[1.7.0] Impossible to separate infantry types now into different formations?

[black_bulldog]

As it stands now the system is a great idea, but works very poorly.

This statement sums up Bannerlord.
Taleworlds has lots of great ideas but many of them work poorly. I've said it many times before the problem is either TW is directionless because of poor leadership, or has no real idea of what people want from an rpg because they have little experience making one or both.

 

[SentinelGuardian]

I agree

While pre-battle deployment is nice, and this also makes it a bit more obvious who's a Captain of a formation - it doesn't really seem worthwhile otherwise.

I gotta say losing the ability to assign say Recruits to a specific formation is a big loss for the player tactically. For Recruits I would do this specifically to level them up against Looter parties. It was also quite handy to be able to assign certain units to a specific formation for flanking attacks.

Feel like this was done in an attempt to glaze over the fact that the A.I. doesn't fare super well when you mix lots of different units. IDK I much prefer being able to assign troops to whatever formation I please. There should at least be a filter to assign specific units, like only Peasants in a particular infantry group. But I think given how the game spawns troops this won't work...


Ah well 1 step forward, 1 step backward. Though this seems yet another change made with consoles in mind I'd wager since I imagine the Party Screen will see changes in the future. All I know is I much preferred the old formations, only thing it really needed was pre-battle deployment.

Edit: Well at least can transfer all units to a new formation to create a super blob still, so that's good.

Yes, I agree 100%. Pre-deployment is a very nice feature. Unfortunately, it takes away formations that the player came up with. For example, I specifically put one shielded infantry with a shock troop type in one formation that was separate from the main shield/spear infantry line. Now it seems it is impossible to do that...

I understand the developers' intentions though, and it sounds like a great idea, just needs better implementation. In my opinion, the player still needs a way to assign troop types to a different formation. Keep the sliders, but also let the player assign troop types to a formation in the Party screen as before, just have formations start with the troops the player assigns, and if he uses the sliders then change the formations as it is now.

 

[SentinelGuardian]

Yes, I agree 100%. Pre-deployment is a very nice feature. Unfortunately, it takes away formations that the player came up with. For example, I specifically put one shielded infantry with a shock troop type in one formation that was separate from the main shield/spear infantry line. Now it seems it is impossible to do that...

I understand the developers' intentions though, and it sounds like a great idea, just needs better implementation. In my opinion, the player still needs a way to assign troop types to a different formation. Keep the sliders, but also let the player assign troop types to a formation in the Party screen as before, just have formations start with the troops the player assigns, and if he uses the sliders then change the formations as it is now.

Ok, I did some more experimenting. It is possible with the sliders, it's just a lot more difficult to get the desired result. But, I suppose, it saves the results, and you can lock the formations so, I will need to play with it more. Just seems counterintuitive to me.

 

[AngryPanCake]

As it stands now the system is a great idea, but works very poorly.

I'd personally combine the old and nwe [...]

I had already made that suggestion and they provided an explanation as to why the two systems could not be combined.

This is where we are:

Old system:
allowed for more specific separation/combinations of units.
provided pre battle deployment in siege battles
players did not complain about it.

New system:
allows assignment of formation leaders/commanders
provides pre battle deployment in siege and non siege battles
does not allow more specific separation/combinations of units.
players complain about it a lot

The first two things the new system brings are in my opinion a great addition to the game, however, even though I do not know the exact intricacies of the coding and stuff, I think it would have been better (maybe easier) to add those two new things to the old system than trying to come up with a whole new system.

I understand this is a work in progress and things will eventually get better, but I'm a firm believer of "if ain't broke, don't fix it". The old system was not broken, players did not complain about it as far as I know (I'm still kinda new here) and adding to it would've been much better and possibly easier than what's going on here.

 

[MostBlunted]

The new system just needs some polish (and more options) and I´m sure TW is aware of this. It´s the first version and it´s only in the beta release for now.

Give them some time.

 

[XDaron]

the system works well with Bannerlord troops, but I wonder if not being able to assign specific units into formations might harm mods that add different types of units like banner carriers, healers, wizards, bombers, dragons (...) how will I be able to command them separately?

 

[Spinozart1]

the system works well with Bannerlord troops, but I wonder if not being able to assign specific units into formations might harm mods that add different types of units like banner carriers, healers, wizards, bombers, dragons (...) how will I be able to command them separately?

Though current system is still not finished, I guess modders will be able to:
Set a specific tag (wizard, bomber,...) in xml troops file.
Modify the sliders filters accordingly (currently we have shield, polearm, etc.).

 

[OpenYourMind]

no longer beta

 

[Shaola]

My first post... Long time fan of this game. Have been massively underwhelmed with Bannerlord 2 until about now, when it finally feels like the enjoyment levels are becoming similar to that of previous titles in the series.

My whole play style is now not possible due to this poorly thought out implementation. It's a game, it's still fairly "early" in its development, I get that. I'm not ranting or crying but what I don't understand is why the development team don't utilise the community more?

