawnpoints. Made the experience a bit less chaotic and promoted use of team play and stationary (in the sense of lacking long/fast attack capabilities) classes. Also maps seem way bigger in BL.

 

[Mushbeast]

The spawn system is the number one issue at play here if you ask me. That'd be nice to get fixed
It also goes to show how OP the crossbow and most cavalry is at the moment too, and there was not even a single shield infantry in sight. I think that also is because it's really hard to afford heavy infantry in TDM and when you do, you're likely to die really fast due to the screenshot above.

I'd love for TDM to get reworked as it seems to be the most popular mode by far at least during my timezone.

 

[sammytobe]

@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.

I agree with almost all of your suggestions except having the ai automatically on follow me after 10 paces. If you have the slow bug your units are worthless and what happens when I'm shield walling to archers and die my guys charge to whomever is closer, but I can f1 them to archers and they go where I want them to. Having your units on follow is a bad idea and defeats the purpose of being a captain which means having the option of ordering your men from a distance. I get that Rambo cav is an issue for some, but most experienced players know how to deal with this.

 

[Ling*]

I agree with almost all of your suggestions except having the ai automatically on follow me after 10 paces. If you have the slow bug your units are worthless and what happens when I'm shield walling to archers and die my guys charge to whomever is closer, but I can f1 them to archers and they go where I want them to. Having your units on follow is a bad idea and defeats the purpose of being a captain which means having the option of ordering your men from a distance. I get that Rambo cav is an issue for some, but most experienced players know how to deal with this.

It's not just cav rambo thats the issue its any solo unit that can go off on its own and take advantage of the Ai's targetting parameters or kill 50%-100% of a full ai troop and only risking one life. It essentially has made captain mode into a glorified Skirmish battle with ai to kill which is not what the mode should be in my opinion but rather one that requires being a strategic commander not a godly swordfighter. 1 shock captain whiping and distracting whole units is not a good look for the mode. That all being said you're definitely right about the slow bug throwing a fat roadblock in the way of the follow me scenario. Hopefully they get that fixed first and foremost.

 

[soul_jak]

Look at all of these meaningful class choices in this game of TDM. Something is just wrong at a fundamental level...

Can’t manual block practice anymore

 

[sammytobe]

It's not just cav rambo thats the issue its any solo unit that can go off on its own and take advantage of the Ai's targetting parameters or kill 50%-100% of a full ai troop and only risking one life. It essentially has made captain mode into a glorified Skirmish battle with ai to kill which is not what the mode should be in my opinion but rather one that requires being a strategic commander not a godly swordfighter. 1 shock captain whiping and distracting whole units is not a good look for the mode. That all being said you're definitely right about the slow bug throwing a fat roadblock in the way of the follow me scenario. Hopefully they get that fixed first and foremost.

Your going to have 1 unit distracting other units from the fight anyways

It's not just cav rambo thats the issue its any solo unit that can go off on its own and take advantage of the Ai's targetting parameters or kill 50%-100% of a full ai troop and only risking one life. It essentially has made captain mode into a glorified Skirmish battle with ai to kill which is not what the mode should be in my opinion but rather one that requires being a strategic commander not a godly swordfighter. 1 shock captain whiping and distracting whole units is not a good look for the mode. That all being said you're definitely right about the slow bug throwing a fat roadblock in the way of the follow me scenario. Hopefully they get that fixed first and foremost.

Would this work for the charge command or give way command? What happens when your an archer being pressed by inf your trying to run you see cav coming and you want to send your men off in the distance while you run in to buy them sometime? And having the option to move your troops to distant points on the map if need be is very strategic.

 

[Ling*]

Your going to have 1 unit distracting other units from the fight anyways

Yes, but by that time they are close enough to the enemy they'll have to risk all of their Ai units dying due to the proximity which balances it out.

Would this work for the charge command or give way command?