Instead of just unleashing this level of change, why not present a new system to gather feedback so that we can point out what, frankly, seems like a lot of obvious issues that didn't need to have developers waste their time building in the first place.

The fact I can't create, or even modify, my troops is a shame but this new formation system really feels like we're taking a step backwards.

It feels like mission impossible to create a rigid system that doesn't allow players to just pick a troop type and manually assign it to a custom formation, just like you used to be able to do.

New pre-deploymen for non-sieges with the old formations systems would be great.

If you want to add this new slider approach, simply work with the following system:

Formation > Unit Type

Campaign Map (Before Battle Initiated)
Assign Unit Type to Formation (as before)

Pre-Battle (After Battle Initiated, Before Battle Commences)
Same UI as we have now:
Display formations as per campaign map default setup
Each created formation will show a slider for every Unit Type assigned to it, showing a % value of the Total Units per Unit Type

Example:

Formation 1 consists of:
80% of Unit Type A (leaving 20% left to assign)
20% Unit Type B (leaving 80% left to assign)

Formation 2 consists of:
20% Unit Type A (leaving 0% left to assign)
100% Unit Type C (leaving 0% left to assign)

In this example, there player still has 80% of Unit Type B to allocate amongst their formations.
If a user tries to set 100% allocation for the same unit type in two or more factions, it will just reduce the other %'s to ensure players can never have more than 100% of any Unit Type allocated at any moment.

For additional player QoL you could introduce groups too. A group would consist of two or more Unit Types.

Create Formation > Add either a Unit Type or a Unit Group. A little more complex but I'm sure it's easy to figure out based on the above.

Just some ideas. Sorry if already suggested, I have limited time/bandwidth today and so wasn't able to read through all three pages of comments.

 

[Plisko]

One of my favorite tactics with formations, was to put all the least experienced troops into the same 'training" formation and make them charge the enemy first as a hoard of mixed troops. They seemed to fall back on their individual AI. Archers would usually stop on their own and shoot from a distance. The melee troops would charge in and use whatever weapon they had. It was a lot like playing an early game army but with the real army standing back. Anyone on a horse would rush in way too soon so the horses had their own mixed training formation. I would send the foot troops in first, then send the horses slightly later so the timing was right. The horses also seemed to follow their individual AI instructions. This way, I felt that the youngest troops got the most possible experience and the more valuable troops could be saved for better needs. I could take advantage of small parties of outlaws that didn't surrender using this tactic... but with the bigger battles... the inexperienced troops still got the first chance to make kills before the elites came up behind them.

Choosing the experience level of your formations is a legitimate military tactic no? If we can't mix our formations up anymore, can you at least make one of the preferences 'Give preference to troops with the less experience" or "more experience"?

 

[geala]

Who ever used differentiation based on experience in the real world? The Romans come to mind, but honestly, what did the Romans actually know? Imagine, a Roman general: I want to form a triplex acies with hastati, principes and triarii, what do your sliders offer? Troops with shield and without! But all my troops have shields... (sad face). Luckily we are in a medieval surrounding, so no problems.

 

[archaicwarrior]

Who ever used differentiation based on experience in the real world? The Romans come to mind, but honestly, what did the Romans actually know? Imagine, a Roman general: I want to form a triplex acies with hastati, principes and triarii, what do your sliders offer? Troops with shield and without! But all my troops have shields... (sad face). Luckily we are in a medieval surrounding, so no problems.

Exactly, it's hard coded for weapon type only - no experience type, no class type or any other type a modder or player might want.

Sliders are for consoles.

.
;

 

[Grisch]

It would work if there were tags the player could assign to troop types in the party screen. Just like 'Heavy', 'Polearm', 'javelin' etc, let the player add additional tags to troop types in party and then use those to filter. Make them 1 - 5 like we used to have if you don't want to think about it.

As it is, the filters are pretty useless since pretty much everything we have has shields and polearms. Not sure what constitutes heavy infantry, but from the looks of the system, everything in Vlandia is 'Heavy Infantry'.

 

[five bucks]

It would work if there were tags the player could assign to troop types in the party screen. Just like 'Heavy', 'Polearm', 'javelin' etc, let the player add additional tags to troop types in party and then use those to filter. Make them 1 - 5 like we used to have if you don't want to think about it.

As it is, the filters are pretty useless since pretty much everything we have has shields and polearms. Not sure what constitutes heavy infantry, but from the looks of the system, everything in Vlandia is 'Heavy Infantry'.

Yes, that slider should be restricted to troops who use shields as their primary, not just shields in general. There should also be more pike troops, and fewer troops that use large shields.

 

[brkelly04]

Not being able to assign troops and lords in the party screen is intended but the reasons are different.

Being able to assign troops to different formations would break the saved values and how the percentage sliders/filters work. If you could assign a horse archer to an infantry formation, you couldn't get him out of the infantry formation in current implementation of the OoB. Zeroing the Infantry slider in that formation would still keep the horse archer you put in there. OR we disregard the horse archer assigned there are, move him back to a horse archer formation when the slider value changes. Formations would be a mishmash of troops and it's not possible to represent that with sliders.