This would be one of the exceptions to the rule, as once your units are on charge they are out of player control entirely anyways, it's not something people regularly do outside of situations where you are close enough to an enemy unit to be within fighting range. Ai units should follow you only when you have put them to sitting still in one location with the f1 -f1 command and have left a reasonable enough distance away so that it prevents or discourages the player from going in solo and trying to exploit the Ai with little risk to his units. If a player wants to put his units on charge and then go distract other units that would be perfectly fine, the risk isn't in my opinion worth the reward in that scenario as you could easily lose your units while they are on Charge. That is what makes it a balanced mechanic rather than something that I think diminishes the potential for a lot of strategic possibilities like Ramboing does.

What happens when your an archer being pressed by inf your trying to run you see cav coming and you want to send your men off in the distance while you run in to buy them sometime? And having the option to move your troops to distant points on the map if need be is very strategic.

The follow me command can be activated only after the Ai unit reaches its target destination and would solve this, once the Ai arrived at the specified location on its own, if your captain unit wasn't within that 10 step restriction it would attempt to return to you. Players can still be strategic with this mechanic by simply sending their units to the target location and then putting them on charge when they arrive within range of their specified target. Should the player fail to put them on charge after reaching their destination, the unit would attempt to return to the player captain unit. If a player captain dies after giving an f1-f1 command, the ai will still attempt to reach the location the player specified and will not attempt to follow the player captain until the player respawns and the controlling player is detected alive on the battlefield.

 

[Gibby Jr]

Look at all of these meaningful class choices in this game of TDM. Something is just wrong at a fundamental level...

what's amazing is if you go on a Warband TDM or Deathmatch server you will see an overwhelming majority of players playing as infantry with comparatively few cavalry or archers. that is not a coincidence, people enjoy playing the melee in their melee game. having interacted with the communities of other melee games, mainly mordhau and last oasis, i know for a fact that the primary reason why players from those games dislike Bannerlord and won't play it is because of the prevalence of the other classes. they want to be able to play the melee, as they are used to in other melee games, without being interrupted by these other roles. personally i think the interplay between the three classes is essential to competitive play and to the M&B experience, but i also think TW adding a melee-only mode should have been a priority so that a mode which appealed to players from those other titles could exist.

it doesn't help that the balance between the classes is so poor and that infantry is generally considered the weakest class, which is almost certainly why in that screenshot there are few people using infantry. it just isn't fun to play inf in a large public setting.

 

[Hax.]

Look at all of these meaningful class choices in this game of TDM. Something is just wrong at a fundamental level...

I've seen people carrying a whole TDM match as they choosen to play cav only and finish the round with almost 80 kills, 50 assists and 6 deaths.
Yet there are some ignorant people defending this nonsense.

what's amazing is if you go on a Warband TDM or Deathmatch server you will see an overwhelming majority of players playing as infantry with comparatively few cavalry or archers. that is not a coincidence, people enjoy playing the melee in their melee game.

People expected a similiar TDM experience (which was almost there at the very beginning of the closed beta) but due the fact you will get interrupted hundrets of times midfight in melee combat (shot in the back, knocked down by horses, your hit gets blocked by a horse, your character will be pushed either by enemy, friendly or just a strayed horse and end up right in a hit of somebody else.. yet my favorite; blocked to death by friendly cav that is willing to steal your kill at all costs), it is clearly no fun and makes infantry on maps such as Harbour of Ovks totally redundant within the first 5 minutes of the match.

Getting shot and interrupted itself is not a big deal in theory but the fact it happens so terribly often is. It almost feels like you're beeing punished for prefering melee fights. In addition you will lose money and beeing forced once again into another class which is a perfect match to hit the quit button.

 

[Zarthas]

@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.

@AVRC I'd like to add one to this list, please.

The classic, "Crouch in a Corner and Block Up" exploit. If you're unfamiliar I can get a video if you like.

Some more discussion on it here:

https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/solution-to-crouch-in-a-corner-and-block-up-ai-exploiting-ai-kicks-bashes.439440/