If we add all 4 troop type sliders to all of the cards then one of the problems is, "when do we remove the troops assign from party screen?". Player changed the filter, do we remove them? Player set the slider to zero, do we remove them? I'm not even going into AI problems with having 8 different mishmash formations.

Now one way to overcome that can be locking each formation's troop type from the get go and not letting the player change them. Formation I-II is Infantry, Formation III-IV is Ranged, Formation V-VI is Cavalry and Formation VII-VIII is Horse Archer and you can only assign a troop to a formation that is related to their equipment. But we didn't want to restrict the player to these pre selections.

All in all, assigning formations to normal troops in the party screen is conflicting with changes made in OoB that's why it's removed.

---

Now lords/companions are a different story. Since they're more fluid with their equipment and they're unique, they don't have to conform to the formation types. We can handle them in a different way. This doesn't have to be in the party screen, we can add a separate UI in the formation cards that you could use to put unassigned heroes in that formation as troops. We can save the assigned formation of the hero and not let them be affected from the sliders. I am, personally, not against this and would love to bring it up internally. That's why I asked for a suggestion post, here. If you feel the assignment of heroes to specific formation as troops, not just captains, would be a good addition feel free to leave a comment in that post.

yep. NPCs hard enough to level up. placing them together in a group as horse archers was as good as anything and desirable.

 

[4wt6g4hgyrei]

During the game, I regularly created, added, removed groups, depending on the necessary tasks. In some cases, depending on the enemy, it is necessary to be able to react quickly, withdraw weak forces, and transfer strong ones. This is important to save UNWASHED PEASANTS

Most often, the fight looked like a mixed attack of OFFICERS and ELITEs in the first stage, and the addition of UNWASHED PEASANTS in the middle of the battle (and the withdrawal of ELITEs from the battle). When the UNWASHED got involved in a fight, the battle was already coming to an end, and they easily finished the remnants of the enemy, earning experience.

This is just one of the examples, there are many others that allow for the most flexible possibilities.

This is a bad, bad update. You must fix it

 

[IloveMBVet]

Not being able to assign troops and lords in the party screen is intended but the reasons are different.

Being able to assign troops to different formations would break the saved values and how the percentage sliders/filters work. If you could assign a horse archer to an infantry formation, you couldn't get him out of the infantry formation in current implementation of the OoB. Zeroing the Infantry slider in that formation would still keep the horse archer you put in there. OR we disregard the horse archer assigned there are, move him back to a horse archer formation when the slider value changes. Formations would be a mishmash of troops and it's not possible to represent that with sliders.

If we add all 4 troop type sliders to all of the cards then one of the problems is, "when do we remove the troops assign from party screen?". Player changed the filter, do we remove them? Player set the slider to zero, do we remove them? I'm not even going into AI problems with having 8 different mishmash formations.

Now one way to overcome that can be locking each formation's troop type from the get go and not letting the player change them. Formation I-II is Infantry, Formation III-IV is Ranged, Formation V-VI is Cavalry and Formation VII-VIII is Horse Archer and you can only assign a troop to a formation that is related to their equipment. But we didn't want to restrict the player to these pre selections.

All in all, assigning formations to normal troops in the party screen is conflicting with changes made in OoB that's why it's removed.

---

Now lords/companions are a different story. Since they're more fluid with their equipment and they're unique, they don't have to conform to the formation types. We can handle them in a different way. This doesn't have to be in the party screen, we can add a separate UI in the formation cards that you could use to put unassigned heroes in that formation as troops. We can save the assigned formation of the hero and not let them be affected from the sliders. I am, personally, not against this and would love to bring it up internally. That's why I asked for a suggestion post, here. If you feel the assignment of heroes to specific formation as troops, not just captains, would be a good addition feel free to leave a comment in that post.

If you can re-implement the seperate UI in the party screen which sounds perhaps not possible or in the formation cards specifically for heroes which I the player can be a commander of as you have mentioned that would no doubt partly sort the issue out we're all having here. I used this for example to have bodyguards in battle, something which we can no longer have which was one of my most cherished and expected gameplay parts, It's what made me enjoy the game. I've also noticed that perhaps the enemy retreating to castle/town halls for a further additional battle has been removed? Does anybody know if this is also the case? Another super important feature I dont really want removed? Thanks.

 

[pada]

really need the ability to assign troops and leaders to formations in the party screen. finding this removed coming back to 1.7 was a major disappointment and feels like a real step backwards

 

[archaicwarrior]

I just tried to move 20 borrowed troops to a new group .. i failed, I got a mish-mash of light troops.

I give up. This is pathetic.

.

 

[geala]

It's actually very easy to train such troops, I did it yesterday. I just played a bit with the sliders ..., then I went to my castle, put most troops into garrison and chased looters with a rest of T1/T2 and the borrowed troops, voila ...

I desperately want the old system back. At least make it possible to attach troops to units in the partyscreen too, independent from the sliders.